The 'Conversation'

So, I was in the gym at my Sports Club one day, getting dressed next to my locker mate, nice guy named Jay. Jay is head of technology at a large hospital chain in our town. I know he’s got two boys just entering middle teens. I know this because he talks about them on a regular basis. Jay happens to be African-American although his family goes back over a hundred years in America.

My family has not been in this country for more than three generations. We came in the late 1890s. We came from what is now the Ukraine. I was born in Brooklyn, New York. But I have never been called a Ukrainian-American.

Jay shakes his head. “Well, I might as well get it done.”

“Like what — mow the lawn?”

“I wish. No, this weekend I gotta have ‘the conversation’ with my boys. Not lookin’ forward to that.”

“Oh? About sex and stuff?”

He chuckled. “I wish. Jimmy, you wouldn’t have any reason to know, but Black fathers with teenage boys have to have this like talk with their boys — no Jimmy, not sex. Driving.”

“Oh — ‘keep your eye on the road,’ ‘don’t ever have a beer or anything …” like that, right?”

“Well, yeah, of course. But we have to go a bit deeper — about being stopped by the police.”

“Oops – yeah, better be polite and wait for them to come to the car, right?”

“Little more than that, I’m afraid.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“Like a whole routine that Black kids have to learn before you give them the keys.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. Always keep your hands in sight — both of them. Don’t ask any questions. Be polite, yeah, but beyond that. When you’re asked to step out of the car, do it slowly and keep both hands in sight as much as possible.”

“Step out of the car?”

“Oh, yeah. Depend on it.”

“Wow … when I first learned how to drive, I never went through any of that. You think I should have had “The Conversation’ with my kids? I mean it’s a little late now, they have kids of their own.”

He chuckled. “No, Jimmy. They never had any such problem, right?”

“Well, no; don’t think so.”

He sighed, turned to get in his car and looked back at me. “Because they’re not Black, Jim. Because they’re not Black. That’s why.”

Now, when our kids were growing up, reaching their teens and Rachel and/or I took on the scary duty of teaching them to drive, this particular discussion was not part of the drill.

We never had to explain to them any such behavior around police. If they ever got stopped (God forbid) for speeding, broken tail lights or any other minor “offense,” all they had to do was wait in the car with the driver side window down until the policeman came up to the car. Answer his questions respectfully, show him/her their driver’s license and registration, give it to him when asked and then sit and wait until he does his duty, tells you what you need to know, thank him respectfully and drive off when he tells you it’s ok.

As I was driving home, I realized I had never given this subject much thought — because I never had to.

Now, just a few years later, I often think of that chat with Jay. I wonder if his kids had ever gotten stopped, how they handled it. What they (and he) are doing this summer that “Black Lives Matter” has come into vivid focus.

Now I think back beyond to another time — in Europe — when Jews were almost as identifiable as Blacks, because in Germany and then in most of Europe at that time we had to wear a yellow Star of David visible on our outer clothing to identify ourselves as Jews. If you were stopped by police — even while just walking, it meant probably a beating, an arrest or worse.

The result of most of the world ignoring the idea that “Jewish Lives Matter” ended with six million deaths. One thing we certainly should have learned by now is that hatred and prejudice of any group because of their ethnic background will, inevitably, find its way to the Jews.

No, thank God, “driving while Black” is not quite as dangerous as being a Jew in Europe in the 1930s — but this is America! Why should any citizen feel even the slightest apprehension when pulled over? (Unless there is something in your trunk to make you skittish).

I wondered then and wonder now about what would have been my response if one or another of our four had been stopped by police just because of their physical appearance or because they had a bumper sticker proclaiming their Jewish heritage.

Not here. Not in America! Thank God. Well … at least not now. At least not yet.