The First time I thought to myself I could have died.

The first time I thought to myself I could have died. I was 9 years old. My uncle had just purchased
fireworks for my cousin and I to light for the 4
th
of July. My cousin had invited a friend of his to this
information and that friend decided to take it upon himself to come get some fireworks. As we lay on
the floor in my uncles room dividing the fireworks between us my cousins friend knocked on the door
and entered my grandmothers apartment. He was 15 I think. All of us being young, we never thought
to formally introduce ourselves to one another. The young man started picking up fireworks saying Hey
Ant, Im going to take this one and maybe this one too. My cousin said OK. I said Hey, who said you
get to just take fireworks? That is when the young man asked who I was by looking to my cousin and
pointing at me. My cousin misunderstanding the young mans gesture thought he was asking why I was
defending the fireworks.
The young man looked at me for a second and then went back to his original shopping saying And this
one, Ill take this one. It was then that I got up and told him Not that one, that one is mine. He
grabbed me, threw me down onto my back and shoved his knee into my chest while simultaneously
placing his hand in his cargo side leg pocket and said Ant! Give me one reason why I shouldnt kill this
NIGGA. I lay there astonished and shocked and not fully understanding how everything had come this
particular situation. My young mind was trying its best to gather and process the data it was presented
but fell short in many, many ways. I would say all ways except one. I say that because I found myself also
waiting for my cousin to answer.
My eyes darted back and forth between my cousins face and the face of the young man pinning me to
the floor before finally fixating on my cousin when I realized his answer was not immediate. Chill, man
chill, hes my cousin. The young man got off of me and apologized. He lifted me to my feet and said
Sorry man, I thought you were just fucking with me. Are you ok? Yes. I meekly replied. He then took
the fireworks he had chosen, thanked my cousin and left. As I went to sit down and continue to try to
understand what had just happened, my cousin said to me Youre lucky. I looked at him, but my mind
was dealing with my many mixed emotions. I was mad! I felt victimized. I felt my cousin didnt really
stand up for me or the process of dividing the fireworks. I felt like I was weak for not being able to
defend myself. Most of all, I felt like a tornado just hit me without any warning.
While still processing all of those emotions I asked my cousin Why? Why would say I was lucky? He
went back to dividing up the fireworks as he answered me He was going to kill you. His words were so
calm. I remember thinking to myself a whole new range of questions in the matter of split seconds.
Were you going to just let him kill me? He was going to kill me in my grandmothers house? Why would
you have friends that could kill somebody so easily? And how, was he going to beat me to death? I
thought all of these questions yet I only vocalized one, How?
I still dont fully understand why that was the only question I asked my cousin. Sometimes I think it was
because I was young. Maybe some under developed sense of cognition made that question seem more
important than the others. Sometimes, I wonder if my youth lent to me being more curious about the
physicality of the young man in some goal oriented way. For instance, maybe I asked how? because I in
some way wanted to know his tactics so that I could place them in my own arsenal. Maybe I was being
defensive. Maybe I didnt want to believe that I could have been killed so easily.
Maybe it was all of these at the same time. Bottom line is I only asked that one question, How? I will
never forget my cousins unmoved face and matter of fact response as though the entire world knew
what I didnt as he looked up from the fireworks and answered me He had a gun in his pocket. You
mean I could have died just now? I asked my cousin. I was astonished. I was in shock. My cousin went
back to separating the fireworks as he answered Yea.
I carried that sequence of events with me for years. Looking back I realize the reason why I questioned
the event so much throughout my youth and adulthood. It was because that was my first time thinking
to myself I could have died. Now, Im sure plenty of young men have been unfortunate enough to
realize their own mortality at a young age. Sickness, disease, accidents around the house, automobile
accidents, even the genuine adventurous thirst of a young man may lead him into specific situations that
force his reason to question his mortality.
These things of course are dependent upon the strength of the mind that experiences them. For
example, during those years I also fell off a roof, was hit by car and was bitten by a Doberman pincher
while roaming in the allies behind a project building. Being young though, provides a certain ignorance
pertaining levity of such situations and I therefore never once thought after any of the fore mentioned
occasions that I might have died. When a young boy is hit by a car, depending on the speed of the car of
course, he tends to try to just get up. It is our ignorance to our own mortality throughout our childhood
and adolescence that leads us try things that are particularly dangerous.
We climb trees. We dive into shallow water. We walk on iced ponds. Some of us never quite grow out
of that phase and continue to do adventurous activities well into our adulthood. They skydive. They
swim with sharks. They participate in all manner of extreme sport to get the high of near death and
the experience most of us will never know. But I also think our ignorance to mortality builds to a point in
our lives when ignorance is no longer acceptable and we being to fully understand the fragility of human
life.
Life itself is resilient. But eventually we all have to come to an understanding that there are many forces
in this world that can defeat a lifes resilience to survive. Again those moments are usually due to
disease, crashes, accidents, etc. It is from this reasoning that I theorize that depending on when and
how a person comes to the enlightenment of their own mortality directly correlates with the direction
of their life afterwards. If a normal person slowly comes to the understanding that a life is short, he
may tend to think it is precious. To him, it may feel like sand pouring through ones fingers and that
every moment should be honored and preserved and lived to its fullest. But if one should come to the
understanding of his own mortality in a quick and abrupt manner, the same precious value of life may
take on a darker side. That person may feel his life is to be protected at any costs. If one were to
experience the understanding of his own mortality at too young an age and it be quick and without
warning, I believe, that person will tend to think of life itself so fragile and unpredictable that efforts of
protecting it should be held within reason.

Unfortunately, if that person were to begin to think that all people die and to think thinking I wont
die is to be denial at an early age, not only will they not choose to protect their life to extreme limits but
they will also tend to subconsciously or consciously not invest in their life to extreme limits. This is a
problem. For young people to succeed in Americas capitalist environment they need to choose to
either invest in them self to whatever legal extreme necessary to achieve their goals or to invest in the
protection of their right to life with that same fervor. They cannot ever negotiate their ability to
achieve what they must at any point it is necessary for them to meet their lifes basic necessities. This
idea is not to be mixed up with how one would achieve their goals. (For example, schooling, jobs, work
ethic, etc.) I am talking about the lowest common motivator in ones life to achieve ANYTHING.
I nearly died when I was only 9 years old. When I place the period after old and resist the temptation to
follow old with because my whole life makes more sense. The insecure nature of the life of young
African American men can make more sense. There are only a few occupations in existence where by
making a mistake one may not only face persecution for the mistake but also persecution about them
self and their very being involved in the first place. Among them are the medically licensed, batters in a
batters box and chess players in an official tournament. Yet Blacks, no matter how rich or successful,
continuously face self-persecution for mistakes that they make. Young Blacks watch large African
American figures fall from grace, in Americas eyes, over small mistakes every day.
How can we expect a young Black person to fearlessly achieve amidst the all too real truth that the very
being of who they are is never beyond fragile? We expect them to invest in their future but we dont
expect investors to invest in an insecure market. We expect them to want to protect a certain
livelihood when the life from which they derive is not yet protected. We ask them to get out and go out
and be something without first answering their question of Why? What we havent answered for
them is why living a certain way is better for them. We havent shown them why life itself is something
to be invested in day after day without fear of losing in the end. Most young Black men know they want
to do something special with their life, but why isnt even a question they are used to asking themselves.
Leaders that emerged in African American history were our Why and our link to our past. As those
leaders met opposition and for some death those intrinsic reasons for achieving in a certain way also
died. We have been looking to fill that void ever since. We grasp personally at our own heros in sports,
medicine, television, etc. and we aspire to meet or surpass their achievements. There is nothing racially
different about this until you introduce the fact that most of the heros we choose are not Black.
Therefore, they did not have to struggles Blacks experience. This is not an excuse. It is a trap door.
When you take on a hero that is not of your likeness, anything and everything that is different about
yourself can seem like a stumbling block. We see this in a child that may lose an arm. He may have
once pitched on his little league. After the accident that cost him his arm he doesnt even want to play.
There are groups of veterans who lost limbs that have dedicated themselves to the cause of getting
these children to understand they can still play. Yet no organization exists to tell young African
American youth that if they mess up they can still live for their dreams. The Why gets lost in translation
when picking a hero of another skin color or background or sex. You see this in the He was such a good
kid stories. You see the effects of our youth looking for leaders as they lean more and more on the idea
of people who have made it or use stage names derived from past Italian mobsters.
Blacks are trying to succeed. Is it possible to succeed for success sake? Is it possible to achievement for
achievements sake if you are going to be faced with more than the average person on your road and
may not even be truly respected when you get there?
And it is important that I have you understand that money and material aspirations are not the answer.
Money can be attained through many a ways, most of which we as a society do not approve. No, these
answers need to be provided in a manner that has more substance if we are to break young Black men
of the walking zombie effect created by the circles of a consumer driven environment. For years, Whites
have answered this question with one answer. Their lineage provides them a very real map of successes
and failures their ancestors experienced. Most Whites live in a constant state of love and competition
with other family members to achieve a goal of social status that they know their Patriarchs and
Matriarchs will acknowledge. In turn, allowing them feel as though they achieved being a good person.
African American history is so fragmented that this same type of goal achievement cognition is not
possible. For example, if you ask two young children, one White and one Black, why do they want to be
a lawyer when they grow up, they will most often answer So I can help people. But the true answers
are actually found in their respective inward goals. All branches of child psychology have included the
childs inward goals in their theories on the best ways to teach children. But Constructivist like Maria
Montessori believed this to be the primary importance of child learning and development.
While the White child says he wants to help people he also thinks of his mother being proud of him for
being a lawyer or his father bragging about his son the lawyer to the neighbors. The Black child thinks to
himself I want to help people. And it is only AFTER the thought of actually helping others that he may
think of his mother being proud of him. Why is this? It is because young Black children KNOW there is a
difference between being a lawyer and being an effective respected lawyer, at way too young an age.
They see people who are lawyers in their community not be respected or well-paid every day. They see
schlepping public servant lawyers openly stressed and seemingly crushed under mountains of
paperwork and cases. They do not as often see a young black lawyer who was drafted straight form law
school into a highly prestigious firm. Nor do they see that same young Black lawyer get to be human,
make mistakes and yet still build a life and career completely symbiotic with his life away from work
while being the embodiment of a young virile individual.
Hopefully you can see how the White child can see the dream of being a lawyer as an achievement
worth happiness by itself. All the while the young Black child only understands being a lawyer as work in
and of itself. Work to achieve it. Work to be good at it with very few mistakes along the way. Work to
change the way being a Black lawyer is viewed by others. The happiness will come later. The dream of
being seen as a respectable member of the community just going to law school, deferred.
This is why African American children are fragmented in their goals and their lives. No value is properly
put on their lives or their achievements. No proper understanding of when one has actually achieved
is outlined in society. There arent many Black people that gain respectability in our communities for
having attained a certain amount of success. Therefore, there is no amount of success one can properly
project to attain. Most young Black men believe it to be true that an older Black professional can get
pulled over too.
We allow lies like Blacks are responsible for their own standing in America to permeate our thinking.
No one can be held too responsible for how others view them unless that person knows them
personally. But we allow these views to be attached to the whole African American race to the point
that it is OK to think a Black surgeon speeding to a hospital may not be right when he is pulled over by
a police officer. We think a young Black sports talent who is mixed up in a physical altercation is
somehow not deserving of being in sport. Instead of thinking of professional sports as highly competitive
and sports figures themselves are probably not be challenged, unless you want to fully compete.
Worst of all, we think when a young man tries to circumvent the system and sell drugs or perform crime
to get money instead of work for it, that that somehow represents an entire way of thinking for an
entire community.
We say things like Poverty and Crime as though they go together and not that one is responsible for
the other. It was poverty that sent The Jesse James Gang into crime. It was opportunitys siren song
that caused Joe Kennedy to bootleg liquor. Crime does not beget poverty. Yet when thinking of African
American communities we think they are poor because they are criminals. Or worse, they are poor
because they are lazy. Then we think they are policed so harshly because they are poor and
criminals. And not surprisingly, the words opportunity and education are not often accepted by
listeners in debates about poverty. How many jobs are there in the city? How many people? Two
questions that if asked together would easily give the probabilities of crime rates. Yet those questions
are not often heard together.
This is what leads some Americans to think police crimes like what happened to Mike Brown are brought
on oneself. Well, if he or his family would get their act together and get a job and move out they
wouldnt have those problems. I have tried it that way. I have spent $2200 a month thinking that I
needed to move on up. All I got was women who clutched their purse when I joined them in the
elevator. Cops still pulled me over in the particular neighborhood in which I lived. Only now, I was
around the corner from my house and was just going to the store for my wife. I challenge America to
see the real systemic issues that lead to killings like Mike Browns. I challenge America to set aside its
incessant need to have both problems and answers be simple and easy. I challenge America to embrace
the complexity of poverty and the complexity of crime and be willing to deduce complex answers to
both. I want change in how we perceive ourselves and how we perceive others. If we dont choose this
path America will never be anything other than a place where Whites continue to have faceted
understanding as to WHY they should succeed and achieve, while Blacks will continue to live faceted in
misunderstanding the value of their own lives.
If life is an unstoppable force, we cannot continue to let racism be an immovable object.
-anonymous (not the hacktivists)