Chapter 6: All I Need are Dreadlocks and a Sword

When my friend became a Trump zombie

One of the most profound (and dare I say, saddest) turning points came when a good friend and colleague of mine unfriended me on Facebook—all because I dared suggest that there may be some cops who are bad.

This particular friend was a fellow filmmaker. A well-respected and world-renowned one at that. Unless you’re in the wedding event business (or one of his celebrity clients), you probably never heard of him. He wasn’t a Hollywood filmmaker. He was a wedding filmmaker, and among other wedding filmmakers, he was da bomb!

He had been one of the most popular guests on my various podcasts over the years. Funny. Successful. And wicked talented. He also happened to be an ex-police officer of all things. An ex-police officer turned world-famous wedding filmmaker. (I often suggested that his life would make a great sitcom: a tough S.W.A.T. captain leaves the force to go shoot weddings and instead of perps, and the fellas make fun of him.)

As an ex-cop, he still held a sense of brotherhood for his fellow brothers and sisters in blue. I once interviewed him for two hours where we discussed a number of video recordings of cops who had fatally wounded suspects in situations which empirically seemed didn’t warrant killing the individuals. I found a site that had over two dozen such videos, including all the “famous” ones you undoubtedly know (e.g., Philando Castile, Michael Brown, Oscar Grant, etc.)

But there were a bunch of examples that never made mainstream media. And for every one, this friend had a legitimate reason why the use of fatal force was needed.

Now, I like to think I’m a reasonable guy. Many of his points made sense. Cops have one of the hardest jobs in the world. Every interaction with a perp, suspect, or traffic stop could mean life or death. I have good friends who are cops, and I hold the highest amount of respect for them and the duties they perform.

But you get to a point where you say, “Come on. Look at that particular case. The guy is on the ground, face down, hands behind his back, and the cop shoots him?” There were a number of examples like this, and I just got the feeling that there was no situation where my friend would say a killing was unjust and/or unavoidable.

Then I saw some of his posts on Facebook and I was blown away.

A while back I had seen him post a video of a gay wedding he shot, and he said something along the lines of supporting gay marriage. So I had assumed that he had a more liberal bent. But on November 9, 2016, I saw him post a photo of Obama getting on the presidential helicopter for the last time, and my friend said something like “Good riddance! This guy can’t leave fast enough!”

Now, that’s no big deal. So, he didn’t like Obama, primarily because of comments Obama made about the police. Fine. I get it.

But then I saw him post all these Trump-train posts, and praise for Trump and I was like “What the hell! Is he really a full-blown Trump Supporter?”

The fateful parting and unfriending happened when a college student, who apparently he had helped or mentored about filmmaking in the past, was respectfully questioning him about the latest news of an officer killing someone. My friend totally ripped into her. It seemed so uncharacteristic of how I thought of him (Sadly, uncharacteristic comments from Trump-supporting friends is a common occurrence for me now). I came to her defense, at first thanking my friend and all officers for their service, but raising the question that “Maybe, just maybe, some of them might be bad.”

Well, that was enough for him. No one would be disrespecting his “family.” And like that, I was unfriended.

By now, we’re all used to the record numbers of unfriends and unfollows that have happened among friends and even family members since Don the Wannabe Dictator took office. But this happened shortly after the election. So it was fresh and new.

I liken it to The Walking Dead. In the first season, every zombie encounter was freaky, weird, and riveting. But by season six you were like, “Eh. I’m used to it.”

These Trump Supporters were like The Walking Dead, slowly making their way through the social media landscape, drawn to political posts and memes like zombies to a car horn. As you made your way through your social media world, you would become terrified to find who was “bitten” by Trump-mania.

My friend was bitten. There was no leg amputation that would save his life. He was too far gone.

From time to time, I would see him post yet another obnoxious post. Many had the same level of racial insensitivity that is so common among Trump Supporters. And again, it was kind of like The Walking Dead when one of the main characters would come across an old friend or relative, meandering around the Georgia countryside, looking for flesh to eat.

That was my friend. A racially insensitive, social media-wandering, Trump-supporting zombie. It was too painful to continue to see his ongoing outlandish posts. I eventually just had to block him outright. (The social media equivalent of putting a knife through a zombie’s head).

“Cats and dogs living together. MASS HYSTERIA!”

The world was not what it used to be. Truths I thought I knew turned out to be lies. I was in a world where fellow Christians said horrible and hateful things to me, and atheists were showing me the kind of love Christ actually talked about. CHRISTIAN friends and colleagues I broke bread with, laughed with, or whose houses I used to spend the night at, were posting memes depicting survivors of the Stoneman Douglas school shootings as “Hitler” or accusing them of being crisis actors.

I just couldn’t take it all anymore. I had to speak out. And as I did, I began to rub some people the wrong way. People who were used to me being an apolitical person that normally blogged and posted about inspirational stories about filmmaking and creativity, were now seeing me posting more and more about the injustices I was seeing.

Feather-ruffler turned Social Justice Warrior

I was always the sort who ruffled feathers in my industry. But it was usually when I said something like why Final Cut Pro X was the editing software of the future; or why a mediocre photographer with a consumer camera, a $99 photography seminar under his belt, and a slick website could be more successful than a graduate of Brooks Institute shooting with a Hasselblad. I had a knack and talent for throwing professional photographers and filmmakers into tailspins with my blog posts and podcasts.

But this time, I was calling out racism and injustice. I was questioning fellow Christians on how they could possibly support a man like Trump. And I started calling out “white privilege.” I was like Michonne, the bold and brave Samurai-sword-wielding survivor in The Walking Dead, fighting the “Walkers” one by one.

And the grand irony in all of this is? None of these people have the slightest idea of the life I’ve had. Many would assume that I was a die-hard Obama supporter whose blood has run “blue” my whole adult life.

Oh, if they only knew.

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