The Inertia Founder
Staff
As long as policemen and citizens continue to kill each other and radicalized perspectives on race, religion, and sexual orientation become divisive focal points in America’s political discourse, surfing couldn't matter less.

As long as policemen and citizens continue to kill each other and radicalized perspectives on race, religion, and sexual orientation become divisive focal points in America’s political discourse, surfing couldn’t matter less.


The Inertia


A few nights ago I, like many Americans, watched an innocent man, Philando Castile, bleed to death in the passenger seat of his vehicle. Blood mushroomed from the bust of his white shirt after a police officer unloaded four hot bullets into his body. The officer yelled, “Fuck!” as he realized what he had done. Castile’s four year old daughter watched him die from the back seat of the car. His girlfriend watched too, calmly complying with the officers’ instructions while simultaneously broadcasting the entire lurid affair on Facebook Live for the world to see. The murder has been viewed nearly six million times on Facebook. If you haven’t jumped down this morbid rabbit hole on the Internet yet, you should. It’s painful but important. Castile was originally pulled over for a broken tail light.

Then we watched police shoot and kill Alton Sterling, 37, outside of a convenience store in Baton Rouge. Next, we watched a man slay five police officers with a sniper rifle in Dallas. While writing this, two officers were shot outside of a Michigan courthouse and another officer killed a man brandishing a knife in Sacramento. Demonstrations, arrests, and cries of anger and hurt have gripped many of America’s greatest cities. Bahamas issued a travel advisory that warned its citizens of the dangers of traveling to the United States. Honestly, who could blame them? Just a week after the Fourth of July, shit is serious right now in the ‘ol U. S. of A. For everyone.

A strong case could be made for ignoring the violence and anger altogether. Just keep a steady supply of John John clips coming to numb the hurt while the world around us falls apart. Surfing works like ice in a way, dulling the rawness with another type of rawness. Nature as a drug. And the clips will come. A new champion will be crowned at Jeffreys Bay. Mick Fanning will probably not be attacked by a shark. Surfers will get barreled and do airs. As surfers do.

But as long as policemen and citizens continue to kill each other and radicalized perspectives on race, religion, and sexual orientation become divisive focal points in America’s political conversation, surfing couldn’t matter less. I think.

But the ocean, if nothing else, is consistent. Unlike us, it applies (or withholds) mercy in equal rations to all comers. It’s indiscriminate in its whims of serenity and violence.

This morning, the ocean was peaceful in Los Angeles.

Clean, waist-high lines peeled evenly to the cobblestones on shore. And even as the morning felt like an emotional respite from the relentless 24-hour news cycle broadcasting the violence and fear overtaking America, no one in the lineup was particularly friendly, per usual. Everyone was going about their morning routine – getting theirs before the reality of their day-to-day set in. A few folks in the lineup shared their business woes aloud: Clients. Meetings. Deadlines. I wasn’t much different. I only had an hour available before I needed fire up the email furnace. I caught myself thinking angry thoughts towards a guy who snagged a few more waves than I think he should have. I wanted those waves, and he surfed them terribly, I thought. Then the reductive (and dangerous) characterizations set in: fat guy on 9’ 6”, hyper-talkative girl on twin fin, beginner on soft top, red wetsuit guy, etc… I’m pretty certain, at moments, I was frowning. I was alone. Most everyone out there was frowning and alone, too. Sometimes, when I surf this place, I feel a haze of anger in the water, and it’s disgusting. Yet I do nothing to counteract it. The whole scene feels so entitled and unhinged from reality, it’s absurd. We’re bobbing in warm water gazing south at Los Angeles’ gorgeous skyline mad at red wetsuit guy while Philando Castile drowns in a pool of his blood in front of his child.

Surfers are fucked.

And this morning, even while I was complicit in distancing myself from the people around me – I was thinking about how easy it would be to completely flip the mood. A smile would be a great start. A compliment to a stranger on her wave. A platitude to the warm water. Just a simple, kind gesture to a stranger is a seed. It grows.

I know the rifts in America’s fabric run deep. The cure isn’t as simple as a smile. At our weakest, fear and self interest drive our behavior. And right now, it feels like too many of us are sitting alone on our boards frowning – so fixated on our own selfish pursuits that we forget the ocean will have its way with all of us no matter what. We surf together, whether we’re poor or rich, white or black, straight or gay, atheist or Muslim. So we might as well be kind to one another while we share the planet. Because we’re killing that together, too. So, yeah, maybe a smile to a stranger is the right place to start. Or we might end up with a broken tail light one day, drowning in a pool of our own blood on Facebook Live – with six million people watching – and no one around willing to help.

 
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