It didn’t take long for Philadelphia police to realize that Bonnie Sweetin’s tale of the abduction of her and her daughter was a fairy tale. (Perhaps inspired by her impending trip to Disney World.) Anyway, like any other formulaic story Sweetin relied on the foolproof villains that have inspired panic and fear in the past… the infamous “two black men.” And get this, they were driving a Cadillac (talk about stereotypical).
Elmer Smith of The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Bucks County and Philadelphia police didn’t even bother to round up the usual suspects—at least not this time. (Yes they have people they consider usual suspects whether they deserve it or not.) But he also points out that black men have actually been convicted on flimsy stories like this in the past.
Yesterday on “The View” Sherri Shepherd even made some valid points during the ‘hot topics’ segment (click here to check it out).. One of them was that black men have been essentially labeled the ‘Boogeyman’ and that’s she sick of that. (Plus she accurately named all the other folks who have tried the ’the two black men did it’ accusation). But leave it to Whoopi to point out that kidnapping (especially a child) is not a crime many black men would commit—particularly since many of their relatives have been raising white children for centuries.
I just saw a friend earlier this week who has a three year-old son and she said that this is an amazing time to be raising a black boy. Yes it is when we look at President Barack Obama. But we can’t afford to neglect that black boys may grow up being viewed as a source of hope as well as the “Boogeyman” himself. And we have to prepare them for both.
Yesterday I read an essay by Richard Wright called “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch” in The Best American Essays of The Century. Although Wright penned his experiences in 1937 and Jim Crow ways have been mostly outlawed (out least outwardly) I was struck by how carefully he and other black men had to comport themselves (lest they be beaten or killed). If you think about it not much has changed for black men in that way. They can still be beaten, killed or falsely accused of all sorts of heinous crimes simply because of the color of their skin. (Or a person who wants to get away with a crime thinks that the public will buy their story).
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