The problem with the blog post[1] I am responding to is not that the author is a racist. The problem is two-fold. First, this post is trying to capitalize on the death of Eve Carson, which it misunderstands. Second, this post proves that the Trayvon Martin tragedy did not become the teaching moment it should have been.

As far as the misunderstanding of Eve Carson’s death is concerned, the title is the strongest piece of evidence. “Eve Was Unarmed. She Wasn’t Wearing a Hoodie. She Was Murdered. Are You Angry?” clearly implies that there are people who weren’t angry about Eve Carson’s brutal murder. If such people exist, I have yet to find them. The post seems to be outraged at the lack of attention directed towards Eve’s murder, which was in fact a national news story.[2]

The author is right, there were no “protests, marches, and outraged politicians.” Instead there were scholarships being funded, events organized, and inspiration being immortalized. It is as if the author thinks it is unfair that Eve’s friends didn’t have to deal with the media zoo, or that Eve’s parents didn’t have to stare down Geraldo Rivera. Frankly, it’s unfair that Trayvon’s do. Eve didn’t need to become a nationally trending hashtag to become a constant reminder to the entire UNC community of how good a student can be and how fragile that goodness is.

But there is a more sinister side to Eve’s memory that this article brings to light. Because Eve’s name has become a sort of buzzword on UNC’s campus, the use of it has become any easy way to grab attention. This title, as long and awkward as it was, made anyone in the UNC community stop and take a second look.[3] I don’t know if this post went viral anywhere other than UNC, but even that is too much.

Beyond all the ethical reasons not to use Eve’s death to get more hits, there is the simple, more important, fact that it is a bad example. Regardless of who was used to make the author’s point, the point remains the same: “Why is it only about race if the victim is black?” The post-race message of the blog post is that we should regard all violence with an equitable color-blind disgust, but Eve Carson was killed by men who sought to profit from her and Trayvon Martin was killed because only because of how he appeared to his murderer. The murders were equally senseless and awful, but they are very different. You cannot claim that Atwater and Lovette were equally motivated by race as Zimmerman was without claiming that race is synonymous with socio-economic status. Unfortunately, the author is all too willing to make that claim. To make this claim is not racist—that is a word that is much too easy to throw around—it is proof that the biggest problem with race right now is how hard it is to prove it is a problem.

I only wrote this response because of how clearly the post in question proves that, despite the moment of reckoning presented by the horrible death of Trayvon Martin, everyone has left feeling like they were proved right. Those who believe that race plays a major role in injustice in our country were given another tragic example. Those who believe that race would be an issue of the past if it weren’t for a few loud radicals on either side were given the indignant noise they could have predicted. No one has left with a changed mind.

The Youth Angst Society hosts monthly readings in the Bull’s Head Bookshop thanks in large part to the Bookshop’s generous support.
This reading features The Salad Days contributors Katherine Proctor, Alex Karsten, and Peter Szulc as MC. This reading also features Duncan Culbreth, Kyle Rosko, Meredith Jones, Ben Miller, Maria Carlos, Madison Bakalar, and Davis Muma.
For more information, check out the YAS Facebook page.

A few degrees separate the rain
from a unique romantic opportunity
that the couple I’m walking past
can’t wait to take, but does so anyway.

I should hurry, look at my phone,
give them some sign it’s all right,
go ahead, instead of trying
to share their soggy velvet night.

They take turns watching me,
each other, and fielding soft fly
balls on the slushy sidewalk
near the empty dormitory.

It might only snow once this year:
one chance for them to kiss
with each individual snowflake
once again rain on their face.

The Youth Angst Society hosts monthly readings in the Bull’s Head Bookshop thanks in large part to their generous support
This reading features The Salad Days contributors Katherine Proctor, Tom Macarte, and Peter Szulc. The reading also features Greg Halloran, Emily Palmer, and Ben Miller.
For more information, check out the YAS Facebook page.

Early June, enough beer sweating
in amber bell jars for everyone as we
hide under the gazebo from our
common enemy, the burly Pennsylvania heat. We
don’t talk, heaped together
among moist wood with initials or worse
carved into it, until the haze outside unspools a cyclist.

She’s trying harder than any woman I’ve ever seen
to ride a bike sidesaddle.
Intrigued, we cluster as far from the fan as we
dare, watching her dismount by the baseball diamond below our
hill, joining a crowd of men sweating into dark hats.
Her hands pluck at the chain-link fence like harp strings.

My uncle says the Amish call us
the English, and my aunt says they
treat their horses like machines,
working them until they break down
and when they do,
you can’t just
order new parts from two towns over.
But she rode a bike, my father says.
Their men are taking the field and my brother quotes
that line from The Simpsons about “shifty Mennonites.”

Their pitcher unlatches his body with each pitch,
and their women stare, like stunned moths in white dresses
while Mennonite bicycles humbly thread
the needle on narrow roads
and the Amish, their buggy a squat Cyclops
with its unblinking reflector, stick a chin
out at the cars passing on their left
driven by the English.

Lunch is served and I go to our
car to get our plastic cups and plates.
Early June, enough people
being called the same name that you
could call this a reunion.

For Edd Presnell

____Madhu, this heavy rain is like our relationship: always moving but apparently static. Peter and I are dripping under an overhang, waiting for the storm to settle down. We are halfway to the dining hall to eat a midnight snack, and I am halfway to the dining hall lobby to say goodbye to you for three months. Peter and I are discussing the rain.
____“Your pathetic fallacy would be much less clichéd,” he says.
____“No, man, this is perfect. If she was leaving me for good, or if I was about to be broken-up-with unawares, there would be a much better pathetic fallacy.”
____“Subtler.”
____“Or even less subtle. But this is fine for this.”
____I decide not to text you, to hear your voice for free before the international charges kick in.
____“Peter and I got caught in the rain. I’m sorry. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
____“It’s okay.”
____“You alright?”
____“Very tired.”
____“Long day for you. Lots of walking.”
____“Yeah.”
____“Lots of goodbyes.”
____“Yeah.”
____“It looks like it’s letting up. I’ll be there soon. Love you. Bye. Love you.”
____“Love you.”
____The gutters take a while to catch up to the stop of the rain. Peter and I walk between the streams being whisked down the walkway.  The stadium’s lit jumbotrons make the sky almost day blue. Maybe they would be showing a picture of us, or a picture of you with someone else.
____I almost miss you, looking through the Starbucks. You are sitting on the bench, right there, taking your headphones out as we see each other. I have already taken off the toboggan with the beard knit on; this was not the time.
____Peter has already gone in, and we are trying not to make a scene in the lobby, but we feel like we deserve it. When we finish hugging, we kiss.
“I think that elevator goes down to the parking garage.”
____The elevator opens and immediately I regret pointing it out. You are so tired, so we hurry over to the elevator. It is closing, but the girls in it try and catch it for you, and they do, but we cannot figure out the best way to say goodbye because this is actually goodbye for three months, and the doors start to close again, but the girls start to catch it and you just go in, and I don’t have time to really kiss you like in Casablanca, which we watched together and you liked it even though it was a little slow, and then it closes and you are putting your headphones back in. We make air kisses at each other as the door closes.
____I put the beard hat back on. I feel myself starting to frown under the beard, but then I find Peter, who has found some mutual friends. It is not walking in the rain that sucks so much as walking indoors with wet shoes. I take my shoes off when I get to the table. I text you to text me when you get home safe. They will dry.

“Good morning Richard!

Oh I’m sorry, I must have the wrong number. Well no, that offer is exciting. Normally I’d love to have curry delivered to my house, but-where do I live? Where do you work? Raleigh, eh? Well I live far from Raleigh. Garner, in fact .Not worth your time for delivery. Different zip codes and everything. Look I just dialed the-yes ok thank you.”

-Jesus Christ.

“Richard.

You need to terminate your current cell phone number with extreme prejudice. Did you know it’s basically the same as a restaurant in Raleigh called The Palace of Curry? Well, I can’t judge its quality, but if it’s anything like its customer relations it’s probably on the poor to very poor end of the spectrum. How should I tell, then? You’ve travelled a lot more than I ever did, you must know what good curry is and isn’t. No, no, no hostility towards exotic cultures intended.”

-Does my head feel wet? Or is that just because the floor’s cold? Note to self: carpet floor.

“What was that? Ok, well, the crap will be cut presently. Your dad needs you to do him a big favor, Rich. Don’t pull that amnesia bit, you act like your old man never calls you. Yes, your old man, regardless of what a certain psychiatrist may be implying. Joking of course.”

-I really don’t know where this “I root against your favorite football team and I’m not your son” thing has come from. I’m chalking it up to an extended joke. From this angle the cracks in the ceiling look Mandelbrotian. Finding patterns is such a relief because it becomes impossible to un-see them once you tease them out.

“I shouldn’t have said that. I know you and James are progressing at a fast clip. Oh, I have to call him ‘Dr. James?’ That’s just his first name but with ‘Doctor’ in front of it. It makes him sound less formal. I could see Dr. Kowalski, sure, but-Yes I was kidding of course I knew his last name was Konrad. I was just making a point, Rich.”

-I need thicker shirts. I can actually feel the ridges in the tiles through this one. You can’t ask people for shirts for your birthday nowadays. They always think you’re trying to make yourself look so selfless that pampering you becomes a moral imperative. It just goes to show that everybody’s got a little manipulative streak to them, absolutely everybody.

“Look, Rich, I’ll be straight with you. In fact, I’m horizontal with you right now. Basically I’ve fallen, Richard and I can’t get up. How?

How are your paintings, Richie? Well, can’t say I’m familiar with that technique but you’ve had a chance to do a lot more reading on the arts than I ever did. You are absolutely one hundred percent correct: I’m rambling. I’ll get over to the gallery to see your handiwork at some point.”

-If you can’t trust a stepladder who can you trust? At least with a tool there’s a limited number of facets to understand. Then, of course, they all decide to fail in unison.

“Yes, I did receive your Picasso calendar just in time for the New Year. I’m still looking through all the paintings, though. I want to see the whole gestalt before I have to drive a tack through those suckers, you know? Before I hang them up. I used that term right didn’t I? Gestalt? I’ve read a bit, but not as much as you were able to, of course. You know they said I had some aptitude with art, and I’ll tell you, looking at some of these Picassos don’t you think your old man could have given him a run for his money? You don’t?”

-This is the second time I’ve nearly died while hanging a “Birds of America” calendar. I’ve always said my life was a Hitchcock film waiting to happen.

“Now come over here and help me up, please Richard. You’re selfishly using this opportunity to have a referendum on our relationship for the last 30 years and now is neither the time nor the place. I want to settle this whole affair smoothly without having to make a scene for my neighbors.

Wait a minute, when did I ever make you read ‘Self-Reliance?’ 3^rd Grade? Well, damn right, of course I did! The title alone should indicate that it’s worth your time! I always said it takes a man to be self-reliant, but it also takes a man to know when he’s licked and by God gravity has licked me.”

-Would you like to talk? I can tell you a story about when I was kid. You know what I had to do every Fourth of July? I had to fill up a bucket of water and watch the Killer Bees and the Roman Candles and the M-80s convulse and choke to death on their own sparks. Then I had to pour that bucket over the driveway. I got very good at the specific science of maximizing the area I covered. So good, in fact, that I ended up spending more time looking at the driveway than at the fireworks. That must have been the whole point of the exercise, training me to think a certain way, I know that now. I never made you do this. You simply don’t have a head for figuring these sorts of things out, but that’s what I’m best at.

“Jesus Christ.

Well if you want me to stay down here could you at least order me some curry.”