Dear Caldwell,
Greetings from Washington DC, where the family and I are spending some time, which I am taking for a mix of study, rest and some work while daughter Sophie is in a program here.
Much has been said – and continues to be said – in reflection of the Trayvon Martin case. Last week, the President offered his thoughts, which were, at once, both roundly criticized for being too weak and welcomed as being timely and helpful. So goes our conversation about race in America, echoing the statement that race is “America’s orginal sin.”
Sunday we visited a wonderful church here called Church of the Pilgrims. Much like Caldwell, it is old and now on a second life as a diverse, inclusive, missional and urban expression of Reformed Christianity. (The church was begun in the era when there were two branches of the Presbyterian church, one northern and one southern. It was meant to be a place where southern “pilgrims” could go to worship while in the northern environs of Washington, rather than worshipping with northern Presbyterians. As with Caldwell, God has taken that unfortunate history and made something new, but not without some irony!)
Anyway, back to the Martin case, the preacher shared a thought-provoking reflection by a young African-American in which he shared some thoughts about how his mother gave him “realness from a young age.” As a white man, the preacher told this story to say the best he (the preacher) could do amidst this national conversation was to be quiet and listen to others’ voices. In that spirit, I share below a young African American’s thoughts on where we’ve been and where we’re going as a pluralistic nation of God’s children.
In Christ, John
“Man, I’m just glad I had a mom who gave me the realness from a young age. I can remember thinking she was so stuck in the past for telling me that I couldn’t do or say or wear certain things, that I could not stay out as late as my white friends could, that I could not “experiment” with any of the things my white friends did. I struggled so much with her for trying to impress upon me the fact that I was different. Because I’m supposed to be. I lived in a nice house, spoke more than one language, was well educated and well socialized and I did not understand why I needed to constantly act in a manner designed to disarm another person’s suspicions about me.
But wow, I get it now. Every black kid has that moment where he has to decide to accept the armor that his parents present to him to get through life as an American black male, or walk around naked. And the crazy part is, it’s probably something most people outside of the black community never see. I can remember my mom talking to me over and over and over again about what to do and who to call if I was ever picked up by a police officer. She made sure I knew that I needed to declare that I was exercising my Miranda rights rather simply evoke them without notice. If you were in some schools, your mom probably made you take a WHOLE FREAKING CLASS on how to deal with police officers and other people who were perceived to be threatening.
And I say that to say that as scary as people think black males are, black males are conditioned to be ten times more afraid of everyone else. We’re conditioned to be afraid of going to certain parts of the country, afraid of people with certain political views, afraid of police officers, and sometimes even afraid of other black and Latino males. The most sickening thing about this whole trial has been the deliberate campaign to rob Trayvon of his right to be afraid. I know I would have been.
And I owe her the deepest of apologies for all of the times that I accused her of overacting or impressing a vision of a society long since passed on the one that exists today.
It doesn’t matter how well traveled you are or how many languages you speak or where you went to school. It doesn’t matter how many friends you have or how much good you’ve done in the world. From afar we are all the same.
It used to hurt when my mother would tell me I couldn’t put my hood up or that I couldn’t stay out as late as my white friends. She told me I was a young black male and I couldn’t afford these things and I figured she never knew how much it hurt to know that she did not have faith that I could transcend the many stereotypes that swirl around me and be seen as an individual.
But when I think about my own mother having to come down to the police station, and identify my naked body, and come home and go in my room that would feel strangely empty. She would have to walk past my favorite custom built aquarium and the framed boards my class in japan made for me on my last day of study abroad, she would have to open my closet and go through all of the clothes I would never wear again and find my favorite suit and then walk out of a room where every object holds a memory.
She would have to go on interviews and meet with lawyers and try to be strong in the face of unimaginable tragedy, while people picked apart my character and found every FaceBook status where I cursed or every stupid picture I was ever captured in. She would have to sit in court and dignify people who sought to put me in the ground with not a shred of justice with her presence and her silence. And then on top of that, after a year of pain, to hear from 6 other mothers that my life meant nothing……..
And the thought that after 24 hours of labor, thousands of dollars on tuition and extra curriculars and trips and summer activities, and millions of tiny sacrifices that she could be left with the dust of my memory and the guilt of having not prepared me for this thing called America.”