With all that has been happening in recent years, I think about my father a lot. I think of how he has found a way to balance being both black and an enforcement officer in a world where those two words seem at odds. I think of how there could be an officer who puts his name under Trayvon Martin, Alton Sterling, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile … the list goes on. I think these thoughts and they consume me. I fear that one of these people could have easily been him. But what worries me most is that it doesn’t seem to worry him.
Once, when I was 12, I heard boys in my Social Studies class talking about how the world was going to end on January 1, 2012. I was very easily influenced back then, and this news devastated me. I didn’t want to go to lunch, recess, or the rest of my classes because I couldn’t get this newfound information out of my mind long enough to focus.
I went home that day and told my parents. As the tears streamed down my cheeks, my father sat me down. “Moo,” he called me, “I can promise you that the world is not going to end. Do you know how many times people have said that? And look around – it hasn’t happened yet.”
It startled me how casual he was, how he was not concerned in the least about the world ending. Although January 1, 2012, came and went, and the world continued to turn with me on it, I have always remembered the emotional turmoil I felt. That day has stuck with me, and it wasn’t until recently that I understood why.
I’m sure my dad doesn’t remember all the moments we’ve shared, the stories he’s told me. But I’ll never forget the forced humor he used for each story he has told us about his work. Like the one about how he had to put a man who refused to leave his cell in solitary confinement, or how he overhead a fellow officer use a racist slur. These stories always sound terrible, but my dad has a way of turning anything into a joke. He has taught me not to let ignorant words and actions hurt me. As a child, I loved hearing about what went on in the county jail. It made me feel as though I was important and that my dad saw me as mature enough to understand the experiences as he did.
• • •
“How did you not feel it?” I asked incredulously.
My dad and I were sitting on the couch staring at his left pinky, which bends from the halfway point at a 35-degree angle to the right.
“It’s because I’m Superman,” he replied, deadpan.
“Well, how did it happen, Superman?” I mocked.
“This new guy,” he paused, adding a mixture of a huff and a chuckle, “did not want to leave his cell, so we had to get him out. The guy who usually takes care of these things – he’s six foot four and two hundred thirty pounds – was out sick, so of course I’m expected to take his place.” He motioned to his 5'10" frame, then flexed his bicep, eliciting a giggle from me.
“So, what did you do?”
“We had to use those big, plastic sheets and rush him out. But, get this. Before we went in, we asked him one last time to get out, and guess what the guy said to me?”
“What?”
“He said, ‘I’ll try not to take up too much more of your time, officer. I know you ought to get back to picking the cotton for my pillowcase when you’re done here.’ Like … what? You’re in jail, but you’re still going to make cracks about me picking cotton?” He laughed.
I laughed too. “What did you do next?”
“We rushed him out. He put up a fight at first, but four of us versus one of him … it’s a no-brainer. Guess he knocked my pinky between the sheet on the way out, though.”
Dad went into the kitchen to start dinner. As usual, I stood next to the stove, leaning on the countertop while I studied the time intervals he used to stir the beef as it crackled in the pan. After a while I went to pet my dog, who was lounging on the kitchen floor. I noticed she had chewed a hole in her bed and the white fluff was pouring out.
“Hey, Dad, look,” I said, holding up the edge of the bed for him to see. “Good thing you pick all that cotton all day. We’ll be able to fill this back up in no time.” We laughed and laughed.
Race has always been a big topic in my family. That isn’t to say that we talk about it around the dinner table, but my brothers and I have always been aware of our race. Growing up in a family where your mother is white and your father is black has a way of raising the same questions.
“Are you adopted?” No.
“Is that your step-mom?” No.
“Do you mind if I call you ‘Oreo’?” Do I even have to answer that?
I remember four years ago after a soccer game, my dad and I went to Applebee’s. As we sat in the booth I saw, for the first time, a Black Lives Matter sign in the background on the newscast. We watched as the anchors retold the events of Trayvon Martin’s murder. They spoke as if it were a foreign language; their words didn’t match the their expressions or voices. They were just reading; that was all. They didn’t feel for this boy or his family, or realize the effect their words would have on some viewers, like my dad and me.
I looked over at my dad, and I was surprised to find that there was no sadness on his face. Instead there was a look of familiarity, because that is what this was to him: familiar. He has witnessed the unjust murders of young black men and women his whole life, as had his father, his father’s father, and so on. These events were nothing new to him, but the reaction from the black community was. Our people were taking a stand that was being noticed. I felt connected to other black people whom I’d never met from places I’d never been, and I could tell my dad felt the same.
Now, the issue has grown more complicated. The Black Lives Matter movement has turned into something of a “Police versus African Americans” crisis in the eyes of the media, and it worries me more. I hear those around me, who don’t fully understand the issue, questioning whether it is a real problem or thinking of useless solutions that benefit their perspective.
I want someone to give me a voice, but more importantly to give my father a voice. I don’t want this movement to die or for all the lives that have been lost to be in vain. I pray that something, someone, will be able to stop this tragedy of injustice. Although it is too late for some, it doesn’t have to be too late for all, including my dad.
And yet, we live our lives every day, pretending that the scenario of my father being added to a list is not even a possibility. We don’t discuss our feelings, our fears. We don’t talk about them because we all know that they are there; we are aware of the unspoken. So, we talk about the bad things that we can pull humor from and cover our sadness with laughter. And yes, to most this tactic would eat them up inside, but for my dad and me, it’s how we stay sane in a world of chaos directed toward people just like us. We thrive on jokes and laughter, not to fend off the sadness that we feel, but to accept it. To leave these thoughts unsaid is to give them more meaning and make them more dangerous.
One day as we were driving I asked my dad, half-jokingly, “When I turn eighteen, can I work at your jail for the summer? You know, in case I want to be a cop, I want to have some experience under my belt.”
“No, you couldn’t handle it,” he said, flatly.
“Why not?” I questioned. “Tons of people do it. That guy from UMass is doing it, right?”
“Yeah, and that guy from UMass isn’t a young, black girl.” I paused, considering his answer.
“Well, so what? Doesn’t mean I can’t do as well as him. I’m strong, and nobody in there can say anything I haven’t heard before. So, I don’t see the problem.”
He didn’t respond, so we sat in silence, listening to the radio.
Lately, I’ve felt a lot like my dad did then. As if I have a magnifying glass to this problem that is targeting people just like him, and it amplifies this issue in my life in a way that I can’t escape because it’s right there in front of me. And still, he refuses to look through the magnifying glass, to see what is happening through my eyes. But, no matter how hard I want to make him see my perspective, he could never understand how it feels for me.
The summer before my junior year, we drove to Virginia for a wedding. It rained all weekend. We had been driving for five hours, and the moon was cloaked in dark, stormy clouds. We came to a bridge that was 13 miles long, and the waves were crashing into the road. My dad was driving and he sat rigid and tense, trying to decipher where the other cars were in relation to us.
“Chill out, Dad,” I said.
“Shh,” he whispered. “If it was just me in the car, I wouldn’t be so stressed. I don’t want to be responsible for crashing a car with my wife and daughter in it.” His usually cocky demeanor had changed. It surprised me to see him so frighteningly vulnerable to something out of his control.
Yet, the worst part is, he can drive as carefully as possible, walk as regularly as he can, or speak as politely as he can; it doesn’t seem to matter. Even the least suspicious men can be taken from this world for driving, walking, talking. The features they were born with overshadow their actions.
An officer wouldn’t see that my father was a cop, just like them. They would only see his umber-toned skin (that may even be three shades off from the man they’re looking for). They’d see his gray jacket (almost as dark as the suspect’s hoodie). They’d definitely see the suspicious way he pulled his phone from his back pocket (to see if his wife had messaged him the grocery list). And in those moments, that might seem like all they needed to justify pulling the trigger. And I know the day an officer takes my father from this world, my world, will be my January 1, 2012.