THE MINE FIELD

I’ve had a chance to process more of what’s taking place AROUND me, but more importantly, what’s happening INSIDE of me. See, there’s been a shift of focus. Here’s what I mean…

In the past, I’ve been content to navigate life by trying my best to avoid instances of prejudice, discrimination and flat out bigotry. I call them racial land mines. Whether obvious or hidden, these land mines are a very real threat to me and others like me, in several aspects of daily life. It could be targeted discrimination on the job, excessive derision or bullying at school, false accusations by my neighbors, or undue scrutiny at the store.

LAND MINES.

Over the years, I’ve learned how to circumvent many of these situations by treading cautiously through life. A sad truth. I’ve done my best to teach these avoidance strategies to my two adult sons, and even my 13 year old. It absolutely kills me that this is even something that I have to do. But my hope was that having these tools might LESSEN the chance of them being injured, abused, or let’s be real… murdered. I say lessen because while prevention would be the obvious goal, there simply is no guarantee. I’m aware of the fact that when it comes to these land mines, prevention is not always possible, even under the best conditions.  One false step and it detonates. I NEED people to understand that I carry around with me the reality that there is no protected space. Anywhere. There is no guarantee of safety, even inside my own home.

I’ll be honest. In the past, when people asked about my experience in order to “understand what it’s like”, it was… frustrating. Not because they asked. But because I didn’t think they understood how much of an impossible request this might be. Why? Because there is no equivalent to systemic racism. It’s a different kind of beast. Nothing I described to them would come close to fully expressing the residual strife of a hostile environment built over hundreds of years. Even now, I can’t always articulate how I manage the haunting navigation of black life in America. The closest I’ve come recently is to say that my daily black experience can be summed up in one tormenting question…

AM I NEXT?

Imagine starting every day with this thought overshadowing every thing you do… every conversation, every activity, every interaction. Maybe that will give people insight into what it feels like to be black in America.

LAND MINES.

Because of their pervasiveness, I now know that it’s not enough to just AVOID them, we have to do the hard work and DISMANTLE them. I say WE because I’m convinced that we are far more likely to accomplish this united together than we ever could working alone. We start by having honest, uncomfortable, and sometimes difficult conversations with one another, so that we might understand the reality of the life we live, and how we affect each other. This is how we gain valuable perspective and hopefully, grace and empathy.

This also allows us to identify land mines that may not be obvious to everyone around us. Pointing them out is the first step toward disarming and hopefully destroying them. That’s not to say that I have all of the answers. But I do believe they can be found through our combined efforts.

So my focus has shifted.

I’m now at the point where I see the need and sincerely desire to have these conversations. As a matter of fact, I welcome anyone who wants to have genuine dialogue about our current conditions, the implications of this movement, the way all of this affects me and my family, how it might be affecting you and yours, and what can be done to move things forward.

BLACK IN 2020 AMERICA

I thought that it would be a good idea to maybe paint a picture for some of you who are genuinely interested, or just curious, about what minority life looks like in America, at least for me and my family. So here are just a few of the very real considerations I have to take into account daily.

– When I mentioned that wearing glasses makes me appear less threatening to some white people, this was not just conjecture. This is from personal experience. I can see people visibly relax when I enter a room and they notice that I’m wearing glasses. I’ve had white people actually say things TO MY FACE about my apparent “harmlessness” because of my glasses. If it was just once, I could pass it off as an exception. But on several occasions white people have “jokingly” said variations of, “Bro, your glasses totally kill the gangster vibe.” Yep. Gangster vibe. Really. Did they mean any offense by the statement? Not at all. But they still got the super eye roll. 🙄

– I’m acutely aware of the substantial risk I take every time I leave my house. Not sometimes, during holidays, or on the weekends. No… EVERY. TIME. There’s an ever-present anxiety because I never know if this will be the day when I’m pulled over by the police, not because I did anything wrong, but because I “fit the description”. I would venture to guess that if you polled a sampling of black people, a majority would tell you that “fit the description” is a trauma trigger. When I get in my car, before I put it in drive, I place my cell phone in a holder attached to my dashboard. Why? Because I want to be able to call my wife or start a live-stream within seconds of being pulled over by the police. It’s on my Driving While Black checklist. It may not keep me alive, but it may bring some justice.

– There’s some weird notion that being “other” is preferred to being “black”. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been asked “Are you Cuban/Dominican/Puerto Rican/Non-Black?” by white people. It’s as if believing I am something OTHER THAN black, will make me more… acceptable? If I’m NOT black, maybe they somehow think I’m okay to like or believe or trust or befriend? Just a guess, but when I say, “No, I’m Black/African American”, there’s a noticeable sense of disappointment.

Again, I’m not speaking for all black people. I’m just sharing my personal experience. And if you take nothing else away from this message, please understand this… no amount of data, statistics, or reports should ever invalidate someone’s personal experience. We’ve lived what we’ve lived and we often see life through the filter of those experiences. Remember that before attempting to trivialize someone’s trauma.

Shades Of Gray

For those of you who don’t know (and less for those who don’t care ) neither my wife nor myself consider ourselves fully any one race.  What I mean is this…

On my side, my mother is of Choctaw Indian and Irish descent.  Her maternal grandfather was a first generation pale Irish immigrant with green eyes and her grandmother could’ve been named Pocahontas.  I only have a few pictures of my mother when she was younger.  She had long raven-black hair all the way down her back, and the most beautiful sun-kissed blemish-free skin you could ever wish for.

My father has similar ancestry.  Although his father was a very dark-skinned man, his maternal grandmother was the true definition of a red-skinned woman from Missouri. As a percentage, I’d say African actually comprises maybe 10 to 15% of who I am.  And that’s being generous.  But yet, for all intents and purposes, I am considered a black man in the best sense.

On my wife’s side; her father, who is black, was born in Philly and has blue eyes because of his paternal and maternal grandparents.  As a matter of fact, every single one of his siblings has either blue or green eyes and now in their golden years they all have stark white wavy hair.  Have you ever seen a naturally blond, green-eyed boy with a deep brown complexion?  Those are my wife’s nephews whose mother would often be questioned about whether or not they were her kids because she has brown eyes and black hair.  My wife’s mother was born in Canada and is of German descent.  Her mother actually has dual-citizenship (which I didn’t know could be passed on to your children).

Still, Dre does not feel the need to choose between black and white, but rather fully embraces all of her heritage.

My point is that people often look at us and have already determined that I’m either 1) Black or 2) Hispanic, and she’s either 1) Anglo or 2) Jewish.  We somehow reflect what people consider the stereotypical interracial couple.  Wow.  Really??  I would think that based on the multitude of places around the world that each of us could trace our roots we’re probably more alike than we are different.  It’s fascinating when you think about it.  I just wonder why there’s a tendency to stop there when there’s so much more to our ethnic story.  I mean, what are we really?  Dre’s father identifies himself as black, but she is rarely if EVER described that way by others.  Most people don’t even bother to ask her ethnicity.  Maybe it’s because in lieu of the possible embarrassment of being wrong, it’s easier to assume.  But still it begs the question: Are we considered a particular race based on our ancestry or purely because of our complexion?  Something tells me it’s more the latter than the former.

I have to wonder what people will say about our children.  Being of such diverse ancestry, they will probably epitomize those who legitimately check the “other” box when identifying themselves on most forms.  We will never force them to identify more with any one race.  Besides, I think culture, in its most basic form, is determined more by how and where you are raised, than what country your ancestors come from.  In that vein, I pray that they will remain a comfortable shade of gray and that they will grow to appreciate everything that came together to create the honorable people they will undoubtedly become.

So today, I salute an America that embraces my children as a product of a dream come true.