Nothing to Fear? One Man's Reality of What It Means to Be Black in America

When it comes to other human beings, I tend to be a fairly intrepid person because the only being that I "fear" is God.  Even then, I'd rather say that I revere God instead of fearing Him because fear and faith cannot coexist.  However, I will say that I am realistically cautious of certain people.  If you let many conservative politicians and talking heads have their say, then everyone should fear Black people more because we make up only 13 percent of the population while committing a significant amount of the violent crimes.  If you let current media propaganda lead the way, then Black people should be more worried about being beaten or killed by law enforcement officers in lieu of suffering at the hands of another Black person.  As a 36-year-old Black man who has survived the ominous elements of the infamous "Murder Cap" era of Washington, D.C. and the "Mighty" Ward Eight, I've been confronted with the reality of both.  So if I were to be "realistically cautious" of anyone threatening my life, then who would it be: other Black people or the police?  Welp, let's talk about it...

When people throw out the "Black-on-Black crime" argument while the discussion is about police brutality, it can be annoying because the assumption is that we aren't upset about both.  I grew up "East of the [Anacostia] River" during the late 80s, the 90s and the entire first decade of the new millennium, so hearing about and seeing Black people commit the some of the most heinous crimes against one another is not lost on me.  Young kids and teenagers got robbed, assaulted and/or killed for everything from Reebok Pumps and Jordans to Lexuses and money.  We didn't always feel comfortable going to certain courts, rec centers and playgrounds because we didn't know whether or not somebody would shoot you for stepping on their shoes or some random yahoo felt like bringing a shotgun just because, as 50 Cent once said, "it's hot out this b---h, that's a good enough reason".  I've been to go-gos where the good times were unceremoniously ended because folks had too much to drink, beef over some girl or dude or dirty looks were exchanged.  However, I'll never forget watching Boyz n the Hood for the first time and learning one of the most valuable lessons from Laurence Fishburne's character, Jason "Furious" Styles.  When Ricky (Morris Chestnut) seems fearful of setting foot in the middle of Compton, Furious schools him: "Rick, it's the Nineties.  Can't afford to be afraid of our own people anymore, man."  That's been the credo by which I've lived my life ever since hearing that 25 years ago.

I once walked four blocks in summer heat as a teenager with a sister who was a drug addict and whose conversation I cannot remember, but I entertained her anyway because she clearly needed someone to talk to while all I was doing was going to Pentagon City to meet up with friends.  I have broken bread, partied with and became good friends and associates with many who society would automatically place in stereotypical boxes because of their skin color, style of dress, slang, street savvy and quadrant/zip code of residence.  I have fearlessly walked through neighborhoods at night that most people West of the River are still afraid to come during the day, even with gentrification slowly changing the faces of communities.  I have turned down shoe shines and other subservient acts from homeless brothers and sisters simply trying to get something to eat and have spent more money for their meals than I normally would for my own--never out of pity, but simply because they're my brothers and sisters and I just want to help out of the goodness that God has placed in my soul and my spirit.  Perhaps even more risky, I have given rides to total strangers just because they were stranded, didn't have any money to catch a cab or public transit stopped running after a certain hour.  Some people--White, Black or otherwise--might chalk it up to naivete and even insanity, but I tend not to fear people from my community and have been through many of the same struggles that I have.  I never have believed the hype that a bunch of kids who look like Chief Keef wannabes and get on a Metrobus are automatically going to bring trouble or harm my way.  When it comes down to it, I don't respond to stigma; I respond to spirits and, more often than not, my interactions with the often-misunderstood section of society haven't grieved my spirit.

I will tell you what has bothered me more as a Black man trying to survive in America: not knowing whether or not a routine encounter with the police could end my life.  Don't get me wrong, I have had more positive experiences with the police than I have negative ones.  Those of us who grew up in the 70s, 80s and early 90s remember the Officer Friendly program and that was perhaps one of the only times that we as Black inner-city youth looked forward to the police coming around because they were making a genuine effort to connect with us.  However, beginning with the Rodney King beating, those rose-colored glasses were forcefully knocked off of my face.  Add in the deaths of Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Akai Gurley, Laquan McDonald and countless others and I was harshly reminded that the lives of Black boys and men aren't valued by law enforcement officers or the criminal justice system.  Most of these officers have suffered little to no consequence for their aggressive actions often rooted and grounded in assumptions about Black men being the most violent group in America.  The recent murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile have become the last straw for me because it's even more evident that you can't even attempt to comply or deescalate a situation as a Black man in America without potentially being murdered in cold blood.  I don't wanna hear about any one of these men and their number of arrests, convictions, traffic stops, resisting arrest (more than likely out of fear), etc., because these men were refused due process for one reason and one reason alone: they were unofficially charged with existing while Black.

In case you're one of those law enforcement apologists, perhaps my personal experiences will illustrate my point.  In 1999, one of my best friends and I were waiting for friends outside of a diner in Tenleytown when we were profiled and forced to put our hands on the hood of my mother's 1982 Ford LTD (the precursor to one of the most popularly profiled vehicles among Black men, the Crown Victoria) as the vehicle "fit the description" of a stolen car.  Translation: "You are two young Black men casually standing in a predominantly White neighborhood, so we're going to make you feel uncomfortable enough to leave."  In 2000, a New York State Trooper pulled me and my friends over on our way to Rochester Airport to pick up a friend while driving my friend's Honda CR-V--a car that was lent to me by another friend who happened to be Jewish.  I never got a ticket, but translation: "There are too many young Black kids in this one car that doesn't belong to any of you, regardless if the owner is your friend.  You're barely allowed to drive your car and not get profiled, let alone someone else's."  The most egregious incident of all happened in Southeast in 2003 when two white Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers show up, one of them waves a gun in our faces and they search our vehicles.  To be fair, we were drinking and could've been hit with POCA (Possession of an Open Container of Alcohol) charges.  Despite that, that didn't warrant a gun being pulled on us and our cars being searched as if they were looking for narcotics instead of open containers of alcohol, especially when we were gathered peacefully.  Translation: "We don't care about the alcohol; there's just too many of you people gathered in one spot.  Break it up and go home."  Just like many of my run-ins with the police between the ages of 19 and 23, it was a matter of members of various police forces sending a message to me that I will never be able to get away with what I perceive to be harmless because I'm a Black man and there is nothing harmless about me.

Although I'm alive to tell my stories, the same cannot be said for Alton Sterling or Philando Castile unfortunately and that's part of what hurts so much.  Even more painful is the fact that like many of the victims, they had families and communities who loved them dearly--especially children.  Watching Quinyetta McMillon be strong in the face of a blatant murder while her 15-year-old son with Sterling, Cameron, broke down in tears at the loss of his father was a bone-chilling experience.  Witnessing both Diamond Reynolds and her four-year-old daughter Daeanna be as calm as possible as Castile laid dying in the passenger seat at the frantic hands of St. Anthony (MN) Police Officer Jeronimo Yanez was disturbingly surreal.  When Reynolds and fellow supporters were gathered in front of the Governor's mansion the next day and said that her daughter knew that Castile was "gone" even before his last breath, I just broke down crying and pleaded with God, "Why would somebody do this?  Why must our people continue to suffer?"  Knowing how calm young Daeanna had to be may have been both gift and curse because although it was a blessing to Reynolds' spirit to have Daeanna's peaceful presence there, I wonder if seeing so many images of Black men dying at the hands of police desensitized her a bit.  Let's be real: she's four and Trayvon Martin was killed around the same time that she was born, so I don't think she's totally oblivious to what's been happening to Black men and women.  It's almost like she was too prepared and no child should be forced to think in those terms.

The afternoon after Castile's murder and before seeing Reynolds' press conference, I took a long, hard look at my son.  I thought about Mrs. Scribbler and I watching Fruitvale Station for the first time back in 2014, being overcome with so much grief about Oscar Grant's tragic and unnecessary demise and speaking on the importance of protecting Baby Boy Scribbler--who was about three months old at the time--at all costs.  I thought about the conversation that I'll have to have with him when he's older about how he must interact with the police differently than White people have to because the police often devalue the rights, liberties and lives of Black people and all it takes is one flinch as a Black person to catch a "resisting" charge.  I thought about the ridiculousness of having to tell him not to dress, act or speak in a "suspicious" manner just to ward off any assumptions, despite his own father not dressing or acting "suspicious" and still being harassed by the police.  I also thought about the dreadful possibility that I might not make it home one day because some cop trying to desperately meet a quota decided to get Tough Tony with somebody who is all about peace and avoiding conflict.  As these thoughts swirled around in my mind while I grabbed my keys and headed to work, I immediately hugged my son, kissed him on the forehead, reassuringly rubbed his back and told him, "I love you, son.  I'm going to do everything in my power to protect you."  Every good parent wants to ensure that their children are kept out of harm's way, but operating by a separate self-preservation protocol from the protected section of society because of skin color is one of the most unfair and appalling realities that any Black person, young or old, has to face.

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I am sure that there are more Black families who grieve over loved ones lost to street violence at the hands of other Black people than police officers; in fact, I lost one of my closest cousins in 1995 and my barber in 1998 to "Black-on-Black crime" whereas I've never personally known anybody killed by the police.  Many of us are more afraid to allow our kids to play outside after a certain time, if at all, because neighborhood violence is so pervasive and, as Spice 1 once poignantly stated, "the trigga gots no heart".  Nobody wants their friend or family member to become the latest teddy bear memorial, sneakers hanging from overhead power lines or featured face on an R.I.P. T-shirt.  In this dog-eat-dog world, I only expect but so much regard from someone who has such little regard for their own life and is battling the same overarching circumstances that I have and it's honestly unrealistic to expect everyone to conduct themselves in the same way that my brother and I were taught to do.  I'm not excusing criminal or violent behavior because it is deeply problematic, but when a boy or a girl is constantly told that he or she will amount to nothing because of their skin color, family history and community upbringing, they often internalize it and respond in irresponsible ways.  Regardless, I am angry when we cause harm to one another and we do need to abandon our own "code of silence", hold each other accountable for our actions and be diligent in protecting one another against anyone with malice in their hearts.

However, I can only speak from personal experience and, in 36 years of life, only a cop has pulled a gun on me; no Black man or woman has ever brandished a weapon against me.  Only a cop has made me feel like I can't drive through certain neighborhoods or congregate with too many people who look like me at one time without my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness being in jeopardy; no Black man or woman has ever made me feel like I can't walk into a neighborhood because I didn't look like I belonged there.  As much as other Black people have told me that I look like somebody they know, only a cop has said that I "fit a description" and made me feel like something bad could happen to me due to their "guilty by association" way of thinking.  I do expect more consideration from someone who benefits from my hard-earned money and has supposedly been trained to serve and protect me and people who look like me, but don't do it because we resemble faces that they saw on a target practice sheet or voices that they heard in some "gangsta rap" song that talked about violence against the police.  Even if I would've remained in Southeast D.C. instead of moving to Montgomery County, Maryland, police still pose the bigger threat to my life because many of them are shaking more in their boots as the person with the weapon than I am as the person on the other end of their barrel without one.