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Another Letter to a White Boy Named Andy
By Lafe Tolliver, Esq
Dear Andy, by now you should have heard a lot of talk,
comments and opinions about the death of the black teenager,
Michael Brown, who was recently shot and killed by a white
police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.
As you also may have heard, the black community has
been up in arms due to this shooting of the unarmed teen and
which shooting follows a long line of other police shootings
of young, black males across the country.
It is as if some white police officers have a
predisposition to shoot first and ask questions later about
their states of mind at the time of the shootings and why
they did not engage in other means of controlling or
confronting an alleged miscreant.
Remember the all too recent case of the black man Eric
Garner who was placed in an illegal choke hold by a
policeman in NYC? He also died at the hands of police.
His crime? Allegations that he was selling single
cigarettes. No proof. Simply allegations of such conduct.
Why they did not simply serve him with a summons to
appear in court rather than accost him and place him a
chokehold is known only to the offending officer.
Again, such conduct leads black people to believe
that the police do not value black life and for police
officers to quickly snuff it out means that they are not
concerned about any adverse consequences against them. They
can either use the shield of limited governmental immunity
or, in many cases, they were, “fearful” for their lives
because the person made a “furtive gesture” which led the
officer to believe that a deadly weapon was at hand.
Time now does not permit me to rehash the case of
Trayvon Martin or many, many others who were caught up in a
police web that led to their being imprisoned or, worse,
killed for petty nonsensical reasons. But, nonetheless,
there are apparently reasons that a grand jury accepted as
truth and exonerated the offending officer in killing
Micheal Brown.
Now, when such results build up and build up, they
create a reservoir of mistrust of police officers and, when
combined with antagonistic racial attitudes towards people
of color by white police officers (not all white officers),
you get a volatile and inflammatory cinder box of rage and
resentment that your life, a black life, is of minimal
value… if any value at all.
No, I am not condoning the prior actions of Michael
Brown in which, according to a store video, he committed a
strong armed robbery of some tobacco products and seemingly
threatened the frightened store owner as he was exiting the
store.
And, no, I do not understand the family dynamics in
which Michael Brown was raised insofar as that family unit
and the imparted values, or lack thereof, produced a child
who believed that bullying people was acceptable conduct.
My discussion with you, Andy, is to explain that there
are other, lesser means by which a person can be stopped or
corralled by a police officer when that person does not
possess a gun or a deadly weapon.
The shooting officer, Darren Wilson, did not use a
baton nor did he use any Mace or a Taser gun. It was deadly
force or nothing at all. Could he have waited out Michael
Brown so that his called back-up officers could arrive and
with a show of force subdue the teenager? We will never
know.
It is almost that when white police officers deal with
people of color even in situations that are not hostile,
their first reaction is to pull out their guns and
fire…fire…fire! Something is terribly wrong with that mind
set when the first and last option is to use deadly force.
At least the police officers in Los Angeles beat the
living heebee jeebees out of Rodney King and did not simply
execute him on the spot.
Andy, the country is in trouble. The racial divide is
wider than before and just as troubling since the days of
Jim Crow since the American System of justice has shown by
its mass incarcerations (read the book, The New Jim Crow
by Michelle Alexander) that black people are still relegated
to the dredges of being given legal fairness and judicial
empathy versus similarly situated white perpetrators.
You then fast-forward to the Michael Brown scenario and
to a secret grand jury composed of nine whites and three
blacks which votes 9-3 not to return any charges against
Officer Darren Wilson.
To some such a “no bill” is unbelievable but, as for
the forensic evidence, it indicates that the officer was
within his legal rights to blast Michael Brown into eternity
firing over 10 rounds at the kid.
Andy, you may have heard of black parents now either
telling or re-telling this story and other police misconduct
stories along with their parental admonitions to their male
youths that they need to “step lightly and circumspectly”
when dealing with any situation involving any police
officer.
You may have heard the recent story of a 76 year old
white male
in Minnesota who confronted, shot and killed his next door
neighbor who was a 13-year-old black kid whom he thought
broke into his house and stole some guns.
The kid was shot to death while his frantic mother and
other witnesses looked on. The kid’s crime at the time of
the shooting? Taking out the trash, in the middle of the day
and being confronted by this gun-toting, angry white man.
Andy, the conversation has again been with black
parents telling their kids, especially the black male child,
that living in America, even in a so-called safe gated
community (where Trayvon Martin was visiting his father at
the time of his killing) is fraught with danger and you just
do not know when a black parent could get a call from the
police department or, worse yet, the coroner’s office,
saying that your son has been shot dead.
For your parents, Andy, such a call would be rare
because you walk around with the mantle of the presumption
of innocence due to white skin privileges; and the gun
toting policeman or wannabe vigilante is, for the most part,
white.
Andy, you got it “made in the shade” with the societal
grant of white skin privileges! If there is a doubt between
you and a black kid in the same and similar situation, the
investigators (probably being white) will give you the
benefit of the doubt when they see who you are, where you
come from and how well you speak the English language.
Yes Andy, society has weighed it “goodies” towards you
and your posse. The good low-hanging fruit of this society
bends and weighs towards the kid who has white skin and blue
or brown eyes, who does not drop the endings of his words,
even if he wears a hoodie, and likes to listen to black rap
or hip-hop music blaring out of headphones or out of a car.
Andy, society allows the white skin privileges, that
you consciously or unconsciously enjoy, as a cloak for
giving you the benefit of the doubt that you are a good
white kid and as such, you are given every presumption of
being OK; and when in trouble, law enforcement will say to
each other and to the media, “That’s Andy, he is one of us.”
Andy, my boy, society has given you a pass that it will
honor and protect unless and until you do something so foul
and heinous that it will revoke your white skin privileges
in order to make sure that the next Andy can still use or
benefit from them.
Andy, by accident of birth, you are given a pass to the
American Dream if you just keep your nose clean, work hard
and follow the script.
You know the script: You can act out while you are
young and even act like a wannabe black boy, and with all of
the gesturings, clothes, shoes and music; you can act out
your fantasies but when it is time to close down the show
and act white, you gotta know when to assert the white skin
privileges and return to “your own.”
So, go ahead, Andy, have the time of your life, walking
that tightrope between obedience and disobedience, indulging
in any forbidden fruits that catch your eye with the safe
realization that if things get tough, really tough and you
are caught up in a jam involving race, you can lean back,
smile and throw down that race card that… “get out of jail
free card” and walk away and make it home … alive.
In closing Andy, enjoy your race card but at least have
some respect for yourself that you will seek to know how
America’s long and tortuous racial history has caused such
a card to be issued to the Andys’ in the USA.
We will talk later.
Contact Lafe Tolliver at
Tolliver@Juno.com |
