Mourning.

I made it back to Memphis for a short 27 hour visit. (Apparently on a very bad night for the city. Wreck at Cooper and Union, saw about three fire trucks racing by as I was leaving Soul Fish, and tragically, the Memphis cops fatally shot a man while pursuing him.) And as I'm about to leave Tennessee to head back to Berkeley, I find myself in a mix of emotions about my city.

Memphis has a bad rep, deservedly, at the moment. I've been following the string of murdered and brutalized transwomen in my city with a heavy heart. Until this last summer, and possibly not even now, there hasn't been a great deal of awareness of this murders even within my college's GSA. (I can only speak as someone loosely associated with the Rhodes GSA, but I hadn't heard anything about Tiffany Berry's murder until I read Terrance's piece about her at the Republic of T.)

Part of this is due to the continuing racial divide in Memphis. Rhodes is still very white and privileged (and to a somewhat different effect -- straight). Students there, even one's who are trying to be aware of the outside world, live in our own little, fenced in bubble. Thus, it there were brutal murders and injustices within the greater community -- within a greater GLBT community -- and we remained unaware. And while there's a push to create stronger ties between Rhodes and the greater Memphis community, I'm not certain how effective the attempts will ultimately be. Tutoring at Snowden is great, but when you graduate without realizing that Snowden is one of the better schools in the city... (I'm also opposed to the noblesse oblige attitude that is extremely prevalent on the Rhodes campus, but that's another matter.) I suppose for the time being the best I can do is to combat my own ignorance and e-mail my remaining friends at Rhodes to try to prevent a similar state of group ignorance in the here and now.

But I still love Memphis. I still want to be living in Memphis. I drove out of the city with a part of my heart breaking because I don't know when I'll be driving back in. I want the best for Memphis.