Cause and Effect
It was August 1949, I was five, my body was black, and I didn’t know it; the third son of migrant parents from Virginia, who had purchased a home on the east side of Baltimore. At five years of age, my first friend was white, and also, he didn’t know it. Our friendship came abruptly to an end one year later when we started school; it was segregation before it was boys in the hood. He suddenly stopped speaking, and his friendly smile went away. I didn’t know why. It was my first experience with a despondent heart; tantamount to “Why the Caged Bird Sings.”
In 1960 because of racial taunting, I became a high school dropout. A no-win situation subsequently tagged with— the connotation of being rebellious and a burden on society. Sixty-six years later, in 2016, Dedric Colvin, with a BB gun resembling a firearm, was shot by police in East Baltimore. The Police Commissioner at the time, Kevin Davis, stated: with teenagers himself; he could not wrap his head around a child leaving home with a replica of a gun. His statement betokens a total disconnect, ignorance of cause and effect within the zip codes of Baltimore he vowed to command and to serve and protect — the zip codes of repression, “A Colony in a Nation” by Chris Hayes.” Because of low employment, drugs, and crime, black youth in a colony become traumatized early in life and with age become desensitized. Crime, for some, becomes the only way to survive.
Baltimore is not unique in its sins as a city. We’re not uncommon in our evils. However, Baltimore is the showcase of a nation that holds uniqueness in a singular aspect. It is the REFUSAL to acknowledge the many myths. Myths held about our inherent goodness to hide and cover and conceal the ugliness of racism.
I am not an advocate of weaponry. Nevertheless, in 1960, because skin color gave overt supremacy a bullhorn and robbed me of my autonomy. If I had had access to even a replica of a gun, I might have carried one myself to silence the words that stabbed my soul. I cannot speak for Dedric Colvin with the BB gun, but I have experienced fear and the psychological effect it can bestow upon the mind. I would contend, his carrying of the BB gun was more for psychological reasons than it was for committing a crime. Poverty, joblessness, and educational deficiency is the proving grounds for drugs and crime. People judging from afar are clueless to the mindset of a black male born into an environment of scarcity. Black youth spontaneously run from the police, not necessarily because of criminality but because they don’t trust the police with their lives.
Since the party of Lincoln, there have been three steps forward and like steps back in the quest for equality. From Reconstruction and Plessy vs. Ferguson came Jim Crow (segregation). From forty acres and a mule came carpetbaggers. From desegregation came white flight and redistricting. From Affirmative Action came the claim of reverse discrimination. From “Black Lives Matter” came “All Lives Matter.”
August 2016, “Black Lives Matter,” demonstrated at a police convention in Baltimore. An official from the police union, sent to all attendees on formal department memo stating: “Union members attending the state FOP conference should expect more bad behavior from the THUGS OF BALTIMORE,” referring to protesters. “On the bright side, maybe they will stop killing each other while they are protesting us.
A prime example of a privileged mind, one that has no idea of life in “A Colony in a Nation” by Chris Hayes
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