Entrepreneur and Cofounder of dN|BE Apparel
INTERVIEWED BY TELEPHONE, JUNE 28, 2012
You grew up in the heart of the inner city of New York in the 1980s. What was the black experience there then, and what were your day-to-day realities?
Actually I lived in Brooklyn, New York, until I was about eight years old. Then I moved up to the Bronx. Going into my early experiences in East New York, Brooklyn, it was known as “homicide central” at the time when I was very young. I could recall things that most children probably have never had to experience, such as witnessing a break-in of my home. Coming home and there is this guy in our living room “stiffing” our VCR. I grew up in the 1980s during the crack era. Crack was everywhere. When I went to school, I would see crack vials all over the schoolyard. Everywhere you went, you saw crack, whether you used it or not; it was very prevalent. And I saw the effects crack had in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. I would hear the gunshots at night. So there were shoot-outs going on. I saw somebody being stabbed, you know, at a very early age. Some of the things that were going on in New York at the time, it was really like a crazy Wild Wild West type of energy. You never knew what you were going to see the next day. Every day it was like, man, I can’t believe that this just happened. I can recall seeing a guy running down the middle of the street on Pitkin Avenue in Brooklyn with a helicopter chasing him. I presume it probably was drug related. Imagine: To see a helicopter chasing a guy running on foot as fast as he could down the street. Every day there seemed to be a new precedent set for ignorance and violence. I remember we lived a block away from the Cypress Hills housing project in Brooklyn. I heard about entire families getting thrown off the roof of the housing project due to drug money debts. This was just common—seeing the ambulances and police cars on a daily basis just flying down the street. That was the kind of environment I grew up in. I remember being in the third grade. I had a friend named Naeem, who lived in the same housing development in the Bronx as me. He had an older brother that both of us looked up to. One evening Naeem’s older brother and his best friend were standing behind my building when there was a drive-by shooting. Naeem’s brother made it out alive, but his brother’s best friend was killed right outside of my window. I remember looking out the window and seeing him slumped over on a bench with a bullet to the head. Years later I remember still seeing the blood trail.
My parents always wanted to have a little bit better for their kids than they had for themselves. So they ultimately ended up moving us up to the Bronx. There are people who say that the Bronx is a scary place. There were bad things that were going on in the Bronx then as well; however, it was a step up from my experience in Brooklyn.
How did your parents guide you through such hostile surroundings outside of your home?
My mom was, and still is, very strict in her parenting style. She was definitely focused and strict with me when it came to education and making sure that my schoolwork was done. Luckily I had a natural curiosity for learning. That curiosity for learning was something that my mom helped me cultivate as well as my dad. My dad was also rather gifted when it came to schoolwork. He didn’t always make the right decisions, as far as . . . staying in school, but nonetheless he was very gifted. I remember my dad taking me to the library as early as probably six years old and going through astronomy books with me, a subject I was very interested in at an early age.
In addition to your parents’ involvement in your life, did you have mentors?
I definitely had people to look up to, like my grandfather. My grandfather ended up moving down to Florida when I was nine or ten years old. But typically my sister and I would go to Florida and spend the summers with our grandfather. My great grandmother was involved in my life a lot too. She lived in the projects in the south Bronx. Last year she passed away. With her it was a time that not only me but my siblings could escape from the negativity of the drug and crack culture of New York City. I had family members who succumbed to the crack epidemic. There were people in my own family who, my parents told me, “Okay, watch your pockets when you are around Such and Such.” And, “I don’t want you to be around Such and Such when we are not there.” These are the kinds of things that you are hearing about friends of the family and people even in your own family. You learn to grow a healthy suspicion as a New Yorker in this type of environment. You become very skeptical of people and suspicious of authority. And so this is the type of environment that I was raised in.
Despite the craziness of the times and the drug culture threatening to harm your childhood, you prevailed. What were some of your favorite childhood memories that still made you rise?
My fondest memory of my childhood was of my father bringing me to a park behind the Cypress Hills housing project and teaching me how to play baseball. I probably was three or four years old at the time. It was special for me, especially because we didn’t get a lot of quality time together. But I can remember, specifically, him taking me out to this park, giving me a bat, and passing the ball to me. Also another childhood memory: I can remember my dad teaching me how to ride a bike. I never had training wheels. My dad would say to me, “If you fall down, you get back up. We are going to do this until you get it correct.”
So you then left the inner city to go to a prestigious boarding school in Connecticut for your education. How did that decision come about, and how was the educational experience different than the education you received in New York City?
The boarding school idea came about when I was in sixth grade in New York. I was already part of a talented and gifted program in middle school. A lot of the kids in my program were obviously overachievers and earned exceptional grades. Many people viewed us throughout the school as nerds. Even though we were wearing the same clothes as everybody else, watched the same TV shows, joked about the same things, they still considered our class as the nerd class. Somehow in that “nerd class” I found out about other students’ academic interests, including going off to boarding school. So I started doing my own investigation and learned about a program called Prep for Prep that some of my fellow students were a part of. What Prep for Prep did was prepare you and give you additional coursework on top of your public school curriculum, with the goal of getting [you] into preparatory schools. I was fascinated by this. I felt that I was capable academically of not needing the additional coursework that Prep for Prep provided. I believed that I could do it on my own. I was an avid reader and a top performer in my class, even beyond those students who were in the Prep for Prep program. So I made the decision that I wanted to go to boarding school, because I thought it was a place that I would be able to fully challenge my academic capabilities. On top of that, I thought, I would not have to deal with the negative street culture on the streets of New York that tells me I am a nerd, and because I am a nerd and I like to learn, I am perceived as a lesser being and therefore somebody who should be picked on. The idea, then, of me extracting myself from my current environment to go to a place where people love to learn and intellectualism is encouraged, and at the same time a place where I could learn more about how the real world operated, was very attractive to me.
I knew that, even though boarding school was kind of a bubble and I would be immersing myself in an environment that I was not comfortable with, and where I would be the minority, it would be reflective of greater society and the challenges that I would face throughout life. I had discussions with my mom when I was in sixth grade about attending boarding school. She indicated that “we would see.” Eighth grade came, and I started filling out applications and made it happen!
You are incredible and were shining at such a young age already. There are adults who don’t have that kind of rigorous and objective internal discussion and will to turn a dream into a reality.
When you actually attended the boarding school, what was that experience like for you?
For me I loved the entire experience of boarding school. For my fellow classmates of color, everyone had a different take on it. Like I said, coming from the Bronx, where I am the majority and am used to seeing black and Hispanic people everywhere on a daily basis, to being one of six black males in my class—and that was most likely the largest number of young black men that they had enrolled in the freshmen class, when I started, for quite some time—was incredible. So basically I go from being one of thousands to one of a handful of black male students in this high school, which is located in Watertown, Connecticut. And within the town at large there were very few, if any at all, black and Hispanic people. Hence, some of my classmates of color, who came from other parts of New York City and other parts of the country, went into culture shock. I on the other hand looked at it as a new challenge and a new experience.
At this boarding school I was able to learn about the conversations middle-class and upper-middle-class white Americans have on a regular basis. You know, this was foreign territory for me. So I felt like a sponge in this environment. I was absorbing how things worked in their world. I discovered that there were generations of students who had gone to this boarding school or another boarding school somewhere in New England and married each other and continued this generational wealth and tradition within their families. I observed and participated in this culture. I wanted to understand how this worked so that I could implement some of the same strategies that would make my black community successful for generations.
Would you say that you soared in this new environment at the boarding school because you were not dealing with the stresses of the street culture and crime?
I think so. There were different stresses now. I had to deal with the stress of people not understanding my experience. At the same time I never felt that I was physically in danger, which is a huge difference. Whereas in New York City every day you had to have your eyes peeled open, because you never knew when your life may be physically at risk. Removing that burden of survival was a totally different experience for me. So any stress related to the random ignorance that I might experience from some of my Caucasian brothers and sisters was minimal compared to the stress of just getting to school and coming home in one piece.
So what did you do about dating at this boarding school? You are in high school at this point.
Right. That was unique. When I entered high school, I was very small physically. I didn’t really hit my growth spurt until I was sixteen. I do recall, even prior to going to high school, the first girl that I dated was Puerto Rican. She and I were good friends in New York City. In the city there was not much of a difference between Hispanic and black. It was looked upon as natural for Hispanics and blacks to date. So there were not too many questions about me dating a Puerto Rican girl and her dating a black guy in New York.
When I got to boarding school in Connecticut, I remember my first crush being a white girl. This was the first time that I had a crush on a white girl. Her name was Meredith. I remember thinking to myself, How do I approach this girl? We were completely different: I was black and not wealthy; she was white and rich. I had no idea how to navigate those differences. Finally after some time I mustered up the courage to hint to her that I was somewhat interested. She pushed back on it or did not want to have a relationship with me. To this day I am not sure what the reason was why she didn’t date me: whether it was because I was not physically mature or if it was because of my skin color or my income bracket. I’ll never know. But what I do remember is being rebuffed by the first white woman that I was ever attracted to. And for me or any guy who is rejected, it can be damaging to your ego. So moving forward I then consciously thought about that experience with any woman I was interested in. At that point in my mind, it was, “Well, this is not something that is even possible for me, so I am not even going to look at this population in terms of people I may be capable of dating.” That option was removed from me early on, in ninth grade. And I never thought about broaching that situation again. I can’t say that since then I was not attracted to other white women. I was, but I did not consider dating white women or even attempt to approach them in that fashion.
The next landmark on your map was Nashville, Tennessee, where you attended Vanderbilt University, a private liberal arts college. Why did you choose to go to Vanderbilt?
I was at the boarding school in Connecticut. I did not see a lot of faces that looked like mine for four years. At this point I was, like, Now that I got this experience at the boarding school and I see how things operate, I want to go somewhere where there are a lot of my faces. I had, especially during my high school years, grown a great appreciation for my African American culture. So I was especially looking for other black intellectuals too. In addition I wanted to go somewhere I could have a good time, be amongst my peers, and feel accepted in the community, including when I entered a room or a place. In a nutshell it was very important to me that I attend a college or university that was academically challenging but also had the social infrastructure where I could relax and be myself on more of a permanent basis.
And I also knew that I didn’t want to be in New England anymore because I had been up in the mountains of Connecticut for a while, and the climate was very cold. That’s when I knew that I had to go to school in the South.
I applied to all of the best colleges and universities in the South. I went down for a visit to Vanderbilt. They had a Minority Student Recruitment Weekend for potential students, which I participated in. I remember getting picked up from the airport in a bus. There was a kid from Washington, D.C., attending the same event. We were just chatting with each other, saying, “Man, we know that we are not going to school in Nashville, but they paid for us to come and visit this school, so why not check it out?!” So we were laughing about Nashville being kind of country and backwards. These were the perceptions we had at that time of Nashville, not having visited this place yet.
So what did you discover, once you arrived on Vanderbilt University’s campus?
To make a long story short, when we arrived, the campus was amazing and beautiful. From Vanderbilt’s standards maybe 6 percent of the student population was black. But for me 6 percent of six thousand students was an exponential increase of black people. In the boarding school I attended in Connecticut, there were about five hundred students in total, and about twenty-five to thirty of the students were black and/or Hispanic. I love those guys/girls I went to boarding school with to this day. Three of my closest boarding school friends were in my wedding. So you know we are still very tight. However, by making the decision to attend Vanderbilt, I was blessed to develop more good relationships with students, particularly students of color, who turned into friends.
What did you study?
I actually arrived at Vanderbilt as a biomedical engineering major. I was always curious about science as a little kid. As I said earlier, from the moment I could read, I would beg my dad to take me to the library. I would study science and biology in the library and loved it. Though, after my freshman year, I ended up switching my major to economics. The reason being, while I still love science to this day, I realized after struggling academically during my freshman year that my strengths as a scholar were not in the areas of chemistry or calculus or most of the subjects that engineering students are required to take. I ended up becoming an economics major simply because it sounded like a major that would make me a lot of money; and if I made a lot of money, then I could help my family and friends with their economic situations.
Did you enjoy studying economics?
I can’t say that I loved studying economics, but I was determined to complete the degree, and that is what I did.
I was awed by the black Greek culture, not only at Vanderbilt University but also the black Greek culture that was kind of shared throughout the city of Nashville. I didn’t know at the time that Nashville was home to Tennessee State University and Fisk University [a predominately African American university]. I was fascinated with Fisk because I had studied W. E. B. Du Bois, his literature, and his work as a sociologist and avid thinker, and he earned his bachelor’s degree there.
So just the incredible heritage, culture, and legacy of W. E. B. Du Bois, and the many other black leaders that went to Fisk, was astounding to me. I had not even considered, prior to attending Vanderbilt, that Fisk was five minutes from there. So I had Tennessee State University, Vanderbilt, Fisk University, Belmont University, all within a couple of minutes of driving. So it was easy to fall in love with Vanderbilt and the location, once I learned all of this.
Okay, you were living and studying in the heart of black American history. So what did that do for you as a young black man?
At this point I realized that something was going to have to happen for me in Nashville that I could use to completely change the environment that I saw growing up, not only for people in New York but for people that I met from other parts of the country who went through very similar experiences that I did. I felt that Nashville was the magic place where I was going to get this enlightenment that would allow me to change things for the better. Fortunately it was. I met people there who literally changed my life. Some of them have become my business partners.
Let’s talk about your professional career. You are the executive director of the Black Male Empowerment Institute and also cofounder of dN|BE Apparel. Your experiences both educationally and professionally have taken you a lot of places, including up the corporate ladder. Why did you choose to put your energy, talent, resources, and time behind the Black Male Empowerment Institute and dN|BE Apparel? Walk me through the mission, the targeted audience, and the impact.
Right after graduation one of my fraternity brothers, Tre, and I got together and collaborated on a business plan. In college he always had some kind of connection to making t-shirts and jackets. For him it was a side hustle throughout college for making extra money. But once we graduated from college, we realized that we both had valuable and marketable skill sets. One of Tre’s skills was to create t-shirts and jackets. Mine was coming up with unique ideas. And so we looked at a few of our other friends and identified their strengths. That’s when we decided to start up a t-shirt business.
The business was not designed to simply sell a whole lot of t-shirts that didn’t mean anything. We wanted to do something that catered to our belief system and uplifted the black community. We were looking to combine all of our natural curiosities and academic strengths for this endeavor. So we started this clothing company called dangerousNEGRO. We knew that it would be controversial because of its name.
Yes, it is an eyebrow-raising name. How did you come up with it?
At Vanderbilt there was this particular black studies class that Tre actually took. In this class they went into depth about the lives of A. Philip Randolph [an activist in the civil rights and U.S. labor movements] and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Both men were publicly called “the most dangerous Negro in America” at two different points in American history. In 1919 A. Philip Randolph was trying to integrate the military. He was also one of the first proponents of labor unions. Essentially he did a lot that agitated local, state, and federal government. So President Woodrow Wilson went on the radio and publicly declared that A. Philip Randolph was the most dangerous Negro in America.
Fast-forward to the civil rights movement. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had a vendetta against Dr. King. Every opportunity he had to paint Dr. King as a negative figure, he did so. So J. Edgar Hoover sent William C. Sullivan, who was with the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Division, to the March on Washington to write up a report on what he saw.
Sullivan didn’t believe that there was anything wrong with what Dr. King was doing. He actually respected Dr. King. But because Sullivan’s paycheck was coming from the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover, he went ahead and wrote this report anyway, describing Dr. King as the most dangerous Negro in America.
Going with that trend of the dangerous Negro, not being the drug dealers that I saw growing up in New York City or the gangbangers that my business partner had to deal with growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, we realized that the dangerous Negroes are the A. Philip Randolphs of the world, the Martin Kings of the world, black men who were courageous enough to stand up for what was right when it was unpopular. That’s where we got our idea for the name of our clothing line. On top of that, we believed that people were going to pay attention to what we were doing. People would be curious. And people would stare at some of our shirts with the name on it and ask us, “What the hell were you thinking, putting that on a shirt?” That then gave us an opportunity . . . to start a conversation with somebody. Through word of mouth our message and our t-shirt business were spreading. People would start talking and then would go home and say, “I saw a dude today who was wearing this t-shirt that said ‘dangerousNEGRO’ on it. Can you believe it?” The next thing you know, we had people e-mailing us, stating that they heard about our company and asking where could they purchase a “dangerousNEGRO” t-shirt. It then kind of had a snowball effect from there.
What products are in your clothing line?
We sell urbanwear: t-shirts, jackets, hoodies, and hats. We still operate dangerousNEGRO years after its inception as a well-oiled machine.5 It also allows us the opportunity to explore other interests that we have.
The natural progression for me was to do something hands-on. The clothing line is one vehicle that I can use to uplift people in their life, but I wanted to physically go out and talk to other young black men, who I consider in similar positions that I was in growing up. So I developed a workshop where I can impart my wisdom to youth, emphasizing the lessons that I learned in my own journey: what kept me motivated in each situation and stage in my life, and what keeps me motivated today. Through these types of workshops came the idea behind the Black Male Empowerment Institute.
On my way home today, I was listening to the news and they discussed black-on-black homicides that are affecting our youth all across cities today. Clearly this type of crime is a problem that needs to be addressed. Do you think that the realities impacting the youth are slightly better now compared to when you were growing up? Are the realities different in comparison?
From what I am seeing in the present day, unfortunately, I haven’t seen things getting much better in terms of homicides. What I do think has changed in the black community is that we are no longer in the height of that crack epidemic. That is different.
I have talked to my little cousins and have heard from them stories of their friends that they have seen being murdered and the friends of their friends who have been murdered. You continuously hear about it. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, this is news, and this is what you hear about black men when you turn the TV on and watch the news broadcasts. In some instances it is an overexaggeration of reality. But in many instances, like in Chicago, where I have business partners, it seems more black men are dying in Chicago than in Afghanistan or Iraq. We do have a problem. I am hoping that some of the ideas that I have can stem some of these problems.
What do you think is the core of the problem?
I think that this goes all the way back hundreds of years ago to American slavery and the Reconstruction period. These periods in history have given some young black men a nihilistic mentality, where they find no value for not only their life but the lives of others. Ingrained in today’s culture, you see these kinds of behaviors, where you have twelve-, thirteen-, fourteen-year-old kids killing each other. They are not even old enough to value life. There are so many different factors that go into the core problem. There are profit structures, like the prison-industrial complex policy, that have deep and lasting implications on black people, black men in particular.
Also I think that, for youth, there are negative influences that are mirrored and magnified by some elements of hip-hop culture. I want to be clear that mainstream hip-hop is not the cause of the problem but more so a symptom of how we have been led astray. All in all there are probably twenty or thirty ingredients that account for what we are seeing today.
What do you think is part of the solution to this epic problem?
The only solution in my mind to reaching these kids and defeating this nihilistic mentality is by helping them believe in themselves before they endanger themselves or other people.
Where does hip-hop fit in the discussion of empowerment? Is it a relevant form of expression right now?
I think the mistake we made over the last decade or two is that our elders, and people who many of us view as leaders in the black community, have specifically attacked hip-hop culture. And when you attack hip-hop culture in a certain way, it is an attack on black youth. Hip-hop culture is something that many of us were born into. It wasn’t something that you necessarily decided to be a part of. If you grew up in New York City, you were born into hip-hop culture. So any type of criticism of that is going to alienate that segment of the population, causing them to put their wall up. And then you really can’t get through to them. Positive change has to come from within hip-hop culture. I consider myself a part of hip-hop culture.
How would you define hip-hop culture?
Hip-hop culture is a way of dressing yourself, of communicating. It is not just the music. The music is the messenger, but it is not the entirety of it. It is how you walk, how you talk, how you dance. It encompasses so many aspects of your life. It is what you wear on your feet. What kind of sneakers do you have on? It is so much.
It’s deep.
Right. So somebody coming from outside of hip-hop culture, like an elder in the community blasting folks for doing something wrong and stupid, the response is then to automatically turn your ears off. And in your mind you’re thinking, “You are old. You have no idea what it is like for me growing up, whatever you say is irrelevant.” The problem then continuously gets worse. That’s why you need to work within hip-hop culture to alter the message for the better. Sadly what I am seeing now is that there are a lot of negative messages on the radio—this is true. The reasons for that are not because of a supply or demand kind of thing, like they would like you to believe. As someone who started a record label with an independent artist who was a Grammy Award winner, I have seen how this process works. It is all about money. You have the radio stations, [of] which there are only a few major players in the market: Radio One and Clear Channel, [which] own a majority of black radio stations across the country. . . . They are not going to play necessarily what sounds good or what people think is uplifting. They kind of force-feed what you are going to hear. Fast-forward to the economic recession: We are at the point where radio stations and record labels are losing tremendous amounts of money because of declining sales, and therefore we are starting to see more organic artists coming up through the ranks via social media and the Internet to speak on more positive topics and be more creative with their music. Hip-hop is cyclical. Now we are back at a point where creativity is paramount, and sounding like other people is not cool anymore. That is the one positive that I see going on.
You have indicated that you consider yourself part of the hip-hop culture. What positive messages are you sending to the youth within the hip-hop arena?
I specifically target my message to young black men. But young black men and young black women for the past two decades have been hit with this stream of gang culture and materialism. Since I understand that reality, I am able to use it in my messages. I know that materialism is about bling, it is about money, it is about who has an expensive car, and who can afford to buy x-y-z. That being said, my question to black youth is, How do you control your own destiny in being able to obtain and accomplish those things?
One of the best pieces of advice that I have received came from my uncle Dwayne. He told me from an early age that nobody is going to pay you like you can pay yourself.
Now I am connecting the dots. The advice from your uncle is what helped you make the decision of choosing an entrepreneurial route versus corporate America?
Precisely. I went into corporate America right out of college. At that time I had not figured out my professional path yet. I didn’t know where I was going to fit in terms of generating income for myself other than within corporate America. Still, I kept on recalling my uncle’s frustration with having to work for other people and remembered him telling me, “Nobody is going to pay you like you can pay yourself.” I attribute the change in my trajectory to that simple message and having an entrepreneurial mind-set as a young black man. When my course shifted, my life changed for the better.
I take that same belief I hold for myself and share it with youth around the country. My goal is to counter the beliefs many of these youth are conditioned to believe within the structure of the hip-hop culture. For instance hip-hop culture sends the message “You want to have a Bentley. You want to have Louis Vuitton accessories. You want to be able to buy $500 champagne like P. Diddy.” I understand that for many youth that is the message that they have been hearing for the past fifteen to twenty years, so I am not going to argue with them on those points. Instead I ask each one of them to reassess in their mind how they can take charge of their own life and create a solid plan on how they are going to attain those things that they want. I emphasize that the only way to achieve that goal is by controlling their destiny and by having an entrepreneurial mind-set. And once these young people realize that they are the master of their fate, it starts to change the way they think about their priorities. They then ask themselves, “So now that I am in control and doing positive and healthy things in my life, is it really important for me to drink $500 worth of champagne?” The response to that should be “No, it’s not smart!”
That certainly sounds like a persuasive argument for young people to hear.
Now you have a mind shifter. A new message that says, “I am in more control of what happens to me today, tomorrow, and next year.” When you take more responsibility of your choices in life, you begin to realize that this is just entertainment. So going out to buy a $1,000 pair of Gucci loafers is simply stupid! Why? Because now I am an entrepreneur, or now at least I have an entrepreneurial mind-set within corporate America, and I value every dollar that I take in, and I have a plan for what I am going to do with this dollar once I have enough saved up. At the end of the day the mind-set shift starts with the entrepreneurial thought process.
You have made it a priority to also invest time, expertise, and energy into the interracial or transracial adoption community. You have traveled to Denver, Colorado, to attend the African Caribbean Heritage Camp to work with white parents who have or are planning on adopting black and biracial children. Why is your investment in this particular demographic group important to you?
I was invited to participate at the African Caribbean Heritage Camp for adoptive families in Colorado a few years ago. I actually did not know a lot about transracial adoption before then. The times I have attended the camp, I delivered a keynote address much like the material we are talking about here. Once I spent time and listened to the parents, I realized that these are people who love their children and are going to great lengths to understand where their children fit culturally. Many of the parents recognized that even though they loved their kids, there were some obvious racial differences that they could not ignore. They also recognized that it was important for their children to feel comfortable in their surroundings too.
The biggest question they posed to me was, What can we do to ensure that our children have the best possible future? I have seen these parents investing so much love and attention into their children. Also I have been to Africa before—Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. I have seen the conditions of many of the children over there. For instance, when I was at the market in Tanzania, there was a kid, maybe seven or eight years old, who was begging for money. Half of the kids are telling me not to give him money because he was strung out on glue. I saw some crazy stuff. And here it is, that back in the States there are people giving kids who came from unfortunate circumstances an opportunity to live the American dream. I fully support that. And so I wanted to make sure that I could give my time, resources, and thoughts to these parents in order that the lives and the futures of their children would thrive.
What words of advice did you give to the youth who attended the camp? I ask that because it is a gold-star opportunity for transracial adopted black boys and girls to have access to an African American role model like you.
For them I had to walk both sides of the fence, because obviously they can’t escape the fact that they are black young men and women. Too, they are living, many of them, in remote environments where they may or may not see anybody who looks like them. But on top of that, even if there are people who look like them, they probably don’t have a similar family experience. So in connecting with this group, I found that my experience at boarding school was a common denominator. I know firsthand what it is like to be one of few in an environment that many black men and women don’t find themselves in. I know what it feels like, seemingly being thousands of miles away from where you originated and being with these people who are totally different but still needing to fit in with the community and family around you. So I shared with these young men and women my story. I also told them that everybody has unique experiences, but the key is that they have to use everything that has happened in their life to equate to something more positive. I encouraged each of them to look at their personality strengths, as well as their academic and cultural experience strengths, and combine those traits with what makes them curious about how the world operates and use all of that for the good.
Just listening to your story I can’t even imagine some of the things that you have gone through. It is amazing to me how you have been able to take your experiences, some very painful experiences, and objectively analyze them and find solutions that not only help you but also contribute to society for the better. To me that is brilliance.
I think that it is an accepted premise in the transracial adoption world (at least I hope it is) that it is beneficial to connect with people that share similar racial and ethnic backgrounds as their children. But how do you exactly approach it as a discipline outside of a culture camp? And this is one of the primary reasons why I am working on this project. How do we, living and part of transracial adoptive families, connect to a Demetrius Walker—an esteemed and accomplished person who has wisdom that is vital for our families but in many cases sadly is separated by an invisible wall filled with assumptions, societal stereotypes, fear, and uncertainty?
I think it is very important for transracial adoptive families to extend their network base by connecting to people in the African American community. One of the things that breaks my heart, that I hear from white folks that I know, even here in my neighborhood, is, “We don’t see race. That does not matter to us.” Whether you are black, Hispanic, or Asian, you don’t see race? Really? Let’s be realistic. If you try to pretend that race does not matter, therein lies the problem. I understand that many of these folks want to treat everybody equally. That is good. But it is also important to respect that there are going to be differences. We are also at a point in the United States where we have not progressed to be truly color blind. So I think, first and foremost, white adoptive parents should recognize that their child of color is going to have different experiences than them because of their different racial and ethnic background. Two, I think that it is important for transracial adoptive parents to understand that their children are going to be naturally curious about those differences, and pretending that they don’t exist is going to do a lot of damage to the child and to them.
I think that it is beneficial for these families to be intentional in finding mentors. Personally I have had mentors throughout my life, more so once I got into college. I have had people in my life like Michael, a big marketing director. Just being able to e-mail him because we were not in the same city was advantageous. It is like having a virtual mentor. We are so connected in the digital age. So if there aren’t any black, Asian, or Hispanic people for these adoptive parents’ kids to interact with, or for them to interact with, you have Facebook, you have Twitter, you have e-mail. There are multitudes of ways you can connect to people, including those of color, to share and obtain good advice.
One of the eye-opening realities for me is probably an obvious one to you. In the community where my husband and I live in Michigan, the population is heavily Caucasian. One thing that almost makes me crazy with my husband is that in our community, which we have been living in well over a decade, he still drives like he is a visitor in his own community. He drives at a snail’s pace. No offense to snails. I’m talking ten, twelve, sixteen miles per hour. Then my brother, who is white, comes to town, and you would think that he owns the town. He is speeding down the streets with a sense of privilege, much like, I would argue, most of the Caucasian residents in this town do. I operate somewhere between my brother and my husband. But my point is that there is a different feel from living in my white adoptive family and now living with my African American husband.
Another scenario is [that] I like doing my Home Depot projects, and every now and then I have my husband help me. So early on in my marriage, I used to say to my husband, “Honey, can you run to Home Depot with me?” The next thing I know, I am waiting in his car for him for what seems like a very long time. I go back into the house, and I hear the shower running! And he had already taken a shower earlier in the day. It got really bad when he was ironing his jeans. He has relaxed a bit since then. When I asked him what he was doing, he told me that he didn’t want to be followed in the store. I get it, now. I have seen situations where we have picked up a twelve-dollar item from the mall, and everybody else who is white goes through the line without any problems, and then my husband comes up with a twelve-dollar item, and they say, “We want two forms of ID.” My mouth drops because I was not used to that. And you have to address this stuff immediately.
I did not see my white family members being second-guessed, followed, or thought to be invisible when waiting for services to be rendered. There is a different reality, racially speaking. As a transracial adoptee I had to mature into understanding these different realities and nuances and to find solutions as to what a healthy response would be in these types of scenarios when dealing with the public. It is different being black in America and especially being a black male. I see it now. It angers me and frustrates me.
It is a lot of the subtle things that, if you are a white male or even a white female, you probably wouldn’t notice the fact that the black guy in front of you in a line has to show his ID, and no other person in that line had the same requirement.
Sitting in a restaurant and hearing my husband say he is invisible is hard for me to hear. Now he handles his business and things get addressed. However, when I hear him say that he feels invisible, I want to talk to the manager immediately. For instance we start at a certain amount for tips at restaurants. I think that it is about 25 percent. If I even hear my husband say that he feels like he is invisible, we are now down to 2 percent. If the issue does not get resolved in that sitting, I’m writing a letter or talking with the owner or manager of that establishment. It’s like I’ve had to figure out how to advocate for my husband and myself. For me it is important that I show him that, Look, I have our back, honey just like he has my back. If my husband remains visible, then I am not going to frequent that place. Like I said, most things get resolved in a positive way but it’s exhausting. I’ll be honest with you: it’s exhausting.
I hear you. It can be exhausting. I remember being in Marquette, Michigan. I was there a few years ago. One of the relatively few black families that live there brought me up to speed. Very similar to what you were saying. People think that racism only still lives in the South. That’s a myth. Hearing this family’s experiences in Marquette, it was very obvious that racism was alive up North. When I got off the airplane, it was like people there had not seen a black guy in person before. I felt all eyes on me everywhere I went, like I was suspicious. The very subtle things that happen nowadays against minority groups can easily get overlooked because these acts can be so subtle. In the forties, fifties, and sixties, when folks were growing up, you could read about overt racism that was inflicted on people, where folks would just tell you in your face that “We are not serving any niggers here!” It’s now covert, which can be worse because it is harder to put your finger on exactly what happened.
There are so many transracial adoptive parents who are trying to get this and are trying to prepare their black daughters, and sons in particular, for this reality. But when you are growing up in an environment where you believe that all police officers are your friends, or you think that the person down the street is safe because he goes to the same place of worship as you do, it is very hard as parents to think any differently because that is the world in which they live. Yet these parents still have the desire to prepare their children for what they may experience in this at times harsh world because of the color of their child’s skin but how? How have you and your wife walked the tightrope of parenting now that you have a son?
The moment I found out that we were having a son, every experience that I’ve had as a black man hit me like a rock. I told myself that I have to make sure that I do everything in my power to ensure that my son doesn’t have to experience the same things that I did, in terms of having to be in fear of his life or being picked on for being academically gifted. I wanted to make sure that whole cycle stopped. Realistically, yes, my son is probably going to have to deal with covert racism. It wouldn’t even make sense for me to believe that he is going to get to eighteen years of age and not have some type of experience where he feels like he is being treated differently or unequally compared to his white friends or even Asian or Hispanic friends. That is just the reality of the United States at this point. But the fact that I believe that I will be able to prepare him for it, as a result of the multitude of my experiences, is huge. Going to not only white institutions of learning but also growing up in a predominately black community has certainly prepared me to teach my son how to overcome any obstacle that may come up for him because of his race. I am definitely excited about fatherhood. I want to make sure that society is more, just so that he doesn’t have to go through as many of those experiences as I did, but I also realize that he does have to be prepared for them when they do come up.
How do you prepare your child, exactly?
It’s funny that you asked that because a few months ago my wife and I got into a discussion. My wife was concerned that I would explain the world to our son in a “you against them” kind of way. I needed to help her realize that, no, that is not what my outlook of the world is, and that is not my plan to raise our child, to constantly be pessimistic about humanity. The message that our son will get from me is not to settle for mediocrity in anything, whether it comes to academics or how you are treated by other people. Everything needs to be at the highest level that it can be. If our son feels that he is in a situation where he is being treated in a less than stellar manner than his peers, I will teach him to identify that and figure out why he believes it to be so and then come and talk with me about what the potential solution might be to solve the problem. That is my parenting style and how I am going to move forward. My wife was concerned that I was going to imbue in our son some kind of “angry black male” attitude—“F— the police, and white people can’t tell me anything,” et cetera. That is definitely not the case!
Before we end I want to say that I think right now, in present-day America, we are still at a primitive mind-set when it comes to the human race. We are going to look back a couple of hundred years from now and say, “What were we thinking? We were cave men and women!” Rhonda, we still have these irrational preconceived notions about people based on skin color. I believe that it is everybody’s job to make sure that on a daily basis we are progressing beyond that type of mentality. The only way that we can do that is for people to be able to genuinely connect with people of other races, cultures, and heritages and share their experiences so that we can grow as a human race—not as black people, white people, Asian people, and Hispanic people but as a human race—in order that we realize that we are all one despite our differences. At the end of the day I ask myself, “Demetrius Walker: What did I learn about myself, my people, and my country today?” I try to do that self-reflection daily. I would encourage others to do the same. If you go to bed and wake up the same person as you were the previous day, then what are you really living for?
Demetrius, thank you.