Parental Fear, Protection, and the 'Twice as Good' Mandate

Key Insight

The author describes a pervasive, inherited fear for his son's safety, stemming from his own experiences and the brutal reality of police violence, such as the murder of Prince Jones. This fear manifests as a 'great fear, wide as all our American generations,' leading to an understanding of his father's old mantra: 'Either I can beat him or the police.' Black parents love their children 'with a kind of obsession,' knowing they 'come to us endangered' and facing the horrifying prospect of their children being killed by 'the streets that America made,' or by the very police meant to protect them.

This constant state of vigilance leads to an 'unmeasured expenditure of energy,' a 'slow siphoning of the essence,' contributing to the 'fast breakdown of our bodies.' Black individuals are compelled to perpetually 'contort their body' to navigate society—to address the block, to be taken seriously by colleagues, and to avoid giving police a reason for aggression. The author reflects on the damaging societal mandate to 'be twice as good,' which implicitly means to 'accept half as much,' stripping away 'softness' and the 'right to smile,' a demand never placed on white children.

The price of error for black individuals is significantly higher than for their white countrymen; society constructs narratives where the destruction of a black body 'must always begin with his or her error,' whether 'real or imagined,' citing examples like Eric Garner's anger or Trayvon Martin's 'mythical words.' The author recounts his shame during an incident where he reacted with anger after a white woman pushed his son, realizing his response inadvertently endangered his son further by exposing him to the threat of arrest and the inherent violence of the system, a 'dangerous error' with profound consequences.