Call Me Bitey

Gather ‘round.  Let me tell you a true story about blogging in my own name.  Once upon a time, I did blog in my own name.  My actual name.  This is not a tale of woe, or a cautionary tale.  I like my name.  I liked blogging in my name.  I am immensely proud of who I am, and my accomplishments.  I blogged in my name as an offering.  I gave of my opinions freely, and I offered a place to go to get the full context on how I may have come by such an opinion.  So, you may ask, why do I not blog in my own name now?  Am I hiding or something?  No.  Allow me to tell you.

First, let me tell you a little about me.  My name is Bill.  I’m from Northeast Ohio.  Among my most significant formative influences, as I see them, are being born into and raised by a black family in the last third of the 20th century, studying English, serving in the Marines, and working as an LAPD officer.  There are a number of other important experiences that make me like almost everyone else.  Those are a few that make my experiences and perspectives a little different.  A Steelhead Trout doesn’t say to another Steelhead Trout, hey, you like to swim?  Me too.  I like to swim.  That much can be assumed, right?  I will share with you what you do not know, and what you likely have not experienced, mixed with some of what we have in common.

So, what’s that like?  Well, I’ll tell you.  

It’s weird.  I’ll give you a taste.  Often, when I have said, “I was a cop”, or “I was a Marine”, I will get, no you weren’t.  You’re a liar.  I have run out of ways to say, and prove what I have said, and I have said it for no other reason that it was the truth, and the reasons that I said earlier.  And I can’t tell you how often it is accepted, nor do I care, but I can tell you about when it isn’t.  Our resident Dud Swallow here on BindleSnitch says it this way.  “You say you were a cop…”. “I bet your liberal friends abused you for…”. Shit like that.  There is no sense in it, but he is not the only one to question it for no good reason.  Is it unusual, yes.  But, it is quite real.  

That gets to the next point.  It often sounds like, I don’t see how you could have been a cop and a liberal.  Or, its logical cousins, I don’t know how you could be a liberal and a Marine.  Or, I don’t how you could be a liberal and own a gun, or know anything about them.  Or, I don’t know how you could be a liberal and have a friend or family member who isn’t.  Or, I don’t know how you could be a black man and be a cop.  (This piece of bigotry is more often delivered from the minds of other black people, although not representative of the majority opinion, as far as I can tell).  None of these statements make any sense at all.  None.  If I said I played basketball, brushed my teeth with a fried chicken drumstick, listened to rap music in the  Apostolic church that I attended, was a ex-con, and voted for Barack Obama because he was black, those would never be questioned.  The thing of it is, none of those things are true.  

Living in a white country is a trip that, just as a curiosity, is a fascinating exploration.  Once, at MCAS Atlanta (here is how this shit used to creep in), I encountered this dude who saw me walking back to a hangar after a swimming certification.  His name was Chapman.  Chapman said to me, “Hey, how did you do on your swimming certification?”  I said simply, “I passed.”  I thought nothing of it.  It seemed like a simple question.  By this point, I had walked passed him on the road leading to the hangar, and I heard him say, “oh, that’s interesting because you don’t look like you can swim.”  He didn’t even mean it in a derogatory way.  The uncooked notion just emanated from his uncooked mind.  I took another step or two, and then stopped.  I turned around and walked back.  I was perplexed.

You see, I had been a lifeguard since I was 16.  I spent most of my young life swimming.  And since I did not have my own swimming pool in my bedroom, I usually had to swim with other people.  We did not even have a pool in our yard.  I either swam at school, or at our local suburban pool, for the most part.  Swimming in the community, you will quickly learn that there is no way to look at a person and determine that they can not swim.  I have seen swimmers from babies to seniors.  I have seen all levels of physical ability.  Swimming is something that almost anyone can do.  So, I was perplexed.  The question in my brain turned me around and walked me back to Chapman.  I asked him, how could you determine from looking at me whether or not I could swim?  His first answer was, “you know what I mean.”  I said, “honestly I don’t.”  (Honestly, I didn’t). I went through the explanation about my experience and said, I can’t think of a way to look at someone and determine that they can’t swim, and that was once my job.  Eventually, he told me.  “It is because you’re black.”  

That was like 33 years ago, and it happened to me, and it almost surprises me as much now as I write it, as it did when I experienced it.  I don’t think this is a rare type of event.  Being black in this society is weird in ways that so many are blind to, and so many others know like the back of their hands.  They are two parallel universes which are only visible to one of the universes.  It often can be generalized as someone from one universe telling you what you are not, or could not possibly be, in often the most ordinary of circumstances.  And the converse is when they are telling you what you are.  Usually it is not complimentary.  You are dangerous, you are criminal, you are stupid, you are angry, you are dishonest, you are up to something, you are out to get me.  None of that is true either, but when they are willing to say that you exist, it usually has something to do with one or several of those.  (Oh, I have been accused of liking watermelon more times than I can count.  People actually say shit like that.  I’ll tell you another thing.  I do love watermelon.  I don’t know anyone who doesn’t.)

So, if you have read this far, you probably have read some of my other posts.  Hopefully, you have noticed that I don’t write your average post.  I always write to entertain myself, and I hope it entertains some of you.  But take a post of mine that you have read, and have my name next to it.  Invariably, comments on my posts previously turned into whether or not I was actually a cop, a Marine, black, straight, not a criminal, etc.  Posts turned into me proving who I was rather than whatever I wrote about.  Once I said, “Call Me Bitey”, that ridiculousness was reduced considerably.  Yes, Robert Pannier has said numerous times that I claim to be a cop, or that being a former cop and liberal is somehow incongruent.  The ignorance of the American public never ceases to amaze me, and an Ambassador of Stupidity is always easy to find, but it is not like it was.  

This next section doesn’t go with the flow of the piece I have just written, but I add it to further drive home the point.  Trayvon Martin was told that he could not live in the development that he lived in, so George Zimmerman shot him.  George Floyd was told that he was trying to pass a counterfeit piece of currency, so a cop stood on his neck until he was dead.  Ahmaud Arbery was told that he was not a jogger, but rather a burglar, and was shot.  White people, sometimes  aggressively, and sometimes relatively benignly, just don’t want to let you define yourself.  Believe me when I tell you, it gets old. 

You know where to find me.  Call me Bitey.