Black Boys and Innocence

Early in the school year, a little boy named Albert was killed in a drive-by shooting in my hometown. The shooting occurred in the deep hours of the night, and he was where all little boys are supposed to be at that time: in bed, curled up with his cousins in bed near the window-unit air conditioner to fight off the summer heat.

I knew this little boy. He had been my mom's second-grade student during the previous school year, and he was a handful. But he tried so hard to be good, and he fell in love with my one-year-old foster son when we visited, carried him around like he was his own little brother. When he was feeling anxious or angry or sad, he would go to my mom's desk and hug my kiddo's picture to him, calming himself through the love and happiness that he felt when he saw my baby.

And, then, one summer day, he was gone. Just like that.

And why? Because of a feud between families who like to solve their problems with guns.

I remember sobbing when I saw pictures of the bullet holes in his house. They centered around the window-unit air conditioner, the coolest place in the summer heat, the place where parents and grandparents who love their children are most likely to nestle them for sleep during the warmest months.

It wasn't an accident that Albert died that day. It wasn't random.

Nine months later, another black boy has been shot and killed. I didn't mention that Albert was black, did I? But you probably already knew - or at least suspected.

It's dangerous to be a young black boy right now.

Albert was killed because the shooter wanted to kill innocence, to strike at the heart of the family.

Treyvon Martin was killed because the shooter looked at a teenage black boy and could not see innocence. Instead, he saw a threat to his neighborhood, a teenager that he instinctively knew was walking the streets to cause trouble. So, the shooter - a self-appointed neighborhood watchman on a mission to protect the streets - got out of his car, chased Treyvon down, and shot him in his own neighborhood as he was walking home from the convenience store. Nevermind the fact that Treyvon lived in that neighborhood, was a clean-cut student-athlete in the local high school, and was armed with only an iced tea and a pack of Skittles.

Much has been made in the news about the threat of a young man in a hoodie. But I wear hoodies, as do my college students. As do millions of other Americans. It wasn't the hoodie that was the threat. It was one man's fear of what a teenage black boy might be doing in THIS neighborhood at THIS time of night.

So, where do we go from here, those of us who know and love our own young black boys? How do I protect my foster son from people that would hurt him because of the color of his skin? How can I prepare him to live - and not die - in this world? At what point do I - or his bio-parents - need to have that conversation with him, the one where we help him to navigate this world by explaining that walking or driving or sleeping "while black" could be dangerous for him?

I'm not ready for those conversations yet. Right now, I just want to enjoy taking him to the zoo and playing with him on the playground at the park when he's with me. Today, I want enjoy his sweet smile, his kindness and joy and laughter.

Those conversations will come later. But in this world, they can't be avoided.



A mother and her sons talk about this topic on NPR here.