It’s amazing how quickly things change. A few months ago I had this little raised freckle on my neck. Now it’s a hideous, potentially cancerous mole that needs to be removed. Then there’s the little college town of Chapel Hill, NC, where I was married two years ago and where I lived (or lived right near) from 1998-2003. Now I’m back, working a temp job on the University of North Carolina campus, just as I did ten years ago when I first arrived here. The buses here are still free, but nearly all the people who ride them now have iPod “earbuds” in their ears, along with half of the pedestrians. This morning I tried it out for myself, strutting around campus to the Bee Gees’ Stayin’ Alive, feeling like Travolta swinging a paint can. At the Open Eye Cafe in nearby Carrboro, you’ll now see folks’ heads buried in their Mac laptops instead of their philosophy books. Without exaggeration, at least half of the customers on any given day are sporting Macs. And if you’re walking down Franklin Street on a bright Sunday afternoon, you just might get… a shotgun stuck in your face and asked to fork over all your money.
Yesterday afternoon was for fourth armed robbery in Chapel Hill in three days. We’re talking broad daylight. Sawed-off shotgun. Last week I heard some people talk about the recent murder of Eve Carson, the former student body president at UNC. I was in Mexico when this tragedy happened, so I needed to Google it to learn about the details. Apparently, in March of this year, two guys from nearby Durham just walked right into Eve’s house, abducted her, forced her to withdraw a bunch of money from an ATM, and then shot her numerous times. I read about this Thursday, then I find out Friday that someone had been beaten and robbed on campus the previous night. Monday morning I turn on the news and find out that two men were robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight on Franklin St. (the major, heavily populated hotspot in town) on Sunday afternoon. Also on Sunday, a woman was robbed at gunpoint at an ATM machine at the mall. Also, a man was robbed at knife-point in front of the Franklin hotel. Today on the news they report yet another ATM robbery. Again right here in little Chapel Hill, in broad daylight, with a gun. Now I’m starting to get a little freaked out. This is the place I convinced my wife was the best place for us to live? I do some more Googling. Find out that Chapel Hill’s annual “Apple Chill Festival” was recently cancelled–as in, it will never happen again–due to multiple gang-related shootings during the last round of festivities.
The community is obviously shaken by the recent turn of events. I’m shaken. People are talking and blogging about it, but discussions seem to come to a screeching halt as soon as the issue of race is brought up. It so happens that the perpetrators/suspects in all of these crimes fit the same general description: Young black male.
I have to admit, I find myself “profiling” based on race, dress and class in a lot of situations. Given there’s apparently a young black male–about six feet tall, wearing a solid colored T-shirt, sagging pants and baseball cap–running around town with a shotgun robbing people, one would have to be crazy not to be cautious around someone fitting that description. The problem is, of course, there are lots of people that fit that description, the vast majority of whom are not criminals. But what do we do with the fact that such a disproportionate number of violent crimes are being committed by young black males in Chapel Hill?
And why is it I only hear bigots and black stand-up comics talking frankly about racial issues? I admit it, I’m hesitant to post anything more about it on my blog, even though I’ve been thinking about this stuff for a week straight. I’ve deleted about four pages worth of thinking on this.
Fear breeds ignorance and ignorance keeps the status quo in place. And right now, I’m afraid.
Some things don’t change.