A two-year old. Not even old enough to balance a gun or knife in his hand. Certainly not old enough to fully understand the breadth and depth of evil that was slinking into his life.
Several years ago, another two-year old was killed, allegedly at his father’s hand, over money. Not a money transaction with the child, but with the mother. Restitution became the child’s life. For what did Jerremy Galmon take a bullet? Because someone in one car had “dishonored” someone spotted in another car? Because someone was “cheating” in a relationship? Because drug money, ill-begotten and illegal to begin with, was not enough or not given fast enough?
It wasn’t race that took Jerremy down before he could truly live. It was a lack of human decency for others. Simple Human Decency. Nothing expensive. Nothing foreign. Nothing that takes a lot of education, or culture, or even time.
In New Orleans, it has become a commodity that is as rare as a black pearl. And because the people of New Orleans have lost it, Jerremy lies dead.
Are you willing to get it back? This is OUR city. It is a city of beauty, and history, and grace. It used to be a city of hospitality, not only to tourists, but to each other as well. THAT city didn’t leave because of changing demographics, or bad education, or flawed politicians. That city left because its citizens forgot how to act that way and to expect others to act that way.
Maybe Katrina caused part of it. Losing everything will make you want to get everything, and hold it, and get more, just in case. So people here developed a “me first” attitude. That wouldn’t be half bad if after the “me first” was taken care of, we looked at each other. But we don’t. We just keep piling the chips on our shoulders and staying to ourselves and washing away our guilt with stupid rationalizations.
I don’t want another child to die. I don’t want anyone to die. I want those who are incapable of having human decency locked up before that happens. But in order to do that, first we have to be able to tell who they are. If I looked at you as you drove, or shopped, or walked the streets of New Orleans, would I be able to tell that you cared about others?
Would you look me in the eye? Would you smile? Or would you push your way ahead of me to be one person closer to the cashier, or nose your car dangerously between mine and the car ahead to be one car closer to the exit?
The lack of human decency is evident in much more than a crime rate, a murder statistic. It’s evident in the way we just walk past each other, head down, shouldering our way past. And frankly, you just don’t see much decency anymore at all – not in this city at least.
Seems to me it’s something worth working on. After all, if the thugs are the only ones without it, we’ll spot them pretty easily, won’t we?
