It started when a guy driving his fancy 300Z down the strip stopped his car in the middle of the street, popped his trunk, and turned up his music, right there where my friends and I were standing, taking in the action and making plans for which party we’d attend later that evening. Using my hand to shield my eyes from the sun, I peeked over at the car to see who was turning up; recognizing him from an encounter a day earlier, I sucked my teeth and shook my head. He was this hustler—some dude with a fake accent and hazel contacts who clearly thought his British cockney and light eyes would earn him favor with the ladies. For the most part, he got it, too, but not with me. He looked like one of those DC-hustling good-for-nothings who didn’t mean anyone any good. I didn’t trust him or the scene he was drawing. Still, the music—a Boogie Down Productions tune—got everybody hyped, and within moments, black folk were surrounding his car, dancing and laughing and rapping along with the song in the middle of the street and all on the sidewalk. This made one particular shop owner, whose store was being blocked, feel some kind of way—enough so that he came out and started yelling at everybody. One guy in particular got into a screaming match with the store owner, the two of them exchanging expletives and practically spitting in each other’s mouths as their faces bulged with anger. I watched as they argued, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw another huge commotion down an alleyway not too far from where we were. I turned toward it just in time to see cops dressed in riot gear, jumping off the helicopter ladder and swarming toward us. They were holding Plexiglas shields over their bodies; their rifles bounced in time to the pounding of their boots on the pavement. The entire scene was surreal—and the scariest mess I’d ever seen.
I squeezed Pam’s arm. Nothing had happened to justify their presence—there was no fist-fighting, no one was brandishing weapons or, as far as we knew, getting hurt. We were just a bunch of kids dancing. But here were the police, dressed for war. “Something is about to pop off,” I said, shaking my head. “This doesn’t feel right.”
Just as I said that, someone in the crowd said, “Fuck you! Kick it in, Mookie!” a reference, no doubt, to the scene in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing where Spike’s character, Mookie, upset with the choking death of his friend, Radio Raheem, throws a trash can into the glass plate window of the local pizzeria, igniting a huge riot in the streets of Brooklyn. Before anyone had a chance to react, the guy who’d been arguing with the store owner threw something at the shop, and then there was chaos. Fists flew, bodies were tossed, police batons were raising in the air; people were screaming and falling to the ground and running and ducking into the crevices of the storefronts, desperate to escape the melee—the danger. It was like a war zone.
My girlfriends and I took off in the direction of our hotel. We just turned and ran. Pam, poor thing, slammed straight into a bench; she yelped in pain as Lisa and I grabbed her arms and pulled her toward the boardwalk, away from the bedlam. We ran all the way to the opposite end of the beach, as hard as we could. To this day, Pam has that bench imprint on her chest—a physical reminder of what we’ll never, ever forget: the day it was made clear to us that, in the eyes of all too many, our blackness relegates us to second-class citizenship.
That incident sent me on a discovery for my blackness. Already, I had been proud of who I am and where I came from—my family, my friends, my community. But that incident at Greekfest made me dig deeper, to revel in the teachings of Martin, Malcolm, and Garvey, the writings of Baldwin and Ellison, the history of black women in the movement for civil rights and gender parity. I was like a sponge in my unearthing—every book and essay and speech seeping deep into my soul and fine-tuning my voice. I’m proud to be a woman, but specifically I’m proud to be a black woman. The strength, endurance, and legacy of my people mean something to me.
After my son’s encounter at his school, blackness meant something to him, too. He went on his own discovery, deep-diving into books, scouring the Internet, watching documentaries, giving himself a clear picture of our history and his place in it. And while he was fact finding, I was talking to him, giving him lessons on how to handle himself when faced with racism, both subtle and brash. “Say ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir’ if you’re stopped by the cops, Marcell. No popping off at the mouth,” I would tell him. And, “When these knuckleheads out here call you ‘nigger,’ don’t give them the power over you. Just tell them they’re the ignorant ones. You know what you are to them? A threat. Because you’re intelligent, you’re athletic, you stay in those books, and you keep winning. It’s killing them that you can come from all this adversity—no daddy, for a while there, no money—and you still winning. You have the power. You have that connection to God. Walk in that, and don’t let anyone break your stride.”
My lessons sunk in, too; I got to see that up close when he went to his new high school. Though children of color were scant at this particular private institution, the administration really looked out for my son and went out of its way to give him the social and emotional support he needed for academic success. Still, there were a few students who lived in a bubble that kept their interactions with African Americans and other people of color severely limited, leaving my son vulnerable to their ignorance. For instance, one afternoon, an Asian kid with his own ridiculously racist notions about Marcell, got into an argument with my son, and every time he would say something stereotypical and dumb, Marcell, with his slick mouth, would answer him right back with a dis of his own. What can I say? He gets it from his mama. At any rate, the kid, unable to get a rise out of Marcell with his insults, finally resorted to calling my son “nigger.” Marcell’s response made the Asian kid physically attack him. When Marcell raised his arms and pushed him to protect himself and then stood up out of his chair to get away, his opponent fell to the floor, which made it look like Marcell, a black boy, was standing over another kid after a fistfight.
I got the dean’s phone call while I was in New York, filming. I tapped my foot in nervous anger as she recounted what happened. I was waiting for her to drop the bomb; I just knew she was going to kick my son out of that school and I’d be stuck scrambling to find quality education for him while I was, literally, on the other side of the country, working hard to keep that school tuition paid and keep the lights on at home. The shoe never dropped, though. Instead, the dean called to tell me she knew what happened and my son had her full support.
“When the other student called Marcell the N-word, your son said, ‘You know the word “nigger” doesn’t mean “black,” right? It means you’re ignorant. So who’s the nigger?’ ” the dean recounted. “If anything, it made the other kid look bad. I’m proud of him for keeping his cool. The N-word isn’t a trigger for him, and that’s a good thing. That speaks a lot to his character, and says a lot about what a great mother you are.”
• • •
My son and I are not perfect—by any stretch. Like any parent and child’s dynamic, ours was complicated. The fact of the matter is, as hard as I tried to be the kind of provider who could keep his life as stable as humanly possible, there were some things I simply couldn’t provide for a boychild who was missing that critical male presence boys need, who craved a father’s love and attention.