My Dad Warned Me About the Myth of Racial Progress. He Was Right.
My father, who grew up in the segregated South, reminded me how far we have to go
A few days ago, I got a call from my father, Louis, and immediately felt a pang of anxiety. He was the one who called me several months prior, bawling, to let me know that my brother had died suddenly. I still haven’t been able to shake that sense of dread when his name flashes on my phone screen. “Who’s dead now?” I wonder.
But he called this time with a question — and a warning.
“Are you still running?” he asked me. I had been going to the gym consistently since the beginning of the year, then began running around Berkeley for a bit after the gyms closed to Covid-19. But no, I told him, I hate running, so I’ve been going for longer walks around the neighborhood.
“Well, still — I know I’ve told you this before, but be careful when you’re out there,” he said. “They are out here killing us all out in the open. They don’t give a shit. They’re calling the police on us for nothing.”
I’m in my early thirties, and I would normally bristle at this type of protectiveness from either of my parents, but I understood why he said what he said.
