You can always tell when the words poised at the edge of someone’s mouth, waiting to spill out in a declarative statement, will be bad news. Doesn’t matter if it’s face to face or phone to ear, there’s always a pause-a heavy hesitation that hangs in the air right before the words come. Then a sigh. The hesitation was there when I picked up the phone. “Hey moms, what’s up?” … … Sigh. Shit. What now? “Hey baby. What you doing? You got plans tonight?”
A late night, long distance call asking about my social calendar? Something’s fucked. “Not sure yet, what going on?” … “I hate to call and keep telling bad news but I figure I’d tell you before you heard it somewhere else. Mayman’s dead….” Yup. Fucked. “He died running from the police, we not sure of all the details yet but he killed his girlfriend and one more person before he died.” Really fucked. The last couple days have been a rush to process this information on both a personal and societal level. The basics: an older cousin went (quite possibly drug induced) batshit and killed his girlfriend before police caught up with him a couple days later.
The details of what happened next vary, but at the end of the night a bystander was dead and my cousin was either killed in a police shoot out or committed suicide before cops could get to him. There’s really no way to clean up this situation. Three people are dead, two of whom most definitely didn’t deserve it, and a third whose situation could be debated for years. Above all I feel for all sides and the families, my own included, left to pick up the pieces. But horrific details and personal ties aside for a minute, my cousin’s death strikes me for a couple of reasons.
The 1st is for the similarities that can be drawn to last years Lovelle Mixon case. As I’m on the line listening to my mom recount the story, Mixon was the 1st thing that pops into my head. Last year, after what police have called a “routine” traffic stop (a term which itself has loaded meaning depending which side you’re on) Mixon killed 4 police officers in East Oakland before cops stormed his hideout and brought the ruckus. Depending on who you talk to Mixon was either a cop killer or a had-it-up-to-here, take no shit street soldier, who made sure that if he was going out he was going to take as many pigs a possible with him. For the record, I don’t think that’s completely accurate. But it did give me a recent frame for my emotions.
Just a day or so before I’d left a long ass comment on an article covering the Mixon memorial service. While other comments were outraged that the author showed compassion for Mixon’s family and chose not to include the usually damning details, I brought up the point that regardless of the situation that family had lost a loved one. I argued that if for no other reason, the memorial gave them a chance to express their frustrations, while surely dealing with the inner turmoil of the relative’s actions. Now, less than 48 hours later I find myself dining on those same frustrations, served cold, and topped with a heavy gravy of “he did what? What the fuck was he thinking!”
But as shocked as I was to hear the news, it wasn’t exactly original. The 2nd reason the situation struck me was because almost two years ago another cousin, Mayman’s younger brother, died in almost exactly the same way.
About two years ago I got a phone call. I’ve come to realize that having to bear this kind of news repeatedly desensitizes you, but back then moms wasn’t holding up nearly as well and broke down before she could get all the words out. “Johnny’s dead…shot his girlfriend then turned…the gun…on himself.” Folks are still dealing with that 1st episode but honestly, no one wants to spend a lot of time thinking about it. The basics: my older cousin, couple years my senior, goes similarly batshit (probably similarly drug induced), knocks on the door of his longtime girlfriend and mother of his kids. He raises a shotgun. One shell in her stomach, the other in his mouth. The kids screaming in the next room.
To be completely honest I was hoping that writing this down would bring some kind of clarity to the situation but it’s still as foggy as sunset in Golden Gate Park. I was hoping that viewing Mixon and similar cases through the lens of the familiar would help. There was this idea that equating the abstraction of someone else with personal experiences of violence, incarceration and police abuse would make things clearer. But as it stands I’ve got 2 dead cousins, another doing life for murder, two more just released from county, another out on felony probation and enough stories of dead friends, life bids, bullshit court cases and corrupt cops to add at least another season to The Wire. But no answers. And I’m not the only one.
As I write this I’m looking down out my window and there’s a couple of black and white patrol cars slowly circling my block. It’s early Easter Sunday morning and the cops are already looking for someone. Holy day or no holy day, shit just does not stop If you’ve ever talked to me at length about social issues you know I’m a fan of looking at the macro before even attempting to judge the micro. In my opinion acknowledging the larger social issues of racial, social, economic and environmental oppression are crucial to understanding an individual’s actions. If someone is born into a shitty situation and fed nothing but smelly influences and ideas, it stands to reason that their worldview’s gonna stink a bit. And whenever I get pissed at current conditions I always try to look at the big picture 1st.
But sometimes that gets really difficult when the smaller picture in front of you shows a closed casket and crying family members. In my opinion, the smaller discussions have to include personal responsibility and critical introspection. The work can’t focus on larger social problems without addressing personal disfunction. This has to be a two way street. I don’t know the details of each and every violent crime in the hood or the backgrounds of those involved but I do know it’s often a lot more complicated than the sound bites on either side make it out to be. Johnny and Mayman for example, despite the stereotypes of young black men, grew up with a mom and pop who were well known deacons in a local church and pretty strict. They grew up in a solid working class neighborhood, purposefully far removed from the “drugs and guns” their father associated with the hoods the rest of us grew up in. That they were drawn into that life anyway speaks to something different. Something deeper.
I’ve heard that Mixon had said repeatedly that he wasn’t going back to jail and that the strength of his conviction is being used as a rallying cry for his martyrdom. I’m not so sure about this. All my folks said the same thing the last time they got out. And while I love them all and miss the ones who aren’t here, I’m pretty sure that politics and fighting for a higher cause weren’t major priorities in most of their lives.
But I’m also pretty sure that the people making these declarations have the potential to be our most promising warriors, idealists and community saviors if we can find ways to channel that had-it-up-to-here conviction into something different. Something better. I’m thinking that instead of adopting and celebrating the “I’m not going back, no matter what” attitude as the last ditch effort in the chess match, we change the rules so that all our pieces, from the pawns to the kings, make it out alive. This is about strategy, family. This is about upping our opening, middle and end game.
Because otherwise we’ll keep going round in these same circles and there’ll be someone else writing this same plea, all because we’re too unwilling to pull back the layers, admit our collective and personal responsibilities and really deal with the issues. Happy Easter.
