Too Much to Ask

A hat-trick.?

The word found its way into my speech, as words often do, through first-language acquisition. First, by speech perception followed by speech production, which is all to say, in my life I heard the word used, seemed to understand what it meant by appreciating context, and I began using it. But I did not know where it came from. It could have been a gambling term, derived from some game of chance on a card table in Manhattan or something from an old Hollywood film; the word hat was in it, after all. It was neither derived from a game of three-card Monty nor was it from a Hollywood film involving someone like Fred Astaire. It is a term that was derived from the sport of cricket, where hitting the ball through three wickets in a row is called a hat-trick. So, contrary to what my husband thought, it did not originate in baseball or hockey, but in the precursor to America’s favorite pastime.?

Who knew? Now you do.?

About mid-afternoon on Thursday, I felt overwhelmed. I was and I still am struggling with extreme opposites (though that dampened a bit Friday evening; more on that in a minute).?I am a news junkie. I admit it. The addiction doesn’t bother me, and I don’t expect that an intervention as described by John Mulaney on SNL Saturday night will be necessary.?There are far worse things one could be tethered to, and it means I am informed. But, friends, may I share with you that this week’s news left me feeling like I was on a seesaw??

Seesaw, too, has an interesting origin.?

A seesaw, as an object, is believed to have originated in the 17th century in Korea, where girls would use it to see outside of the confines of their courtyards. Seesaw is one of those words that labels me as a New Englander, as most of the United States call it a teeter-totter.?And, apparently, around 2000, after Y2K was averted, these devices that were a staple of the school yards of my youth were removed in most places for being too dangerous. Thus, a seesaw is a “tell” identifying my geography of origin. My geography of choice is Los Angeles, largely a city of transplants.?Once you arrive here and settle, you become an Angeleno, and you are “from” Los Angeles, when asked. It is never questioned. Not only because of custom, but this lack of doubt is because of my ability to take on accents of my locale, meaning that my old voicemail message sounds nothing like the nondescript accent of most of native-born Californians.?But for a few words here and there the Boston comes out of me, you’d never know.?Seesaw identifies not only my geography of origin. It is also going to be a sore reminder of time marching on. Like rings on a tree trunk, it will be a word that identifies my age, which I am fighting like the dickens–this Angeleno will not go gently into that goodnight. No, use of the seesaw will fade out of use at some point, as the college kids of today probably haven’t used one.?

That is a depressing thought.?

It is just as depressing as when I chat with friends on Facebook (Meta, whatever) about critical events of our lives that many young people know next to nothing about or have learned about through TV movies and news casts. The two anniversaries that whack me in the face year to year: January 28 and September 11. These two dates are seared in my memory.??

On January 28, 1986, as a fifth grader, I watched the Space Shuttle Challenger explode over Cape Canaveral, killing all aboard, including the first teacher in space, a young Ms. Christa McAuliffe who was a resident of New Hampshire, where I lived.

I would later become a McNair Fellow (what is now referred to as a McNair Scholar), a program for which I credit for everything that I accomplished after achieving that incredible honor.?Again, the dyad of opposites–the death of Ronald McNair, an extraordinary human, Challenger Mission Specialist, and his colleagues, would lead me down a path of achievement. My first visit to Arlington National Cemetery in graduate school was a moment of overwhelm. I was lost–but when I looked to my right, there it was–the Challenger Memorial. I certainly was not out of place, but the tears flowed steadily, and I stayed there for quite a while.?

Many years after that tragedy, I would study the Challenger Disaster as part of my second doctoral program. She had popped into my life again. That ill-fated ship - It wasn't just about O-rings, kids. The events leading to that tragedy were a case study of bad leadership and organizational dysfunction that led to the worst outcome: death.

On September 11, 2001, I was in law school–and the hijacking of those planes into buildings I knew well and the aftermath that followed changed all our lives, but, for me, it imprinted vulnerability. Both events leave me with a feeling that one could do all the right things, could try to be the very best person, and have your life torn from you by someone else’s actions.?And there was simply nothing you could do about it.

Back to my overwhelm.?

On Thursday, around 2:40 pm PT, Ashley Willcott, J.D., Court TV’s afternoon anchor, announced that three former Minneapolis, Minnesota police officers were convicted of violating George Floyd’s civil rights. These three men entered the police force and swore to serve and protect, but as new officers, they stood by and did nothing to stop convicted murderer, Derek Chauvin from murdering George Floyd. I didn’t know Mr. Floyd, but I came to know him, and he figured prominently in a section of my dissertation, so we are forever linked.??

As an unexpected tear slowly made its way down my face, I randomly thought, I wish I could remove the careful references to “alleged” and the footnotes–both painstakingly included in the published text to take care to avoid bias that my committee wanted to protect against and the lawyer in me wanted to include to avoid claims of libel.?

I saw the video. We all saw the video. That horrific video.?If there was an ounce of humanity in you, it was a video that invoked a desperate feeling of wanting to jump through the screen, to scream and yell, “GET THE F--- OFF OF HIM!” “CH----! DO SOMETHING!” Watching that video the first time, I knew Chauvin murdered George Floyd and what these former officers did was criminal. I knew it - in my soul. I knew it - as a trained lawyer. But, as for the dissertation, the conventions of the medium and the discipline required that I protect Chauvin; that I protect these officers’ reputations. With all reasonable doubt removed by the decision rendered by a federal jury, after a trial affording the defendants due process that Mr. Floyd never received, before his life was ended in a violent and torturous manner, I wanted to deprive all of those, now, convicted officers, of doubt that convention and law demanded as the standard of care.??

This decision was the second time this week that the jury system worked and in a BIG way. Earlier in the week, another jury, with strength and fortitude, returned a guilty verdict against three white men, Gregory McMichael, former law enforcement and a former investigator with the District Attorney’s Office, Travis McMichael who had training in law enforcement and who had served in the U.S. Coast Guard (his association most unfortunate as I am an avid sailor and the Coast Guard is an extraordinary organization), and William “Roddie” Bryan, a neighbor of the McMichael’s. They collectively hunted and terrorized a 25-year-old Ahmad Arbury through the streets of Georgia because he was Black.

I use the term hunted and terrorized deliberately. In two vehicles, these three racist menaces pursued Mr. Arbury as self-appointed vigilantes, believing him to be responsible for the break-ins and robberies in the area. The hubris was surreal. They didn’t just hunt and terrorize him as he ran hopelessly through the streets, but they also recorded it, like they were pursuing a prize game on a safari. It was sick and depraved. As Mr. Arbury tried desperately to fight for control of the shotgun, throwing punches and giving it everything he had, Travis McMichael shot Mr. Arbury three times with a shotgun. After shooting Mr. Arbury, these three white men walked away–law enforcement just let them go. It took the release of the footage and public force, not pressure, for the case to be prosecuted.??

So, by Thursday, there had been two jury verdicts affirming civil rights, holding people accountable for the deaths of two Black men.?What an incredible week - in the United States.

Meanwhile, all the way across the ocean, approximately 6,433 miles away from me, in Ukraine, a country was being invaded by a now, alleged War Criminal, Vladimir Putin (since his invasion, he has sent a missile into a cancer hospital for children). Ukraine's citizens, instead of attacking their own capitol, were taking up arms to defend it from Russian soldiers–and these everyday citizens are determined to maintain control over their country under what is turning out to be extraordinary leadership of their President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.?Zelenskyy was an unlikely President, having not been a lifelong politician, but an actor and a comedian.?

Whatever his prior work experience, former First Lady Michelle Obama’s profound words spoken at the 2012 Democratic National Convention “[…] being President doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are” still hold true ten years later. Yes, it’s been ten years.?

Zalenskyy will not leave Ukraine, having been offered an airlift to safety. He is demanding help from the international community and doing everything he can, using every tool at his disposal (follow Ukraine on Twitter to see what I am referring to), to keep Putin from taking this sovereign nation of people, who are more aligned with the European Union that leadership allegedly wants Ukraine to join their group of nations. Zalenskyy leading with authenticity simply refuses to stand by and do nothing and will not cower to a pathetic self-loathing bully.?

Wait, we’ve seen this before–the unlikely politician. A TV personality. The self-loathing bully. But ours was a horse.... of a different kind, the unlikely very former President who the United States suffered through, a Putin loving, defeated Donald Trump. It bears reminding that the first impeachment of Donald Trump was in part based on Trump refusing military aid to Zalenskyy to pressure Zalenskyy to start investigations into now-President Joe Biden and his son Hunter and to investigate a false claim that Ukraine was responsible, not Russia, for interference in the 2016 presidential election. A man focused on his own ambitions that he threw out the pandemic playbook carefully culled from experience and knowledge, and threw us to the wolves for his own ambitions.

We now arrive at the source of my overwhelm.??

It is in the extreme opposites; the dyad created with hope on one side and travesty on the other. These incredible two decisions by two different juries to hold men accountable for taking the lives of Black men were a watershed moment juxtaposed with the horror and terror being waged on the people of Ukraine for simply living on the land that is the size of Texas because a megalomaniac wants it.??

Ukraine is dominating the news, Twitter, and other platforms. I understand it. I, again, feel powerless and had I one of those Harry Potter Magic Wands I would compel NATO to admit Ukraine into the Alliance, provisionally, so that they are not left to fight alone. It is more complicated than that. I understand. But, the alternative is also inhumane. One shouldn’t have to beg the world community for help.?Certainly, Zalenskyy has earned that chance at survival for his people. What is a gun going to do against what is alleged to be forthcoming thermobaric bombs??

But it isn’t just the extreme opposites of the joy realized by the judicial system affording justice, albeit in death, to Mr. Floyd and Mr. Arbury that is a source of overwhelm.?It is in the reality that even those achievements for Black Americans are shoved aside and are, not maliciously, overshadowed by the plight of white Europeans. The moment in the spotlight was brief.?

Thursday became Friday as rapidly as Senator Lindsey Graham seems to regain his senses in ever so brief glimpses only to disappoint you. The sense of joy that seemed to begin healing my cynicism a product of the abuse of power and privilege in the legal system was quickly extinguished.

It was bad enough that there was a war raging in Ukraine, but late Friday night I learned the outcome of a trial I had commented on for weeks on Court TV. Curtis Reeves, who, in a movie theater, shot and killed Chad Oulsen and caused serious bodily injury to his widow, Nicole Oulsen, was acquitted on all counts, based on a claim of self-defense. The Jury concluded that yes; he had killed Mr. Oulson at point-blank range and yes, Ms. Oulson, now a widow with a daughter who will be deprived of her father, was badly injured, but Reeves was justified.??

I couldn’t believe it.??

Even Reeve’s wife’s own testimony obliterated any claim of self-defense.?Sitting right next to her husband, she never heard her husband make the statements he claims he did, and she didn’t see what he claims happened - he didn't get hit.

Like a Queen who fixes her crown and carries on, my cynicism slid firmly back into place. These were jurors who had been exhausted beyond measure by a ridiculous four days of jury selection, weeks of trial with experts that were irrelevant, a meandering defense counsel giving a closing that drew objection after objection, and Defense Counsel introduced the idea that Mr. Ouslon had a prior violent history, which drew an objection and a serious sidebar. It was unconscionable and should have resulted in a mistrial. Once it was in their hands, these jurors simply wanted to go home.?And I can blame them. Jurors are critical to our system of justice and people depend on their decisions.

No one deserves to be shot in the chest at point-blank range in a movie theater because they threw popcorn. If you don’t like someone using their phone during previews, get a life and move your seat or simply be quiet and get over it. Certainly, Ms. Oulson, who had her hand on or near Mr. Oulson’s chest and almost lost her ring finger requiring bone from her wrist to be used to save it, and, in a sick twist of irony, was where her wedding band rested, didn’t present a scintilla of harm to the Defendant. As good as our jury system was this week, it simply couldn’t eke out a just result for the Oulsons.??

It seems a hat-trick was too much to ask.?

Dr. Tracy A. Pearson, J.D. is a Guest Legal Analyst on Court TV and the Executive Producer and Host of Deep Dive with Dr. Tracy.?She is an expert in accountability, organizational culture, legal issues, investigations, and implicit bias. Dr. Pearson holds two doctorates–a Doctor of Education in organizational change and leadership and a Juris Doctor. Journalists for publications such as Forbes, Fast Company, the New York Post, Fox News, Fox News Business, The Wrap, and others frequently quote her on important issues. As a researcher, she conducted the first empirical study on implicit bias in workplace investigations.?