April 2012

My great-grand mother, Martha, celebrated her 95th birthday. Unfortunately, we don’t know her exact age due to where and when she was born. We think she was born in North Carolina, 52 years after the abolishment of slavery.

She has lived to witness a number atrocities committed against people due to their differences from the majority. She has also lived to see the will of the minority push for change. At some point she, like many others accepted what the majority was telling them about themselves. She accepted that she was inferior.

She accepted that she was inferior even though she and her husband worked hard to be able to move into a house in Southeast Washington DC when it was a predominantly white neighborhood.  She accepted she was inferior even though she raised 3 sons and helped raise grand children, and great-grand children. Martha’s acceptance of her inferiority was poured into how she raised and taught her children, grand children, and great-grand children about the world she knew.

She taught me I failed the “Brown Paper Bag” test. She was the one who taught me that being right didn’t matter cause I was dark skin. Every day she tried to instill in me that I was inferior, in order to protect me from the majority.

She feared losing her family to the majority, because she saw the lack of justice for people like herself that were apart of the minority. She would hear about individuals being lynched, raped, beat, and killed, with the party responsible going unpunished. She saw the news when Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Emmett Louis Till, Willie Edward Jr., Herbert Lee, and many more individuals who died for not accepting the notion of being inferior.

She believed that if you kept your eyes down, did as told, and didn’t make a fuss when you were wronged by the majority, that you had a chance at what she considered “Happiness”. It took me a number of years to understand, accept, and forgive my great-grand mother for trying to teach me that I was inferior but I’m also thankful to her for trying to do so. Due to her lesson, I became fully aware that people would fear, hate, and think less of me. Those same people would treat me a certain way based on their perception of me because I was born with a larger concentration of melanin in my skin.

Her teachings prepared me for the days when I had to interact with individuals who were “White”, especially law enforcement officers. I knew to say, “Yes sir” when responding, to not argue, to do as told, and to make no sudden movements when interacting with them. It didn’t matter to her if your rights were being violated; all that mattered was that you didn’t become a victim of the majority like “Trayvon Martin” and many others.

Since I was born in 1982, well after the Civil Rights Movement, my mother taught me that I wasn’t inferior. I was taught to protect, to provide, and to stand up for what I believe. She taught me I was the master of my fate. She pushed me to find my own path and to walk that path to the best of my abilities.

Many years after standing up to my great-grand mother, and crying to my mother about how she treated me, I would be seen by many as the exception to the rule. I beat the odds and made it pass my 25^th birthday, I beat the odds and graduated from college, and I beat the odds and found a job in a profession where individuals like me are rare.

Unfortunately, me beating the odds doesn’t matter because like Martha always pointed out I have dark skin and people will treat me differently for that reason alone. So how do I tell my two children that the world many people have died fighting for doesn’t truly exist? Yes things have progressed from 1865, but one FACT remains the lives of those with dark skin are not valued the same as those who are not.

It’s been 45 days since a child was gunned down for walking down the street in clothing that many people wear on a cool weather day. His murderer has yet to be charged for the crime, simply because of the victims skin color. And yet very few members of the majority are outraged or even care. The majority seems to be annoyed by the fact that the minority is outraged by the incident. Today I read, “Other black folks have died recently that contributed a lot more to society than he did” in response to “Gone but not forgotten RIP Trayvon Martin”, and was yet again shocked by how little value is put on the life of a black child.

Yes, a number of black individuals have died, that have contributed far more than Trayvon Martin, but the fact remains that they got to live their lives in order to contribute. Trayvon Martin had the potential to contribute to society in so many ways. He could have become the first African American to receive a Fields Medal, but that was changed when he was suspected of being a threat by simply walking to and from the store in everyday clothing.

I wish @JohnBudge could explain to me why a black child’s life holds no value until they contribute to society. Explain to me why you are not outraged when an adult male kills a child that he decided to follow while caring a gun to stop them for walking home. Explain to me why you are comfortable with a justice system that would allow such an act to go unpunished. Explain to me how you would feel if it was your son.

I know how I feel and he wasn’t my son. But if he were, I would pray for the strength not to take the law into my own hands; strength the man who took my sons’ life did not have. I would pray for justice, and I would hope that people would acknowledge that my son was a child that never made it home because of a society built on prejudice. I would hope that my great-grand mother’s fears would be put to rest. I would pray it would be the last time the majority ever felt it was OK to not be outraged by a grown man shooting an innocent child and claiming self-defense.

– Michael Knowlin II

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