Dear Mayor Bill de Blasio,
I share your concern as I as an African American father, have not one, but two sons that I am constantly concerned about.
The concern did not start with Eric Garner, nor Mike Brown, nor Jordan Davis, nor Trayvon Martin, nor Renesha McBride, nor Amadeu Diallo, nor Sean Bell, nor Jonathan Ferrell nor a host of others that have become the current bodies in a dark, efficient version, according the the Guardian, of high-tech lynching.
My concern started when I had an Afro - an impressive one, like your son's - when I was fourteen years old in Winston-Salem, NC.
I pulled out a pick to comb my Afro (had one then). It was one of those folding-handle jobs: one side red, the other green, Black Nationalist colors. I was too young to know that or how it mattered. What I was doing was fixing my “do,” getting my ‘fro right, looking at model cars and toys in King’s Department store as my mother shopped for clothes; reminiscing when this was my whole focus in the world.
He was big: bald receding hairline, hair on the sides like Larry of “Moe, Larry and Curly” but greasy and laid flat with flakes of dandruff. He had a pot belly lapping over his large belt buckle. I was a little over five feet tall and 110 lbs. He was over six feet and outweighed me by about 200 lbs.
“What you doing, boy?”
I was startled, and turned around. I was as respectable as my parents had taught me to be in situations like this: “Nothing,” I said, and turned away.
“What’s in your pocket?”
“My pick!” and frankly, that’s all that was in my pocket. This man, who hadn’t announced who he was or why I was getting the 4-1-1, was beyond annoying me.
“Up against the wall!” he barked.
The wall was again, a shelf of model cars and toys only kids would like. “This isn’t much of a wall,” I quipped.
I was grabbed by the throat and left arm, shoved hard into the toy shelves. An avalanche fell on my ‘fro denting my styling. At this point, I was in shock.
“Who are you, man!?”
“Store detective…” He flipped me like an omelet. I was being bodily frisked…against my will.
“I didn’t steal anything,” I said, “the only thing in my pockets is a pick you prick!”
“SHUT UP, boy: I knows nigras steal!” Source: Old Tapes
Welcome to America: this is the America Dr. Maya Angelou thought had "grown up" after the election of our first black president. This is the America that a representative from South Carolina in the seat of Congress shouts "you lie" disrespectfully during a State of the Union Address. This is an American congress that costs $24 billion in a government shutdown. This is a congress that used the fears of ISIS/ISIL and Ebola to win the midterms that has now "mysteriously" vanished from the news cycle.
This is also, the America where "Broken Windows" became the shared pseudo academic delusion and pursued public policy. It is the spiritual and literal father of "Stop and Frisk"; "Stand Your Ground."
Welcome to the America I have not escaped with extensive and ongoing training and a career in a STEM field - physics. Welcome to the America that causes my pulse to rise, my heart to skip beats when either son doesn't answer their cell phones. These are young men, mind you, that have never committed a crime; never had a record; never seen the inside of a jail cell, yet lately they, I, their mother are all guilty of "existing while black," which covers all the colloquialism bases. Our existence, over a long, painful history that IS America, is an indictment to the American Mythology of Exceptionalism. Every story, every bloodbath, every riot, every acquittal of our murders by citizens or the police only lessens my lifespan: I am constantly and consistently concerned to NOT become the next grieving parent!
Welcome sir, to my America as I, and your children will either witness or sadly experience it, and the ever-present fear of being a part of this darkly efficient, ever-repeating tragedy.
