The sounds of silence The sounds of rage. I originally composed these words around midnite. When I wrote these words out in longhand the sounds of silence enveloped and surrounded me as an old friend but they stood in glaring and stark dissonance to the sounds of shattering glass, exploding tear gas canisters and angry screams resonating thru the nite air on west Florissant avenue. As I wrote the sounds of fury did not physically encroach upon my thoughts but remained seared into my soul and my memory. My family has been in st Louis and north county for almost 160 years. My entire school career and work career has been spent here. North county is my home and my land. The blood of my family and ancestry runs deep in our soil back to 1850 with the marriage of two of my ancestors at the old st Ferdinand church which still stands as a tribute to our heritage. As many of you are aware I have tried to show the positive side of life here in north county, north city, south city and county be sharing my photos with thousands of my friends and followers on facebook. I thank my friends with the accolades of praise that I have received for my photos. I was born in 1952 and I came of age in north county in an era I almost regard as idyllic. Perhaps some of you are familiar with Goethe, a famous german poet. He wrote in one of his poems das meister[the master] about a land where the lemon trees grew. North county in the years of my coming of age was indeed the land where the lemon trees grew. It is with great sadness and heavy heart that I feel I must share my thoughts about the events in ferguson. The death of anyone caused by violence is a tragedy, especially when it is a young person who has barely started to live. Does this death reflect on the city of ferguson, is it the result of some sort of a malaise that has settled on the st Louis area, is it a legacy of slavery, a result of what the critical race theorists would decry as an example of white priviledge? Or is it a moment of history where all the destructive winds came together in a perfect storm? The protestors and other spokespersons wish to speak about the American experience as to race and wish to depict this incident as an example of institutional racism culminating in the death of an 18 year old. If you wish to look at it with this kind of a world view, you must take a broader view. You must consider the carnage of black on black homicide and a whole generation being adversely affected by a violent subculture that puts no value on human life. I am issuing no judgment on the actions of the ferguson police officer. we do not have all the facts and pre-judgeing the officer and calling him a murderer does nothing to calm an increasingly incendiary situation. While there is criticism of the authorities for releasing some of the details, there would have been more criticism if they failed to release the fragments they have released. Further violence and for that matter further protest does nothing to affect a peaceful resolution of this horrible incident. Please stay home, stay off of the streets. we do not have a perfect system, we have one composed of humans who are imperfect by their nature. however it is the only system we have and the only alternative to anarchy,. Peace be to all. David naumann.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 21:07:23 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015