Who wants to hear a story about when your ol' pal Uncle Ghastly was just a kid. It's a now cherished childhood memory.
When I was about 13 or 14 my friends and I went into this conservation area on the edge of town with our BB guns. There was an old building there that used to be a factory or a warehouse but had been abandoned for quite a long time. Being boys with BB guns we liked shooting out the few remaining windows in the building, and shooting bottles, and even shooting each other because boys will be boys. Well on this day someone living near the park saw us being little shit disturbers with our BB guns and called the cops on us. I was the one who got caught.
I was just coming out of the woods when the cop pulled into parking lot and saw me. He gets out of the car, puts on his forge cap and holds out his hand and says "give me the gun". I was busted, and I knew I was busted so I gave him the gun. Then he says "get in". Now I have crippling claustrophobia. I cannot stand being confined. Even riding public transit sets me on edge if I'm stuck in traffic. I hate flying not because I'm afraid of crashing but because I can't stand being stuck in a little metal tube where I have little to no control over my environment. I did not want to be locked in the back of a cop car. Being young and cocky I thought I could talk my way out of the situation. I was incorrect. The cop shoved me hard against the car and said "you're either getting in the car on your own or I'm handcuffing you and throwing you in the car". Well as much as my claustrophobia could not stand the idea of being locked in a car it really didn't like the idea of being handcuffed and locked in a car so I acquiesced... ... and began to lose my shit. When I suffer a full on panic attack I can't breathe. Nowadays I know how to box breathe to re-oxygenate my blood stream and to control hyperventilation but back then I was full on hyperventilating.
The first place the cop went was to my friend Dwayne's house. There was no point in lying. I grew up in a small town and when you grow up in a small town and fuck up everyone knows it and they know your parents too. The cop knew who we were and he knew Dwayne was the ring leader of the group and his house was closest to the conservation area. So we go there first and I'm left alone, unsupervised in the back of the car. It was a hot August afternoon, and I was hyperventilating in the back of a hot car with the windows all up while the cop was talking to Dwayne's dad. I could feel myself starting to pass out. The cop cars back then were Chevy Caprice I believe and they had a little vent window on the back doors that was just above the door handle.
Now I was a very bright child, but I did a lot of stupid shit because as anyone who has played Dungeons and Dragons can tell you, wisdom and intelligence are not the same thing. But before I passed out from hyperventilating I realized I could easily fit my hand through the ventilation window and open the door from the outside. So I did this. Now my thoughts weren't of escape because there was no escape. This cop knew my name before I even told him it. I was boned through and through. So I went and sat on Dwayne's front porch and was able to relax a little and get my breathing under control.
Now the look on the cop's face when he came out of my friend's house was priceless combination of shock and anger. He wanted to know who let me out of the car (for some reason he was certain it was my friend Scott who facilitated my escape). I told him I got myself out and he refused to believe me until I showed him how and then he had a wide eyed look of "how the hell did nobody notice this huge security flaw in the design of our police cars before now". So then we drove around with Dwayne's older brother in the front seat looking for the rest of the BB gun crew. And the story ends with my dad picking me up, sobbing and scared from the police station and me being grounded for 2 weeks which really sucked because it was August and summer vacation was rapidly eroding. When my grounding was finally over I almost immediately got into trouble again with my friends because boys will be boys and was once again picked up by my dad at the police station and grounded again.
Now it scared the shit out of me at the time but now 40 years later (and 40 years wiser) it is a beloved childhood memory because it makes me think of all the shit I used to get up with with my friends that I didn't get caught for. It was an experience, and one that helped me grow as a person. It's a big warm bowl of nostalgia soup with grilled cheese and chocolate milk. This is some perfect summer day, small town in southern Ontario, Canada shit that makes me smile at the memory of it.
It's also privilege.
It's some white boy in a small town where everyone knows your dad privilege. It doesn't mean I'm a bad person because the lottery of birth afforded me such a wonderful privilege. It doesn't mean I can't enjoy the memory of that experience, but it is still a privilege afforded to me that has not been universally enjoyed by other children growing up on this continent.
It is a privilege that I get to tell my friends, my children, maybe someday even my grandchildren about the time I was a mischievous little shit disturber running around with my mischievous little shit disturber friends disturbing shit as mischievously as we could in the waning days of summer before we started grade 9.
It's a cherished memory afforded to me by privilege. It's a privilege Tamir Rice will never know. It's a privilege too many will never know because my life mattered where theirs did not.
Tamir Rice will never get to be an old man, telling his kids about the time he got in trouble for playing cops and robbers in the park with his friends. He does not get that privilege because his life didn't matter to the people who were given the authority to end it.
If "All Lives Matter" was true he'd be graduating highschool about now. He'd be telling his friends "remember that time we were goofing around with BB guns and we got in shit with the cops".
Two kids in almost identical situations, separated by a few decades. One now an old man with a cherished childhood memory. The other exists only as dry bones and the memories carried by the people who loved him.
That's why it's important to recognize the privileges you've been blessed with.
That's why it's important to remind authority that BLACK LIVES MATTER.