Another Thug

It’s been really hard for me to figure out what to write lately, because I feel like the thing I need to talk about is Ferguson.  Brooklyn. Cleveland.  But I don’t want to talk about these things because nobody will think differently.  People will just evaluate what I say against their own firmly-entrenched beliefs, and, if they agree with it, support it, and if they disagree with it, give me ten thousand reasons why mentioning racism is, in fact, racist, and “thugs” deserve it, and, implicitly, that black people are shiftless, lazy leaches, and a drain on society.  Yes, I’ve heard it all before. 

So, I’m not going to talk about it. 

Here’s what I’m going to talk about instead:

When my son turned 16 and got his license, I sat him down and had a talk with him.  “If you’re ever pulled over,” I said, “you need to put your hands where the officer can see them.  You need to say, ‘yes, sir,’ and ‘no, sir.’  You need to keep your voice calm.”  Did I say this because I was worried about his manners?  No.  His manners are beautiful.  But my son is mixed, and it is a fact that black people are more likely to be pulled over and arrested than white people. 

Now some may say, “That’s because they’re more likely to be doing bad things.”  Really?  How do you know that?  If white people aren’t being checked, then how do we know anything about the good or bad things they’re doing?  But none of that matters to me.  What matters to me is keeping my son safe.  And I felt, as a mother, that I had to say this.  

And when my son went to college, I said to him – in fact I wrote it in this blog – “If you are at a party and the police show up, you WILL be arrested.”  Did I say that because I questioned his ability to be responsible in college?  Not at all.  I said it because he is mixed, and I know that, when there’s a group of people, the immediate suspect is the black guy.  And because I wanted my son to be safe, I gave him that information.  I told him that his right to speak his mind, to question the police, to in any way contradict them….well, he didn’t have that right.  Because the police don’t like being talked back to by black people.  Everyone knows that. 

And you may be saying, “You’re just paranoid.”  Except that I’m not.  My son has gotten pulled over plenty of times for no reason.  He was subject to a Terry frisk at college, for the suspicious behavior of standing with a backpack.  He’s a good kid, but he has to have the same wariness, the same watchfulness, the same worry as any black person, because….well, because people fear black people, and people distrust people, and black people are subject to a different standard than white people.  All black people. 

I’m not talking about Ferguson.  I’m not talking about Cleveland.  I’m not talking about Brooklyn.  I’m talking about a kid who was kicked out of a friend’s house by a drunk mother who didn’t want a black kid in her house.  A kid who has to listen to the “I’m not racist, but since I’m white, and I’ve never experienced racism, you haven’t either,” from his own relatives.  A kid who, were he murdered by the police, would be called a “thug” by countless morons on the internet.  I’m talking about my son.