Tonight
Tonight is Saturday, December 6 in California. The city put up Christmas lights all over the telephone poles downtown just this week. The night of Darren Wilson's non-indictment there was looting and arson in the next town over. Tonight my family and I walked from my dad's house to the movie theater, where a crowd of shouting protestors filled the downtown area. One showing of Big Hero 6 later, events had escalated. There had been a die-in that blocked traffic; after vandalism and the injury of a policeman, law enforcement had brought in tear gas. As we walked home we passed SWAT teams in dark gray cars, men peering out at the world as they brandished their guns.
"Got a BB gun there, nigga?" a man next to me shouted from the street corner at the passing police. "What are you gonna do, shoot more black people?"
The city seemed tense. Meter-maids and homeless guys, traffic lights and Christmas lights, the roar of circling helicopters and the hushed chatter from absolutely everyone... it all rolled together.
We kept walking. Three blocks away from the protests I saw people eating sushi through a restaurant window and people playing jazz saxophone, all as oblivious as I had been. The world is an ironic place. Everything is so normal right now, and everything is so not normal.
