The Talk

Here is a transcript from my spoken word performance at First Person Arts last night.



One of the most profound talks I’ve ever had with my kids about race, heck about anything, happened in a local take-out Pizza Hut that couldn’t have been bigger than my own kitchen.

My wife and I had just gotten back from Oklahoma City.  We have three children, all adopted – Jada from China, Aaron from Taiwan, and Asher, our 1st newborn and our 1st African-American child, from OKC.




This was April 2015, and all over CNN was the social unrest in Baltimore around the death of Freddie Gray.  My kids, 9 and 7 at the time, don’t watch much TV, so they were mesmerized by the images and asked me what had happened.

I told them how Freddie Gray had died, of spinal cord injuries sustained in the back of a police wagon that was driven recklessly for the express purpose of knocking its passenger around.  I told them that a lot of young black men get harassed, assaulted, and even murdered by law enforcement.

As I mentioned, it was a small Pizza Hut, and it wasn’t long before others joined in, whether workers or customers, asking questions, offering opinions, and stating facts.

My two older kids took in all the chatter, and then looked at me and said, “What’s going to happen to Asher when he gets older?”

I get emotional telling this story for a number of reasons.  First, my kids at that point had had black teachers, black friends, and black neighbors.  But, less than a day into having a black baby brother, they were already processing national news of police brutality not as an “out there” event but as a matter of family importance.  My wife and I prayed a lot before we decided to adopt an African-American child, and one of the things we hoped for was that it would help our other kids understand and appreciate the experience of being black in America.  This conversation confirmed for me that we had done the right thing.

The second reason I get emotional about this story is that I don’t have a good answer to my kids’ question.  What’s going to happen to Asher when he gets older?  What’s going to happen is that my wife and I are going to have “the talk” with him, and otherwise prepare him to avoid trouble, but that no matter what we do and no matter how he turns out, he is at risk of being hurt or worse just because of the color of his skin.  And that infuriates and saddens me, but as a parent, it also scares the hell out of me.

I’ll close by saying my emotion also comes from the fact that this story exposes for me my own privilege and ignorance.  What I took for granted, what my kids now know not to take for granted, is what I have to worry over Asher about, which is will he survive a confrontation with law enforcement?  When I choke up telling this story to people, some are sympathetic.  But I know others are thinking, “why did it take having an African-American child to get upset about how black people are treated in this country?”  I don’t have a good answer to this.  I knew intellectually, through friends and colleagues, about “the talk,” but my privilege and ignorance kept me from processing the injustice and danger of it all at a more personal level.  For which I am truly ashamed.  But I have learned.  And I am still learning.

I believe that part of learning and growing is putting yourself in new places, which adopting an African-American child surely is that.  And so is speaking to you tonight.  I said yes because Jamie Brunson is wonderful and I would do just about anything for her.  But I also said yes because I want to do better.  Thank you for helping me to do better.