When I walk outside to the store on a rainy night to return a carton of milk gone bad way before the expiration date, all I should hear is the rain.
But when there's a lone paddy wagon parked across from your building with the lights on, you hear every situation and scenario that you have ever experienced personally, read about in the paper or saw on TV playing at full volume surround sound inside your brain.
You look out your door, trying not too look suspicious as thoughts of Amadou Diallo run through your head. (For those who don't know or remember, he's the guy who got shot by the cops a trillion times in his building reaching for his wallet.)
You look down the block and find that the store is closed, holding the milk carton where they can see it.
You do this so when you have to walk back inside your building there is no suspicion, at least you hope there might be little enough that they won't decide to step out of the van.
You pray that there's little enough suspicion that it doesn't entice a decision to call you back with that all too familiar phase that I like to call the "cop call."
It's like a cat call, but it's for Black men and dark skinned people.
(It might be used on others as well, but I am only speaking from my experience as a Black man.)
You know the call, or maybe you don't.
For those who don't, it's the one that starts with "Excuse me!" then leads into a bunch of questions about where you are going and where you live, which (no matter how they are answered) usually turns into you being a "smart ass" and ends with you getting brutalized or arrested or both.
So to avoid this, you walk around your neighborhood at night acting like you belong there as much as you possible; flashing your keys before you reach your building (reaching in your pocket could be dangerous too), greeting the few people on your block that you know aren't under suspicion and in this case, holding your carton of milk where they can see it.
If you manage to make it into your building unscathed, you take a look back real quick (the buggers will follow you) and then make way into your apartment, breathe a sign of relief and put away the carton of milk that may or may not have saved your life.
But when there's a lone paddy wagon parked across from your building with the lights on, you hear every situation and scenario that you have ever experienced personally, read about in the paper or saw on TV playing at full volume surround sound inside your brain.
You look out your door, trying not too look suspicious as thoughts of Amadou Diallo run through your head. (For those who don't know or remember, he's the guy who got shot by the cops a trillion times in his building reaching for his wallet.)
You look down the block and find that the store is closed, holding the milk carton where they can see it.
You do this so when you have to walk back inside your building there is no suspicion, at least you hope there might be little enough that they won't decide to step out of the van.
You pray that there's little enough suspicion that it doesn't entice a decision to call you back with that all too familiar phase that I like to call the "cop call."
It's like a cat call, but it's for Black men and dark skinned people.
(It might be used on others as well, but I am only speaking from my experience as a Black man.)
You know the call, or maybe you don't.
For those who don't, it's the one that starts with "Excuse me!" then leads into a bunch of questions about where you are going and where you live, which (no matter how they are answered) usually turns into you being a "smart ass" and ends with you getting brutalized or arrested or both.
So to avoid this, you walk around your neighborhood at night acting like you belong there as much as you possible; flashing your keys before you reach your building (reaching in your pocket could be dangerous too), greeting the few people on your block that you know aren't under suspicion and in this case, holding your carton of milk where they can see it.
If you manage to make it into your building unscathed, you take a look back real quick (the buggers will follow you) and then make way into your apartment, breathe a sign of relief and put away the carton of milk that may or may not have saved your life.
-TD
These are The Last Days of Dark.
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