What The Laramie Project Can Teach Us About Springfield
What can the Laramie Project teach us about Springfield, MO?
The air is warm for late February and the people are ready.
They’re out and about, taking in that soft nighttime air of early Spring on the weekend. I’m moving through the streets of downtown Springfield, MO, with my white boy energy, as I do on any given Friday night. On Walnut, just east of Jefferson, I am stopped by a man with a stark white and long beard. He’s got a red shirt on and asks about Olive St., confiding that he’s intending toward a gay bar. I’m like, “Oh, you’re looking for Martha’s.”
And he, “Well, I don’t know, I haven’t been to Springfield in a lot of years, I don’t know…” He trails off.
I tell him “Welcome back,” and that it’s right on Jefferson and left on Olive. Martha’s is on the right and farewell, he on his way and me on mine. Neighbor seeking some weekend kicks and I help as I may. As I continue down the street, I think about Jonas, Zackie, and Harry, some of those portrayed in the Laramie Project, and what it’s like being middle aged and gay in these red states. I think about the lengths people will go to find a space where they feel accepted and not judged for something innate about their lived experience — who they are attracted to and how they want to be seen, acknowledged, and known.
I couldn’t help but wonder if he found Martha’s that night, and how the city may have felt to him, an elderly visitor, navigating on foot a third of a mile, or so, through these downtown streets that I’ve come to call home. Is the way well lit? Are there pedestrian signs along the way as landmarks, making it possible for him to follow the directions I had given?
At times, the streets of Springfield can feel hostile as suffering people wander through or linger on some corner or in the square.
That very night, Anthony Chamnbers, a non-violent and unhoused neighbor, was murdered on the corner of South and Walnut.
Seeds of violence grown rank, watered with oppressive economic conditions and hateful rhetoric against the unhoused, that create an environment in our community where acute moments of violence are inevitable. Pain begetting pain, fear begetting fear.
The Laramie Project is a unique piece in that it is the verbatim words and speaking styles of residents in a small American city, quite different from Springfield, MO, and yet also quite similar. The people, like us, want to feel safe and loved in ways that feel natural and personal. Like Springfield, some suffer from lack of opportunities and community support. They are expected to fit into the local economic system, and do so with varying degrees of success and failure. And like Springfield, there are many conservative institutions teaching ways of life that give sense and existential stability to the residents in their lived experience.
The Laramie Project portrays a spectrum of conservative ideologies as the interviews move through a community that has been formed and sustained by the gods and doctrines that colonized the West for the USA. Conservative ideology (I use the term in the most non-pejorative way possible) often seeks to create a worldview and daily experience that is reliable, and where the people know what to expect from one another. But there are often the seeds of violence being cultivated here, as experiences outside the predictable bounds are feared and sometimes met with hostility.
Father Roger, Laramie’s Catholic priest in the aftermath of Matthew Shepard’s murder, talks about the seeds of violence and hateful rhetoric that creates destructive distinctions between us. He encourages us to see Russell and Aaron, the killers of Matthew, as our neighbors and children. They are a representation of the community. “How did you learn? What did we, as a society do, to teach you that?” Just as the shooter in downtown Springfield is our neighbor, what did we, as Springfield society, do to teach that?
Overall, the Laramie Project provides no tidy answers. It’s a portrait of a community in mourning as they navigate an acute moment of violence and apparent hatred. There are many who wish that they could just forget about what happened and move on without having to do the hard work of inner searching for hidden seeds of violence. For some, their privilege allows them to insulate themselves from these sorts of considerations. And what about Anthony Chambers, our neighbor? What did we, as a society, do to enable his suffering? And what about the young man who shot him, and others with guns in the street? They are each one of us, our community, our neighbors, sometimes our family or friends. Can we heal this communal wound with sustained attention and radical acceptance? What can we learn from The Laramie Project as we search for seeds of hatred in Springfield, MO?
