The Boy Is Confused Alright

I don't normally take the opportunity to go after someone who innocently and openly exposes their own stupidity by saying to them, "Yeah, you're stupid." But this lump of liberal guilt by John K. Nelson, an art director at the Commercial Appeal, just begs closer examination.

The short version is that Nelson got car-jacked downtown after a Grizzlies game. He behaved like a fool. But in telling the tale, we see some ugly things. Not in Memphis, mind you, but in Nelson.

We had witnessed a feel-good Grizzlies victory on the holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Special programs saluted King....

Ummm, yeah. Some sports team wins a victory in the town that assassinated King. I'm following this. Would any of the black-on-black crime that day counterbalance the karma, or is that harshing on the feel-good-itude?

I find myself mostly alone on Beale as I approach Lauderdale Street, where I'd parked my 1993 Toyota Camry. Two young African-American men walk toward me. I move to one side of the sidewalk to let them pass, but they stay on either side, forcing me to walk between them.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" one says. I hesitate, wondering whether this is a good idea, but then decide: Sure -- why not?

And here we go. Rule One of walking the streets of Memphis, from a sixteen year veteran, is that you DO NOT STOP when random strangers try to talk to you. Keep walking, don't look, don't react. If they call again, keep moving but over your shoulder make some lame excuse to keep moving. DO NOT STOP, because once you do you've been hooked. That's all street-types want: that hook that bonds you momentarily so they can start to exploit you. Never let yourself get hooked.

Keep moving, preferably looking purposeful as you do. If you stop, you'll get triangulated, as John was. Remember, he was alone, at night, downtown in an unfamiliar city. Stopping was just dumb.

Don't give in to pleas or insults. Sure, you're likely to begin to feel guilt, which is exactly what street predators are hoping. Is this harsh? Yes. Because the alternative is what you're about to read.

"We're not from here. We got dropped off and need to get back to the place we're staying at Cleveland and Poplar. You know where that is?"

I say that I do.

"We'll pay you anything -- we just want to get back. It's cold."

I think about it for a second, then say, "Yeah, OK. I'll give you a ride."

"How much you gonna charge?" the talkative one says as he settles into the seat next to me.

"It's OK. I'm going right by there," I respond, fresh from the MLK lovefest.

Residents of Memphis know there is no "place to stay" near Poplar and Cleveland. But letting total strangers into your car? That's just fatally stupid. But I begin to catch the familiar whiff here. He was "fresh from the MLK lovefest" he writes. Why do I suddenly suspect this guy is a liberal? And his motivation was not his own safety, common sense or charity but redressing decades of white exploitation of the black man?

But mostly this guy was terminally stupid. He let two complete strangers into his car.

I never get an answer. Just as we pass the statue of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, Smiley's friend sticks a gun barrel to the back of my neck and tells me to turn into a well-worn residential area south of Union.

Again, an interesting thing to notice in this moment that I suspect tells us a bit about Nelson. And he makes sure to fully identify Forrest, even though the statue was commissioned after the Confederacy fell, for a lifetime of service of which his stint in the Confederate Army was a part. And there are other landmarks right next to that intersection....

During the next couple of minutes, I'm instructed to take a left, then a right, then told to stop midblock in a neighborhood of rundown houses. Smiley, his friend and I get out on the empty street and for the first time I see the gun, shining in the dim light from a nearby streetlamp.

Suddenly, it occurs to me that I could die. All through the experience, I had been oddly calm. Fear now grips me.

Up to this point, he could have just been a white guy misinterpreting some part of black culture he wasn't aware of. But the gun is what tips him off. Liberal much?

Irrationally, I'm happy that they both think well of me.

Oh yeah.

In the back of the cruiser the police are businesslike, but I can tell they wonder who in his right mind would give a stranger a ride home after meeting on a dark street at 10 p.m.

"Just tell us the truth," one officer finally says. "Were you buying drugs? Be straight with us. We don't care."

Be glad they didn't think you were trolling for sex! Pay attention, John, as the police just passed along an important lesson.

"I'm telling you the truth," I say, then for some reason add: "I work at The Commercial Appeal."

Some reason? Let me offer some: You thought it conferred special immmunity. You thought it conferred special status. You thought it might earn some special treatment from the cops. It sure earned some special treatment from your employer! They now have a large $1000 reward notice on page B4 of your paper. I wonder how many other carjacking victims got the same treatment from the paper?

"Where are you from?" one officer asks. "Are you from Memphis?" I sense he knows the answer from my Northern accent.

I tell him I've lived here a year, then try to explain again why I gave two strangers a ride home on a cold night.

I talk about the Grizzlies game and offer: "I was just trying to do a good deed for my fellow man. You know -- M.L. King?"

Almost as soon as the words are out, I realize how stupid I sound.

A YEAR!?!?!? And he hasn't heard the stories and the warnings yet? Doesn't he watch the news or read his own paper?

You are stupid, John. Martin Luther King wasn't about "doing a good deed." He was about applying the law of the land equally to all. Only in the mind of some liberal types does giving a couple of strangers a lift on a cold night equate to racial justice. White guilt almost got you killed.

And that's what I'm left with during a mostly sleepless night: The feeling that I'm hopelessly naive, that I was the one who was wrong.

Wrong? No. The criminals were wrong. You were stupid. Thinking you were in the wrong is just another version of white guilt you need to expunge.

What kind of self-defense do you know? What kind of security do you carry on you? What's your plan for situations like this? Does your car have low-jack? You need to take a long, hard look at yourself and make some changes.

A bigger concern is what long-term scars might remain from my brush with crime. I moved to Memphis partly because I wanted to live in a city of ethnic diversity. Will I now become jaded, unwilling to offer help to someone, black or white, who needs a favor? No disrespect to Memphians intended, but is that what it means to be a longtime resident of this city?

I wish you'd identified where you're from. Up North, but somewhere that's not got a lot of "ethnic diversity?" Small town. Indiana or south Illinois? Wisconsin/Minnesota/Michigan? Vermont/New Hampshire?

It's not a race issue; it's a crime issue. All this crap about "jaded, unwilling?" One question: did you lock your SUV before you left it? Why? Did it not occur to you that these two men might be the very criminals you locked the car against? Have you not heard the endless discussion in this city about crime? Or did you believe yourself immune from it for some reason? Wanna take a look at that reason? You're the one noting the skin color of the criminals, and not just seeing them as lawless opportunists.

You came to Memphis expecting some kind of racial education, some kind of funkification of your ignorant white ass. You need to get out of your white comfort zone and meet some of the real, black Memphis. You're in for a whole lot of embarrassment and surprise, let me tell you. You're gonna get your head ripped off and your throat shat down, but the good news is that you can put your head back on straighter.

Your problem that night was your racial problem. Deal with it. Crime isn't a race issue. Then you can start to address your lack of common sense. Self-protection isn't an admission of a failure of social dreams; it's a declaration of responsiblility. Become a man.

I know a random carjacking doesn't negate all that is good about Memphis. But something was taken from me on that inner-city street that is worth far more than $100 in cash and a '93 Camry.

It's called a false sense of security and immunity. It's good that it's gone now, as you're more likely to survive your next year.

All this race talk is you making an issue of skin color. You. Blow all the warm woolies out of your brain and learn to live in the city your ass is in. It's not black and white; it's not rose colored. It's Memphis.

MONDAY MORNING UPDATE Abby, the Lady Cutie Troublemaker herself, offers some observations based on her own experience.