Practically Speaking
By C Wayne CHILDERS
Invisible Becomes Visible
I was born in Tulsa and grew up going to my grandparent's mom and pop store on Pine street. They lived there. They had no white customers. All were black. So I had an early introduction to black poverty and it stinks. My grandad gave people groceries and put the cost on a small tablet with the last name on the upper spine. When he retired from there I was informed later that many people owed him their "tab." That's what it was called. He survived and made friends. They seemed happy. Tulsa is sad right now.
Ralph Ellison was from Oklahoma City. He wrote a book about himself and the plight of a black person growing up in New York colored town. It is a celebrated classic and he eventually became an OKC favored son as a novelist, literary critic and scholar. He died in 1994.
"I am an invisible man." Writes Ellison in his book by that title. Not like ghosts he explains. But he continues that, "I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids -- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination -- indeed, everything and anything except me."
Ellison helps us to understand from the perspective of what some would call the marginalized. He also wrote, " I do not know if all cops are poets, but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers."
Interesting. That was written in 1952. Fear of law enforcement among blacks has been felt a long time. It is real.
I want to make that point to suggest another one. In the same way law enforcement is blind at times to the black community could it be that invisibility has double vision? I ask author Ellison why he does not know if "cops" or in this case Betty Shelby is a poet. For some of you this is the first time you have seen her name. Most know her as the officer who shot Terence Crutcher in Tulsa. She has a name. She is not a uniform, or a badge, or a gun. She is a person and very well may be a poet. But you will never know until you ask.
She is also invisible. She is perhaps fearful. Having a gun with a trigger does not take away the fear. It does not remove the fact that just this year alone 40 officers have been killed by guns in the line of duty. Another 51 died in auto accidents. We still have one quarter to go. So if you went to work every morning knowing that at least one person each week died just because they put on a uniform like yours you might just be a little tentative if a person you perceive is under the influence of something, or at least acting strangely is non-compliant at the point of a gun. Of course we don't know everything. We speculate. Charges are filed. Jury will decide.
So if sanity wins, the invisible will become visible. We will see and seek to understand blackness with its rich but painful story. We will see and seek to understand blueness in its service to the community. Black and blue must not leave a bruise. Black is beautiful and so is blue.
A friend of mine suggested that I read a book that was last years award winning offering entitled "Between The World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I will do that in an attempt to understand blackness better. I am also suggesting a read on the other side. One like "Behind the Badge, A Policeman's Legacy" by Michael Cover.
Can we attempt to make the invisible visible. Elliott has helped me.
Jesus did that. He came to make the invisible God visible. Paul described Him as the one "... Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:."
He who has eyes to see let Him see. I know it's wrong. I know it's ears. Can I fudge on this one?
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