Michael Brown details in an essay why he fears for his biracial son
‘I Hope My Son Stays White’
I am a white man, and part of the privilege that comes along with that fact is this: I know, with something bordering on 100 percent certainty, how my death will not be portrayed if I am shot and killed while walking down the street unarmed.
No one will scour my social media accounts for photos of me wearing a hooded sweatshirt or flipping off the camera. No one will ignore my lack of a criminal record and decide that I’m a “thug” for unnamed reasons. It won’t matter whether I’ve smoked pot, or shoplifted, or if I was ever suspended from school.
And, especially if my hypothetical assailant turns out to be black, I can be confident that there will be no rallies to support him. His identity will not be hidden from the public for days, and no crowdfunding campaign will raise a six-figure sum to support his family through “their” difficult time.
There will be no national effort to blame me for my own death.
But I can’t, with any confidence, say the same thing for my son. At least not yet. He’s three years old, and although my wife is Haitian, right now his skin is only a couple of shades darker than mine. He’s still light enough that, when my wife takes him out alone, people sometimes think she’s his nanny and ask how much she charges. He’s light enough that, from a distance, he can pass as white.
It’s a sickening thing to admit, but I hope he stays that way.
I want my son’s skin color not to matter, but the truth is that it does. If he gets darker – if his skin eventually comes to resemble my wife’s more than mine – there will be consequences for him. People will fear him. Not everyone, but plenty of people, and he’ll never know who until it’s too late. It will only be worse if he wears a hoodie and sags his jeans, and so shamefully I also hope that he’ll be “culturally white,” following the trends of the suburbs and not the inner city.
If he does darken, women will cross the street when they see him coming, the way they sometimes do when they pass my wife’s brother on the sidewalk. Convenience store employees will follow him suspiciously around the aisles. Cops may hassle him for things I don’t think twice about, like jaywalking.
And, if any of these people decide they need a gun to defend themselves against my scary, black, unarmed son, a large segment of society will assume he deserved to die.
That’s what troubles me so much about the Michael Brown case. His death is tragic, but it’s the reaction to his death that makes me afraid for my son. When I see a story about people raising money for the officer that shot him, I get physically sick. When I hear people arguing about whether the victim was a shoplifter – as though that’s a reason to put six bullets into his body – I have to turn off the news. And when people who I know and like and respect can’t seem to see how this entire conversation would be different if it were a white teenager who was killed, I turn speechless.
Right now, my son knows nothing of race. If you ask him what color Mommy and Daddy are, he’ll say “green” or “orange” or “blue,” naming the color of whatever shirts we’re wearing. But if nothing changes, it won’t be long before we have to sit him down for a conversation that I dread: the one where we tell him that the rules may be different for him than for his white friends; the one where we tell him that, if the cops bust him and his buddies for smoking pot, he can’t count on being treated the same as everybody else; the one where we tell him that white kids generally don’t get shot just because they’re not perfect citizens, but black kids sometimes do.
This conversation is part of the reason why, before my son was born, I hoped he’d be a girl. I’ve never been a black man in America, and I can’t tell him what it’s like. I do know that much of society is still terrified of black males. But I also know that my son’s blackness really only presents a danger to himself. The more he looks like his father, the safer he’s going to be.
all mi can seh is
DEN WHY DE MUMA BLOODCLAAT YUH PHUCK,BREED AND MARRIED A BLACK OOMAN INNA DE FUSS PLACE?!?!?!…SMFH
Yes simply but he shouldnt have to worry about who he impregnates , America need fi face and deal with the issue of racism. I think the problem has became an issue because for years they have pretended that it doesn’t exist..Now they have a black president in their face and its an issue. Black people here also have to find a way to uplift themselves instead of using the race card to make their wrongs right
LO TRUE BUT he is just trying to show how RACISM is still here NO MATTER how they try to hide it. RACISM is still prevalent in the world.
My point exactly @ simplicity
This is so sad but true.
Exactly!!!! This is the sad reality of the world we live in. Like Metty said, Black people have got to start doing better and stop blaming the white man for everything and start fighting back with education, knowledge and power instead of violence. Black people are so quick to physically fight against each other and the minute they see a white face, they straighten up and act right…why is that????? Why can’t we do the same for one another? This shit right here is real!! I as a black woman, have very few black friends because it is the same shit with most black women…always wanna get an attitude over the stupidest shit and quick to wanna fight and to me, that is just a total waste of time and energy. This white man has the same concerns and fears that even some black people have. Why the fuhck is it that there is black on black crime/violence/killings every damn day and there is no rallying or news cast of those incidents, but when there is a crime which involves a white or hispanic against a black person, there is such an uproar????…and none other than Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton magically appears??..I am not gonna go on and on about this because it is a very sensitive topic for me so all I’m gonna say is this…Black people are their worst enemies and it is full time now for them to make a change for the better and stop with the bullshit!!
In humanity love should have no boundaries, when it comes to sex or race.
mi waan wen sum ppl run in pon dis yah chead if dem nuh get my fuss comment jus nuh stop a H weh end it but a de A weh start it….mi c weh yah seh met which is very much so but him must have had dis fear in him from day one suh him suden put himself inna a position like dis
You know Simpli sometimes you go with the heart, fall in love and then think of what all you can be faced with. I think this gentleman wanted to shine light on a frustration that even black men feel…..good black men, who just wanna live and have the same chances afforded to their white brothers.
Agree wid u Quena. :sungkem
@Met,in a time like this, you would think by now racism would be a thing of the past..DI TING IRRITATE ME SO TILL..I wish u knew him personally so i could send him a picture of my youngest brother when he was 2 and now that he’s 26 and that would give him a perfect vision of what his son would look like in 24years..And after that, would he love him any less??, cause as white as my bredda is wid him nappy hair, a di same DNA RUN CHU HIM BLOOD, RUN CHU MINES..I CANT WID DESE PPLE!!***TEARS*** :nohope: :nohope:
@yep I hear what u saying still but I think your confusion is with ghetto illiterate badmind kill eack other blacks vs educated intelligent giving highclass open business minded uplifted blacks. Your doing exactly what the white ppl doing by putting every black person in 1 category
And I don’t mean to categorize every black person because that is not my intention…I clearly don’t feel that way about most of my blogger fan here on JMG…clearly!!!…Anon, do you know how much injustice goes unpunished everyday within our black communities, both good and bad…and where the hell is Al Sharpton & Jesse Jackson for those unfortunate instances???????????????…now, you tell me…
**blogger fam**
I do agree that we as black people have a whole lot of changes to make and issues to work on because we are quite divided as a race. HOWEVER, MANY WHITE PEOPLE ARE SET IN THEIR WAYS TOO AND FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION TRANSFER THEIR RACIAL BIAS AND HATRED AND THEY WILL DIE THAT WAY, REFUSING TO CHANGE. Till this day, certain states in America i refuse to live because i know how they roll in many of the SOUTHERN STATES. Children do NOT see color, adults do, and unfortunately children live what they learn. HATRED IS LEARNT..I cannot say i hate white people or any other race, its ludicrous, i have biracial relatives. LOVE HAS NO BOUNDARIES,YOU LOVE WHO U LOVE..
I understand what he feels. I have two son’s one with loose curls one with tighter curls one with light brown eye’s, one with darker eyes, both are also a bit darker than I, I thank God that New York City is multicultural. I won’t spend a lot of time on this topic but racism is real on both sides (Black and white) it’s just one is in more of a controlling position. I will add one other thing, a large percentage of blacks has done very little to uplift or to calm the fears of white America.
I got to agree with you 101% on this one Quena!!!…and what angers me the most is that we are such a MAGNIFICENT race of people *beautiful, very creative, talented, and very very smart*, but most of us refuse to recognize it…now, when it comes to white people and their racist thinking and behavior, I could care less because the very same comments they say to me, will be said right back to them *and more*..end of discussion right there on that…
This is so true! What are we doing about it?
THE FIRST COMMENT COMPLETELY MISSED THE POINT. SMH THIS IS THE SAD TRUTH IN AMERICA. THIS MAN DEEP DOWN HAS TO HOPE AND PRAY THAT HIS SON DOESNT GET DARKER BECAUSE HE SEES WHAT BEING A BLACK MAN IN AMERICA CAN LEAD TO. HE LOVES HIS WIFE HE MARRIED A BLACK WOMAN BECAUSE OF LOVE I DOUBT HE SAID ” I WANT WHITE KIDS SO LET ME NOT MARRY HER” … THAT FIRST COMMENT WAS FOR LACK OF WANTING TO USE A BETTER WORD IT WAS S T U P I D
nuh stop wid it nd mi did been seh suh already miss wah point how mi view it a suh mi view it ..suh spare mi plz nd tonx
Well Simply mi agree wid yuh fuss comment. Di world full ah racism from day one….suh mi nuh understand why di sudden concert (according to scholar bwoy Rico).
Lol I guess this topic/essay shows who’s bright. This is not about dissing “Blacks”/ “African Americans”. He’s more so calling out the racism on America..
Never pay much attention in a language arts class a tell yuh.
Dat’s how I see it too, but I think people are thrown off by the title and dat is what is stuck in their minds, sad but true
lol unu leave simpli becaz she is my favorite. I don’t agree with her view but thats her perception and all we have to do is state ours and move right alone.
@philly90210 bright like u pupa. simply state her opinion so u nuh need fe be rude or condescending. go choke on a big dicck u renk bitcch
LUK ERE IF UNNO NEVA KNW FROM MAWNIN MEK MI TELL UNNO NUNG DUNG INNA DE EVENING,I AM VERY MUCH ONE OF DE DUNCE ERE’ ND MI STAY OWNING IT THANK YOU VERY MUCH AND MAY EDUCATION FOREVER BE WITH THE REST OF YOU.
The sad reality is that racism is alive and kicking. President Barack Obama has faced more challenges than any other President, and that’s only because of his race. That has not changed him as a person though, in fact that could be the very reason why he is so successful in all he does. Some people, black, white and in between, need fi tek a page or two from him book…..DESPITE YUH COLOR YUH CAN STILL SOAR TUH GREAT HEIGHTS BUT YUH AFFI MEK DAT COMMITTMENT!!!!!
Obama wasn’t even raised in this country so how him fi know the black experience from growing up in the racist america with All the killings crimes against black ppl recently u don’t here a word from him
leave obama becaz he get the heaviest basket of all the presidents in america, his wife can’t wait for his term to complete
Den is only Merica alone racist? Obama might neva spend him formative years ah Merica…but ah weh him go college and law school????? Ah who fah Senate him did inna as Senator???? Den weh yuh did deh when him talk out gainst Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown killings?
Yawdy… u know seh mi did guffi guh respond to Anon,12.35,comment but mi change mi mind, nut wut it
Tinan – mi feel yuh pon dat. But sometime mi dus can’t resist di temptation fi put ah ting or two out dere :ngakak
All am gonnah say is what the man say I understand completely. My boys are biracial and I do worry everyday about their future in this country/world. Sometimes you have no idea what it really is until you are in the situation, it is really a totally different ball game. If you really was given to opportunity to find your other half and that person is of a different race why should it matter? Most people never gets the chance to feel and understand what real love is. Why should not this love bear fruits (kids)?. I fell in love with a wonderful man and we have some beautiful kids, it is not their fault and or ours that people are ignorant, narrow minded and has one tunnel visions, but such is the world. The best we can do is try and ensure that our boys/young men are not a menace to society but an added value wherever they go/live/work etc. I pray more than anything that they will always be watched and cared for by God, I leave it all in his hands. That is all you can do when you have done your best here on earth.
**get**
Obama all he good for is floppin his mouth when it come to dealing with blacks issues him don’t have a clue speaking on somethingn actually doing sumthin ah two different thing
this has NOTHING to do with black ppl much less Obama. Not because he is president means he can force white ppl to treat us equally or change their views on us, period.
Same way him ah kill up himself ah work overtime if give da battyman dem all privilege n rights protection me sure him can try do a thing or two for all the issues blacks ppl have in did country
@goldy but he force everybody else to accept da gays lifestyle doh all go Inna da ppl dem country ah try dictate n bribe dem fi accept gay rights so what r u saying
He is scared that his son might experience the trauma that his race might do to his child. Racism is alive and well in America if you want to know go down to the court house you will seee who the police targets. And it sad to say all black parents fear. Police brutality. Lock of for crime didnt commit.
MET evening. ALL BLOGGERS evening.
@Met
How comes I cannot click on someone and reply?
@Anonymous 1:23
That is the problem with damn Black people, always looking to someone to solve the problem. what can Obama do if we are not willing to do anything? eih?
We as Black people love to turn the other way, as long as its not our toe weh get stepped on, we don’t give a crap! A lot of Black people don’t care about “Black on Black crimes” only “white/chines on black crime,” so does dutty al Sharpton weh literally make a killing on the back of Blacks.
I don’t know how I missed this post…..but i understand where he is coming from ……I have two sons one with a Jamaican dad and the other with an Italian dad…..I post a pic of my fully black .handsome son and he gets 17 likes I post a pic of my mixed son he get 112 likes. lol 95%ofy friend are black too. So what does that say?
this has to be the first white uncle tom in america to rass. mi cyaa badda wid him and the picky picky head pickney who him tink a pass fi white. no sah