The Talk

By W. F. Twyman, Jr.

Despite my better judgment, I turned on National Public Radio (NPR) this morning. The announcer began to talk about the recent occurrences in Minneapolis. I was lured in. A black hip hop/rapper appeared as a featured guest. His breathless recollection of his day at the mostly peaceful protests was over the top. He was arrested and excitedly recounted how he was gaslit by authorities. Fair enough, I enjoy a riveting story until I don’t. The moment he began speaking about all black people and The Talk, I turned off the radio. I decline to consume falsehoods.

The Talk is allegedly a rite of passage for African American families. Moms and Dads sit their children down and tell them about the facts of life. The police are a threat to life and limb. The young are advised on how to deescalate encounters with evil police officers. The talk is a compulsion in black American families.

But it isn’t. This narrative is a fable. It is not true for all Black American families. In fact, the fable creates a psychological wound for otherwise normal families.

My family never had the talk. Why would my Mom and Dad think of such a thing? We lived on an all-black street in a southern, small-town suburb. I never saw a policeman in person until high school. And it was like watching an elephant walk down the street. Or, viewing a unicorn in the cow pasture. If I thought of a policeman, it was of one of two black cops on the county police force who lived around the corner and up the street. A great guy who was assigned to the affluent 99% white Midlothian neighborhood.

Note that the county did not assign my neighbor to a black neighborhood. He policed the wealthiest neighborhood in Chesterfield County, Virginia.

So, when the young rapper/hip hop artist began to launch into The Talk on a national platform, I reached for the off dial. I am too old for gaslighting in the morning. These narratives create a feeling of psychological erasure for me. Life is too short to digest fictions. Wikipedia is wrong. Black Americans are not compelled to have The Talk with their children about a non-existent danger. I never had such a conversation with my children as I don’t do dogma or slogan words. Besides, my wife grew up perceiving policemen as friends. Her Dad was a New York City police officer. Why would I teach my children to fear their grandfather as a danger due to racism?

Why do people thirst for false narratives? Why do we erase experiences outside of contrived narratives? When I hear alien narratives on NPR, I am reminded yet again why retirement from Blackness is a healthy choice for me. My sense of identity is too rooted in the black neighborhood and people I knew to pretend life is dangerous.

You may disagree. You may be the audience for The Talk.

I am not.