From longtime TPM Reader BW in Baton Rouge …
Reflecting on your piece “Taking Stock,” where you said “…the pace of transgression can grow quick enough to build on itself and overmatch the force of communal and inter-communal bonds and social integument…”
Yesterday evening, I attended the “Prayer Vigil for Peace and Unity in the Community in response to the shooting death of Alton Sterling” held at an African-American church in the same part of town where the shooting took place.
Gov. Edwards spoke and commended the community for remaining peaceful during the various protests. During the 1 ½ hour service, about a dozen African American pastors, and one white priest, spoke and prayed. There weren’t as many white people in attendance as my friends and I were hoping would show up, but there were some. There was a protest after the service, which also was peaceful. But then later that night, there was a shooting near the Triple S Food Mart about the same time as the scale of the carnage in Dallas (publicly condemned by the Sterling family) was becoming clear. It felt like the world was coming apart at the seams, and that maybe the message of the prayer vigil had been for naught.
But then I saw this quote from the Yemeni-born Muslim man who owns the Triple S (“They’ve allowed me to become a part of this community, … and I wanted to stand for Alton,” Muflahi said. “We just need to stick together — no matter what race we are, no matter where we are from.”) and learned about the esteem and respect in which he is held by the largely African American neighborhood where he chose to buy a business and make his home. And that the shooting near the Triple S turned out to be unrelated to the protests, and how the crowd dispersed shortly after Sterling’s aunt arrived and spoke.
We have a shooting pretty much every day in Baton Rouge, and I don’t want to sugar-coat that. But given what the world saw on that cell phone video, our community integument seems to be holding together pretty well under the circumstances, at least so far. For how long, will tell us a lot about ourselves.
