President Obama, Please Come Home

Dear President Obama:

I’m not a journalist who really believes in these open letters.  I think they’re pretty cheesy. But since I can’t exactly call you and tell you how I feel, I had to use this forum instead. Mr. President, I’m asking you to come home. I saw photos of you on Martha’s Vineyard yesterday, looking quite handsome in your golfing gear, and laughing on the course as though you didn’t have a care in the world.

I believe in vacations and recharging and a man in your position certainly deserves it more than anyone else. This can’t have been an easy year, what with Iraq, Gaza, Malaysia Airlines, the Ebola virus and the killings in Chicago (really, let’s face it, in any urban city) all seemingly blowing up at the same time. I don’t begrudge you your R&R.

But something is going on in Ferguson, Missouri that requires your attention. As you know, 18-year-old Mike Brown was killed by police this past weekend. He follows in the wake of several murders of Black men by white ones in the last few years. This tragic roll call includes Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Eric Garner and now Michael Brown. His mother, Lesley McSpadden, when interviewed soon after she found out, remarked how hard she had to work to get her son through high school because of the widespread belief that Black men have that their lives are cheap and disposable.

She said it more inelegantly, but she was certainly correct. That is the conclusion that the families of Martin, Davis, Garner and now, Brown have come to after seeing their loved one gunned down or asphyxiated by police. It is the same conclusion that Sean Bell’s family came to, when he was murdered by police,  and the conclusion that the families of the Central Park Five came to when they were arrested and convicted as teenagers for a rape they did not commit. Though New York City has now made them millionaires, it took 25 years for justice to be done. How many millions does it take to get back lost time?

It is the sad conclusion of many a Black mother, wife or auntie that when we send our children, our husbands our nephews off to school or work, we have no way of knowing whether an innocuous encounter with law enforcement might result in their death. And if and when they are killed, we know their lives will be scrutinized for any misstep so that a narrative can be constructed that their murder was their own fault.

Though I didn’t want to give my Obama-hating friends any more ammunition, I was struck by the juxtaposition of those images of you golfing with the photos and videos out of Ferguson. It made me think of George Bush flying over Hurricane Katrina. It made me think that these spontaneous protests, a sign that Black people have become tired of murderous police officers, rampant racism, and constant harassment for doing simple things like walking while Black, were not something you take seriously.

You of course, are the most protected Black man in the world, and rightly so. Perhaps, the memory of being at the mercy of a police officer when you have been stopped for no real reason – whether on the street or in your car – that feeling of shame or guilt even though you know you’ve done nothing wrong and your license is straight and your registration updated, is now a feeling far removed from you. That’s good, more Black men should be able to feel that way. But perhaps you’ve forgotten that without that office, you would still be one of those Black men, suspicious simply just because.

I think that The Brother’s Keeper initiative is a great thing. In my view, whatever helps a Black man helps the Black community.  But the Black men of Ferguson and many other depressed, racially stratified cities, like for example, Chicago or Philadelphia, are not necessarily going to be the beneficiaries. Some of these men are tatted over every visible inch of ther body, or loc’ed or wear their pants looser than what is currently deemed acceptable to the Black establishment.

That certainly doesn’t mean they don’t also take care of their kids or love their mamas or work hard in their jobs or careers. But your initiative will have a harder time reaching them and in any case, no matter what they look like or how menacing they seem to some, they shouldn’t have to die on the streets like dogs for just being. Those signs protestors are using that say “I Am A Man” – you’ll remember those were first used in the Memphis garbage workers strike back in the 60’s. Humanity is God-given, Mr. President. No Black man or woman or child has to earn it.

I hope that you will consider coming home, Mr. President. Not home to the White House, but home to the Black community. In my lifetime, I have never seen 97% of Black people agree on anything. Not even Oprah had that kind of approval from Black folks. But 97% of eligible Black voters elected you. They campaigned for you and they supported you …twice.

When I see Ferguson, it echoes the Kennedy brothers in the White House trying to figure out how to quell Black unrest instead of following their consciences and what they knew was right. I see President Bush thinking flying over suffering Black people literally crying out for help as a sign of his being so out of touch with Black humanity that he thought he was actually doing something good.

I see you, President Obama, golfing in the Vineyard, while folks are choking back tear gas fumes in one of our cities and I implore you to come home and let us know what we have to continue to hope for as Blacks people in this divided America. We need to hear from you. You have said and very eloquently, that this is not an American of red and blue states. That this is The United States of America. Well, in these United States we need everyone to know unequivocally that shooting and killing Black men is not okay, particularly by those who took an oath to serve and protect us. Come home President Obama. Come home.

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