Posted on 03/19/2015 4:23:06 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
On the first day of winter’s thaw, I saw two teenage boys on the roof next door holding guns. I don’t know much about guns, except that they kill and that young black men holding them are likely to be killed. I called my husband, trying to keep panic out of my voice so as not alarm my own children. He looked out the window. “Jesus. Call the police”.
After Michael Brown, John Crawford, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice - especially after Tamir - calling the police didn’t seem like the solution here.
“Don’t you see who it is”? I told him. “Eddie and Aaron”.
The boys’ lower-income apartments squat dwarfed by the shadow of our larger middle-income building. An invisible red line and a bright blue spiked fence separate us. Any of our fourth floor neighbors could see them as well we could. I’ve known both since they were small children, but I could see them through the eyes of a stranger, or through my husband’s first glance: two young African-American men, in hoodies, armed.
We watched them galloping with the guns, skipping over the low walls separating the units, and hiding behind TV satellite dishes. Every so often one boy stopped and picked something off the ground.
“Ah, they’re BB guns,” my husband said. “See? They’re reloading the pellets.”
My husband grew up in a neighborhood of long driveways, of single houses screened by large trees on private land. He still has that suburban instinct of detachment, a wait-and-see attitude. I couldn’t stand the tension of watching. Too much has happened recently. Too much continues to happen. We know how this one unfolds. I kept expecting the wail of police sirens, seeing the scene play out. No call to drop their weapons. Shots. Eddie and Aaron. More dead boys....
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Oh yeah. Forgot about sling shots. Sling shot and marbles made for one dangerous adolescent.
not marbles, ball bearings. seriously
not marbles, ball bearings. seriously
Didn’t “Eddie and Aaron” have a hit record many years ago?
“Black is Black” or “A lighter shade of pale”?
That's my bet too.
Not only is she a total liar, but she is not even American.
I won’t tolerate this tone from a dirty foreigner. Why is she even in my country?
This has the distinctive ring of a made-up story.
Eddie Murphy???
My black neighbor, who rents from me, has some rather scary looking Japanese swords and probably some guns. I don’t care. He is a good man and would stand with me in a fight.
Both his parents are retired military.
Are you accusing her of Brian Williams’ journOlism?
I was sure that the piece was fiction when she mentioned the “thin red line” that separated the buildings and then mentions her “biracial” son.....Just wanted to fill some newspaper space with her fake story.
Correction, “invisible red line.”
I never even noticed that. :-)
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