Still Invisible?. Elvin J. Dowling

You are only 8-years old and your world revolves around your friends and your family. You are oblivious to the ways of the world and what’s in store for you as you learn and mature and leave the safety of my arms. I wish that I could guarantee this safety for the rest of your life; but I can’t. I am no longer able to pretend that raising you right is all you’ll need...

       Son, you, no, we live in a country built on hate, fear, and oppression. We live in a country that will judge you, NOT by whom you are and what you stand for, but for what some random person with the same skin color does. We are a part of a race of people that are looked at collectively. You are an African American and you’re a male and being those two things can be deadly...

       ...What I’m about to tell you will make you question my sanity, but I am telling you this because I want you to live. There is NO room for mistakes in your life, Braxton; none. You cannot dress a certain way, you cannot talk a certain way, you cannot walk a certain way and you CANNOT EVER commit ANY kind of crime that will put your life in the hands of someone else. You CANNOT hang around certain people, walk in certain areas, or even go to the store with a group of friends to buy a sandwich. I may never see you alive again. Your life can be taken by police and there will be NO recourse because all they’ll have to say is 5 words…. “I feared for my life.” That’s it. Guess what? They will be believed because it appears that the prevailing belief is just by virtue of your skin color and sex that you are to be feared. It doesn’t matter that you’re very sensitive. It doesn’t matter that YOU don’t care about what color your friends are. It doesn’t matter, honey.

       A lot of people will assume you’re a thug… not because you act like one, not because you’ve EVER walked the streets of an inner city, but because you are Black. It doesn’t matter that I worked my fingers to the bone to ensure that I raised you in a safe environment away from the issues that prevail in poor communities. It doesn’t matter that I’m educated and articulate. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t let you run the streets doing what you wanted to do; NONE OF THESE THINGS MATTER!

       If you are ever stopped by the police, Braxton, I want you to do the following:

      1 Comply with their requests. It doesn’t matter how they request it, what they are doing while they request it or how you feel about the request. JUST DO IT! I need you to come home.

      2 Make NO sudden movements. If they ask you for ID tell them it’s in your pocket and suggest that they get it out. Lord knows if they fear for their lives at that moment you may be killed.

      3 If you’re driving, keep your license and registration in your lap or very close by so that any movement to retrieve it isn’t a big movement. You may be shot if they fear for their lives.

      4 If the officers grab you, push you, rough you up. Take it! Demean yourself, humiliate yourself but take it. Remember those 5 words. “I feared for my life..."

       ...When a Black man does something positive it’s an individual accomplishment. When a Black man does something negative, it is somehow a collective condemnation of all Blacks. Others can distance themselves from the negative, criminal acts of those like them… we don’t have that luxury....

       You need to know and understand that in this country, you can be killed by the police without ever drawing a weapon, without ever being convicted of a crime, without ever committing a crime. I know what you’re thinking. I know you’re wondering what the hell you’re supposed to do with the cards stacked this way. I am telling you to do WHATEVER you need to do to make it home to your family alive. That is what you’re supposed to do. Come home! I want you to live to deal with the justice system another day. Come home!...

       I need to see you graduate from high school and college. I need to see you meet the woman of your dreams and marry her and give me grandchildren because your sister says she’s NOT having them. I need to see the man you’re destined to become. I need you to live, Braxton. I will figure out how to deal with my fears when you walk out the door, but I need you to walk back in that door alive. I am sick as I type these words because it isn’t fair that I have to tell you these things. I don’t imagine other mothers have to do this with their sons. But I need you to live, so here I am.

       I love you... Mom

      Today, in a country that will judge Black boys by the color of their skin, rather than the content of their character, even the heartfelt cries of a cacophony of mothers can't drown out our desire to maintain the status quo, no matter how bad things look on video or falsified reports. Unfortunately, in my America, that's the cost of doing business. And for that I make no apologies. It is... what it is...

      Keep the Faith,

      Lady Justice

      Gregory Diggs: The Fight for Equitable Education

      Who's Your Daddy?

      The iconic songwriter and heralded Black history-maker, Dr. James Weldon Johnson, writer of "Lift Ev'ry Voice And Sing", a soon-forgotten song he penned early on in his teaching career that would ultimately become known as the Negro National Anthem, once poignantly declared: "You are young, gifted, and Black. We must begin to tell our young, 'There's a world waiting for you. Yours is the quest that's just begun.” As an individual who spent his entire professional career reminding both himself and the children he served as an educator in the Denver Public School System that they were capable of achieving the things that others could only imagine, Dr. Gregory Diggs has stood in the gap for vulnerable populations, namely Black children, his entire professional career.

      "I'm originally from Silver Spring, Maryland and was born the son of Dr. John W. Diggs and Claudette Barnes," Diggs says as he describes his middle-class upbringing in the suburban Washington, DC area. "I grew up in a pretty upper-middle-class African-American community that was sort of nestled in a larger white community. I was fortunate in that most of my role models were members of my family. My father, for example, was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated, and was part of quite a storied chapter of members that was founded in Silver Spring back in the 1970's, and also birthed the idea of a national memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the fraternity's most revered members."

      The first Black Greek Letter Organization for college educated men, the fraternity boasts an illustrious membership of luminaries, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall, former Vice President of the United States, Hubert H. Humphrey, and former United Nations Ambassador and mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, Andrew Young, among many others. "We had successful Black families in my neighborhood," Diggs remembers. "In the 1980's, when the Cosby Show was on television and showcased a successful Black family, The Huxtables, many of my white colleagues thought it was a fantasy that such a family could exist, but in my day, those are the kind of families I grew up with," he recalled. "Both of my parents were working professionals and they taught their children the importance of education and doing your best, at all times, to move forward in this life." But even for Black children who grew up just as Dr. Diggs did, the obstacles many face in the American education system leaves them left further and further behind, trailing their counterparts and not being pushed to their peak potential due to what former U.S. President George W. Bush often called "the soft bigotry of low expectations."

      Even having grown up in what many Blacks would consider a "charmed existence," Diggs believed that the persistent devaluing of the Black family is a continuation of a pattern of discrimination visited upon minority communities. "Society is built on this notion that white middle-class norms and values and people are what the 'normal' American experience is, and everyone else is pretty much considered to be either 'less than' or 'less desirable', as compared to their 'normal'", he emphasized. "So, when you've got people that don't grow up around