In a piece my brother wrote reflecting on the current situation, he considered whether black privilege was real. He and I both have considered how our differences from the common story of black people made us ‘privileged.’ For instance, our immersion into the white community, our success in school and now in the workforce, or that we grew up in a middle-class black household (highly uncommon in Boston), led us to believe we had somehow transcended the plight of the black man. Yet, what scared us both so much watching the videos of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, is that we clearly had not. In both cases, it could have been us. There is no escape. There is no level of success that will spare you. We are black men, and that is all that matters to some.
In the past, I usually stayed quiet on these issues. Often, the pain of diving deep into them was too much to regularly confront. College changed many attitudes for me, but none more so than me fully accepting racism is alive and well around me. I sought out more black friends, choosing to room with three other people of color because I wanted to grow more connected with that side of my identity. The room afforded me a space to appreciate aspects of black culture and share stories of anger with people who looked like me. Many of my most clear interactions with racism occurred in college. And it was there that I began to confront the knowledge that roused more frustration within me, such as the War on Drugs and its history as a weapon against black communities, although on every visit to a different college I watched more drugs ingested and smoked with impunity than I ever saw in the hood.
The length of my journey makes me inclined to be more patient with others in this process, as it took me this much time to wake up. We should all be reasonably patient with one another, but I would encourage individuals to not be patient with themselves and to treat these issues with the urgency they deserve. The anger on display the past week should exhibit the need for change.
There are so many experiences I can point to while growing up that speaks to the implicit biases against black people that exist around us. I think of how quickly others in my school community assumed I had a single mother, simply because my father, much like many of theirs, didn’t visit the school often. Or the number of times I have heard ‘you are so articulate’ in a conversation where all I have shared is my name and other small personal details. Standing alone, each instance may seem insignificant, or merely a compliment to my upbringing and education, however, the frequency with which I have had that same response tells otherwise. It reveals how a black kid speaking properly is surprising, and further, now makes me worthy to share the person’s company.
Realization of Token Black Friend
Another important realization is that the token black friend is not spared from the realities facing a black kid from the hood. One morning, while getting ready for school, I heard a scream from my mother outside, followed by my brother sprinting down our stairs. In our 150-year-old home, every quick step down the stairs resembled a drum beating. I followed my brother to find my mom standing at her car, visibly shaken up, telling us, ‘He’s running up the street, he took my phone.’ My brother and I, both barefoot, sprinted up our street and two others until we had caught the culprit. I jumped on his back to stop him until my brother caught up, upon which Raj chewed him out, and we took our stuff back — both too young and inexperienced in the ways of the streets to know we probably should have beat him up. The point is though, we still had to go to school that day. And I remember being too embarrassed to tell any of my friends about what occurred that morning, thinking it would change the way they thought about me or where I came from every day for the worse.
