Life teaches me all the lessons that school tried to teach me and help me understand the importance of those lessons. I imagine that this is a natural occurrence for all adults as they age. Words and phrases that made no sense to me when I initially heard them become common sense. The example I like to use to explain this to others is political science. I used to always try to get people to explain to me what this major was about and none of the explanations created an "aha" moment for me. Then I read the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. I thought to myself, this book could be a science. Like biology is the study of life, this might actually be a more important science, like how to win at life. How to win over people, how to win favor in a job interview, hell how to win an election. The study of winning elections like politics. A political science. Wait...where have I heard that phrase before.
Everything is so easy to Google now, but I refused to look this one up. As I tried to explain some stress that I was experiencing to my wife, I slowly came to the realization that this must be post traumatic stress disorder. I know that's most commonly used for soldiers after war, but I concluded that this must be the same thing. I likened my stress to how I imagined Theon Greyjoy felt in Game of Thrones. He had been tricked so many times that his belief that he could escape the torture and torment began to dissolve. The stress of the trauma he had experienced left him unable to respond to the opportunity to escape. How painful must such a thing be. To feel so hopeless and powerless.
It was a feeling that felt familiar and made the scenes incredibly difficult to watch. It was just as difficult to watch Kunte Kente break down and say that his name was Toby. After all, if he died refusing to change his name would the name even matter anymore?
As I continued to expand on my situation, I realized that I too am experiencing something similar. When I was in college, I experienced a traumatic experience every year. I was enrolled in the NROTC program with a nationwide scholarship. My freshman year, a guy pulled a knife on me and threatened to stab me. We were both brought up to a board (similar to a court trail) in our unit. I thought to myself, this must just be a process to get all of the facts of the case straight. During the board, I was asked if I had ever seen the illegal contriband (the huge knife) before. I said yes, he would show it off to everyone in the dorms, but nobody thought he was going to use it. The leaders of the unit told me that I should have reported it, though they didn't expect me to be a snitch. I thought to myself, what does that mean? Surely, this can't be a fault of mine since everyone knew about it. The problem was, everyone wasn't on trail and for some reason even though I was the victim, I was on trial. I was put on probation by the NROTC unit. The school gave me the option to present my case to fellow students or accept 300 hours of community service. I thought, I just lost my trial with NROTC, so I accepted the community service. 300 hours of community service and probation for having a knife pulled on me.
One night in my sophomore year, I woke up from a mid evening sleep to my buddy's trying to lure me out of my door room to tape me up. I fought it because I didn't know what prank they were trying to pull. When I realized what they were doing, I thought this must be the latest game. A week or so later, I saw another guy from our unit and convince some of the guys to pull the prank on him. We laughed and giggled like school girls, but he obviously didn't enjoy the game. He went into a rage fit, called his parents (who were active miltary members) and reported us with me as the main culprit. I thought to myself, but I didn't even start this game, how much trouble could I get into. I was charged this time with hazing and again put on a form of scholarship threatening probation. I guess everybody was playing the game, but I got "caught".
By my junior year, I think I was in the breaking phase. When I was told that I was being summoned to another board, I didn't even question what for. I knew that I couldn't defend myself and any reasons I provided for my actions would be viewed as excuses. Strangely, this year, I didn't even know what the charge was against me. I later found out that the charge was everything. My "advisor" pooled together every sub-par action I had ever committed as evidence that I was unfit for the program. He said that although my fitness test score was high, I was arrogantly and intentionally missing training (though I had a time conflict with my class schedule that he was aware of). He said I had an illegal brand, thought nothing in any military documentation declare the brand to be illegal. A majority of the charges were lies, but this was my third strike. In my board, I didn't try to argue, I had been here before. It felt like the 3 strike law had been implemented and I was going away for life for going 36mph in a 35mph zone.
Now when I encounter similar situations, I always feel powerless. I argue with my friend about the saying perception is reality and it's meaning. I believe that the statement means that no matter what the true is, the way the truth is perceived by the masses is what forms reality. Though in reality I didn't feel I did anything to warrant being kicked out of NROTC, as a result of the perception of the people at my board, my scholarship was dissolve and I was declare unfit to be an officer in the military. Now when I encounter similar situations, I get so stress about what action I should take that I feel a physical toll. Should I have fought harder in that last board to clear my name? Was writing all those letters to politicians after being kicked out matter? Did I have any control over the way I was perceived? What would happen if I was accused of murder instead? Watching the movie Crown Heights didn't help with that feeling. If there is so little that I can control, what do I do next?
I concluded that this paralyzing thought must be a form of post traumatic stress. Sadly, I know very few people that don't experience this on some level. I imagine that for sane (woke?) black people, this feeling is a birthright.
