My fear for you, my son, is not so much that you will be lynched like Emmett Till. Make no mistake, I will train you—as I was trained—to respond to authority in a way that will make you appear as nonthreatening and compliant as humanly possible. And I will hope and pray that this compliance will serve as some kind of barrier against the brutality that your young black form may incur. I will watch every news story of a black man gunned down by police with a twinge of fear, wanting so badly to trust that those charged with protecting our communities would not harm you without just cause, but
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