An Open Letter to My Sons

5/9/19- Since this was written, there have been so many senseless killings of black citizens that it's easy to almost become desensitized to it (Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Philando Castle, Tamir Rice, to name a few). However, I as a father I don't have to luxury to go numb. I have 3 children who are still blissfully naive to the current state of the world. Unfortunately, this poem is more relevant than ever. 

The following is a poem to my sons that was inspired by the reactions to the death of Treyvon Martin and the subsequent trial and acquittal of George Zimmerman:

Before I continue, I want to establish a few things:

1)      I personally do not believe that the Zimmerman verdict was a result of racism. I believe it was due to the defense doing a better job proving their case than the prosecution- that to me is such a shame, because justice was not served that day

2)        While it is not clear exactly what happened on that fateful night,  I do think that the root of those events stemmed one person’s ill-fated judgment of another based on the color of their skin and the clothes on their back

3)        The wildly polarized reactions of this case across the span of social media, shows the issue of race is not only alive, but it is a growing pressure cooker that has once again come to a peak

My Sons,

Let me tell you a story…

One day when I was a young man, I met your mom.

She was smart, beautiful and most importantly, she thought my jokes were funny.

And so, I asked her to be mine. She said yes.

And our love grew.

It grew so much that it made God smile. He smiled so much that he decided to give us two very special gifts.

And those gifts were you.

HE made you in our image

HE gave one of you my nose, the other her smile

And he  gave something very unique to the both of you: Our color

Oh yes, that’s right;

 I should probably mention:

That I’m what they call Black

And

Your Mother, she’s something that they call White

We never mentioned this to you because it doesn’t matter

And besides

That’s not how we teach you to see the world

And that’s not how we saw each other

The only thing we saw when we looked at each other was Love

We never noticed silly things like that

Unfortunately, there are people in this world who don’t see Love

They only see color

And those same people think that it’s wrong for me and your mom to be together

Those same people will look at you, my sons

And not see you as precious gifts from God

They will only see you as color

And so, to no fault of your own

Before they even get a chance to get to know you

They will try to disrespect you

Try to define you

Try to deprive you

Try to demoralize you

And try to defeat you

They will try

And Try

And Try

But they will fail.

Because you both are stronger than that

And not only will you persevere

But will triumph!

Because Love transcends color

And ignorance

And prejudice

So go forth, my sons

The torch has been passed

And show the world

The Love is the future

That Love is an unstoppable force

That the Love within you will one day change the world

Love Always,

Dad