I’m not Trayvon... I’m Tracy Martin

DrVincentPoliteAs a dad I cannot image not having my son in my life. Several years ago he was shot while at a party for one of his friends. They were good kids hanging out and someone not a guest at the party came by and started shooting. When I got the call, I immediately drop to the floor and began to pray. I could not imagine life without him. Thankfully he was only wounded in his leg and the bullet was a through and through, and he recovered.

 When my son TJ was born, my fear became that he would be killed by someone who looked just like him, so I made it my business to mentor as many young black men as I could which I still do, I even have some in their thirties and married, who look to me for advice and understanding, and I am very honored by that. As a Black man in America I never wanted a son, because I know the incredible odds we face and how the deck is stacked against us. I pray often for our young men and it really saddens me to see them buying into the current culture of death and destruction as a way of life, we are living in times of pure madness.

Watching Tracy Martin in his quiet resolve to have justice for his son broke my heart. He did everything right and still America killed his son. America does not see the Trayvon’s of the black community, it only see the six o’clock news “Young Black Male”. America killed his son because it still fears the legacy of the inhumane treatment and enslaved of 200 million black men and women. America still fears the bill due from 400 years of free labor, rape and torture. Like all “past due “bills, that debt cries out to be paid, today America added one more life to its long overdue bill.

Dr. Vincent Polite, LCMFT ,PhD