My heart rate immediately shot up, my breath became shallow, and I stopped talking to Estella. I did my best to continue playing with her, but it became forced because my attention was almost totally preoccupied with the arrival of this group.
As a group of boys sat at a playground table about 15 feet away, they began dropping F-bombs. From a distance, I introduced them to my daughter and mentioned that she was three and a half years old. They got my message, and scolded each other, and one even offered boastfully to protect Estella. The larger group raucously settled on a series of long benches.
Four police cars pulled up, slowly, and began circling, lights on. Soon, a cop on foot made his way slowly but surely over to the crowd at the center of the park, his hands on his belt.
"Park's closed, folks...let's move along." Moving slowly, the kids began to get up and walk on. Estella and I, it seemed, were exempt from the park closure.
One very strong sensation I felt was relief that authorities were aware of this volatile assembly of kids. The kids could see that there would be limits to what could happen here tonight, and they would hopefully go back home without doing any damage to themselves or others.
Along with relief, I felt burning shame. For all I knew, the kids were guilty of nothing except being loud on a Monday night during their April vacation. When confronted on their language in a respectful way, they apologized to me and Estella. When the cop asked them to move along, they did. Looking back on it, they were only guilty of being bored teenagers on a beautiful early spring evening, carried away by the crowd around them.
But the physicality of my reaction, the shortness of breath, the increased heart rate, all that pointed to a fear inside me that wasn't rooted in what was actually happening in front of me, but in my own internalized attitudes towards...what? Brown-skinned teenagers? Teenagers in general? Hard to say...would it be different if it were 60 white-skinned kids? I began to think about my marinade...a white-skinned, upper-class, liberal American. What flavors and textures, absorbed from the American marinade, were showing themselves here in the park?
"Papa, why did they all come here?" Estella had sensed that something was going on. How to answer that question? Despite my fear and shame, I stayed put, determined not to take flight. I wanted to show both Estella and myself that there are productive ways of dealing with this situation, and running away is not one of them. We stayed and continued to play on the slide.
Unfortunately, I didn't take the next step: I should have reached out to talk to someone.
"How are you doing tonight?"
"What made you decide to come out with this group?"
"Why do you think the police are following you?"
"What do you think is going to happen here tonight?"
"What do you wish would happen here tonight?"
Maybe if I had asked questions like these, I could have helped to transcend the marinade of age-old corrosive dynamics that were swirling around us.
*Overweight, white-skinned cop following "unruly" brown-skinned teenagers
*White, "open-minded" liberal parent face-to-face with brown-skinned children who are unafraid of what he thinks of them
I was overwhelmed by the instability of what was happening and so I didn't try to connect across dividing lines. And the kids moved on, recognizing the dominant power of the police. Surely moments like this are strong marinade for the minds of children. To think that these interactions are so unremarkable that the children hardly blinked at the sight of a police officer with his hands on his gun belt, not touching the pistol yet, not quite doing that, but everyone sees that he is ready, whatever might happen, he will be ready to make the necessary decisions. When things like this make up our American marinade, what dishes might we end up cooking?