My 13 year old son lives with his sister and mother in Savannah. He’s a very athletic, brilliant, and courageous skateboarder (what some might call a skate punk) and a great rock’n roll drummer.
Recently, he got his first ride in a police car. When I found out he’d done nothing wrong, his old man, very familiar with the back seat of police cars, was very proud.
He and his posse of skateboarders had been riding in the parking lot of a shopping center when they decided to go behind the stores (loading docks to grind on and ollie off, kick flips without oncoming cars) on a beautiful winter day in Savannah.
Walmart — constantly hateful, mean by nature, and oppressive — called the Savannah police and the little posse got a ride home in a police car, and my boy got banned from Walmart.
I was so proud when I talked to him. I was so proud when I talked to him. He rode that board and his teenage energy, athleticism, and joy so rankled the Walmart corporate automatons that they called the police and gave him the ultimate penalty — banned from Walmart.
It is in the corporate DNA to be mean and oppressive, to run things with a boot on the back and on the neck.
Photo source: Ricky Aponte on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)