This is going to be a somber piece.  I might try to inject a little humor into it, but this has been rattling around my head (mayhaps my soul) for a while and I felt like I needed to say my piece.

Darren Wilson was found not guilty.  I’m not surprised.  I actually would’ve been really shocked if the grand jury had decided to indict him for the simple fact that they almost never charge police officers in cases such as this and they really never charge White officers.  Not being [openly] cynical, merely reporting a fact of life in these United States: our police officers are underpaid, under-trained, and overworked, but we don’t let them get charged with murder.  Ferguson went wild.  Fires were set, stores were looted, police made their semi-ominous appearance in riot gear, the streets were packed with angry and upset people.  However, most importantly, a mother felt crushed that the death of her son would go unpunished.

Now let me inject this: I don’t know enough about the Ferguson Incident/Michael Brown shooting to have a well-thought out, decisive opinion on the matter.  I have worked really hard to stay out of it with my friends and family.  I neither approve nor disapprove of the actions that have been taken in Ferguson, Missouri as a result of this incident and the loss of life.  I stand on the sidelines, watching these events with a heavy heart and a hope that we can learn from this.

And I wish I could stop there, because my post isn’t about Darren Wilson/Michael Brown.  This post is about me.

I’m afraid.  I am scared of many things in this world (spiders, sickness, and failure among them), but I am usually afraid for me.   Even if its about my parents, like when my mother was in and out the ER a couple of years ago and we still don’t know why, it’s ultimately selfish.  It’s how the tragedy will affect me, my family, my world.  But now, it’s a deeper, primal fear that I am not really equipped to deal with at this time in my life and there is nothing I can do to lessen it.

I am terrified for my son.

He doesn’t even exist.  I’m not in a place to raise anyone but me at the moment.  He is at least 5 years away from conception, and I’m terrified for him.  Because no matter what race his father is, no matter how much money I/we make, how he is educated, where he is raised, the fact remains that he will be a Black man in America.  And that terrifies me.

I realize that this seems strange.  I just got done stating that this wasn’t about Michael Brown.  But the fact remains that it is hard to be a Black man in this country, and I am scared for my baby before he is even a possibility.  Look, I’m not blind to the faults and problems within my community.  My sister is right, black-on-black crime is such a bigger problem than police brutality yet we’re up in arms when we feel that someone else has hurt us.  Like most forms of abuse, you are much more likely to be hurt by the ones you know and see and are the same color as than a stranger.  And that’s why I’m afraid.

While I don’t have an opinion on the Darren Wilson/Michael Brown case and while I have never had anything but helpful, courteous service from police officers, I am not naive about the relationship between the police and the Black community.  But I’m a woman.  When I had a flat at night in the suburbs, where you have to be careful DWB at high noon, when a police officer saw a car at an empty gas station and a strange Black person peering through the windows for a clerk, when he asked what was happening, I whirled around, flashed a smile, and clutching my coat around my curves, proclaimed that I was so happy to see him because I needed quarters for the air pump and the gas station that I thought was manned was actually closed.  At which time he shut off the flashlight that had moved to my face, got out of his car, and offered to escort me to 7/11.  Do I think that would have gone differently if instead of being female, I had been male?  Hell yes.  And I’m not a small girl.  If a 6 foot, statuesque Black man had turned around and said that he was looking for the clerk cause he needed some change, there would have been some friction.  And that’s the problem.  I will have to teach my son not to be afraid of cops, but to always be actively non-threatening to a population that will often view him as thus.  No matter how educated he is or what his reasons may be, I will have to teach him a whole set of rules that he will have to follow or risk the grave consequences.

I will have to teach him to not antagonize his fellow brothas if he doesn’t know them well enough.  I will have to make sure that he doesn’t go out at night in dark colors that make him look like a suspect.  I will have to drill into him to never run down the street if not in obvious running clothes after the age of 10, and that he should probably find a closed track or treadmill to be safe.  I will have to teach him how to make sure that his footsteps are heard so that he won’t inadvertently sneak up on someone.  And I will have to comfort him and prepare him for the shock, surprise, assumptions, and fear that he will inevitably eventually encounter, from members of other races and his own.  For not getting angry when a woman clutches her purse when she sees him.  For being amused and not insulted when people think he’s in college because he plays a sport and not for a career (for any son of mine WILL go to college and earn a good education through academia, even if he might also be on the basketball team).  For forgiving people like me, who will judge him against their will.

Because I have.  I do.  And it is a horrible thing, that at 25, I am afraid that my eventual son will face some of the shame I carry.  How I froze when a Black man all in black ran toward me, and the anger I felt towards myself when his valet uniform was revealed and he plucked keys from the person standing behind me.  The way I clutched my backpack tighter on campus when a Black male student with his scarf covering half of his face walked toward me a few weeks ago during an especially vicious MI cold spell and stopped as we passed to compliment my dreads.

I am afraid that he will be treated the way Black men in my life have already been treated.  I am afraid that he will be arrested for driving erratically within his lane like my father.  I am afraid he will be ticketed for loitering while sitting on a bench outside his apartment like my cousin.  I am afraid he will have a gun drawn on him by cops while reaching for his wallet like my boyfriend.  And I am afraid that I will be a heartbroken mother like Sabrina Fulton, Sam Rice, Wanda Johnson, Alice Faye Williams, and so many others.  I am afraid of the pressures he will face, of the judgments made concerning him before knowing him, of the struggle he must overcome.  I am afraid of him being afraid to ask for help, I am afraid of him befriending those who might lead him down a bad path, I am afraid of him succumbing to the stereotypes and I am afraid of being so scared that I separate him from the community that could help and hinder him, but a community that he will need nonetheless.

I am terrified for my son.