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A Series on Getting Back on Track

Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree. ”What road do I take?” The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?” 

“I don’t know,” Alice answered.

“Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”

“So long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

I had taken the all important step a few days ago. Standing on that cliff top I jumped hoping to fly because the voice in my head kept saying, “Don’t be afraid of falling, you can’t stay, you need to go. You can’t be where you are and anywhere is better than where you’re at now.” I was staring at a brick wall that refused to give way no matter how I pushed. But then again, there is nothing to be had from drinking from an empty cup. The survival mode kicked in and I knew (I) not someone else, had to take the reins of my own life and do something, anything. I needed to GO! 

Go within yourself, I heard it scream. It is within myself that I have found the strength in times past. When the murder of my mum took place, I screamed, “I can’t! I am filled with rage and anger. I want to kill!” No, the miraculous recovery and the coming to terms did not take place overnight. Yes, I wore sackcloth and ashes for a long time and my feet stopped moving. My life had come to a standstill. A year later I was still shaking my fist at the wind until a tiny voice brought me back to earth. It was the voice of my six or maybe five year old, I am bad with time, who said, “Grandma is in heaven mommy.” I had forgotten about him in my day to day existence of wanting revenge and vengeance. I knew, I knew that I was holding on to something or someone I couldn’t bring back. My mom was gone, her time on earth was short for whatever the reason. I was still hanging on and I needed to let GO! Leaving the sadness, anger, heartache and fear behind was hard, very very hard but the choices were simple or so it seemed. GO or STAY and fight a losing battle. So I went. A short while later, I took the leap off that cliff. Did I fly? No, it took small steps, very small steps but eventually I did make it out of my misery. The day I said, RIP mom was when I realized I had arrived. I felt my wings take flight again.

Divorce came next. It started with his infidelity but perhaps it started long before that. Tragedy has a tendency to destory if you let it and I did. I was so busy caught up in wanting revenge that I stopped living. Nothing existed but that tiny world of being consumed with hate towards someone I didn’t know, hadn’t seen but who had turned into a giant because I had given her that power. Instead of relegating her to where she belonged because she had taken a life, I gave her power over my life just as when she stood over my mother and took hers. I had hit rock bottom. It hurt and it hit hard. This time around it took longer. As usual, blame steps in wearing bells and wanting to pin the blame tag on someone. The truth of the matter is perhaps both parties are to blame. That said, I am not saying that infidelity is alright. Absolutely not! When one cheats or makes the choice to cheat, it is either temptation has taken over or they don’t care about the consequences and you as the significant other did not matter anymore. Whatever the case maybe, I was back on the cliff top, and I knew I had to jump and GO! If I stayed, I would be crawling for the rest of my life because my wings had been clipped. I took off but unfortunately I landed with a thud! Those wings needed time to grow back and I had to do the work. It seemed so unfair. Again there was no miraculous recovery. I went deep within myself and I did some drastic rebuilding. My self-esteem, my confidence and my belief system had all taken a beating and that is putting it mildly. No more crying 24/7, no more letting go of myself and my looks had suffered too. Small steps I told myself, some days I didn’t see the progress but I kept on until one day I realized that my wings were sprouting again.

That was a few years back. As humans we tend to make the same mistakes over and over again. So here I am back to square one again. Like Alice, I don’t know where I want to go just so long as I get myself away from here. But as the cat said, you just have to keep walking to get to that SOMEWHERE. Is that what I want? Just somewhere? Perhaps I’ve been doing it all wrong. I don’t want to end up just somewhere because I would be back here again at some later point in time. I want a destination. This time around just an overhaul isn’t going to do it. I need to change my mindset. I needed to keep going for as long as it takes but I need to put in the work along the way as well. I know I will have setbacks and fear, my biggest enemy, will make me stumble but if I keep going, one step at a time I might just get to where I need to be. ”It is going to be a long journey so be prepared” says that little voice. ”You’ll want to run back to where you began” but that ship has sailed and scaling back up the cliff is a no go so I have to keep going on the path I’ve chosen. 

How long will it take? I don’t know that is the scary part. I also know deep within that when I arrive I’ll be ready to fly again.

“Take a leap of faith. You will either land somewhere new or learn to fly.” Kandyse McClure  

Nine men were arrested and charged with the intentional homicide of American tourist, Bakari Henderson on July 2017 on the idyllic Greek island of Zakynthos.  It’s been almost a year since the brutal attack and killing of the young American outside a bar on the island and we have yet to see justice prevail in this case.  The suspects are a 34-year-old Greek bartender, a 32-year-old British citizen of Serbian origin and seven Serbian men.

Why was Henderson attacked and beaten to death?  According to reports, it was because he had taken a selfie with a woman of Serbian descent who had requested the selfie from him.  A man nearby was heard saying, “There are a lot of Serbs in the bar, why are you talking to a black guy?” and proceeded to hit Henderson on the side of the head.  This set-off the chain of events which led to the young man’s death.

Henderson was 22-years-old at the time and a recent graduate of the University of Arizona.  He had big plans for his future and he was in Greece trying to get a new clothing venture off the ground.  He was accompanied by some friends and until that fateful night, he had been having fun on the Greek island.

According to his mother, Jill Henderson, in an interview with Gayle King of CBS News, he was, “more comfortable overseas  than in the United States.  He just felt it was safer over in Europe and overseas in general,” referring to the racial climate against black men in the United States.

It could have been this misconception that cost him his life. After the altercation in the bar, a surveillance footage shows Anderson being chased out of the bar by a group of men, surrounded and then beaten to death.  According to Greek police spokesman, Theodore Chronopoulous, “They kicked and punched him to his body and his head.  His death came from hits to the head.”  Henderson was on his own against the angry mob who pummeled him to the ground and there was nothing anyone could do except to stand and watch the incident take place.  After the beating, his friends tried to resuscitate him but he died on the way to hospital.

In the same interview with Gayle King of CBS News, Jill Henderson had this to say about her son’s death.  “What parents would raise such barbarians to do such an evil thing to another human thing.?”  Perhaps that is the exact question that ran through all of our minds as we read about the beating death of this young man.  However, could a more pertinent question be, “Was it racially motivated?”  Was he targeted because of his skin color?  The woman who approached him for the selfie was of Serbian descent and reports state that she knew the men involved in the attack.  Could it have been a set-up right from the beginning?  Why did she go up to a total stranger for a selfie and why did she pick Bakari Henderson?  These are just unanswered questions that do need answers.

Coming back to the question of race, was Bakari Henderson a walking target because of his skin color?  If so, nothing could have prepared him for the “hate” he faced on that July night, a potent force so violent that the end result was the loss of a life.   This was certainly not because of one selfie with a stranger.

What animals will do this to a human being?  The kind that have no respect for human life.  The kind that refuses to see the human beneath the coating of skin color and the kind  that decided he deserved to die because of a selfie with a Serbian woman.  That is the sad reality folks.

Bakari Henderson was wrong in his assumption that it was safer in Europe than in the United States.  The under-current of racism, hate and violence  runs deep here just as it does elsewhere and from time to time it rears its ugly head when you least expect it like it did in that bar on the Greek island of Zakynthos.

A life lost but not forgotten.

A series on murders that made sensational headlines because of the “senselessness” of the crime.

He was a young man from Melbourne, Australia.  He was handsome, he was ambitious, he was in love and he had everything going for him.  He was two weeks away from celebrating his 23rd birthday when his life came to a screeching halt when a bullet from a passing car found its way to his back and he was pronounced dead within a matter of minutes.

Christopher Lane had won a baseball scholarship with Oklahoma/s East Central University and he was feeling on top of the world on August 13, 2013. What happened on that hot, humid day and how he lost his life is beyond imagination.  His father, Peter Lane, put it this way as he tried to make sense of his son’s death.  “It is heartless and to try to understand it is a short way to insanity.  There is not gonna be any good to come out of this, cause it was just so senseless.”  He was right.  The senselessness of the killing would make headlines around the world and would make many of us sit up and take notice at man’s inhumanity to man.

They are James Edwards, 15, Chancey Luna, 16, and Michael Jones, 17, and they were at the other end of the spectrum.  All three were restless with no future in sight.  They had spent the night partying away, smoking meth amphetamine, drinking alcohol and taking Xanax.  On the day of the murder, Edwards and Luna stepped into Jones’s Ford Focus for a joyride.  It would quickly turn into tragedy for Christopher Lane.  He was jogging, minding his own business when Chancey Luna saw him and decided to take aim from the backseat of the car.  The bullet penetrated just below Lane’s shoulder blade piercing his heart and lungs leaving him gasping for breath in a  roadside ditch.  There was no chance for survival.

According to Jones, “We were bored and didn’t have anything to do so we decided to kill somebody.”  Remorse was a long time coming if at all.  Instead they were on an euphoric high and the exact words used were, “You got that n***a, you shot him, you got him.”

The three teenagers were sentenced as adults.  Jones 17, was charged with accessory after the fact of first degree murder, later upgraded to first-degree murder.  James Edwards, 15, was sentenced to 25 years jail with 10 years off the sentence suspended and triggerman, Luna was sentenced to life in prison without parole.  However, in 2016, Luna’s conviction was overturned by the appeals court because, “the juvenile’s chronological age and immaturity” were not taken into account at time of sentencing.  No date has been set as to when a new sentencing will be held.

This is a story that needs retelling because no matter how much time has gone by between then and now, the senselessness of the crime is horrific to say the least and will never get old.  Violence has become an all too familiar part of our lives and killings are nothing new.  Each new day brings another story of killing or killings and we have become jaded to the violence all around us.  However, in this case, the brutality of the crime stands out because the victim and perpetrators had no prior history.  Christopher Lane lost his life because he was seen as a thrill-inducing object not as a human being and therein lies the horror of this specific crime.

“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.”

Terry Pratchett

It was a cold October night in 2017, as I made myself ready for bed but somehow I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that clouded my thoughts.  It was as if something was waiting in the shadows ready to pounce when I least expected it.  I said a prayer as usual for my son who was away at college and  finally fell asleep at around midnight but that uneasy feeling was still there as I drifted off to sleep.

Around 3 a.m., the phone started ringing.  I sat up immediately as the jarring sound in the early morning hours woke me into consciousness.  I knew it was nothing good.  The voice on the other end sounded vaguely familiar as I suddenly realized that it was my son, Christopher.  He was a first-year law student and he had just started college about three months ago.  Living away from home was his dream come true and we seldom heard from him unless he needed something from us as is the case with most college students, I guess.  So, what did he want this late at night?

“Mum, don’t panic.  I’m in the hospital but I’m fine.  The police are here with me!”  Visions of horror swirled through my mind as I gripped the phone tighter.  I tried to understand the words from the other side but all I could hear screaming through my head was, “Oh God, no!”  Was my worst nightmare coming true?  I called the police station to get more details but all they would say was, “Your son is not fine, he’ll have to stay in hospital!”

The next morning, we made the dreaded journey there.  It was a two-hour drive with my head going into panic mode.  “How badly was he injured?” kept pounding through my sleep-deprived head.  We finally arrived at our destination and  walked into the hospital room and immediately I am confused.  The young man staring back at me from the hospital bed seemed familiar and at the same time unfamiliar.  His face was twice the normal size and his eyes seemed lost as they looked at me apologetically.  There was a bloody discharge oozing out of the side of his mouth.  I could see he was in pain as I reached out and held his hand.  The doctor told us that they had to wire his mouth shut after the surgery to make sure the wound healed properly!  He had suffered a broken jaw that needed restructuring to make sure that his bite and his jaw would return to normalcy.  I could feel the anger rising up within me.  I wanted to know the details but I had to keep my panic and my anger in check.

We learn that there had been a scuffle and that he and his friend had gone to the Bahnhof Viertel, the railway station area, to get a snack at around 2 in the morning.  They were students feeling free and invincible.  No parental noose around their necks and no curfew either!  It was time to let loose and enjoy the freedom.  Evil had another plan for them that night.  Just as they were heading back, laughing and enjoying their burgers, evil stepped in.  It came in the form of a 21-year-old German man, just a year older than my son.  He approached them demanding that they give him their wallets and their cellphones.  The boys stared back at the angry young man not really comprehending what was happening but before they could react, the assailant lunged at them throwing punches and  kicks.  One of those punches caught my son squarely on his jaw and his glasses went flying.  His friend also lost his glasses but only suffered minor bruises.  The boys took off running and made their way to the police station about a mile away.  The policeman took one look at my son and immediately called the ambulance.  Emergency surgery was performed and screws and a plate were inserted into his jaw.

It took him months to recover from such an ordeal which started out with only soft food.  Getting fluids down was difficult too but I was thankful it wasn’t worse than that!  “He could have lost his life!” kept rushing through my head so I was alright for the moment but the anger I felt refused to leave me alone.  Who or what gave this young man the right to attack in such a brutal fashion?  The police told us my son and his friend were just victims of being in the wrong place at the wrong time but that didn’t help to calm the rage I was feeling.  We also learned that my son and his friend weren’t the only victims that night.  The angry young man had gone on a rampage of violence injuring six others but none were hurt as badly as my son.  Three months later, the victims received a small cash compensation for their pain and ordeal and the perpetrator was sent to youth detention to learn, hopefully, how to behave in a regimented society.  I don’t know if he will continue to do what he has done but I hope for my son’s sake and for others who lead lives away from evil that this angry young man has learned his lesson before he goes out and does this again and kills someone the next time around.

Christopher went back to college several months after the attack.  His jaw has healed although the plate still remains and will remain there forever.  Just as he was leaving for college, I decided to talk to him about his ordeal and to give him some safety tips.  The young man I had raised with such loving care and who now has the titanium plate in his jaw said, “Mum, I will not let that “animal” dictate how I live my life!”  There was nothing more to say after that.  I had raised him right.

Here is a quote that speaks to the heart of the problem.

“The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

On that particular night in question, the angry young man chose to cross the battleline and in so doing, he brought harm to his fellowman.  Sometimes raising your children right doesn’t guarantee their safety and all it takes for evil to find them is as the police officers said, “They were at the wrong place at the wrong time.” More often than not, this is all it takes for someone to lose a life or to carry their injuries for a lifetime because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I have come to terms with what happened to my son, thankful that his life was spared on that night.   He is back to normal and psychologically he seems to be doing fine there too.  However, I am sure that this won’t be the last time that he will come face to face with evil but I hope if and when he does that the angels will be out in full force watching over him.  Evil thrives and it hits home when we least expect it just as it did on that October night.

March 18, 2018 dawned like any other day for Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old African-American male but before the day was done, he would belong to the same club as all those killed before him, the likes of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and Trayvon Martin just to name a few who are now card-carrying members of the “shot dead by the police” club.

On that particular evening, the officers of the Sacramento Police Department were looking for a male suspect who was captured on film breaking windows in the Meadowview neighborhood.  The police camera shows officers breathing heavily as they run around the neighborhood trying to apprehend the suspect.  They come across Clark standing in the yard of his grandmother’s house with a cellphone in one hand.  What ensued is hard to watch as is and was the case in many other shootings involving black males in the U.S.  The camera footage takes you through the encounter and then one officer is heard shouting, “Gun! gun! gun!” and a barrage of shots follows.  The aftermath shows the victim on the ground his life seeping away.  The officers had fired 20 rounds, eight shots found their mark, six of them in Stephon Clark’s back. He died about 3 to 10 minutes after being shot.   The officers opened fire just seconds, six seconds in all, after they encountered Clark.

This is nothing new.  The “overkill” by law enforcement of black males is nothing new, it has happened often enough.  The horror and anger is nothing new either and so are the  protests that ensued as hundreds if not thousands took to the streets looking for justice.  We have yet to see justice prevail in such shootings because police officers are held to different standards and they march to a different drum beat or so it seems in this country.

According to the police, they believed that Clark was holding a weapon in his hand as they chased him into the backyard and opened fire at an unarmed man.  The weapon was a white iPhone.  The officers have claimed that they “feared for their lives.”  We’ve heard this excuse often enough.  Take Michael Brown for instance.  The officer, Darren Wilson, who shot him claimed that he feared for his life against an unarmed  Brown. The young teenager  had been shot six times at least twice in the head, those were the last two shots he delivered.  According to Darren Wilson, it was a “fight for survival” and he shot him because he feared for his life.  Sound familiar?

Coming back to the case at hand, no aid was administered to Stephon Clark after the shooting.  It took about 5 minutes before a female officer is heard saying, “We need to know if you’re OK. We need to get you medics, so we can’t go over and get you help until we know you don’t have a weapon.”  Right, how many bullets does it take to believe that a shooting victim is no longer a threat?  After five minutes, they walk over and handcuff the man lying bleeding on the ground.  More officers arrive at the scene and one officer is heard saying, “Hey, mute,” and that was the end of the audio recording.

This is just another shooting of yet another black male in the scheme of things.  The use of deadly force is also the norm where black males are concerned.  Shoot first and ask questions later is the stance law enforcement takes when it comes to black suspects.  The latest incident has sparked protests but this too is nothing new.  The anger will simmer long after the protests have died down but justice will take a long time coming, if at all.

California lawmakers are pushing to make it easier to prosecute police officers who kill civilians.  According to the author of the bill, Shirley Weber, “It seems that the worst possible outcome is increasingly the only outcome that we experience.”  How right she is.  These killings can only be described as an “overkill” to say the least.

In the meantime, another black male is dead, the victim of a police shooting.  Far too often we hear, “we feared for our lives,” from the officers after emptying their barrels into the victims but in most cases it was not the officers who had to fear for their lives, it was the victims who had no weapons to protect themselves and are no longer here to give an account of what took place.

Stephon Clark was the father of two young boys, ages 1 and 3 and at the time of his death, he was trying to turn his life around.  He had a criminal record but that is not the point here.  His record is irrelevant, the shoot to kill mentality is.  The case is under investigation but don’t hold your breath. The killing of black males will continue in a culture where it is condoned by the system.

Stephon Clark’s grandmother asked, “Why didn’t you shoot him in the arm?  Shoot him in the legs? Send in dogs? Send in a Taser?  Why? Why? Those are my questions too. but I will add one more question to that.  Why was Clark shot six times in the back if as the officers claimed that they had feared for their lives when they delivered the shots?  Finally, did Stephon Clark deserve to die even if he had broken some windows on that late March evening?  What do you think?