Another black adolescent dead...not from police brutality, but drowning.
I am white. Ready for Medicare next year. I have been so disturbed, saddened, and angered
by the relentlessly horrible treatment of black people by police. It's been going on for years. And years.
Forever, I guess, but it only came in to my consciousness in the 1960's when I was a teenager.
Now, though, I am struck by the drowning yesterday of Marvin Teshean Scott of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, not a 100
yards from where we were staying in Emerald Isle, NC last week. Marvin and a friend were in the rough ocean
water (and yes, it was really rough when we were there) last night, got knocked over, and pulled out to sea
by a rip current. http://wnct.com/2015/07/29/police-emerald-isle-ems-and-pedro-perform-water-rescue/
If you are a good swimmer--and know how to get out of a rip current--you might survive it. I know. I did
when I was 16 at Moonlight State Beach in Encinitas. But I also know I was yelling for help and only when I realized
that no one was coming, did I have the presence of mind to realize I had to get myself out of the situation. And I was able to
do it because I had been swimming competitively for years and had my senior lifesaving designation from the Red Cross. I was
trained...knew how to swim out of a rip current...and I was still incredibly scared and almost panicked.
How many kids--who aren't great swimmers--know how to do that?
I can imagine that whichever family member who signed the permission slip thought allowing him to go the beach in NC with a church group that at least he would be safe from a random confrontation with a racist cop. Little did they know that playing in
the rough surf could be so dangerous.
Please, please, teach your kids and grandkids to respect the power of the ocean.
I send my condolences to Marvin's family.