I write this as race again rears its ugly head with the news
of the shooting of a 17 year-old black teenager by the name of Trayvon Martin (in
Sanford, Florida). His death was
senseless. That the shooter remains free
should concern every parent. When
President Obama – a man I don’t often agree with – said “If I had a son he
would look like Trayvon Martin”, he spoke from the heart. Unfortunately, in America, race matters. Whether “driving while black” or walking back
from a convenient market with skittles and an ice tea “while black” it is
tough, sometimes deadly to be black in America.
A few weeks ago during a visit, a relative leaned in and whispered
to me “Obama hates white people”. How do
you know that? I asked, realizing the
President’s own mother is white. “It was
on the internet”, came the reply.
And it made me think of my own upbringing. I grew up in an upper-middle income family in
upstate New York who had zero black neighbors or friends. My high school had one black student. Our church, a 400 member Presbyterian
congregation had one black couple. I
still remember cringing as a middle-schooler in the late ’60’s when my mom
remarked once that Shirley “is a credit to her race.” I wonder what that makes me, now a member of
the tribe of felons?
My family moved to Raleigh in the 80’s when I was in law
school. They have no black neighbors, no
black friends, no black church families.
They have never voted for a black candidate. The only contact they have with Black America
is when they go to the mall. And if my
mom sees young black men she instinctively clutches her purse and car
keys.
And I wonder, thinking about all that, why no young black
man in prison has ever suggested to me “your family hates black people”. White America, I am convinced, doesn’t
understand what it means to be black in this country.
Here are some facts to ponder. Roughly three out of four black children are
born out of wedlock. 60% of all black
males between 17 and 25 have a criminal record.
80% of black students don’t go beyond high school. Four in ten don’t even graduate high school. The dropout rate, the incarceration rate, the
mortality rate, the poverty rate for black Americans is dramatically worse than
for the white community.
Those are just facts.
That doesn’t quantify the number of times blacks are stopped by the
police for random pat downs, or the fact that while drug use is proportional in
both the black and white communities, a young black caught with drugs will
almost always end up in prison. And the
white? Rehab and probation.
America is not a color-blind society, and it’s a shame, a
national shame. Trayvon Martins lies
dead for one simple reason; he was a black teenager walking at night. I hate saying that, but the truth sometimes
isn’t pretty.
Prison is an amalgam of gang bangers, white supremacists,
and the rest of us. I thought when I was
first locked up how wasteful and inane the entire gang culture was. Then, I looked myself in the mirror. Gangs are a reflection of the sick, pervasive
race issues this nation still suffers from.
And it will get worse. The N.O.I.
– Nation of Islam, with their call for race separation and their revisionist
history and illogical conclusions passing as “knowledge” grows by leaps and
bounds each week behind these walls. I
hear the young black guys discussing their “elements of wisdom” and my heart
breaks. They are being fed falsehood
upon falsehood.
Dr. King understood the dangers that lurked for America if
we didn’t grasp our race problem. We are
not to judge “by the color of our skin”, but “by the content of our character”. Those of us who believe in the Gospel of
Jesus know well that “in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor
female, free nor slave”.
Trayvon Martin’s tragic death can be a chance for America to
be something different, a nation not separated or defined by color. Surely any parent can feel the pain his
family must feel. And that is as plain
as black and white.
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