The Atlantic - Latest Comments in A Little More On Prince Jones

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

Kathleen Fallon — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:42:04 -0000

"Coping with stuff like 9/11 or the loss of friend to a sociopath with a badge is not going to be the same for everyone."

The problem with this sentence, at least for me, is that this cop was not necessarily a sociopath.

Just like every rapist is not a sociopath. Just power hungry and full of hate.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

rikyrah — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:24:33 -0000

This was very heartfelt and touching, Coates. The loss of your friend is one of those things that just can shake a foundation. Police brutality and the murder of innocent Black folks with no repercussions is what tears at the fabric of the belief system in this country. It's why I'm naturally cynical, and want to be hopeful. There is no 6 degrees of separation for most Black person and an injustice that they know by Law Enforcement of someone Black that they know. If you can make it 3 degrees, I congratulate you.

How you related it to 9/11 was real and honest. And, that's ok.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

sporcupine — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:46:43 -0000

Eight months after 9/11, we had a Saturday parade honoring the armed forces that included a military fly-over. I awoke to the sound of planes overhead (rare in our small town) and after a while casually went over to a window for a look.

The body of that behemoth was wider than my house, with wings stretching over two sets of neighbors on either side. The window I was leaning on shook.

I shook, too. I sobbed, I yowled, I wept, and I knew it was the first real emotional reaction I'd had since the Towers went down.

That April reaction had three parts. First, empathy for other mothers who hear planes that big and know they're bringing war. I thought of Afghan moms and Pakistani moms and Iraqi moms. Second, profound gratitude that I wasn't in their place, and that the big planes fly to protect me and mine. Finally, an effort to feel bad about being glad to have the power--which failed completely.

Looking back, I think that from the minute my husband called to tell me both towers had been hit, my brain was trying to work at all those levels, plus sorrow and fear plus hunting for ways to understand. All those conflicting elements netted out to very little external response.

TNC, I find it impossible to imagine you responding simply to a loss as loaded as the one you've shared, and easy to imagine a response so deep that those around you wondered if it had happened at all.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

Hugo Pottisch — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:25:38 -0000

Hamlet was in doubt about something. He was not.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

Nate — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:56:15 -0000

The young man's name was Ronnie White, and he was killed on June 29, 2008. There's an article on CNN.com from a few days later here. What's appalling is that as far as I am aware to this day no one has been charged or disciplined in any way over this death.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

metricpenny — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:15:29 -0000

I want to thank you for sharing your thoughts on this subject and to let you know that I think your prose is just beautiful.

I think your way of reacting to tragic events is probably part genetic and part conditioning.

Since the time I was a young adult I've had the delayed reaction response to tradegies, especially when it comes to dealing with death. After losing my father at 13, my 4 grandparents before 17 and four uncles (my father had 12 siblings) before 21, I stopped experiencing immediate grief when learning of the loss of a life. It takes about a week before it hits me.

I'm saddened that it appears Americans have become conditioned to shrugging our shoulders anytime law enforcement unjustifiably kills or harms one of us. I'm outraged that the victims are usually Americans of color.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

farmgirl — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:10:51 -0000

TNC -- let me add my thanks for writing this. It's searingly honest and I'm honored you would share it with us.

Let me also join the no-shame chorus, for the reasons stated above. And another: I also did not participate in the public mourning after 9/11, but as it happens I don't find those types of exercises to be of value for myself. For many, it's an authentic reaction, but it generally isn't for me, and in this case, it wasn't for you. I hope you can find some peace with yourself about this.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

TW Andrews — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:54:31 -0000

There's some truth to that, but we started 2 wars in our anger. Effective or not, we were able to vent our rage. As TNC points out, there were no repercussions for the cop that killed Prince, which makes it all the more galling.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

TW Andrews — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:52:05 -0000

I don't think there's any shame in not knowing how to cope with tragedy--either that of your friend or 9/11. There's no right way to deal with these sorts of things.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

Bucky Mullet — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:49:08 -0000

I hadn't thought about that day in a couple years. Prince was a high school classmate of mine, living across the hall from me in our dorm. (It was a Math & Science magnet school (TAMS), the guy was pretty smart) . Prince's murder made me a basket case for over a week, and reading about it again has brought tears. He was truly a kind and wonderful soul and the world is poorer to have lost him.

While I had always know that institutional racism existed, it really let me know the scale and randomness of the injustice. Many privileged people think that it has declined to the point of not being measurable, but it will always be there.

I went to church for the first time in years the Sunday after hearing about Prince's death. Apparently the Church was low on money so they handed the collection plate around multiple times. I can't say that it helped.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

Ricky Bobby — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:26:24 -0000

Great post, very important. Coping with stuff like 9/11 or the loss of friend to a sociopath with a badge is not going to be the same for everyone. Just hearing different reactions makes us realize that our own authentic ways of processing grief are just as legit as anyone else's.

As long as you keep writing from the heart I'll keep reading.

Ditto on the 9/11 attacks. I didn't have the same reaction as anyone I know. I have been watching bombings and terror strikes on the news for years and they all touched me deeply. I can't imagine what it would be like to go to the store with your kids and have someone rush in loaded with dynamite and try to kill everyone. I've thought about that for decades now.

When 9/11 came along it wasn't anything out of the ordinary for me (in a manner of speaking). I had already processed that shock, anger, and fear, and sort of learned that that was just the way the world worked. Maybe everyone else is naive. Maybe I'm just a fatalist, but I was able to see it in a bigger scope and 9/11 wasn't a life-changer for me.

And yeah, I got plenty of shit for not being sensitive to all the hand-wringers. Still do.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

deva — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:38:19 -0000

Aetheism insists on literalism, and spirituality insists on the validity of storytelling and myth, as a means to understand what is always a non-objective reality.

A beautiful point. That is amusingly missed by Brain below. Spiritualists are not the same as "religionists," as you put it, who share with (most) atheists an insistence on viewing the non-objective aspects of the world as objective, the emotional as moral, the complexity as a clash of swords. "Religionists" view these things as objective according to their particular (worthy) mythos and atheists to (worthy) physical sciences. Nevermind that there need not be a hard separation between these things and the insistence on creating a dichotomy, whether from believers or non believers always struck me as the same kind of fundamentalism.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

catherine — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:34:21 -0000

There's a great project out in Oakland called Youth Radio that collects citizen media from local teens. They've produced a few really interesting pieces in the recent police shootings there; a lot of what they had to say reminded me of your reflections on prison reform. Here are a couple of the videos posted the site that introduced me to the project:

http://el-oso.net/blog/archives/2009/03/25/whether-their-intentions-are-noble-or-not/

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

deva — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:26:01 -0000

Thank you for sharing this story.

I would say though, that there's no "right" way to handle grief. We work through it, the way we have to work through it.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

dicooper — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:16:17 -0000

Prince was a classmate, a friend, and a brother. I still think of him often and wish for better prospects of justice.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

Incertus(Brian) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:00:02 -0000

Aetheism insists on literalism, and spirituality insists on the validity of storytelling and myth, as a means to understand what is always a non-objective reality.

I'm not going to thread jack much, but I do have to disagree with this premise a bit. You've got it backward--atheists recognize the power and validity of storytelling and myth because we recognize it as storytelling and myth. It's the religionists who insist that their stories and myths represent literal reality--and it's all a matter of degree. Young earth creationists are more extreme than your average Episcopalian (no offense intended to the latter), but there's still an assumption on some level that the myth is literal fact.

The atheists I know--and of whose number I count myself--are strong believers in the notion that we learn about and understand the world through our stories, and personally, I think religious belief is the most successful type of story ever created. Look at the effect it's had on the world. Religion is a mega-meme. But we also recognize its limitations--you can learn a lot about human nature by looking at myths, but you won't understand much about physics or biology that way.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

Gully — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:57:01 -0000

Just as an aside atheism does not mean non-spiritual. As an example Buddhism is atheistic.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

Breukelyne — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:25:25 -0000

Ta-Nehisi, I think that spirituality is about believing in language and stories. Our reptilians brains have a need for story-telling, for survival purposes. In this sense, religion actually has a purpose.

I think where aetheism and spirituality part ways is over literalism. Aetheism insists on literalism, and spirituality insists on the validity of storytelling and myth, as a means to understand what is always a non-objective reality.

I say this just because you are obviously a storyteller and lover of words. And a believer in their ability to tell some sort of truth. Not that you are not at heart also an aetheist, but something to consider.

And I'm sorry about your friend. Loss is never ever easy or predictable.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

Gramsci — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:17:28 -0000

I remember Cornel West talking about 9/11 as a kind of "n$*&erization" of America-- in other words, Americans got to feel what it was like to suffer devastating violence seemingly without reason or sufficient justification. They got a little taste of the lynching/race riot experience. And it sure brought out some interesting character traits in various pundits, writers, etc. didn't it? A lot of sadness, a great deal of insane rage, general disorientation ("What is going on?"), a willingness to throw overboard previous pieties and/or "values" for the sake of vengeance, safety, etc.. You think about what these people would do not to have their child be a "cost of doing business" with al-Qaeda, and then think about how harshly some of them judge TNC and others for not trusting the Prince County police. How many of them would blame Prince Jones? Very instructive, very instructive indeed...

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

leonardhatred — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:07:30 -0000

I remember what happened to Prince Jones. That was my freshman year at Howard, and I remember how it galvanized the campus.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

Jeff Hess — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:59:52 -0000

Shalom Ta-Nehisi,

We all cope the way we cope.

It really is that simple.

B'shalom,

Jeff

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

ProudBison — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:54:11 -0000

While reading this post I couldn't help but hear Talib Kweli's "The Proud" in my mind. I don't think it's unusual for people who have faced repeated injustice to be less than empathetic when tragedy befalls the very ones who turned a blind eye to their daily tragedies. In the case of 9/11, it's not that you don't empathize with the individual victims, but the nation as a whole who generally turn a blind eye to the daily injustices, such as murders at the hands of the boys in blue. I'm not saying it's right but it is understandable.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

Stacy — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:49:58 -0000

You got a link for that story, or names involved so I can google it?

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

Dan Fox — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:49:16 -0000

Incredible stuff TNC. I'm so glad I found this blog. You're a hell of a brave writer.

Re: A Little More On Prince Jones

Carrington — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:34:12 -0000

Interesting read of Hamlet... one of those passages that had died the death of over-repetition.