Control: Kenosha
I, Dalton Lewis, cannot believe that another black man was shot on tape. No, wait, I can. In Kenosha a guy ran towards his car. When he opened his car door the cops shot him six or seven times. Kenosha residents decided to respond by destroying buildings and setting trucks on fire. The 911 calls? Ignored, scene not safe. Think about that. The fire department didn’t show up when there were fires because the scene wasn’t safe. Wow. Total. Unbelievable. Bullshit.
Racism hasn’t stopped. Cops haven’t stopped shooting innocent people. I remember growing up and attending Libertyville High School. In ninth grade we were sent to an assembly where a white person was giving a speech telling us not to be racists. Then it came out: The Ku Klux Klan had started up at my beloved high school. I was devastated but thought that I could never do such a racist thing. I was one of the innocents, I thought, and I still want to be innocent. The thing is: how does one be innocent? I’m not sure that just trying to treat people the same is enough. It might not be everything necessary to treat black people correctly.
Toni Morrison is dead. Who is the next great black writer? I don’t know. She dominated her field so completely that I don’t know who the next one is. There are certainly thousands of black writers in America today, and some of them very successful. Shonda Rimes and John Ridley make it in cinema. Gloria Naylor and Alice Walker might still be alive. Octavia Butler is dead.
What do I do to write about race correctly? I try to have minority characters in all of my stories but let it happen organically instead of specifically creating an Uncle Tom character or a black best friend. In V Max One there are two leads, and one of them is Sera Morgan, a Korean girl who moved to America when she was fourteen to live with Ares Morgan and the Morgans. I wanted her to be a geek and a girl and a powerful fighter who went at life with everything she could give. In Miserable Existence the lead thinks he’s either bisexual or gay. In A Worship of the Dark Gods a lead is transgender.
Do you remember the 1990’s on television? There weren’t very many black characters on the tv dramas. The white characters dominated such shows. Buffy, Beverly Hills 90210, Charmed, Once and Again, Picket Fences, and Friends had trouble finding black characters. Angel and The OC eventually added black characters to the cast in the early 21st century. Before then the black shows were separate from the white shows. The Fresh Prince, The Cosbys, and the like had mostly black casts, but few shows had both white people and black people.
People occasionally use the n-word around me in the real world. I know that they are wrong but don’t know what to do about it. Racism is around, people. What does one do when someone uses the n-word? I don’t know. My friend said, language, when someone said that, and the offender responded by saying something even more racist and thought he was the funniest person ever.
Star Trek tried for diversity. They had a black person as lead in the 1990’s. They had a black character in mostly white cast in the 1960’s. In 2020 they have a black female as lead on their new series. Star Trek remains a beacon of hope in a sometimes racist society. Star Trek believes that we can overcome racism in the future — at least diminish it a huge amount. I like that.
How do I act going forward? I know that I need to treat everyone the same. I can’t be scared of someone in the elevator. I can’t assume someone is angry or defiant or trouble. I have to try to support people who stand up for themselves. I have to just try my best to treat everyone the same.
Thanks, and take care, friends.
