I Was Christopher Jordan Dorner

Unless you have been living under a rock, or been looking at other stories in the world that DIDN’T involve guns and Americans and murder, you surely have heard of Christopher Jordan Dorner. He was an ex-LAPD cop, ex-Navy man, who went on a killing spree, vowing in a manifesto to kill more LAPD officers and specifying a few who may or may not have been targets. His tale ended on 13th February, where the cabin where he he made his last stand went up in flames, and all that remained were the charred remains of who authorities speculate are Mr. Dorner.

Before I continue, let me just say f*** that dude. That said, I was Christopher Jordan Dorner. From 1992 to 1998, I was the authority hating, machine-against-raging, youth who claimed that armed revolution was the only way to get justice in this land. I had good reason to feel this way. For the 9 years prior to my militant stage, I lived in one of the whitest parts of upstate New York, where I was the black student population of the COUNTY. Needless to say, I got beat up and berated a lot. My godfather and  uncles would get routinely stopped by police when they visited. My mother would get harassed by the local law enforcement nearly weekly. A grown man of authority did some things to me that I’d prefer not to mention, but I’ll say it left a long-standing distrust of people of authority for quite a long time.

When I moved to Baltimore in 1991, I went from being the blackest kid in the school system to being the whitest kid in the school system, so the beatings continued. My way to remedy this, since I was a weak little fata**, was to do a 180 on my persona. I tossed out all my hair band albums, bought up as much angry hip-hop as I could, and found the most militant poetry to quote. My poor a** couldn’t afford a leather jacket and a turtleneck, but I wore nearly all black everything to make up for it. I was ridiculous. I saw no beauty in anything light or white. Kathy Ireland repulsed me. Why isn’t there a Kathy Swaziland? Why are Frosted Flakes just “great”, but I have to go Cuckoo for Cocoa Pops? I would drink dark roast coffee so that my incisors would not be so oppressive with their whiteness.

I HATED anyone with a badge and a gun. However, being a black teenager in Baltimore, they definitely gave me a reason to hate them as well. I fit more descriptions than I can remember. Since I never dabble in any type of crime beside a little bit of public soapboxing, I was always let go, but the regular harassment simply fed into my position that BPD stood for both Baltimore Police Department and Black People’s Destruction.

In 1998, I finally softened on my hardcore beliefs, thanks to living overseas for a summer. I learned about the decency of human beings, and realised that there is not a global plot to eradicate all the brown people in the world. The plot is against POOR people. It doesn’t matter what colour they are! Police, for the most part are people who dedicate their lives to keeping order, and there are really only 4 or 5 bad seeds that make the news who make it bad for everyone else.

Back to Dorner, in his manifesto, he spoke of the racism and sexism in the police force. I somewhat understood that part. If you look at the police department of any major city, there is a long history of them subjugating the powerless. New Orleans, Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Houston, all are guilty. There have been cleanup efforts, but really messed up things still happen. Stop & Frisk JUST got deemed unconstitutional in an appeals court a week ago. New Orleans was getting better, but then Katrina happened and set them back about 20 years. LA is famous for its many brown-people beatings. Hell, they shot two innocent people in a blue pickup truck just looking for Dorner! It’s enough to make a guy go crazy!

No matter what, though, a murder spree is a coward’s way to “fight the system” as his many Facebook fan pages claim he was doing. He wasn’t fighting anything. He was excusing despicable actions with lengthy rhetoric. If he really wanted to take on the LAPD, He could have done it the way I did: be better. I busted my a** to be better than the people who I perceived as the enemy. I got myself out of poverty. I educated myself on more than just extreme diatribe. I made it so that when I had a chance to bear witness in a court of law against someone, I had a credible enough background that there was no doubt I was the bearer of truth. Fighting Violence with violence does nothing but create a Moebius strip of death and destruction. At some point, you have to take the reins of your predicament and drive it to a better place, no matter whether someone put on that negative path or not. Whining about it does nothing, and hurting people not directly involved just makes you the bad guy. So yes, I was Christopher Jordan Dorner at one time, but then I GREW THE F*** UP.

This counts as my Black history Month post, right?