Danger!

I don’t know that I have experienced the feeling of real danger, short of a few instances. It is interesting that I sat here, (10F) in my window seat, flying home trying to remember when I have felt danger and I came up, at first, with nothing. Then slowly, maybe even as if in competition with my own memory, I remember that time I awoke to drunk men banging on my motel door yelling things at me referencing a speech I had given earlier that evening. That memory got interrupted by multiple sexual assault experiences, a couple of car wrecks, and some bad decisions I made while driving. When I asked myself to recall feeling a sense of danger, it was like I alphabetically had to get through all the As, Bs, Cs, to the Ds and then – boom, multiple examples in reverse chronological order appeared – then a few more that I had forgotten to remember.

Perhaps I had filed these experiences away once I no longer felt endangered or perhaps there are levels of danger one can experience and if a higher level, maybe those survivors would never forget – as if the dangerous feelings are on instant recall.

I don’t believe I have ever made anyone else feel a sense of danger, unless maybe they were a passenger in my car. One memory is driving while in high school on a two-lane highway with my closest friends and I tried to pass on the left. I wasn’t being let back in on the right and ended up driving off the shoulder of the wrong way on the highway until I could get past the cars both coming at me and going in the direction I was traveling. I made a scary choice. When I got back into my lane, I remember starting to breathe again and seeing my friends faces in the mirror and next to me. I saw their sense of danger. To this day I don’t pass on the left.

I can recall dangerous situations I have survived, but only this one instance where I caused feelings of danger.

This comes up for me when I think about the fear some folks face every day to be seen by others, leave their sense of safety – if they even have such a place. What kind of history does someone have to survive to carry a sense of danger with them – always.

(WARNING – Don’t watch this video if you aren’t good with danger)

In the video, a young Gazelle (I don’t know the animal, but deer like creature) goes out into deep water. An elder, perhaps parent, comes running/wading out to the younger animal. They are rushed by a crocodile (maybe an alligator, didn’t get a look at the jaw line) that takes the elder down its is jaws underwater.

Who is in danger? Who is causing a sense of danger?

I want to take a moment for us all, me included, to breathe and notice, that sure we can’t know for sure, and yet, we can respond to an instinct narrative, or an innocence narrative, or even a parental sacrificial narrative, shows that we can write complicated stories from multiple perspectives.

Reptile – could be starving or have a family to feed or even just be being itself and need to eat.

Elder Mammal – could be clueless of danger and just be out frolicking, or notices and wants to warn or protect the other younger mammal or maybe is a bully and wanted to fight the younger.

Younger Mammal – could be a risk taker, suicidal, na?ve and innocent, or protecting others by being a distraction.

All are possible.

It is more probable that the younger wasn’t planning on being eaten or luring the parent out into danger due to some unmedicated Oedipus Complex. The elder may have been putting up a warning, or trying to protect the younger, and yes, may have sacrificed themself. It is also probable that the crocodile did its job and went undetected until it was too late for the elder.

There is a danger that exists between what is possible and what is probable.

Unconscious bias makes the crocodile a predator without needs or a family to protect just as much as it makes the fur baby innocent and the mother self-sacrificing. We make this up without even knowing it, and this made up story registers as fact due to unconscious bias.

Getting conscious of our positive and negative bias is our responsibility, and I claim, is dangerous for us to ignore. What if the crocodile is rushing out to protect its younger off spring out of the view of the camera from something else we can’t see?

I bring this moment of reflecting on danger because we need to take responsibly for when we cause a sense of danger in others as much as when others we experience feel a sense of danger that we don’t. It doesn’t have to be real for us to be valid for someone else.

With that set up – I want to ask you for another space of danger.

Most of the viral videos of black men (and a few women and even children) being killed by police cause pain and reinstall a feeling of danger. The NRA needs this sense of danger to sell guns to the same people that typically already own a gun. Folks of color, don’t even have to have a gun and get killed. Philandro Castile followed police directions and was a card-carrying gun owner and was still killed. White men (and some women and maybe children) can disobey police instruction and not be killed. They can even be brandishing weapons and not be killed. They can even kill and not be killed.

Stop. Yes, there are exceptions. Yes, this may or may not be a familiar experience for you. Yes, this is valid, none the less.

I know, perhaps instinctually, that I could walk down the street holding a shower head, my cell phone, groceries, skittles, or even empty handed and I would NEVER feel in danger of being killed. Yes, I could be killed, but I wouldn’t think about it.

Please just notice the sense of danger (or lack there of) that you may or may not have felt when reflecting on a crocodile, gazelle, police officers, pedestrians. All deserve the space to share their full story. All could have elements “outside of camera view.”

Please consider the danger you cause, instill in others, and/or remind others of daily. Please consider when you feel or don’t feel a sense of danger. Please hold space for those, unlike me, that awake with a sense of danger – a sense of innocence – a sense of entitlement to be na?ve.

__________________________________________________________

Sign up for my newsletter for many more fascinating items! Click HERE to sign up! Plus you will get some very cool stuff! Would you like to book Jessica as your Key Note Speaker or M.C.? Please click HERE for more information.

As she travels around the country, you can catch up with Jessica on:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/goodenoughnow/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/pettittjess

LinkedIn: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/goodenoughnow

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jesspettitt