As black Mommys and Daddys prepare their children for an exciting new school year with prayers and supplies, admonitions and advice, please think about including safety information about dealing with the police. Even if your darlings are well…darling, even if they’re brilliant and sweet and you’re good people and great parents, even if you live in a nice neighborhood and have nice white friends, you need to have this talk-your child’s life may depend upon it.
To help with that endeavor, here’s a poem penned by my fabulous friend Jabari Asim, devoted husband and father of five ( including four sons), prolific author, professor at Emerson College and editor of Crisis Magazine. Jabari and CMadison were very dear friends and as black men with black sons (some of whom are large and dark), this was a ongoing topic of concern. Please read this poem knowing that if you have not yet loved and lectured, nurtured and navigated a black male child alive across the turbulent seas of adolescence to the shores of safe and holistically healthy adulthood in America, this writing might not make sense to you right away. If that’s your testimony, pray for the spirit of discernment because sadly this militarization of local police has dangerous implications for all our children.
The Talk
It’s more than time we had that talk
about what to say and where to walk,
how to act and how to strive,
how to stay upright and stay alive.
How to live and learn,
how to dig and be dug in return.
When to concede and when to risk,
how to handle stop and frisk:
Keep your hands where they can see
and don’t reach for your ID
until they request it quite clearly.
Speak to them politely and answer them sincerely.
The law varies according to where you are,
whether you’re traveling by foot or driving a car.
It won’t help to be black and proud,
nor will you be safer in a crowd.
Keeping your speech calm and restrained,
ask if in fact you’re being detained.
If the answer is no, you’re free to go.
If the answer is yes, remained unfazed
to avoid being choked, shot or tazed.
Give every cop your ear, but none your wit;
don’t tempt them to fold, spindle, mutilate, hit
or otherwise cause pain
to tendons, bones, muscles, brain.
These are things you need to know
if you want to safely come and go.
But still there is no guarantee
that you will make it home to me.
Despite all our care and labor,
you might frighten a cop or neighbor
whose gun sends you to eternal sleep,
proving life’s unfair and talk is cheap.
—Jabari Asim