#IfTheyGunnedMeDown

Wally is reported to have spent most of this weekend hold up in his apartment and reading tweets on the, #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, Twitter feed.  Several years north of 65, he knew he appeared neither threatening nor gangsta, but Wally also realized that there were a lot of crazy white people and cops with guns on the street.  “It’s like open season black folk,” he tweeted.  “And it’s pretty scary.”

Although he seldom mentions it in mixed company, the recent killings of young black people by white civilians and cops is very much on his mind.  And since most whites simply don’t understand, Wally usually remains mute on the matter.  But in the absence of whites, he is said to freely speak his mind. 

Ever since Trayvon Martin was shot while walking home from the store in 2012, Wally has felt a bit more distant from even his closest white friends.  “It’s hard to explain,” he told one white friend.  “But I do know that you’ll never know that kind of fear for yourself, your children, nor your grandkids.”

Twenty some years ago, Wally’s son was in his teens and early twenties and there didn’t seem to be so much gun craziness and stereotyping.   Now, on almost a daily bases, young, unarmed black people are being shot.  And even after their death, the deceased are treated like defendants with a lot of whites assuming that the black person must have been doing something to deserve it.

“Do you remember hurricane Katrina in 2005 and how the media had two different descriptions for very similar photos and videos?” Wally asked a friend, via cell.  “If you were white, you found food.  But if you were black, you stole food.  And it’s still all like that and not too much has changed.”