Sometimes life – or death – comes right along and trivializes what you were worrying about. DJ Bishop was organizing his latest shot in our little local culture war over who or what is or isn’t a “real” deejay – he’s got a new mixtape on the topic ready to roll, and a party for it on the 15th – when his first cousin Michael Cannon ended up in all the papers for all the wrong reasons when he apparently killed his son, Michael Cannon Jr., and Kim Charleston, his girlfriend and the boy’s mother.
This is too sad for words. I am so sorry for every single person whose life was touched by the tragedy. Bishop is still rolling with his mixtape and party (at Plush) on Sunday, but now the party will also be a chance for friends to gather together and mourn the tragedy. “I’m trying to be positive,” Bishop said. “I’m telling brothers to learn a lesson.”
He said the lesson, based on rumors about the motives for the apparent murders, is that there’s no sense beating on a woman or staying with a woman when she wants you out or you know it’s not working. I might add, ladies, that you should never stay in a bad situation. I am in no way blaming Kim Charleston for her fate. But whenever you see a woman dead, apparently at the hands of her boyfriend or husband, it reminds you that we are most at risk from the people closest to us. We have to be very careful who we let in, how long we let them stay, and the methods we use when we tell them it’s time to go.