Black man runnin’

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales had been put on hold for weeks and I was no longer feeling the blues from my endless fumbling attempts at logarithms. My whole school, students, teachers, coaches, everyone, was captivated, televisions were on in every classroom, and studies had ceased weeks ago. Even before the investigator who found the glove admitted he perjured himself about continually using the word “nigger.”

I was blessed that my mother would never stop pushing me to excel in school. Raised in the Mississippi Delta, to her school meant not being home picking cotton. Although the 2:1 white/black student ratio in my advanced classes was opposite that of the 2:1 black/white ratio in the school at large, the kids in my grade who were expected to do well had been grouped together since before junior high. We knew each other well.

I was talking to a friend last week when I came across the mugshots of the two men charged with murdering Ahmaud Arbery. I’d watched the video the day before and read the articles to try to get the full story. This looked bad and felt bad.

When I saw the mugshots I knew it. I interrupted whatever my friend was telling me with a litany something like…, “I told you it would be two camo wearin’, gun totin’, no mask wearin’, backwoods, ignorant bigots”

Yes, I was mad. But when I took a breath, I knew I was somewhere as wrong as those two rednecks were when they saw Mr. Arbery.

I was in my 12th grade English class as I leaned back in my chair and waited. It was just after 10 a.m., Oct. 3, 1995, when the judge’s law clerk announced the verdict of not guilty. I didn’t move, but sat shocked in disbelief, as did a remaining two-thirds of the class, best of my memory.

But the other one-third, the students of color, I remember their reactions clearly. Several jumped out of their seats, hands raised. My football buddy next to me quietly muttered, “Praise God.” Two girls in front of me shrieked and covered their mouths. They were shrieks of joy. My teacher, Mrs. Williams, also of color, maintained what I can only describe as the best poker face I’ve ever seen.

I looked around and thought to myself, “Did we just watch the same trial?” I was angry. I thought I knew my classmates, the same friends I’d been with for years. But angry only for a short time. I realized we had been watching the same trial for weeks, but we had never really discussed it.

I thought a man named Orenthal James Simpson was on trial for the murder of two beautiful young people. My other friends had been watching a different trial altogether. My other friends had been watching the trial of a racist cop, years of disparate treatment, redemption for a man named Rodney King, a presumption that skin color indicates wrongdoing, and a system that dishes out unequal justice.

If the lights ever went out in Georgia, they went out when Ahmaud Arbery was murdered in February. It just got darker when the first two prosecutors gave justifications, brushed it aside and failed to file the appropriate charges. In reality, I can’t help but think the lights have never been on, not in Georgia or this entire country.

It seemed like an eternity until the lunch bell rang. Any discussions about the verdict were muffled and segregated, so as not to let the others hear. As I walked out of English class that day, I thought of Attorney Cochran’s reaction. His hugging his client, practically laying his head on his shoulder as the verdicts were read. I thought of Ron Goldman’s father’s face when he heard it, and I could still hear his mother sobbing. I felt bewildered with an overwhelming feeling powerlessness. I had lost something but wasn’t sure what it was.

Although we divide ourselves among superficial lines such as skin color, wealth, gender, philosophy, sexual orientation, role of government, heritage, etc., what is truly important and real to us, we all have in common. The pain we feel when we lose someone we love, the anger we feel when someone we care for is hurt, the love we feel for our family and friends, the community we feel with those we stop and talk to, learn about, get to know.

As I drove out of the school parking lot that day, the feeling of powerlessness, bewilderment and loss would subside, and I knew I never wanted to feel like that again. I thought about how much I cared about the classmates I had been with for most of my life. I realized how little I knew them outside of the classroom. And I just could not stop thinking about that Attorney Cochran, man was he good.

Chris Flanagin