MICHAEL O. ALLEN

Menu
Tag

MO.

Living ‘Black’ in the United States of America

By HomepageNo Comments

And living to tell the tales.

Traffic was heavy on Route 17 in Hasbrouck Heights on my way home to Ridgewood, NJ, after work on Wednesday, which wasn’t exactly news. But, as I approached a stretch where Route 46 and Interstate 80 go over Route 17, traffic eased and I saw the reason why. Rubbernecking motorists.

What were they looking at?

A black man with both hands on top of his head standing in front of a white police officer on the grassy area next to the shoulder. The cop’s car, lights flashing, and another car in front of it were parked on the shoulder. Unlike Alton Sterling on Tuesday or Philando Castile on Wednesday, this black man stopped by a white cop was still alive.

James Eagan Holmes, heavily armed, killed 12 and injured 70 people in a Colorado theater and was captured alive. Dylann Roof killed nine churchgoers in South Carolina and was captured alive. Jason Dalton killed six and injured two in Kalamazoo. His life was preserved as he was being arrested.

Cedric Chatman. Tamir Rice. Laquan McDonald. Eric Garner. Michael Brown. Black men make up 6% of U.S. population; are 40% of people killed by police.

He’s lucky to be alive, I thought as I drove on. Was that too sanguine a response to the situation?

Jesse Williams Speaking out

I am not taking the situation lightly. I’ve lived long enough to be a middle-aged black male despite too many tangles with cops, both in the United States of America and elsewhere, to do that. But, as these killings pile up, becoming more and more common each day, I’ve long realized that I’ve been lucky to still be alive to tell tales of encounters with cops.

My narrow escape from racist Afrikaners in 1994, while on assignment for the New York Daily News in South Africa, is an entirely different story that will be told a different day. Not today. Also, it’s available on the Internet for anyone curious enough to want to find out.

St. Louis, MO in the ’80’s

A police car pulled up behind my car as I eased into traffic after a college friend and I left a bar late one night many years ago. He pulled me over. The cop came up to the car, peered in, then instructed me to step out. I did. He said that he had stopped me for suspected drunk driving because he had observed me weaving in and out of traffic. I protested that I did no such thing and that, in any case, I couldn’t be drunk driving since I had not been drinking.

Read More

July 9, 2016
Love0

Promises

By Homepage

I found out at the last minute that Barack Obama would be making a noon campaign appearance at the Izod Center (the former Brendan Byrne Arena) in the Meadowlands in Rutherford, New Jersey. My 10-year-old son really wanted to go but, thinking we would not be able to get in anyway, I insisted he go to school.

I ran some errands in the morning: took my laptop to be repaired, went to village hall to pay property taxes, then to the post office to mail bill payments. On a moment’s inspiration, I went to the gym. I hadn’t been for four months, since my soccer season ended in November. Did some strength training, which hurt but I was glad I went.

I suggested to my wife we take a drive to the Obama event, see if we could get in. She was game so we went.

We missed Newark Mayor Corey Booker’s full-throated speech. We could hear over the loudspeakers that old warhorse Ted Kennedy giving a vintage performance getting the crowd primed for Obama. Obama took the podium as we were taking our seats.

He gave the same speech I watched him on C-Span give to a St. Louis, MO campaign event, hit some of the same grace notes the very same way I had seen on television. I have seen so many Obama speeches now that I come to expect certain bits and I’m disappointed when I don’t hear them. But Obama rarely disappoints. There are new twists to some old themes but it’s still the same campaign speech.

My wife was still undecided between Hillary Clinton and Obama and was deeply disappointed by his handling of an issue the New York Times wrote about. I, too, am disappointed. It is cases like this that might put doubt in a person’s mind about whether Obama is a real change agent, as he claims to be.

Obama does seem to have a good heart and, because of his service in the Illinois state senate, I believe he has valuable experience. I like that he was a community organizer. That has largely fueled his campaign. He has done a good job against incredible odds and built unprecedented support among the young and across a broad section of our society.

His best moment of the campaign, surpassing even his Iowa caucus victory, was in his defeat in New Hampshire. Listen to his speech. A portion of that speech has even been set to music. Never mind the rich people in the video. Just Listen to the words.

I don’t know what my wife will do in the morning but I believe I will vote for Obama.

February 4, 2008
Love0