My Typical Atypical Day
According to Brian Levin, Director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, California State University, “We’re seeing a leaner and meaner type of hate crime going on. We’re seeing a shift from the more casual offender with more than shallow prejudices to a bit more of an older assailant who acts alone…We’re getting back to more violence.”
Louisville, Kentucky, USA. October 24, 2018. What were you, the killer, grateful for as you welcomed the brand new day? What brought you joy on that autumn day?
I gratefully awoke to a beautiful crisp fall morning. The dog days of summer behind us. I kissed my husband goodbye as he left for the golf course. Mom and I had our usual breakfast. Fruit and yogurt for me. Oatmeal and fruit for Mom, along with a side of morning news and game shows.
Late morning, I walked the trails of the nearby park relishing the cool air and serene beauty. Walking in nature and singing, I knew of no better way to relax and reenergize simultaneously. On that day I chose to listen to old school gospel on my Reverend James Cleveland Pandora station. Along with the Reverend I sang, “Lord, help me to hold out, until my change come, ” free to sing aloud, because no one was close enough to hear my poor, yet joyful, attempts at song.
Did you spend time enjoying another’s company, on that fatal day?
Tomato soup, the second-best grilled cheese sandwiches in the world—behind Mom’s—and a game of Scrabble made for a very satisfying lunch. We laughed as mom accused me of being able to fill what letters I pulled from the bag.
Does a killer find pleasure meandering, or must you stay the course?
I might have been present when the shooting began, if not for a distraction. Before my planned trip to Kroger, I made an unplanned visit to my favorite discount store, Marshalls. The store where you “never pay full price for fabulous.” I was not shopping for anything in particular, just aimlessly browsing. After leisurely roaming through shoes, women’s clothing and the housewares departments, I told myself I should get to the Kroger and home before rush hour. But I was not ready to end my retail therapy. Instead, I wandered to the men’s department and flipped through a multitude of golf shirts, allowing my mind to involuntarily shift from my external “to do” list to a zone requiring little focus or concentration. After about a year of caregiving, I welcomed this mini reprieve.
As the old folks say, I should not have spent so much time “piddling around”, After purchasing nothing at Marshalls, I hurried to the car. It was not quite 4 o’clock yet, but I noticed traffic was already backing up.
There were police with long guns and combat gear running through traffic…scurrying across the parkway… running in the direction of my intended destination. My ordinary day had just collided with a scene from a Hollywood action disaster movie, transforming my typical day into a typical atypical day in America. But this was not a scene from a movie. It was real life. It was my life.
Watching the evening news, I realized that as I drove to Marshalls to browse, the killer drove to a place deliberately chosen. He drove to a sacred place, the First Baptist Church of Jeffersontown, to kill. A church where the formerly enslaved and their descendants have worshipped and weathered life’s storms for almost two hundred years.
Your bullets and hate cannot obliterate this rock of ages.
While I had perused clearance racks, less than three miles away, the killer searched for a way to enter the church. He carried a Smith and Wesson pistol, instead of the Holy Bible. Killing on hallowed ground, a la Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, was his calling. But he could not find an entry point through which to slither. Locked. The doors of the church were not open.
After his failed attempts to gain entry into the church, the killer made his way to the Kroger. The news reporter states he followed a Black grandfather and his twelve-year-old grandson down an aisle. As the grandfather and grandson looked at poster board for a school science project, the murderer skulked up behind them. Calmly pulling his gun from his waistband, he shot the grandfather in the back of the head. They say the slaughterer repeatedly shot the grandfather as he lay dying on the floor.
What seed have you planted in the One left standing?
After executing the grandfather, the murderer walked out of Kroger to the parking lot where he shot a Black woman in the head and body numerous times. Seconds later he exchanged gunfire with a legally armed Black man. Giving up on this third victim, the gunman walked away and upon encountering an armed white male, the killer immediately invoked his assassin’s code, “Whites don’t shoot whites…”
Perhaps I too would have been your dark target…Perhaps I would have encountered you on the road, or in the parking lot or in the Kroger, had I not wandered to the men’s department to flip through golf shirts…
Distress. Anxiety. Fear. Post-traumatic Stress. Hurt. Sadness. Anger. I experience a multitude of human emotions. Feelings exacerbated by my concern for the safety and well-being of my family, my friends, my people, all those artificially labeled as the Other. Emotions all too familiar.
Subhuman. Inferior. Unfit. Un-American. These things I do not feel.
The man who dehumanizes the Other, befouls himself.
The man who demonizes the Other, deprecates himself.
The man who slaughters fellow Americans, under the flag of hatred of the Other, is un-American.
Hideous and Monstrous. This man is the True Lesser Man. This man is you, Gregory A. Bush.
In bed, sleep does not come. In the darkness, I prayed. I prayed for the identified victims, chosen and assassinated for being Black. I prayed for the grandson left standing. I prayed for the victims’ families. I prayed for my husband. I prayed for my son. I prayed for my family. I prayed for the countless nameless souls singed by inexplicable evil. I prayed for me. In my darkness, I prayed.
For whom does a monster pray?
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On June 24, 2021, a Kentucky man, Gregory A. Bush, 53- year- old, white male, was sentenced in federal court to life in prison without parole for the racially motivated killing of two Black people and the attempted murder of a third Black person at the Kroger Grocery Store in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, USA, on October 24, 2018.
