The premise is this: On the island of Berk, Vikings live
under constant threat of dragon raids. They’ve spent generations learning dragon
ways so they could resist and defeat them, and there’s no higher mark of honor
than to have killed a dragon in the public square. Hiccup, resident klutz and
the most un-Viking of Vikings, is also the unfortunate son of Stoik, the
village hero and head honcho. They don’t understand each other and rarely see
eye-to-eye on anything, except that they both wish Hiccup could be a brawny
dragon-killer, like every other male (and several females) in town. Hiccup gets
an opportunity to win the villagers’ and his father’s respect by accidentally killing
a rare dragon during a night raid. This gives him enough street cred for his
father to agree to let him go to dragon-killing school, while unbeknownst to
the entire village, Hiccup hasn’t killed the dragon. Instead he takes the
opportunity to study the wounded creature, who he names Toothless, gaining his
trust and discovering that dragon and human have more in common than he’d been
taught to believe. An unlikely friendship is formed. (I should write for IMDB,
seriously…)
One night, after school is over, Hiccup goes to the library
to review a…dragon killing handbook, for lack of a better description. In it is
outlined everything the Vikings have managed to learn about dragons—the
different types, their anatomy and physiology, their strengths and weaknesses, their
motivations, etc. By now, Hiccup and Toothless are friends and have learned a
lot about each other and you can see how his personal relationship with this
specific dragon makes reading this book an eye-opening and uncomfortable
experience for him. While reading a general description of dragons, he comes
across the phrase, “A dragon will always
go for the kill.” That sentence was the basis for the Viking School’s “kill, or
be killed” mantra. Hiccup has a flashback to his new friend; to the moment when
Toothless lay vulnerable in the woods—bound, injured, and unable to defend
himself against whatever Hiccup chose to do to him. Hiccup’s empathy for the
defenseless creature won’t let him kill him. Instead, he cuts him free. While
Hiccup is freeing him, Toothless’ face registers surprise and cunning, seeing
his opportunity to kill the idiot human cutting the ropes that tie him. Once free,
he lashes out at Hiccup, pinning him to a rock. Their eyes meet, and they
finally see each other. They both
realize that neither human nor dragon instinct is to kill, but simply to defend
against attack. In the other’s eyes, they see no harm, so they can safely put
down their defenses and walk away. Back in the school library, Hiccup says,
“We’re wrong. Everything we thought we knew about them is wrong.”
I won’t tell you how it all works out, just in case you
haven’t seen it and want to, but Hiccup’s revelation in the library really
resonated with me, especially in light of what’s been happening in my city this
week. I live in St. Louis, and right now, we’re in the national spot light for
events that have unfolded over the last 6 days.
On August 9, in the village of Ferguson, Michael Brown, an
18 year old African American male, was shot multiple times by a police officer during
an altercation and died on the scene. In the aftermath of the incident,
protesters were incited to riot, setting fire to businesses, destroying
property, and looting. It’s all we hear about on the radio, it’s all we see on
the news and in print media, and it’s pretty much all anybody is talking about
around the water cooler.
Reports of how it all happened are conflicting—some say
Brown was walking in the middle of the street with a friend, when a twitchy cop
insulted him and demanded that he get the f@** on the sidewalk, and grabbed him
by the throat. Brown objected to the offense, the cop shot him once, and Brown
ran away. The officer gave chase and though Brown stopped and put his hands up,
the officer opened fire, shooting him multiple times. Others say Brown was up
to no good and was belligerent with the cop when he tried to detain him. He tried
to push the officer back into his vehicle and was shot once. He then ran away. When
the officer gave chase, Brown reached for the officer’s weapon (clearly intent
on harm), and was killed in the struggle over the side arm. The officer acted
in self-defense, or the gun was passively discharged in the scuffle—an accidental
death from an unfortunate series of bad choices on the part of Brown.
No one disputes that Brown was unarmed. No one disputes that
after the shooting, his body was left in the middle of the street for hours,
while local law enforcement secured the scene and attempted to control the
crowd that gathered. No one disputes the racial tensions in the area, or the
bad blood between local law enforcement and the city’s poorer, black
contingent. No one disputes that this story is a familiar one, with the
majority of Blacks, if not directly affected, “knowing a guy who knows a guy,”
who had the very same thing happen to them. No one disputes that most of the
damage done over these last 6 days in Ferguson (hell, over the last 300 years
in our country) has been done to innocent people. It'll be a while before the real story comes out, and even then, it may never be the whole truth, but where we are now is what counts. On both sides of the fence, basic
human dignity has been violated, and people are done.
Since Saturday, I’ve seen things that break my heart. A mother grieving the tragic loss of her son, because a mother's love doesn't ask whether or not a child deserved what he had coming to him. The Quik Trip at Ground Zero burning to the ground, the owners
guilty of nothing more than running a business where something tragic happened.
Looters slipping through broken windows with items they did not buy, stolen from
people who did nothing to deserve the violation. Tear gas being fired into
crowds of protestors whose intentions were not to incite riots or to impede traffic,
but to speak loudly enough, finally, finally
to be heard. Every day, I’ve read posts on social media from friends,
family, and concerned citizens, full of sadness, confusion, and fear for our
future. Crowds of peaceful protestors and people praying that the madness would
stop, questions be answered, and justice served. People keep asking, “What went
wrong?” Whose fault is it? What insidious system
is to blame and how can we shut it down so this doesn’t happen again?
I say, none of that matters. All that matters is that people
are involved. We must start seeing each other as more the same than we are
different; each person at his core a divine creation, worthy of dignity, respect
and a voice. With our strained racial history, that won’t happen until we're willing to undo
everything we thought we knew about the others that we fear. It won’t change until
we can look into our enemies’ eyes and see ourselves—that we’re more
alike than we are different—to consider that everything you thought you
knew about them might be wrong.
For that to happen, we must break through the barriers of
fear, distrust, anger, and the bad decisions that are fueled by those feelings,
and appeal to each other’s humanity. When a person’s God-given dignity is
violated, don’t say, “Why are you mad at me? It wasn’t my fault.” Don’t say, “Well,
you/he obviously deserved it and here’s why.” Don’t say, “You’re expressing
your feelings about it the wrong way.”
Just say, I’m so very
sorry. Tell me how that makes you
feel. What can I do to help?
Let’s see what happens when we do that, can we?
*******
I’ve started to see some encouraging reports from Ferguson of people
reaching out to each other and successfully bridging the gaps between
them and it makes my heart glad. I, for one, can use some more of that type of
news! If you have an anecdote, a news article link, etc to share that shows
the people of St. Louis putting their best sides forward, please leave it in the comments below.
I need some hopeful late-night reading.
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