As an African American, I have to be hypervigilant about my presence in the world in ways that are often unimaginable to my white colleagues. I can rage about it. I can weep about it. But it is real.
bit.ly/2OCUGE1
bit.ly/2OCUGE1
As a black woman, people make assumptions when they first see me. So my clothes are my armor.
My white professional friends often go to parent teacher conferences and to doctor’s offices in casual clothes. I dress up. It might sound crazy to you, but teachers and doctors don’t hear me or speak to me or see me in the same way without my armor.
White parents can sigh about their children and say, “Boys will be boys.” I see white boys -- rowdy, funny, smart-alecky, chest-thumping -- and my heart breaks. Because I know my son does not have that luxury.
My son is a 6th grader in accelerated algebra, a soccer player who loves novels about Egyptian mythology. But white people often assume the worst of adolescent black boys. So he will never have the same freedom as his white peers, if he wants to excel, if he wants to be safe
A friend invited me and my family to swim in their pool while she was on vacation. My husband and I considered it. And declined. We didn’t want to take the risk. How would neighbors react when black strangers appeared in the pool next door?
There has been a lot of talk lately about second chances, about innocence until proven guilty, about the right to the benefit of the doubt. Whatever your position on Brett Kavanaugh, the truth is that black boys and black men are rarely accorded those privileges.
The truth is that even rage in America is racialized and genderized. Brett Kavanaugh’s supporters saw him as passionate, fierce and valiant when he raged before the Senate committee last week.
People of color — and women — are rarely celebrated when they rage. We are penalized when we rage. We are dismissed and discounted. As emotional women. As angry black women. As difficult black men.
So when I saw the story about a black man put in handcuffs because he was carrying a TV he bought into his own house, I raged inside. Driving while black. Sleeping while black. Shopping while black. Eating lunch while black. Now this? In 2018, it shouldn't be so hard to just be.
Then I put on my armor and went to work.
