Snapshot of Memphis

by Mark Jannetta

Well, I have been living in Memphis not quite a year yet and can honestly say it is one very interesting city. This is the home of Graceland, resting place of Elvis Presley and second most visited home in the US after the White House. This is the city where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed while standing on a balcony of a motel. They have since turned it into a civil rights museum and preserved the motel front. Memphis is also home to the blues and probably for good reason, there’s still a lot to be blue about. I have never lived in such a racially divided place in my life.

I was brought up in England where the colour of your skin really did not factor much into everyday life. But, here I can’t even sit in church and not hear a sermon that does not touch on the issue and I never would have imagined that race would play into building a skate park. However, this is Memphis and somehow racial divides play into every aspect of politics and plans for a skate park got wrapped up in what I can only call foolishness. Here’s what happened: My friend Aaron Shafer runs an advocate group called Skatelife Memphis, to build support for a skate park in Memphis. Memphis is so behind the times, with its political corruption, poverty and crime that it does not have a single skate park in its entire metro area, while I know of dozens of tiny towns across the U.S. who have amazing parks.

As a whole, Memphis is run down, crime riddled and has some of the highest infant mortality, rape and murder rates in the country. I moved here because it’s a desperate place, a dark place, in need of some light. My personal passion is to play my part by bringing light through the joy of skateboarding, building friendships with the kids, teaching them how to do it and taking them beyond skating to a saving knowledge of their Heavenly Father. I didn’t come here because it has everything a skater needs and wants, I came here to help build those things which are missing for the kids. Like I said I have not been here a year yet, but Aaron has been labouring hard for several years and finally had a $600,000 grant from the government for the city to build a public skate park.

The parks department chose a park for the construction and all seemed to be going smoothly, until a local council woman got wind of the plans. For whatever reason, the parks department did not inform her or ask for permission to build and when she did find out, she basically put a stop to the whole project. So one council woman stopped a $600k project which Aaron has been working towards for years and countless others were excited about. So that was the down side, but the good part is once folks got wind of what she did it kicked up a whirl wind of public support for the skate park.

Aaron was interviewed by newspapers, went on local radio and television and they talked to the council lady too. So what does any of this have to do with race? Well the council woman in her wisdom was quoted directly from an email saying:

“Black people feel like when other folks want something, they just do it, If you try to buck what they are doing, or don’t understand it, they get mad.”

Her bottom line: skateboarding is for ‘white’ kids in ‘white’ neighborhoods, keep it out of mine. Here is the full article: www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/jan/20/opposition-councils-halbert-kills-skatepark-glenvi/
It was amazing to see how many people responded to her words in direct relation to race. It kind of boggles my mind that skateboarding which is such an all-inclusive sport should get wrapped up in the politics of Memphis and subsequently, racial dividing lines.

Martin Luther King had a dream, a vision of unity and for some reason when he was killed here in Memphis, a part of his dream really did die here too, while the rest of the country began to move forward, Memphis kind of stayed stuck in ignorance. So what do you do? What can I do? Well for the last three months I have been working in Uptown Memphis, at Greenlaw Community Center for an inner city sports ministry.

Slowly I have been trying to build a skate ministry. Slowly not by choice, but because I have no choice. I have about 60 kids, all African American and a third of them girls who have all skated with me, most for the first time in their lives. They love it. We only have a handful of boards, which they share between them and a minimal amount of flat ground concrete to skate. There is one gentle slope they go up and down for hours. The difference between these kids and the council woman’s generation is that they don’t know any different. Skateboarding is not a ‘white’ sport to them or just for boys.

Give them the opportunity to try and they will. They are blank slates and the future lies with them. I have no doubt skateboarding will grow in Memphis and cross all dividing lines of gender, race, music, economic status and everything else. I love skateboarding. I believe it grows and spreads and infects souls with a passion and intensity that colors every part of a person, just like the Gospel is supposed to. Team sports are great. You get a coach and he rallies you all together, gives you a vision and you pursue it as a team.

It’s something you do… but skateboarding is not just about something you do, it’s about someone you become. Boy, can my spiritual walk learn something from my skate life – Live it from your heart. Don’t just play the part on the outside. I pray Memphis will grow out of its ignorance, and I have a sneaky suspicion that the next generation of kids will be a little smarter, a little less foolish, a little more open and who knows… the ones that grow up skating just might get it the most. Change will come… slowly… but it will come and in the mean time I’m going to do my best to live the dream.