It's only natural that throughout our lives certain encounters, experiences automatically trigger certain memories. Looking around at all that's presently going on in Chattanooga brings back certain memories, personal experiences, conversations with family members etc., many unpleasant ones.
I'm reminded of another quote by Maya Angelou who once said, "People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did (to them), but (good or bad) people will never forget how you made them feel."
There are problems in Chattanooga, perhaps with its youth. The question, however, should be who, what and why might be behind triggering those problems? Now, the original story of the "Christmas massacre" as Mr. Roy has called it, and the the original cause presented by members of Chattanooga's "finest" police department turns out to be a tad or even heavily exaggerated. Purposely. It looks that way. Even the exaggeration of a situation still makes it a lie. Makes the exaggerators less trust worthy.
My dad wasn't a very educated man, but he was wise beyond some of your most educated scholars. When someone would come to us and tell us something that just didn't sit right, he'd always tell us, "Shhhsh! chi'le, sit back and wait for the truth." The truth, may have taken some time, but the truth always prevailed.
The truth, as it turns out, was there were no rival gangs shooting it up with one another. The truth is no one really knows for sure where the shots came from. If they don't know where the shots came from, then they don't know who fired the shots. If they don't know who they can't say for sure if the shots were gang related, or someone(s) (even a law-abiding, upstanding pillar of the community licensed gun owner) trying to trigger a situation where gang would be blamed.
What we do know is there are elements in the city making every attempt to take the city back to a time and period where certain areas of the city were exclusive and others weren't allowed, unless they worked in the area. Even then they had to be out by sundown. Hence, the term sundowning was coined.
For personal reason, I don't trust some members of the CPD to be upfront and honest about these situation any further than I could throw them. In fact, from personal experience, it wouldn't be at all surprising if to learn some of the more roguish sides of the department are either directly or indirectly behind many of these disturbances and outbreaks of violence. I won't go into how it works here, but I've personally experienced it in action.
Yet as our young men and women of all colors, religions, nationalities, gender and class have fought and died together in conflicts and wars around the world, some continue to play these silly games at attempts to segregate the masses in America again. Which triggered a memory of a story my oldest brothers once related to me about an experience that left a profound effect on him while serving his first tour of duty in Vietnam and a brief encounter with General Westmoreland.
His experience, in his own words: "When I first went to Viet Nam, I was assigned to B Company, 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division. Our base camp was in An Kie, South Viet Nam. During the latter part of Dec 1965, our entire division went on Operation White Horse, which was one of the largest military operations in the Central Highlands in Bong Song Viet Nam. The native Vietnamese people in that area had not seen an American since possibly when American Advisors were over there when the French was there. Well to make a long story short, In January 1966, my unit came under heavy attack from the North Vietnamese Regular Army. Those (North Vietnamese) knew how to fight a battle. Although my unit suffered heavy casualties, who were killed in or wounded in action. But our unit out fought the North Vietnamese unit, by inflicting heavy casualties. We fought so well until General Westmoreland, who was the top American military commander in Soputh Viet Nam, personally came out to our field location to view the damages we had inflicted on the North Vietnamese unit. He went around to greet and shake the hands of some of the soldiers in our unit. I was one of the soldiers. I put my hand out to shake his hand and (he) passed me by as though I was not standing there. And I said to myself (Screw HIM). True story."
All I can say is, if these people want to make downtown exclusive for only a select class and, yes, ethnicity or race, then screw 'em. Let'em have it. Uplift yourselves. Reach out to your young. Help them to master the skills, knowledge and power needed to sustain themselves and where they live. But whatever you do, don't seek to isolate yourselves in the way these others are attempting. Don't make your accomplishments exclusive for only a select few.
It isn't that people can't forget the past, but the past never really became the past in America. The past continues to rear its ugly head in various ways. Today the past is rearing its ugliness in the form of shouting gangs when the truth might be more sinister.
