It's Hunting Season on Black Men and Everyone Seems to Have a Permit

I've spent the last five months on sabbatical, and now I'm back. I'm very grateful to the California Wellness Foundation for supporting the work of the Black AIDS Institute and allowing me to take the time off. I knew the only way I could take off was to really get away. So I decided to go Southeast Asia—literally as far away as possible. It was an amazing trip. But I don't want to talk about my trip today. I want to talk about what the re-entry has been like. I came home to the George Zimmerman acquittal, the opening of the film Fruitvale Station, and news that another 17-year-old unarmed Black boy, Jordan Davis, had been gunned down in Florida because a White man, 47-year-old Michael Dunn, says he felt threatened.

Since I returned it has felt like it is hunting season on young Black men and everybody has a permit. I usually want to have a conversation about a movie once it ends, but when I emerged from Fruitvale Station I was so overwhelmed I couldn't speak. All I could do was go directly to bed. To be completely honest, I still have not been able to really talk about the film. Even though I knew how it was going to end, that didn't mitigate how devastated I was by watching it -- particularly against the backdrop of George Zimmerman being acquitted of killing Trayvon Martin.

The Zimmerman acquittal, Fruitvale Station and the murder of Jordan Davis all raise the question: Do Black male lives matter? Everywhere I turn the answer seems to be no! And the most compelling evidence is not merely the Travon Martin, Oscar Grant and Jordan Davis killings. These cases make the headlines because the killers were White or, in the case of Zimmerman, part White. Therein lies part of the problem. Because the lives of the young Black men killed on the Southside of Chicago are just as precious as Travon, Oscar, or Jordan's.

Widespread disrespect exists for the lives of young Black men and boys. And, yes, systemic disrespect exists for their lives -- endemic disrespect in White as well as Black communities. Every time a Black father abandons his Black son, as happens way too often, he disregards the life of that boy. Every time we're not up in arms when only 52 percent of Black boys graduate from high school within four years, our lack of outrage reflects disrespect for the life of Black boys. When we have a 13 percent unemployment rate among African American men (if you include those who have given up looking, the real unemployment rate is much higher)--a rate more than twice the rate of their White counterparts--our society says their lives don't matter. And when 52 percent of young Black gay men in America are estimated to be HIV positive and we don't have a collective outrage, a disrespect exists for the lives of young Black men.

There is a saying: "No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path." The time to save ourselves is now.

There is no doubt that racism in America is real. There is no doubt that institutional and structural barriers exist to prevent the playing field from being level. Many external, systemic and structural factors demean and threaten the lives of young Black men. And we have to fight them. But that is just one side of the problem. Fighting on that front alone won't solve the problem, or at least not fast enough.

Despite those barriers, despite institutional racism, Black people need to make sure we are actively engaged in the other part of the conversation: the work we must do at home. We can't leave any stone unturned. The lives of Black boys are precious and we must save them by any means necessary. We have to protect our sons from the George Zimmermans, Alameda County transit police, and Michael Dunns of the world. But we also have to protect them spiritually and emotionally by holding them and loving them and reminding them that they matter. We can protect them from each other by helping them to see their own reflection in their brother's eyes, and by teaching them that they are not each other's enemy. When we can't reach the enemy, why make those we can reach the enemy? We also need to make sure our sons have the information and tools to protect themselves from diseases like HIV/AIDS.

We are obligated to bring more to the table than the admittedly legitimate analysis of systems, structures and institutional biases. Because at the end of the day, if none of these institutions change, we are still obligated to our sons. In the face of racism, bias, poverty, police brutality -- all of it -- we have to get on with making sure our boys survive and thrive. We need to declare the end of the hunting season.

We have much work to do. I'm glad to be back. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you.

Yours in the struggle,

Phill