I was always tall for my age. I started kindergarten at age four because I was tall and could read. I had to be tested by a school psychologist to start school a year early. I’m told he/she said I could handle the work, but I might act immature at times relative to the older students in my class. Looking back, there might be some truth in that relative immaturity remark, but I will neither confirm nor deny it.
I grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on the southside. I used to play at Phelps Park, which was one block from where George Floyd was murdered. Back then, kids played outside instead of indoors on video games. We had enough kids on my block to play football, kickball, whiffle ball, basketball, capture the flag, and whatever else came to mind. A kid named Angelo moved onto our block from New York and tried to introduce us to soccer, but it never took.
My neighborhood was mostly white; my school was mostly white; my church was all-Black and on the other side of town. My grandmother, who lived two blocks away, picked my brothers and me up every Sunday at 9:00 to take us to Sunday School and afterward the 11:00 service. When I got to be a teenager, I joined the church choir, which practiced on Saturday evenings. I was in a Sunday school class with the same group of kids for several years before graduating high school. Most of us attended various colleges across the country. I was the tallest of the bunch though also the youngest by a year.
I can’t think of any negative connotation with being tall during my school days. Because of my height, I eventually got placed on a youth basketball team not associated with a school. I was awkward and skinny, but nobody else was any good either, so it was mostly fun. I didn’t play basketball in high school until my junior year. I was 6′ 3″ and about 180 lbs and not very threatening. Add to that; I was an introvert and very non-confrontational. I have been in three fights in my lifetime, two of those in elementary school (Jimmy Bowman and Scott Mays, who, except for those fights, were my friends). I wasn’t a bully and was more likely to have been the target of bullies during those years.
My coordination was beginning to catch up with my height, and by the end of my first year playing varsity basketball, I displayed moments of talent. Anyone that scored more than ten points during a game got their name in the local newspaper, and I started getting used to looking for my name the day after the game. Almost everything I did was associated with school or church where everyone knew me, and my size threatened no one. By my senior year, I had reached the height of 6′ 6″ and was up to about 207 lbs, most of it muscle from lifting weights and participating in sports year-round. I enjoyed being tall as it got me recognition and considering anytime it was cool enough, I was wearing my school letter jacket with pins for basketball, track, and baseball. I was recognized as an athlete first and not a scary big Black kid. In the picture below, I’m the tall Black kid standing behind our coach.
Because I scored well on standardized tests, I was a National Merit Semi-Finalist and got letters, many offering scholarships to many schools from all over the country. My family helped select Fisk University in Nashville, where I received an academic scholarship that covered most of my tuition. A couple of weeks of playing pick-up basketball in the gym convinced me that I could play at the college level, and I made the basketball team, getting a full basketball scholarship for all but my first Semester at Fisk. I was still filling out, up to about 225 lbs, and was no longer the skinny kid I’d been all my life.
I can’t think of any instance while in college where I encountered anyone threatened by my size. I was still a shy introvert though I had acquired a more aggressive personality on the basketball court. I was almost the youngest person in my class, but life at an HBCU was a relatively safe environment. I spent a couple of summers in Nashville and played basketball in summer leagues with athletes and local business people. My name and photo were in the paper fairly regularly. The young lady with me in the photo above complained that people knew me wherever we went. Usually, someone would interrupt us in the middle of my denial, which didn’t help me make my case. While in Nashville, much like in high school, I was in a protected environment surrounded by that village it takes to raise a child.
I have to say that while I was an athlete and immediately perceived to be one. I never was responded to with fear as a result of my size. I was a novelty; white people liked to approach me and ask if I was a basketball player. I was non-threatening, and it’s also true nobody threatened me. I had a baby face, was relatively clean-cut, and almost always found myself in safe spaces. I became a college graduate without facing someone who feared me for my size. It was only later that things changed.
My first job after college was in outside sales with Procter & Gamble in their Professional Services Division. I called on doctors, dentists, dermatologists, and hospitals, selling the appropriate products for the professional. I had a territory that covered parts of three states (Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina) and was on the road two to three days a week. I wore a suit, or at least a shirt, and tied while making my sales calls. During the day, I was perceived as a professional and left alone. In the evenings, if I went out in jeans or other casual wear, I discovered that I sometimes made other people, almost always white people, a bit uncomfortable.
It could be finding myself alone in an elevator with a white woman or a man. Some of the dentists I called on referred to their patients have “white-knuckle syndrome” from gripping the arms of their chairs too tightly. Nobody likes to go to the dentist, and sometimes their visits are full of fear visible to others. When traveling, I found myself scaring people in hotel hallways, restaurants, grocery aisles, or any tight spaces. Even when calling on a small office near the end of the day where there might only be a receptionist, nurse, or hygenist, alone in the office. My suit and tie weren’t always enough to make them feel safe; I was still a big, Black male.
I used to have a dog, a Weimaraner which was a German dog bred for hunting. He was a rescue dog and afraid of everything. On our street with very little traffic, cats would lie sunning in the street; after they got to know my dog, they wouldn’t move, making him walk around. He was afraid of fireworks, traffic, raccoons, loud noises, and the dark. His breeding required that he walk a few miles daily, and Charro didn’t require a leash as he wasn’t going to run into traffic or attack other animals or people. When other people were walking toward us, I would put him on the leash so they wouldn’t have any unfounded fear as we passed. As I got older, I found myself taking steps to alleviate the fear of others, assuring white people I wasn’t a threat.
Somewhere along the line, I discovered an interest in Black history and read about much that I had missed along the way. I didn’t learn until years after attending Fisk University about its role in the Civil Rights Movement and Freedom Riders. Aaron Douglas, the leading artist of the Harlem Renaissance, was on the faculty when I arrived. His murals adorn the ceilings of the administration building, Cravath Hall. I first saw them maybe five years ago while visiting Fisk.
I also didn’t know about the constant threats Fisk Students faced in Nashville, how Diane Nash and others stood up to city hall and fought for the rights of Black Americans. You didn’t have to be big and Black to face adversity; Black was enough all by itself. But in all honesty, being big and Black was almost always a blessing. Perhaps it was because I grew up in a different era, but it was almost always a blessing and not a curse. The change was gradual, but it eventually came.
Police shootings of Black men didn’t just start happening; it’s only viral videos of the events, the equivalent of Emmett Till’s body on the front page of every newspaper, that’s new. When a Black man (or woman) was killed by police. There were official statements from the police, which were often written up verbatim by the media. The victim was blamed for his/her own death. The same is usually true today. I had little reason to believe I would ever be a victim of a police shooting. I knew police officers and had hired local police and state troopers to provide security for my business. It took the shooting death of someone I knew to bring it closer to home.
When I was a rising junior at Fisk, Bernard Bailey was a freshman down the street at Tennessee State University (TSU). We met when a few of my teammates and I took a ride to their gym to play pick-up basketball. We were the centers of our respective basketball teams, so we naturally ended up guarding each other. It isn’t often one make friends while attempting to impose your will physically on another, but it happened. We only met a few times, but I followed his stats in the paper and watched him achieve stardom. He was a little bigger than me at 6″ 7″ but had a youthful appearance I identified with. After leaving TSU, Bernard ultimately returned home to Eutawville, SC, where he became a corrections officer. His law enforcement connections didn’t help him on May 2, 2011, when he was shot and killed by the Eutawville Police Chief Richard Combs. Bernard was unarmed, and Combs ultimately served one year of house arrest along with five years probation. Combs cited his “fear for his life” and Bailey’s size and strength as reasons he had to shoot him three times. The shit got real for me then; it could just as easily have been me.
I don’t walk around in fear for my life. Every few months, I read of a Black man killed that somehow caused police officers to fear for their lives. I heard the term “superhuman strength” come up a few times during the George Floyd trial. The message clearly intended was that it’s only reasonable to fear a big, Black man. The same was said of Michael Brown after he was killed in Ferguson, MO. Black men don’t actually have to exhibit superhuman strength; it’s an assumed trait that makes fear justifiable.
I still mostly stay in safe environments. I find myself spending more time in Trump Country, where confederate flags are common. I worry about my son, who is 6″ 3″ and in good shape. He lives in Polk County, FL, where the local sheriff, Grady Judd, is a proud redneck. After he and his deputies shot a Black man 68 times and a reporter asked why? He replied, “That’s all the bullets we had!” Location doesn’t matter much because police everywhere need little justification to kill a Black man.
I wouldn’t trade being tall for anything though I confess I’d willingly shed a few pounds. It does weigh on me to constantly make other people around me feel safe when I am no threat to them. Having to fear for my son, friends, neighbors, and people also takes its toll. In the same vein as the Willie Horton ads, big, Black men have been singled out as being okay not only to fear but to take out when you experience that fear. That, to me, is a problem.
—
This post was previously published on Black History Month 365.
***
You Might Also Like These From The Good Men Project
Compliments Men Want to Hear More Often | Relationships Aren’t Easy, But They’re Worth It | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | ..A Man’s Kiss Tells You Everything |
Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.
Register New Account
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: William Spivey