To My Reader:
I finished writing The Black Friend in 2019, but so much has happened in 2020, I feel like I have to address it. Though we are only six months in as I write this, this year has already had a historic impact on the entire world.
When I wrote this book, I had one goal in mind: try to help make things better. In the case of racism and white supremacy, the word better is difficult to define. This is because, as discussed throughout this book, racism and white supremacy influence literally everything. Therefore, better is always a matter of perspective based on what a person is dealing with.
Racism and white supremacy are the root causes of world-altering moments, such as the murder of Michael Brown in 2014, as well as subtle moments, such as a white woman clutching her purse closely when I enter an elevator.
In the first case, better would be defined as the police no longer murdering Black people. In the other, better would be defined as white women no longer leaning into racist stereotypes about Black men.
Though they are both racist moments, it’s obviously difficult to compare the two. But both cases do share one common denominator: the humanity of Black people being stripped away.
This may all be difficult to understand for some—but that is exactly why I wrote this book. Its success will be defined not by how many copies are sold, but rather by how much better people are for having read it.
My hope is that this book will be a tool to help others see and understand the obvious and not-so-obvious ways in which racism and white supremacy not only have infected our society but are actually the foundation of it. That it might spark the flame in someone who one day helps burn down the historic oppression we have faced.
But a lot has changed (and so much has stayed the same) since I wrote this book, and while I still hold those same hopes, I am also tired. So incredibly tired.
As I sit here contemplating the words I might use to explain to you how detrimental 2020 has been to the souls of Black people, I find myself unable to write them. Not because there aren’t countless thoughts floating through my mind that could be shared. But rather because I don’t want to give them to you.
This isn’t an attempt to be disrespectful, as much as an attempt to explain just how tired I am. In this book I’ve already given my readers so much—my pain, my trauma, and my life—in hopes that maybe future Black generations won’t have to do the same.
I don’t want to use the very little energy I have left talking to non-Black people about this moment in time.
Instead, I would rather help Black children understand it. Children like my eight-year-old brother.
So I will write to him, and you may take from it what you will.
My Brother, Brandon:
By the time you read this, you’ll likely be about twelve years old, though you’re a very gifted child, so maybe you’ll be a bit younger. Either way, I hope I’m still alive to see it and to talk to you about it, about why I felt compelled to write it. Though, with the way things are going, I’m not sure I will be.
I saw you recently in the midst of everyone trying to survive the pandemic and protesting for social justice, and as usual you didn’t have a care in the world. As it should be for an eight-year-old.
I wish that I could make it so that your life was always that way, but it won’t be long before the stress of being Black in this world finds you.
I am heartbroken by this unchangeable fact.
As I write this, you are still too young to understand that to be Black in America is to be left with two options: either you pretend oppression isn’t happening or you fight back.
I say pretend because there is no way that any Black person who is born in this house, which is on fire, and always has been, doesn’t come to realize that smoke is filling their lungs.
That smoke is the reason, when you were six years old, our mother had to report one of your teachers for looking at the labels of your clothes to check whether they were real. Because she couldn’t fathom that a Black child could be the best dressed student in a predominantly white class in the suburbs.
That smoke is why at such a young age you had already been taught to assess when a white person was doing something so blatantly racist.
That smoke is why I have so many stories to tell about my own traumatic moments. Far more than any person should ever have.
But the smoke is just a symptom. What’s destroying the house—what’s destroying us—is racism and white supremacy.
You deserve better, and I deserved better—and now, I demand better. Which is why I’ve chosen to use every resource at my disposal to fight back. As long as I have a platform, I will use it to make our voices heard. I will write, so long as it’s the truth. And as our people put their lives at risk marching in the street for justice, I must be with them.
But by choosing to fight back, I have only increased the likelihood of being taken from you, as so many of my idols before me were taken from their loved ones. Such is the reality in this land where Black people are murdered for simply existing.
While I haven’t said it directly to her, I feel a deep sorrow for the position I’ve put our mother in, or rather the position this country has put her in. She must live with the gravity of loving me, and of loving our people. Which means she understands that she may be forced to sacrifice something.
I’m sure who I’ve become is no surprise to her; she raised me with the values that got me here, that made me the loud, staunch, and aggressive anti-racist I am today. This is why she has never asked me to stop my work, as fearful as I know she is. Why she understood me protesting when police murdered Akai Gurley, even though I was arrested for doing so. Why she didn’t object when I told her I was going to write a book to help white people unlearn white supremacy. Why she simply walks away in silence when she hears about the weekly emails I receive calling me a nigger.
But having been through all of that, 2020 is still different for us both. The weight is heavier, the sacrifices are greater, and the fires are as large as ever.
Before, when Mommy and I would talk on the phone, we would end our conversations with a goodbye and an occasional “I love you.” Now we have an unsaid agreement not to hang up without saying that we love each other. We both know we are living in a time when we might not get another chance to say those words.
This is particularly true in my case, as we are living through COVID-19, a global pandemic that has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of people—especially people like me, who are immunocompromised. The same pandemic that has ravaged the Black community more than any other, because of the historic inequities in America.
It’s a humbling feeling to go to sleep every night hoping to not get sick. Which is why I’ve been extremely diligent and careful during this time for my safety, because I understand how serious it is, and I want to be here.
“Are you wearing a mask? Are you using antibacterial soap? Are you staying away from other people?” Mommy has called me every day for the last four months asking me the same questions, trying to make sure I don’t get sick. Trying to make sure her eldest son doesn’t become another victim of a virus that has already disproportionately decimated the Black community and furthered the health, wealth, and education gaps in this country.
The feeling that your life may potentially be lost at any moment to a virus is a frightening one, though it’s not much different from the feeling of any Black person who fears they may never see their loved ones again whenever they step outside. Not because accidents happen to Black people but rather because hatred happens to Black people.