I was a little over six years old when my dad gave me the talk—no, not that one. My class was on a school field trip to a local park, and one of the other kids had this huge collection of Hot Wheels cars. Many of us were playing with them and enjoying the day at the park. At some point, I put a handful of the Hot Wheels into my lunch box. It was nearly 30 years ago, but my memory is that I thought he had so many so he wouldn’t mind if I kept some for myself. When the other kid realized some of his cars were missing, I must have realized I did something wrong and joined the loud chorus of denial for having taken his toys. Needless to say, I was busted the moment I lifted my lunch box, and the toy cars started rattling around.
After being ordered to open my lunch box by the teacher, I remember hoping all those little cars would magically disappear. I don’t know whether the San Diego Unified School District had a Zero Tolerance policy for first graders taking each other’s toys or if it was just that my teacher wouldn’t stand for it, but apparently, what I did was a pretty big deal.
“Always be on your best behavior, son”
My dad drove us home, and after sitting silently in the car for what felt like an eternity, he looked at me and, with a shaky voice, said something about people treating me differently from other kids who got into trouble. When I naively asked why, he said very matter-of-factly that certain people don’t like people who had skin like mine. Then he said that because we can’t know what others might be thinking, I had to always be on my best behavior to make sure I didn’t get into trouble with someone who already didn’t like me because I had darker skin.
Experiences seared into your memory
You’d be forgiven for feeling somewhat skeptical that I could remember this experience from my early childhood with such clarity after almost three decades—you’d also be mistaken. Being a blissfully ignorant child who knows nothing of the history of this country, let alone their history, primes one for having the weight of an experience of institutional racism seared into their memory. Just like my memory of a middle-aged white man leaning out of his old, primer grey pickup truck and shouting the N-word at me when I was 12 years old, traumatic experiences have a way of implanting themselves in parts of our memory that you can’t forget.
Why should you care about any of this? We all have sad stories from our childhoods, and our kids have all misbehaved and done things we wish they hadn’t. I don’t share these experiences because I want your sympathy or because I think I’m special. It’s quite the opposite: I share these experiences because every Black kid—and probably every Asian, Latin@, and Native kid—has some formative experience with racism that forever imprints on them. These experiences, whether emotional, psychological, or physical, rob children of their childhoods, stealing from them the wonderment of nature, the joy of living in the moment, the freedom of youth, and the security of their person.
How mass incarceration shapes the future
I wrote my master’s thesis on the militarization of civilian police in the United States. As part of my research, I read Jonathan Simon’s Governing Through Crime, Kelly Lytle Hernández’ City of Inmates, and Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, all of which point to one irrefutable fact: The mass incarceration of non-white people is the most effective and vile form of modern white supremacy.
While three times as many Black women die from pregnancy-related causes as white women, and while three times as many Black people with diabetes have their limbs amputated than diabetics of other races, this medical apartheid affects our community differently than mandatory minimums. The sentencing differences between powder cocaine and rock cocaine, the hyper-criminalization of cannabis, and the irrational and cruel desire to penalize the impoverished create two Americas.
The United States is a punitive country, home to roughly 25% of incarcerated people worldwide despite having only 5% of the world’s population. Even worse, more than half of all incarcerated people are Black or Latin@, even though they together comprise less than a third of the total population. A devastating five times as many Black people are arrested, prosecuted and convicted than white people. And to what end? Through this, white supremacy achieves our civil death: the loss of the rights and privileges of citizenship. When convicted of a felony, one loses their right to vote or hold office; access to college financial aid; the ability to work with and mentor kids; eligibility to work in any job that requires a license, such as a CPA or a barber; and, frequently, the ability to rent a decent home [Source: NAACP].
Back to “the talk”
Now I see why my dad was so shaken when the school told him his Black son had been caught stealing, why the tough dad who survived childhood abuse was afraid, why he begged me to be good and stay out of trouble. He was rightfully scared that I would become a statistic: One of the three Black boys in America who will go to prison during their lifetime. To be a Black father in America is to balance the constant fear that your child’s life will be stolen with the joy and love of parenthood.
Jon Wizard lives in Seaside with his partner, two stepsons, two miniature dachshunds, and a cat. After his law enforcement career abruptly ended due to an on-the-job injury, Jon ran for city council and was elected in 2018. Jon now works for YIMBY Law, advocating for better long-range housing plans for local cities and counties. Jon holds a master’s degree in humanities and is currently working on a Master of Public Administration degree.