I have been off Facebook, dealing with a personal issue. But I had to write about a small but significant moment in my day yesterday--in the face of so many large ones. For three weeks, I have barely done anything with my hair. Just put it in braids and carried on. But Ive been looking pretty scruffy, so I gave myself the gift of a visit to the very sweet little salon I go to. I had almost an inch of grey in my roots. And I am a firm believer in the idea that sometimes, just something as simple as putting on a nice dress and fixing up ones hair can offer a surprising boost to the spirits. So...off I went for my appointment. I was sitting in the chair, having the last of my blow dry, next to the chair of the lovely young woman whose salon this is. A person I like, who has always been kind to me. She was talking with a client whose makeup she was applying. The topic was the demonstration that had gone on in Berkeley that day, that had really tied up traffic, and made it difficult to get around. The demonstration concerned the Eric Garner case, and the failure of the grand jury to indict a single police officer who had held that man in an illegal choke hold for the crime of selling individual cigarettes on the street without charging sales tax. A friend of the dead man videotaped the event. Its a painful video to watch, in which you can hear Garner calling out I cant breathe as a whole squadron of officers forces him to the ground and in broad daylight, smothers him. (The man who made the video WAS charged with a crime, by the way.) Yesterday, sitting in the comfortable salon chair, receiving my beauty treatment, listening to this woman I like complaining about the demonstration, I felt the urge to get up out of my chair and walk out . I didnt --though I did send a note to my young friend at the salon, sharing with her my feelings on the event. Hard times in ones own life change a person. In my case, I find I am almost incapable of doing anything, or saying anything, other than what I absolutely believe and feel. This extends even to those well-meaning store clerks who ask me, at the checkout, Hows your day going? Here is the truth. My days, at the moment, are filled with hard experiences and very large sorrow. My feeling, about the death of Eric Garner, is that there is no appropriate response to what happened to that man last July--and to more and more black Americans--other than outrage. If it slows me down, crossing the bridge, well, so be it. Was getting to my hair appointment really so important?
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 15:01:32 +0000
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