This post, in my head at least, was going to be titled “Stupid White People.” But I think that isn’t being fair to all the other stupid people, so why leave anyone out?
This really happened. A few days ago some guy escaped from prison. Hundreds of miles from here. It was in the news, maybe you saw it, he supposedly jumped the guard and escaped on foot, even though he has been bound to a wheelchair for years. So, yeah, strange.
That doesn’t really concern me too much. I mean, yeah, we caught you and decided you were guilty and sent you to jail and you should have the decency to just stay there, but whatever. Maybe he didn’t like the food. I hear they only get to watch Fox and not CNN. Who knows.
Here’s what does concern me – some well intentioned person said they saw the guy here in town. And then – suddenly – there were “multiple positive identifications” of the guy riding a bike (remember the wheelchair?) here.
So, knee jerkers that we are, they called out the dogs (see the picture on the link, that’s 2 miles from my house) and they locked down the schools. Because a guy that is the subject of a manhunt might go where there are lots and lots of people instead of running and / or hiding.
An hour or so later they find the guy on the bike and he’s a long-time resident who just happens to have dark skin and be (gasp) outside on a bike and gee, those multiple positive people suddenly said ‘yeah, well, he was black and it might have been him’ and gee willikers, oops.
Only yeah, guess what? I now have a six year old that is terrified to go to sleep at night because “that man” might be outside. It doesn’t help when we tell her he’s probably in Mexico by now. Six years old isn’t old enough to be able to process this shit.
So if you see him and call the cops? You can have the reward, but I’ll be your new best friend. Forever. And we can start sleeping at night, again.
