A cry for Mike Brown
One day I hope to bring into this world a little dark boy: dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes; a little chocolate thing that I can love and teach, discipline and play with, fight for and care for; a little dark boy who will one day become a full grown, dark man, with the same, beautiful dark skin, dark hair, and dark eyes.
A dark boy; dark like my daddy, and my uncles, and my grandfathers, and my male cousins, and my beautiful nephew, Marc Anthony.
I worry for my little, dark boy who is yet to be. What will the world see when they look upon his darkness? Will his dark skin intimidate them? Will his dark hair upset them? Will his dark eyes scare them?
Will the world appreciate my little dark boy? Will the world allow my full grown, dark man to live and thrive, without having to consider what others think of his dark skin, dark hair, and dark eyes?
Don't come at me with talk of the dark boys murdering other dark boys in Chicago. This is not about that. This is about understanding the value of human life. White boys kill other white boys too. But this is not about that.
Don't come at me with talk of looters: that does not change that another unarmed, dark boy has been shot by police officers. The looting happened after the killing, so any discussion about his death need not include a discussion about looters.
Don’t come at me with stories of Black folks killing white babies, asking me why I’m only outraged when a white person kills a Black person. In all of those cases that folks circulated during the time of Trayvon’s death, the Black murderer had been promptly arrested, tried and convicted. Not sheltered and excused. Additionally, this is a case of the establishment using undue deadly force and misusing its power in a systematic way. I care about all the dead and murdered children, no matter their or their murderer’s color, but this is not that.
This is about the dark boys, the brown boys, the mocha and vanilla latte-colored Black boys who are feared and misunderstood for no other reason than the color of their skin, the kink of their hair, or their choice of clothing. Boys who grow into men with a profound distrust of those who are supposed to serve and protect, because the law has never been and is still not on their side.
I listened to the tearful plea of a white mother in Ferguson saying: “We just want life to get back to normal.”- Well, lady, I’d venture to say that people are protesting so that things will not get back to normal. Your normal is safe, and thank God for your safe, normal life. But their normal is what’s the problem. It’s time out for normal, for status quo. We need an abnormal situation, because normal is just not going to cut it for 100 more years. There’s more than one way to lynch, and we cannot continue with the lynchings, perpetrated and protected by the establishment.
