PART I The Black Box

An Open Letter to the Boy and Girl with Matching Airbrushed Book Bags on the Corner of Lawndale Avenue and Cermak Road

I began to worry — I mean, really worry — about police violence in Chicago back in the summer of 2004. That's when I saw you — a young man and young woman, barely teenagers — in your white shirts and khaki pants, on your knees at the corner of Lawndale Avenue and Cermak Road. Where I grew up in Columbia, Maryland, those clothes would've been private school uniforms. But in Chicago, I've been told, that lack of hue in your collared shirt is supposed to mean that you are public school students and not gang members — who, at that intersection, supposedly wear red and black.

I know you are much older now, and yet when I see Black and Brown teenagers of today's Chicago, bustling down the streets, flirting with each other, clumped together over someone's cell phone, I always flash back to that scene over a decade ago.

Four police cars were parked along the curb. Six officers frisked you on the sidewalk. The cops smiled at one another as they emptied the contents of your book bags into the gutter. Your bags were both white, each with a different word similarly airbrushed in graffiti letters — your names, I assumed, though I couldn't make them out from where I stood. All I could tell was that one of the names was written in green, and the other was in pink. I remember trying to read those letters so that I could yell your names, pretend that I was a friend or relative, and ask if you were OK.

I know how long your encounter lasted because I clocked it: twenty-six minutes, forty-three seconds. I watched the whole time from across the street, transfixed. Later, I told my brother that I watched you so that I could be a witness in the event the incident went awry. But that was only half-true. I also watched because I was afraid and didn't know what else to do.

I had moved to your city two weeks before this incident. And although I moved there to attend the University of Chicago, and to become a professor, tweed jacket and all the rest, I was afraid that I was witnessing an altercation with the police that I, too, might eventually have.

At the same time, I was afraid because I was seeing the past.

When I was around the same age as you were then, or at least the same size — which is to say, around twelve years old — I found myself in a similar position. My two older brothers and I had just moved from Baltimore to Columbia, Maryland, about a half hour's drive south. We decided to go to the mall. We must have worn our Baltimoreness in our walk, in our lingo, or more likely, on our flesh, because before long a plainclothes police officer was following us from store to store. We knew full well that a strange man was bearing down on us, and we fought the temptation to run. I wouldn't have admitted it to myself then, but I felt scared.

Before long, the man ordered us to stop. He frisked both of my brothers, who were fifteen and sixteen, against a rail on the second floor. I was within arm's reach of my brothers, but the cop ignored me. Maybe because I was so puny he thought I was irrelevant. I have to admit: I was relieved he wasn't touching me. But despite that relief, I could feel myself in my own skin unlike ever before. Adrenaline spiked my senses. All of sudden I felt hair stand up from the follicles on my forearms. I could catch the sound of people chattering below me. I could smell fried potato wedges from the Boardwalk Café on the floor below, where a crowd of people gathered, eyes upward, watching the commotion against the second-story railing. I had been in that restaurant, eating those thick fries, just a few hours earlier. I wanted desperately to return to that moment.

I looked down at the people looking up at me, and I imagined them to be shaking their heads in contempt. An uneasy feeling settled in my stomach and stayed there. I began to worry that a classmate from my new school might see me, tell others, and someone would make fun of me. And then I would be forced to fight. Or even worse: word would spread about the incident and no one would want to be my friend. Then I felt ashamed of how quickly my embarrassment had taken the place of fear. I should still be afraid, I thought to myself, because my brothers had their arms behind their backs and I could tell they were scared.

The cop took my eldest brother, Wolé, through one of those doors that you never notice along the corridors of a mall until all your senses are heightened and you start to notice everything. He didn't say anything to me or my other brother, Michael, so we were at a loss. Eventually, terrified, we called our parents. Four hours later, Wolé was released, but only after my mother and father showed up and threatened legal action. The cop had found no evidence to confirm his suspicion that Wolé had been doing something wrong. Only then did my relief feel justified and right.

When the police released you, West Side Chicago teenagers with matching airbrushed book bags, I felt a similar kind of relief. But I also felt a familiar combination of cowardice, anger, guilt, frustration — and yes, fear.

No doubt living in Chicago has taught you valuable lessons about the police. That early encounter with the mall cop taught me valuable lessons, too. When I related the story of that incident to my friends and their parents, they told me far-worse stories of being followed, frisked, humiliated, and even brutalized, for walking in malls or lingering in amusement parks, or for just going to school or coming home from work.

That was when I first learned that the police do not always live by the code of serving and protecting, or at least that they don't serve and protect all citizens equally. Still, as a preteen, I didn't understand just how far certain officers departed from that code, or the extent to which they were allowed to get away with doing so — much less why. I believe this knowledge is crucial for any young person of color growing up in the United States.

I am writing to you today because when I see kids in Chicago being stopped and frisked by the cops, I always feel guilty for not knowing what to do, just like I still feel guilty for not helping you that day. I'm also writing because we all need to talk — whenever and however we can — about the awful things that we have to deal with as Black people in this country, as well as what we can do about them.

* * *

Even though I still don't know what to do, and I still don't know how to solve this scourge, I have done something. I have done, as an academic, the thing I know how to do best: research and study and write. So, I started a research project about the history of police violence in your city. For this project I've interviewed youth of color in Chicago and talked about their experiences with the police. What they said would probably sound familiar to you, given that they are your younger brothers, sisters,...