Found crumpled up in my mailbox
I stepped out into the cool night to force myself awake, to eat when I wasn’t hungry, to battle the fatigue and shakes of being totally off-kilter from time zone leaps.
This note was stuffed in my mailbox, haphazardly. The response to the homicide (as it has been ruled) of Nathaniel Jones by Cincinnati Police.
At first I felt a bit exposed as a white man in a diverse neighborhood reading this note by streetlight. Exposed as the guy who is never present in the community, but who works downtown and has clients downtown and eats at restaurants downtown.
I want so desperately for things to change. For there not to be the need for this anger, these boycotts. I don’t want more riots.
Sitting on the couch reading the page over and over, I felt some twinge that this was a voice trying to do something without resorting to more violence. After councils and agendas fail, what are the options?
Ultimately I’m not sure how to fix what is wrong: Is this a war on drugs or procedures? The former issue will be buried in the media, but the brutality of the latter will color my hometown.
This isn’t good.