"Just Leroy": article draft by Roosevelt Fitzgerald

JUST LEROY
BY ROOSEVELT FITZGERALD
"This court is now in session."
"Your honor, my client will take the stand in his own defense."
"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?" "I do."
"Mr. Jackson, tell us in your own words why you mortally wounded Billy Bob O'Rielly on the evening of January eight."
"Its a long story and I beg the court's indulgence as I speak for these few minutes in an attempt to describe the events which led up to the fatal encounter with Billy Bob O'Rielly.
When I was a young man growing up in Mississippi, it was very common to hear about, to see and to even sometimes be a victim of brutal racial attacks. Living in a small town, where everybody knew everybody, the news of such attacks reached us more swiftly than televised news today with all its advanced technology.
I was well loved by my family but I was nurtured in an environment of hatred, anger, and violence. Today, there are many people who are shocked, alarmed and surprised at the rise in criminal activity in our communities. That is especially the case, from all reports, in the urban centers. Lately, we_ have seen much in the news concerning "drive-by" killings and "freeway shootings." Many of these acts of criminal activity are associated with youth gangs and I have no reason to disbelieve them--not entirely.
I must say, however, that I am neither surprised nor shocked by such activity. I am, nonetheless, as alarmed and grieved or moreso, than many others to whom this phenomenon is new. When I was a child and where I grew up, in Mississippi, those kinds of events were commonplace. The only difference is, in those days, such terrorist activity was the private domain of white people. Those who participated in such activity, and it was not every white person, would drive through black neighborhoods shooting, beating, bombing and buring as they went.
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The entire neighborhood was constantly at risk because we never knew when the gang who called themselves the Klan would strike.
That condition was far worse than it might be today in target urban areas. There was no one that we could call for help. We could not call the police because, more often than not, they held the dual positions of being enforcers of the law and lawbreakers by their membership in the gang called the Klan. We could not even defend ourselves for fear of being arrested and charged with disturbing the peace or discharging firearms. In addition to that, any black man who attempted to defend himself or others or his family not only would be arrested and beaten but he would also suffer economic reprisal in the form of loss of job and credit if he managed to get out of jail alive.
Driving an automobile was as much a convenience back in those days as it is today, however, it was pock-marked with more than the ordinary hazzards which accompany driving which everyone risks even today. On the subject of freeway shooting, which seem to have gotten a lot of attention not too many months ago
first in California and then in other parts of the country as more of the masked
mad moved about and saw the reports on,*television news, it was invented in the
south. I heard some in this community resolve not to go to California for fear
of being shot at while driving on one of the many freeways which seem to be growing more costly by the day. I did not make any special trip there just to "show off" my bravery because I am not a brave person. I did not, however, cancel any planned trips or other business or professional trips that had to be made. Why didn't I? I'll tell you. I grew up being shot at on two-lane highways and streets of Mississippi. Every black person who had the wherewiththal to own an automobile and the audacity to be outspoken on the matter of civil rights , was a target.
I drove in Mississippi and, even there, I would not keep my mouth shut on matters of Constitutional rights and that agitated the hell out of that cadre of the masked mad who moved about back in that place. When I speak of the "masked mad" I do
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not limit myself to those of donned wheets and hoods alone. The masked mad often resemble normal people. They go to school, work, church, on picnics, to the gym, have families, and all of the rest of it just like ordinary people would do. Many times, ordinary people cannot tell who they are. However, in addition to doing those things, they also have unbridled hatred and are willing and capable of murder and worse.
Black people who found themselves on highways, especially at night and more especially on isolated highways at night, would routinely be shot at if seen by any representatives of the masked mad. This latter-day return of the stupid, stalking is not news nor is it surprising. The only difference is more different kinds of people are being shot at and shot than back in the good old days when only black people were the prey and it was not a crime punishable by any law that anyone in law enforcement enforded.
I lived through all of that, your Honor. I didn't want to nor should I have had to but it did and I did. I did and I..thought, up until this decade, that all of that was behind me. I thought that in spite of the fact that even during the interim I have gotten my share of threatening phone calls in the middle of the night, death letters in the mail, notes left on the windshield of my car or slid under my dor or tacked thereon. I've thought that even though from time to time wome individual small group of two or three of the masked mad have confronted me and I've had to deal with, them however I could. I've thought that even though I have heard mumblings from the masked mad, who seem to be constantly among us, who seek every opportunity to show their true color by mimicing a threat of the "Reds" of the 50s when they would say, "We will bury you."
Here lately, there have been more and more in the news about their activities. More and more about their openly deriding people with faces like my own. More and more about taunts, threats, beatings, killings and plans for future killings. The old fears returned to me. The paranois, as defined by some but reasonable
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caution as defined by me, once again has come to the fore.
I have become a target. I does not mean exclusively me but every black person. In spite of the fact that there are, or were, some who were strong enough to love their enemy, I regret to report.that I am far too weak for that. Additionally, I have seen what such love will get you. I am just an American. I don’t love anyone who don’t love me and I will kill try to kill anyone who sets out to kill me. Those are the simple facts.
When I saw Billy Bob with his hair all shaved off, I reacted to a stereotype in much the same way Bernard Goetz did on that subway that night in New York. I didn't know Billy Bob. I didn't know he was not who he appeared to be. All I knew was what I saw and there was not time, in my mind, to ask him for some sort of ID. In my mind, In my mind he was a threat to me and those people don't fool around. They attack. They kill people like me when people like me least expect. I didn't plan on being listed among those who died when they least expected at the hands of the masked mad.
All of my survival mechanisms went into operation as soon as I saw Billy Bob. I had to launch my torpedo before he launched his or he would be the one sitting in this court and on this stand explaining why he had killed me. As bad as this is, it is better than being in a grave wondering why I had been killed.
I realize that this is no excuse but neither is there any excuse for a society as advanced as ours to allow such a racial environment as exists to exist. Until society's reality catch up to its illusions, people like me must always be prepared to do whatever is necessary to protect themselves. How can you stop people from being racists? I don't know. Put a tax on it. If someone wants to hate someone else, make them pay for it. Hating should not just be costly to the victim. Don't fool around with putting government on their backs—put it in their pockets. That's when you'll find out how important hating is to them. Make them live on Three Mile
Island.
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I'm going to wrap this up, your Honor, by saying that I am not sorry that I did what I did even though Billy Bob was indeed not who or what I thought him to be. However, innocence is not protection in a society such as ours and all of the innocent must recognize this. Innocence is not enough.. Among the dead are many who were innocent and I have known some personally. It didn't matter then and it doesn't matter now. I don't know if you can understand this, but everyone is at risk so long as anyone is at risk and especially if that anyone is someone like me and there are many like me--killing just to stay alive. After all, they all know by now that if it was alright for Bernard Goetz its got to be alright for everyone else and if its not alright for me then the description of our society and my relationship to it which I have given is more accurate than you and the court is willing to admit.