The sniper trials have begun, with a bang one might suggest, and John Allen Muhammad, the elder of the two suspects, pleads not guilty. Remember how scary that whole thing was? The news channels were once again firing up the constant coverage as well as the crawl underneath, usually repeating the information just given to the public by the correspondent, or some poll insisting that most people in the Northeast were staying in, ordering food, putting up shields at their gas stations and that movie rentals were at an all time high. There were rumors that the sniper was headed west, the speculations of how it might affect us if it were to happen, what protective measures we should be taking, whether or not this was an Al-Quaeda sleeper cell. As with all the sensationalized stories in the press in the last few years, there were many red herrings, the white van, the guy that said “They went thataway.” and then turned out to be lying, the too close for comfort coincidence that most of the shootings happened at shopping malls that featured a Michael’s, the chain of art supply stores that Muhammad’s estranged wife would often visit, as she made crafts in between their stormy battles, presumably to ease the pain of their marriage. I wonder if she made God’s Eyes, or cabins made from popsicle sticks, or perhaps glittered a picture frame or two. There are a million possibilities in every Michael’s, the aisles littered with the makings of a bunch of shit that you will have hanging around your house or other people’s houses, as you are ‘generous’ and give the stuff you make as gifts, until the end of time, because no one has the heart to throw away a craft, no matter how stupid it is. Nor does anyone want to rid themselves of craft supplies, because God only knows when you are going to get the craft jones and need a wooden dowel to saw into 2-inch segments. Whenever I am in a Michael’s, I am one votive candle away from shooting somebody myself. I do not find crafts amusing, although I am guilty of the crime of making them, having the arsenal of metallic ink pens, Exacto knives, Mod Podge, paper from Japan and Thailand, picture corners, miniature photo albums – tempura paint – seriously, not even kidding. I am such a hypocrite.
There was the vague Zodiac killer connect with the Tarot card of ‘Death’ which was left behind at one of the shootings, as well as a few taunting and arrogant notes to the police. The tarot card in question is almost never about literal death, nor is it necessarily a bad card when it comes up in a reading. The appearance of the card is likely to herald a transformation, a kind of time death, or death of a situation, which leads into a new life. That is when I started thinking that the sniper was not into Wicca, for he would have known that, but people see a skeleton and they jump to conclusions. I also, for whatever reason, truly and honestly believed that the sniper was white, a sort of Michael Douglas type from the film ‘Falling Down’, a man who had just had it up to HERE (motioning to black plastic eyeglass level) and just wasn’t going to take it anymore. My own unintentional racial profiling brought this image to my mind, no matter what evidence that would prove otherwise – like in that the one account of an eyewitness who said it was a dark-skinned man.
It was to me a clear cut Tim Mcveigh/Unabomber crime spree, so Luby’s style in nature, an aftershock for Columbine, because I am so used to white men being pissed off and killing a bunch of people. There is my racism, right there. I am a racist, because I am under the influence of popular culture, but from a liberal stance, so that I am willing to blame symbolic images of the status quo so readily and without investigation because I fear and despise racism so much. I become racist because I fear that I am a racist. Isn’t that stupid? The race issue also came into play with the way that the entire investigation was handled. The head of the investigations saw constant criticism from the opinionated ex-police chiefs of many of the counties affected by the shootings. All the news channels brought out the dusty, old blue line to say in their own words how ineffective the search for the snipers was, how bad they thought the manhunt was being conducted, how impossible their capture was going to be – practically calling out every step of the way, that Moose would never get his man. Underneath all of this, these ex- cops were all white, while Moose is black, and although it was never said, they might as well have said he wasn’t up to the job because of his race.
It isn’t the big hate crimes that get to me as much as the tiny ones committed every day by all of us that make me sad about the state of race relations in this country. Subtlety is what is taking us down, not the KKK or the Neo-Nazis or any other racially extremist group. It is the racism that lies beneath what we are thinking, what regulates our actions, the tiny things that pass through the brain unedited, unintended. It is the scary proposition of looking at yourself, and realizing that you too might be a racist. I see it in me, and in that, I am on full red alert. I have let the monster in, and I didn’t know he was there, by my bed, licking my hand all night.