I've spent my career explaining race, but hit a wall with Montgomery brawl memes

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."When explaining becomes too much of a burden
Yeah, it's sometimes tiring to always be asked to explain your cultural nuances to the world. But that's the gig I signed up for, many years ago, when I decided to write about race and media regularly. And yes, all the social media joking was hiding a fear that today's political climate has left racists emboldened to attack a Black man in broad daylight for doing his job. So explaining the memes only resurfaced those darker feelings in ways I wasn't quite ready to process right away.

Still, something else was also at play.

Social media is often like a giant dinner party, where people forget they are sometimes listening in on conversations between other people. In this case, being asked to explain the folding chair memes felt like having someone barge into an ongoing conversation to ask for an explanation.

I always say social media is often like a giant dinner party, where people forget they are sometimes listening in on conversations between other people. In this case, being asked to explain the folding chair memes felt like having someone barge into an ongoing conversation to ask for an explanation.

As I traded messages with people and retweeted the best memes, this felt like a moment where folks could be hilariously Black online and we could all share the experience together, laughing and consoling each other in one viral social media moment.

Someone popping up to demand an explanation felt like they were re-centering the conversation in a way I just wasn't willing to do right away.

Sometimes, in situations like that, understanding comes best by sitting back, listening widely, and learning. Even for me.

I originally wrote a version of this column for my personal Tumblr page, mostly as a way of processing a response that was new and unfamiliar for me. I don't know if this reaction is fair – especially given how much I've encouraged discussion about race over the years.

But it's all I have left, in a world where I increasingly feel like a frog in pot of steadily heating water, watching racists and racism get bolder — wondering when the heat will begin to burn me, my loved ones, my family, my friends and my people.

Or when I'll need to reach out for aid from a helpful brother with a folding chair."

This is why I wear pointed toe Lucchese Cowboy Boots. Sometimes you have to plant them in the right place to get ones attention thereby forcing them to focus on the issue.

Because people with different skin colors are in a fight…… it doesn’t mean the fight is racial. I see this fight as stupid, and started by the pontoon boat owners. That said, in over 30 years mediating disputes and breaking up fights….. the lion share was over WORDS not race. There have been ones over race, but the LIONS SHARE, were over words, perceived or actual disrespect or rudeness, and very often misunderstandings fueled by alcohol. I am not condoning the fight but not every fight that involves different skin tones is about race but they are almost always avoidable……if people use their mouths and brains before they use their fists.