![]() It also became the epicenter for the 2015 racial protests that erupted after a Black man named Freddie Gray died in police custody. It served as the setting for the HBO series, “The Wire,” which depicted a poor, Black community devastated by racism and violence. My West Baltimore neighborhood would eventually become famous as a symbol for Black anger. I spent my entire time in public schools, from Head Start through high school, seeing only one White student. Charlie.” I watched a White police officer savagely beat an unarmed Black woman in my backyard when I was about nine. People referred to White people as “crackers,” honkies” and “Mr. I grew up in an all-Black, inner-city neighborhood where that kind of racial hatred was enthusiastically returned. I didn’t know what she looked like, or even if she was alive.Īll I was told was this: Your mother’s name is Shirley. She vanished from my life not long after I was born. I had grown up in Baltimore without ever knowing my mother. ![]() But we both knew that his question was anything but casual. “Do you want to meet your mom?” he asked me. Pall Mall cigarette butts were mashed in a nightstand ashtray, and “The Price is Right” was playing on a black and white TV. He was sitting up in bed with his shirt off, his belly spilling over the waist of his greasy dungarees. ![]() I was 17, just months away from leaving home for college, when my father called me into his bedroom one afternoon. But I remember where I stood when it happened. I don’t remember what I said because I was too shocked to respond.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |