On September 20th, 2016, a police officer shot and killed Keith Lamont Scott in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Charlotte, North Carolina.
You probably already knew this, and you may have read a handful of articles about the events. Maybe you even watched the recent video footage released by both Mrs. Scott and the Charlotte Police Department. Or perhaps you’re as tired as I am of this seemingly incessant barrage of police violence and riotous protests. Perhaps you saw (and continue to see) those headlines and looked away, struggling with an odd combination of guilt for not educating yourself on the events and sadness at the realization that similar moments will continue to fill the news.
But when I saw the word “Charlotte” in the headlines, something in me broke. Not a snap in anger, or a shattering in rage, but a much quieter fracture. A spider web of cracks in the window through which I looked at and remembered my home.
I moved to Charlotte the summer before seventh grade. During a time when I was angry at the universe for having to leave the home I loved more than anything, the Queen City welcomed me and encouraged me to blossom into the person that I am today. The community in Charlotte is kind, vibrant, and full of fascinating people and ideas. It is beautiful and diverse and the place that I am now proud to call home.
So when the epidemic of police violence and riotous protests infected the streets where I attended my junior and senior proms, I was struck to the core. While I knew that police brutality and wrongful killings were a serious problem, they hadn’t seemed real. Those killings had adopted an ephemeral quality in my mind. They had hovered in the part of my mind that was also home to global warming and the crisis in Syria—real, but distant. They were things I couldn’t change and wasn’t overtly and explicitly facing the consequences of every day.
But now my friends back home (many of whom live in dorm rooms mere blocks away from where the shooting and rioting took place) are marking themselves “safe” on Facebook. They are sharing articles about the police, the protests, the shootings, the riots, the government, the National Guard, the anger and sadness and fear that has settled over the wonderful city I call home.
These shootings are no longer ephemeral and distant. They are concrete and terrifying and real. The killings and riots in Baltimore, Ferguson, Dallas occurred in cities that people were proud of. The people who live in these places are not roiling crowds of angry people breaking windows and throwing rocks at policemen. They are neighbors, students, and business owners who are proud of their city and protective of those who live in it.
I used at those pictures of angry mobs and lost the fact that there were faces in those crowds. Now, if I look close enough at the photos and videos of Charlotte, there’s a chance I might recognize someone. My hometown has collapsed into the fear and anger and aggression that I couldn’t understand (and didn’t want to think about).
This violence has become real in a way that I now feel guilty to describe. I’d always known that police violence was a problem. I have heard the names of the young men and women who were struck down by racism and fear. But to have it happen on streets that you drive down regularly? It changes things. My father has been on jury duty for the past few weeks, and he drives right through the area where the shooting and riots took place on his way home from the courthouse.
But I am here. In Gambier, a nine-hour drive away from the highways where protestors are stopping cars in their tracks. I can only read as many articles as I can find, listen to the stories of my friends and neighbors, and watch my own city shake from the top of this beautiful hill—460.8 miles away.
Consequently, I made a decision last week. I will read the articles about Charlotte, but I will continue to educate myself on past and future events as well. I will read those painful, violent, frustrating stories about the injustices that both police and the protesters are committing. All of these moments deserve recognition and rumination, not because they’re my home, but because they are someone’s home. Those streets and parking lots and houses belong to people who care about their communities and want the best for them.
Once we take a moment to really look at the faces in the crowd, maybe we’ll be a bit more motivated to listen to our nation’s people and work towards a better future. For all of our homes. Because no matter how far away we are, those places are real and important and full of people worth saving. That’s worth remembering on days like these.
I’m just saddened by the fact that it had to happen to my city before I realized this.
Image Credits: Taylor Hazan, Donna Wagner Heil, Adam Schrew