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Childish Gambino, aka Donald Glover just released his new music video, This is America. Woah! If you are not shaken watching this visual diatribe, you are either in denial or sleeping through this cultural war that is happening here and now. The video is truly a piece of art with extensive references to the black man in American history.

The timing couldn’t be more suitable to the experience my black son is having projected onto him in America. And, for those intrigued by all of the intricacies of Glover’s work, it’s interesting to note that the video was released the same weekend as the premiere of the second season of the satirical comedy, Dear White People. The video was also released in the same month within which Starbucks will close many of its doors for a one-day training on unconscious bias. The training was prompted by a racial profiling incident with two black men that, also this month, reached a settlement with the City of Philadelphia.

For context, the video graphically makes a statement about gun violence, references Jim Crow, clothes Glover in only a pair of pants representative of the confederate army, discreetly hints of the suicide epidemic as a man jumps to his death, insinuates the disease of social media as characters are either distracted by their devices and/or using them to nonchalantly record the violence surrounding them, implies the cliché “money makes a man” with bills being thrown in the air, points out the marijuana debate lighting a joint, and depicts the Hell referenced in Revelations when a police car trails a white horse, death.

Transition to days prior to the release of the video, my black son’s history teacher was describing the story of Ellen Craft. Ellen Craft is a slave that disguised herself as a white man to free herself from slavery. My son said that the class thought that the story was funny and laughed. He claims to have thought it was a smart idea and claims he said, “Why is it funny? Jane* does it?”

Jane is a transgender student that goes by John*. My son’s inquiry lit up the school and I quickly received numerous calls and messages threatening to suspend him for harassment. Were these people serious? My son asked a question. He didn’t burn anyone at a stake.

But, oh, they were serious. So serious I found myself appealing the suspension, sitting in the predominantly white middle-class male administration office with an attorney, and filing yet another complaint with the Office of Civil Rights. That all paled in comparison to hearing my son describe the two suited administrators that walked behind him off the track field after he was notified that his suspension was reduced but would stand effective immediately. He was in record-breaking mindset at the track meet that had just started when he was informed. One of the administrators sensed his upset and hollered, “You can’t be mad.” My son simply glared.

Now, let me explain that I share this story because I believe it demonstrates the way in which we view and interact with the black man in America. He doesn’t get a fair trial. The administrator opened the appeal meeting stating that he would not have known my son apart from the other 19 black students in the district had this incident not occurred. Yet this man has the singular and final say on my son’s character and intent in a situation in which he wasn’t present.

The school’s case: Transgenders are a protected people and, because it’s such a hot topic right now, we must deal with it seriously and take swift action. My argument: Blacks, too, are a protected people and presenting a parallel analogy in the form of a culturally appropriate question does not constitute harassment, nor does it violate the First Amendment.

I do want to acknowledge that I do not personally know this student and/or their parents/guardians. However, I will suggest that, if I were them in this incident, I would be extremely grateful that the school protected my child. However, again, why is the black man in America not protected? Why have we labeled him with preconceived notions of intent?

Two very dear friends were brave enough to share their perspective with me. Until interacting with, and growing to care deeply for my son, they never realized that they don’t feel similar about other black boys. My son’s experience, the Starbucks’ incident, and Glover, have made them conscious of their internal dialogue, probably a learned belief or behavior, that makes them uncomfortable around black men in America.

Glover’s piece, coupled with the timing of my son’s incident, makes me wonder not only about the black man in America but about all protected classes in America. For example, I would suggest that sexual identity is not a crisis, as some would have us believe. Further, treating it as such will do exactly what Glover suggests has happened to the black man in America. When we define something and believe that definition to be true, is it possible that we are generating a self-fulfilling prophecy?

My son is not a mass shooter. My son is not is not a suicide victim. My son is not lighting up. But, my son, my black son, adopted from Liberia, is identifying with the story that money makes a man and fashion symbolizes wealth and his device is a fashion icon. This is the picture we, collectively, have drawn as the image of the black man in America. And, my son wants status as a black man in America.

For this reason, this mother’s heart cries from depths I did not know existed until I observed the cultural pressure for my son to not just be African but to be African and American. How should he identify? Does he have to choose one or the other? Same as Jane: how should they identify? Do they have to choose? Oppression has such a dark and overlooked weight.

I, often, give my boys sports analogies to relate life and circumstances. In the midst of writing this piece, a friend sent an appropriate quote: “What counts most in creating a successful team is not how compatible its players are but how they deal with incompatibility.” Isn’t that what we should be doing as a community, as a nation, building a team? I would suggest that a team only reaches significant levels of success when each player knows the others’ strengths and weaknesses and plays the game accordingly.

This makes our society’s recent attention to unconscious bias even more interesting because bias does not infer positive or negative. It merely suggests preference or prejudice either for or against something. With that in mind, is it anymore fair to afford rights to a transgender student than a black student? Is it fair to view two black men in a coffee shop differently than two white men? Is it fair to assume that because my son’s skin color is black and he resides in America that he is African American? And, is it then fair to assume that he must be smoking pot in one hand with a gun in the other?

No! We’re not all going to be compatible. But, that makes our team all the more valuable.

Perhaps we should be encouraging curiosity. Perhaps we should be having humane conversations with one another about our incompatibilities. Perhaps we should be strategizing about how we can positively inform each other’s self-fulfilling prophecies. Perhaps we should all be a protected people.

Consider this: What if the two students sat down for a conversation to promote mutual understanding of how my son came to his inquiry and for him to see how the other student may have found it hurtful. Ellen Craft’s story is a positive one: people enslaved, because of the way the look, were escaping perceptions based on appearance to freedom based on their character. Is that not parallel to gender transitioning in some ways? And now these two students, incompatible at face value, now have a common framework to play, perhaps different positions, on the same team.

What are the possibilities if we stop equating people to numbers and expecting the formula to make sense? Perhaps Glover’s piece becomes culturally irrelevant. Perhaps we can all get along. I would simply suggest that if x is always a unique variable, then perhaps the possibilities are endless.

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