“My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.”
Ernest Hemingway wrote those words years ago, and as a writer, I can’t think of a better way to
defend myself than with Hemingway’s words.
I’ll try to explain. I understand that some folks around the country have called my latest book
’29 Dimes’ inciteful because I have a hot-mouth character named ‘Pepe’ speaking his mind about Florida’s
schizophrenic ‘stand your ground’ law in certain parts of the novel. From my understanding,
what’s getting some folks especially riled up is when Pepe performs his provocative, ‘in your
face’ spoke-word anthem “Hear My Echo” towards the end of the story. The specific line from
that anthem that has got some people bent out of shape goes like this:… don’t like standing in
Florida-facing a courthouse gun….” Depending on where you stand on the different sides of the
‘stand your ground’ debate, you may possibly see those lyrics as ” inciteful”, but I specifically
wrote those words for the voice and the mentality of a specific fictional character. It would be an
injustice to myself as a writer, and certainly a literary injustice to the fire-tongued character I’d
created if I had him voice his opinion and thoughts on other safe and soft topics currently
headlining America’s newspapers and not a hot topic such as Florida’s ‘stand your ground’ law. I
wouldn’t be true to myself as a writer, nor to my story if I did that.
The ‘stand your ground’ law in Florida and several other states is very schizophrenic because
lawmakers and law enforcement officials are picking and choosing when and when not to use
and invoke the law, seemingly using it when it’s convenient for them at that particular time and
place. For example the case of the Florida woman, Marissa Alexander, who initially was
sentenced to 20 years for firing a warning shot at her intruding husband, and when she tried to
use Florida’s ‘stand your ground’ law as her defense the judge simply threw it out, saying that
she could’ve run out of the house. But, on the other hand, look at what happened in the other
high-profile Florida trial where a vigilante got away with murder, thanks to the convenience of
the wishy-washy ‘stand your ground’ defense.
The reason I wrote and used the words “…courthouse gun…” in the ‘Hear My Echo’ lyrics was to
express mostly my character’s belief, and to be quite honest, some of my own as well, that Florida’s
‘stand your ground’ law is seemly sanctioned by the state, giving everyday Jane and Joe
permission to kill without consequences. When the ‘not guilty’ verdict went viral in the George
Zimmerman trial it instantly triggered my memory back to a time in America when cranky old men
draped in white sheets with cone-shaped heads would hang a man of a darker shade up in a tree
for all of the local town people to see, knowing that there would be no repercussions whatsoever,
and everyone nonchalantly walks away as if this was accepted as normal everyday life.
I never intended my novel to be “inciteful”, but I do want it to open discussions in classrooms, at
the kitchen table and around the water cooler. I truly believe that if America is ever going to
have better race relations among our very diverse and ever-growing population, then we simply
must start with a peaceful conversation first.
Randolph Rand Camp
Buffalo, NY
