Dear nameless new white “neighbor,”
Welcome to the neighborhood…I guess. The first time I saw you, I was getting dropped off after coming from a community event. As I started to get out of the car, I saw you walking your dog and stopped. You see, we knew it was coming, considering our small majority black town was a 30-minute train ride from Manhattan, but every new white face always catches us by surprise.
The second time I saw you was that Saturday. It was almost midnight as I began the trek from the train station up the hill I’ve lived on for my entire life, tired but filled with so many positive emotions. I had just come back from Brooklyn, where I witnessed the triumph of black love as my friend got engaged to her partner. I was also ecstatic that Elaine Thompson and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of my birth country Jamaica won gold and bronze respectively in the women’s 100-meter final at the Olympics. Almost halfway up the hill, I recognized your dog even in the darkness and wondered why you chose so late to walk it. As I came closer, I saw you stop by the tree in front of my Aunty’s apartment building and then a second later make a beeline across the street as if something beckoned you over there.
I stopped to watch as you turned your back and continued to walk down the hill as if nothing happened. As a young black man, I’m used to people seeing my beautiful aged bronze skin and making assumptions. I’m used to people glancing over their shoulders and protectively clutching their purses as I walk behind them in the city on my way to class or a meeting. I’m also used to backhanded compliments, like the time in the next town over when I held the door for an elderly white woman only for her to turn around and attempt to make a joke, saying, “No tip for you.” I even remember the time while I studied abroad in the Dominican Republic when a Dominican soldier (a few shades lighter than me), armed with his assault rifle, demanded to see my “papers” as I exited the day market in the border town of Dajabón. Or more recently, when a cashier in Panama placed my change on the counter instead of my hands. Yet, I never imagined I’d feel like an outsider on the block where I lived ever since my Jamaican immigrant parents signed their lease back in the ’90s.
The trees that witnessed your actions that Saturday night saw me grow up through the years on the block. They saw me as a young boy struggling to help my mother carry groceries up the hill from the supermarket down the road before we had a car. They saw the times I skinned my knees, collected bugs, had water fights and flew kites in the church parking lot across the street from my apartment building during the summers. They witnessed me dressed in my Sunday best on the way to church with my family with my Bible tucked under my arm. And lastly, if they could laugh, I’m sure they’d cackle at the times I run to catch a train so I won’t be late for one of my classes. You didn’t see any of those things that night.
To tell the truth, I was so full of rage in that moment you crossed the street that I wanted to yell and tell you that, “There is nothing you have that I would want.” I almost did it, but something held me back. After all, you could easily call the police, and as a white woman in a black neighborhood, your testimony of a “threatening” black man yelling at you would probably be given more weight. We have examples of how these types of interactions can end for longtime residents (see here and here). I understand that a history of patriarchal violence requires women to be hyper aware of unfamiliar men, yet history also shows how the words of a white woman can cause the death of a black man (read Ashraf Rushdy’s book on the topic).
Maybe you wouldn’t have moved if I told you the sob story of a black youth surpassing society’s expectations that people like you love to hear to make you feel better about yourself. Maybe if I mentioned how I graduated at the top of my class from an “urban” high school in New Jersey, attended a private in-state university where I graduated summa cum laude, and went straight for my PhD at a prestigious university in New York City, you’d think my life mattered. But most likely you would still fear me. I often tell my friends that my PhD won’t protect me and you proved that to me. You didn’t see that potential in me that Saturday night, instead you saw a ghost from 1915’s Birth of a Nation, the black brute seeking to defile the white woman. The “thug” drug dealer peddled to you by local news. You didn’t see potential or hope, you didn’t even see my humanity. To you, even in my own neighborhood, I was still an outsider to be feared and loathed.
My only question for you is how can you chose to live somewhere with so many black people when you’re afraid of us? I’ll probably never get to ask you this in person (if I ever do meet you, best believe I’ll ask while drinking some tea), but hopefully other young white professionals will see this letter and reconsider how they treat black people in the communities you move into. We are born, raised and die in these communities. These are our homes, where we make many memories. So next time you see a young black man walking up the street he’s lived on his entire life, check your bias. Because you don’t know who that man is. People often tell me how as a young black professional I would benefit from the influx of capital brought in by white young professionals such as yourself into the community. Your reaction on Saturday proved what I already knew. No matter how high I climb, to you and many others, I’m nothing but the boogeyman.
Best,
Khemani Gibson
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Khemani is currently a PhD student at NYU striving to bring hidden histories to light and give silenced voices a microphone. When he isn’t trying to change academia, Khemani is busy either community organizing, watching one of his many shows to relax, or drinking some nice hot (or iced) tea. In his spare time he receives super secret training/mentoring from the likes of Papa Pope and Jessica Pearson. You can follow him on Twitter @JamaicanScholar.
