This is Post-Racial, America?

I want everyone (especially you attorneys), to reflect about the perverse irony and significance of Eric H. Holder, Jr., our 82^nd Attorney General and first African American to hold this position as our nation’s chief law enforcement official, having "the talk" last year with his then 15 year old son.  You know “the talk,” right?  It’s that uncomfortable but critically necessary conversation all responsible African-American parents have with their teenage sons, where we tell them they have less legal right to life, liberty, and property than their white friends.  It’s that talk where we have to admit that all the other things we had been telling them – you’re as good as everyone else; you have rights as a citizen; if you work hard and follow the rules, you will do well in this world – well, there’s a caveat.  “But son, don’t forget you’re Black, and so you need to be 3x better, and they can stop you for being black, and whatever you do, don’t talk back, and always keep your hands where they can see them.”  That talk.

 As a lawyer I cannot begin to tell you how frustrating and humiliating it was for me to go off on Jacob several years back for leaving the house without his ID while walking Justice in our neighborhood.  No, technically we don't have pass laws in Louisiana, but civil rights attorney mom had to tell her son to behave like we do.  It's the caveat.  Of course, my tone led to an epic battle with Jacob, until my dad stepped in.  My septuagenarian father, who could not walk down Fontainbleau Drive without ID when he was a teenager -- 55 years prior to Jacob Criú Washington – agreed with me.  Perverse irony.  My dad marched to insure I had a right to buy this house in this neighborhood; 55 years later, I’ve got the house, but his grandson still needs a pass.

 I thought about that episode today when I was driving home along Fontainbleau Drive and listening to Attorney General Holder give his keynote address at the NAACP’s convention – in Florida, where thousands of African-Americans are spending their hard earned dollars buttressing the economy of a state that allowed a white man to go free after murdering an African-American male teenager whose crime was walking in a neighborhood without a pass.   

 And I thought about this photo, and Dad and Jacob's beautiful expressions, ... and Madiba.

 

Dr. Louis X. Washington, Sr. and Jacob M. Washington

This is post-racial America.