How Do I Teach My Son About Racial Profiling?

Sex Talk. Check. Girl Talk. Check. But mothers of color have another, life or death, conversation they must have with their teen boys.

Parents know that having children means having “The Talk” on topics ranging from sex to drug use.  When they’re young, the information is basic, confined to what and how. When they’re older, we account for life’s complexities and attempt to answer why. African-American parents with sons have to add “What to Do WHEN You Are Stopped By the Police” to the list. We have to, for their safety and our sanity.  We make sure they are polite, voices free of teenage surliness. We run drills on how to place hands on steering wheels and retrieve documents from glove compartments as neutrally as possible, because fear and anxiety may be misconstrued as hostile and threatening. We make leaving the house without identification as unthinkable as leaving naked.  We do because we remember the 41 shots fired at Amadou Diallo, and the 50 fired at Sean Bell.

My son’s name is Sean.

When he began high school at the age of 13, I insisted upon driving him. He insisted upon taking public transportation, part of the rites of passage for city kids. I was concerned about his safety because he was small for his age, which made him, in my mama mind, prey.  We compromised. He agreed to take the long ride on the bus. He had money to call when he arrived and was leaving. This was before cell phones became mandatory, which happened on his third day of school, September 11, 2001.

He begged to take the train, introduced me to his “bodyguards”, teammates Big Lou and Tall Mike. I relented. But we had had the conversations. I gave him pop quizzes when he came out of the shower, and at dinner in between his second and third helpings. And he went to private school, had his whole life. Wore a uniform which was known to every transit employee between here and there. He was articulate, bilingual, could speak “adult” as well as he spoke “teenager”.  He was clean cut, no earrings, no tattoos, no saggy pants, no gaudy chains.

Yet it still happened.  Shortly after he turned 14, he was stopped by the police on his way home. Asked to present identification, where he was headed. That was the first time. The second time, he was frisked and then asked for ID.  

My brother-in-law is a New York City police officer, a detective within a homicide division.  He gave my son a courtesy card issued to officers to give to their relatives in the event they have an interaction with a fellow cop. I have used the card and received a warning instead of an expensive fine. My son has had the card thrown into his face and onto the ground.

At this point, we no longer keep count of him being stopped by the police. Despite all the precautions, being on the honor roll at a private school, despite being a college senior with 35 GPA in a dual major—it doesn’t matter. He even limits the time he spends visiting home because he still gets stopped. My son is no angel; but he’s your typical all-American boy.  Except it’s only typical for African American young men and other men of color to be subjected to this kind of treatment. 

And every single time he’s stopped, I feel I have failed him and I have failed in the God given responsibility of protecting my child. The saddest part of all of this is he’d begun to become “immune” to being stopped. He, like too many other young men of color, has become desensitized to being treated criminally. They take it as par for the course; they shrug it off and most will laughingly share their war stories. But listen closely and you can hear anger comingled with humiliation and a weary, reluctant acceptance. Not exactly the stuff that dreams are made of.