It’s This happened in college.
I was volunteering at an after-school program for kids at a local church in a primarily black community. The program included tutoring, activities and a short assembly at the end with songs and a quick message. During an assembly one day, I was sitting in a row behind three kids. They were a bit distracted, talking and playing out of turn.
Either I tried to quiet them down or they happened to look back at me.
“He’s the guy!”
“Are you sure?”
“He’s got a beard and glasses!”
“Oh no!”
To me:
“You tried to kill us with your car!”
“What sort of car do you drive?
—
A couple days earlier, I came upstairs from my basement room to overhear the end of a story another student was telling some of my housemates. He had come over to work on a class project with them and was telling them how he had been washing his car recently in a parking lot near a school. A group of kids coming from a convenience store started throwing their trash at him and his car. Enraged, he jumped in his car and started chasing after the kids in his car. He started chasing them around the flagpole at the school several times. Eventually, he drove off. My roommates told him that’s the sort of story you keep to yourself.
—
As I was being bombarded with these accusations, his story came to mind, but I couldn’t imagine how someone could confuse the two of us. He’s scrawny and I was 240 lbs. In broad strokes, we have some similar characteristics: the glasses and beard, we’re both tall, white and have brown hair. But standing side by side, there’s no way you’d confuse us for each other.
I stuttered, “I drive a white Buick. That was someone else!”
You might have guessed that didn’t help matters. By now, we’re creating quite a scene. The pastor came over and I tried to explain to him what was happening. He directed the kids and me to his office to try to resolve the issue.
In his office, I tried to explain the situation, but the kids were getting more agitated and said they’re going to go get their family. The pastor asked me to hold the door so he could try to calm the kids down.
I briefly did so, but pretty quickly realized that was only making things worse and let go of the door. The kids bolted out of the office and the church and ran across the street to their family. Pretty soon, I heard their mom and older brother shouting angrily. They came over to the church and started hashing things out with the pastor.
I was pretty shaken up and slipped out the back door of the church, and sat down on the steps for awhile until things had settled down inside and they had left.
I went back in and gave the pastor a more complete report of what had happened and went home.
He later called me and told me they wanted to know who it was that I claimed had actually chased them. I told him I wouldn’t give that information to them directly but would be willing to talk to the police about the situation. So he set up a meeting with the mom and the principal of the school. At that meeting, I explained my story to the mom and reiterated that I would talk to the police about the situation but would not give names directly to the family.
She tried calling a police officer who had earlier taken her report about the case. The officer didn’t respond but I left a message for him. I didn’t receive a call back from the officer and left him another message a few days later, which he didn’t return either.
I won’t try to draw too much of a conclusion from this story. There are many different aspects to analyze here. This incident could no doubt be viewed in light of broader societal themes, but I experienced it as an individual and throughout the experience, I tried to focus on treating others as I would want to be treated and I think the other adults involved were able to do that as well. That doesn’t mean the tension caused by our country’s history of racial wrong wasn’t present. But as we interact with each other, we all have to work to get past that and view each other as individuals. Individuals, to be sure, whose experiences and perspectives have been colored by that history, but still individuals.
—
What happened to Ahmaud Arbery should never have happened. His killers must be held responsible. But when we hear of stories like this, I think we need to be careful to treat them as stories involving individuals. Of course, there are broader themes present, but it’s all too easy to let those themes distract us from understanding what happened as primarily between individuals.
