I Loaded My Shotgun Today

For the first time in decades, I loaded my shotgun today.

With helicopters overhead, roving groups of opposing provocateurs roaming the streets and a small army of overtired police in the middle of a demonstration a mile or so away, I slid the shells into the magazine tube.

And with each click I felt a creeping amnesia slicing slivers away from the hopes I was once so sure would last a lifetime.

I can barely remember what I felt when Barack Obama was elected the first black president. I have no clear emotional recall of how proud I felt when I watched him and Michelle Obama dance at the second inaugural Ball as Beyonce sang and Alicia Keyes played. I have only the very clear memories of how little America has done since they left.

I think how long it took for Ahmaud Arbery's killers to be arrested. I think of how long it will take for George Floyd's murderers to be arrested. I wonder whether I will get a hashtag or a video or some social event like a ritual jog to commemorate my death if the violence in this city or some other city or some suburban cul de sac takes my life.

As I check the action on the shotgun to make sure it feeds correctly, I wonder if I will become the kind of celebrity black corpse of one political party because I'm a Liberal and a Democrat or will I be a prop for the other political party because I am a soldier. Will the video on social media be like that of David Dorn or will it be a police body cam video like Mikel McIntyre. How long will my body lay in police custody and unmourned before people who love me get a text message from people who saw the footage on the 24 hour news channels?

As I cleared the chamber and put the key in the trigger lock, I wondered what it would be like for my mother. Would she become a convenient hero for people to lionize and forget like Mamie Till. Or would she become widely ignored like Samaria Rice.

As I sat there for a moment on my stoop wondering whether there would be explosions in the distance tonight, or gunfire or smoke or teargas, I thought where it would be both easy to access and safe to keep the shotgun if someone who kills black people chooses my house tonight.

I thought how in three and a half years we have watched democracy reduced to riots and disease, and how angry white ladies armed with cell phones and crocodile tears are just as deadly as any enemy I faced overseas. And I can't remember if it is self evident if I was ever created equal, if my life can matter, if a black Muslim could ever be president when the idea of one remains an indictment and an insult. I wonder what my father felt like when he realized he could not give his sons the life he believed they deserved. I think how much easier it is to build a new prison instead of a new school. I thought about a trillion dollars loaned every week to keep Wall Street comfy and safe while streets in Minneapolis, St Louis, Los Angeles, Philly and Trenton are lined with broken glass and scorched blacktop where cars burned the night before. I wonder if there is anywhere on earth I could raise black children without bullseyes attached to them.

And what will happen when the people who post and protest and riot and don't vote, again. And will the people who shoot and excuse and nullify my fear, my pain, my loss, vote in large numbers, again? Will it be what it was when my great uncle was lynched? Will I have to tell the next generation of protestors to watch out because your skin is the color of the victim who fit the description?

I still feel powerless and unprotected in America, so I am connected to the black cop and the black rioter, the black police commissioner and the black convict, the black veteran and the black ventilator patient, the black shopkeeoer and the black elected officials pepper sprayed during a peaceful protest.

 So I loaded my shotgun today, because that's the best I thought I could do in America today.

Written by Sherwood Goodenough © 2020
Sherwood Goodenough is a policy analyst and military veteran