"Black" Men Run? An Unnecessarily Necessary Adjective

Roughly two and a half miles.  

 

4,400 yards or there 'bouts.

 

Or how the rest of the world would say, slightly over 4 kilometers...

 

The sweat falls from my head.  My heart rate increases.  Eyes dilate.  I'm overwhelmed with emotions.  Tears begin to fall.   Fist tighten.  Pace quickens.  Yet I continue my run.

 

The scene plays out until... I find the strength inside to move on.  To move forward.  To shove those feelings back into a bottle.  

 

There's no hatred.  There's no fear.  Just understanding.  Knowing.  The feeling.  That feeling of not knowing.  It's the reason I'm an advocate for for females who have to experience this feeling from a different perspective, yet the response is similar.  

 

Being roughly two miles from my house, hotel, car, or anywhere has become a normal thing in this thing I call running.  My safe place.  The place where I've been able to face my inner demons and angels.  Where I've been able to sit at the table of fellowship with my fears, anger, envy, impulses, happiness, pride, joy, and a host of other emotions and feelings. 

 

It's also the place where I've learned to become one with nature.  Two identify wild animal tracks.  To identify animal friends and foes.  To learn to run alongside rattle snakes.  To overcome my fear of heights to experience the beauty of nature.  

 

The place where I've been able to reclaim.   Well...  A portion of who I am.  To be able to bring a little focus to the fuzzy image of my self image in the mirror of my inner psychosis.  

 

Yet as a man who is haunted in this world with the prefix of the word "black" and all the adjectives that flow like the mighty Mississippi River along the banks of Memphis after a spring rainstorm, I've know all too well the weight of the melanin which my cells produce to protect me from the nearby celestial star hell bent on destroying us with infrared radiation which can cause skin cancer if unprotected, but necessary for life.  Irony.   

 

Folks can say all they want there are no preconceptions.  No coerced mindset.  No projected imagery perpetuated from a need to identify good from evil.  We all are programmed to some extent about everything.  

 

Male, Female.  Southern Baptist or Catholic.  Southerner, Northerner, one of those folks from out West, or...  Texan.  Even within segments there are measures of identity to segregate further based on how "southern" are you really?  

 

Ahmaud Arbery was about 5,500 strides from the door he called home when three men saw an animal in the streets in a t-shirt, shorts, and running shoes and preceded to hunt.  Confront.  And Kill what they perceived as someone, no something, sub-human.  

 

 

Ahmaud was 25 years old.  Born May 8, 1994.  In Brunswick, Georgia to Marcus Arbery Sr. and Wanda Cooper-Jones.  

 

He attended Brunswick High School and South Georgia Technical College.  

 

Ahmaud was no animal, despite the adjectives which may have been used to describe him.  But yet, here I am.  Here we are.  

 

The sad part isn't the three who hunted him like an animal and killed him in the street, recording the incident to preserve the "moment" of how they "rid" this world of "one of dem".  No, the sad part is what happened afterwards.  The part no one is really talking about.  The part that really haunts me.  

 

Immediately afterwards forces went into motion to protect the murderers.  Sloppy non-existent police investigation, because why would one of "our own" lie?  Local District Attorney who slept on the case.  Three Prosecutors and two months later, before a local attorney leaked a copy of the video to a local radio station.  

 

Only after internet outrage was the murderers finally arrested a short three days after the video above was "leaked" online.  Interesting how fast the gears of justice were lubricated once the eyes of the world was able to see the "evidence" in the hands of several prosecutors, district attorney, and local police officers.

 

And yet, the media hype machine to determine Ahmaud's humanity began it's judgement and to this day continues.  What kind of man was Ahmaud?  What was his history?  Was he a bad person?  Why was he so far from home?  Why was he running on "that" side of the tracks?  Only if he complied...?  WTF!?!

 

I remember when I first started running, I actually had the thought of getting a custom shirt that read "training for a marathon".  Just to alert those around me not to fear.  It's okay.  I'm okay.  No women or children have been harmed.  No stores have been robbed.  I'm just out here trying to get healthy, mentally and physically.  

 

Why?  Because the image of a regular everyday non-athlete man with the "black" prefix was foreign even to me.  Hell I was was scared.  

 

I would cross the street as to not run up behind a woman unsuspectingly.  I would call out way in advance to minimize the fear I would induce to others.  I learned to smile while pushing through runs and made sure to "take the bass" out of my voice when I would announce my approach.  "Good Morning!  On your left"!

 

Made sure to keep my ID on me and wear appropriate clothes as often as I could, just so no one would mistake me for a person of interest that "fit the description".  

 

But I survived .  I even thrived.  I found others new to this running thing like me who inpired me.  Pushed me.  Encouraged me to be "more".  

 

I flourished and I moved on to the world of trail running by a miraculous accident.  I found my inner peace in the wilds of the back country.  

 

And in my freedom among nature and the wild animals, looking at you CA with your misplaced mountain lion warning signs, who would size me up for a afternoon snack, I found myself face to face with my adjective again.  

 

See back home, "black" folks don't run in the woods I was reminded.  But fortunately I had long learned not to listen to the limitations placed upon me by others bound by the centuries of melanated restrictions.  If I'm going to die, then celebrate when my remains are found on the trail.  Gutted by a mounting lion while on a trail run on my single day off.  Rejoice I would tell my family.  

 

Only weep if my body is found slung over my work computer at work.  Running had become my inner joy.  Yet, I still had that adjective.  

 

Then I came across a group of men who ran with the adjective with as much pride as I.  Black Men Run.  

 

 

Someone back south inquired "why I would want to associate myself with a racist group"?   Really?  This what we gonna do? 

 

Them:  Yeah!  Why they got to be "Black" Men Run?  

 

Are you serious right now?  

 

Serious or not, this person struck a chord which many would inquire secretly as they probed throughout the years I've been a member of BMR PHX.  And especially as racial injustice protest filled the streets of 2020, the need for a "black" running group seem to be the question I fielded regularly in some very honest hopefully learning moments and conversations. 

 

Grant me a moment for a brief History Lesson:  The interesting thing about "Civil Rights" organizations or the majority of  adjective laden organizations with the word "black" in their titles have never been and to this day not exclusionary.  

 

Folks find it fascinating when they learn many perceived historically famous "black" organizations were founded partially by folks of many ethic backgrounds or in the fight for rights and benefits for people of all ethnic backgrounds.  

 

True there may be an adjective that rubs folks the wrong way because of the historical context of the word or the images which comes to mind as a means of social programming.  There even may be others who feel excluded as a result.  

 

Not so.  Imagine for a moment if the word "black" is there to catch the attention fo the least expecting demographic you could imagine.  The adjective "black" is like the batman call sign for others who feel isolated.  Alone.  To bring attention to a need.  A cause.  To reach out to those in need.  Those who secretly and quietly cry in the night for help. Others, like me. 

 

Black men in America are at a significantly higher risk of health issues.  Thus the need and the call out to fellow Americans who fall under the one drop constitutional rule that "you too can overcome the issues you face".  You can become healthy.  It will take time.  And we will help you get there.  There are others like you.  High blood pressure.  High cholesterol.  Unable to finish a mile.  But in need of a physical and mental change.  

 

A place where everyone is welcome.  Regardless of race, color, creed, religion, or anything else, come.  But the call is primarily to those who feel excluded or left out and alone.  

 

In my lifetime I believed I would see the day before I die where the signs held by the generation before me to simply be acknowledged as simply human.  "A man" would no longer be needed.  I still believe, but maybe not the same way as I imagine.  Maybe an unnecessary adjective maybe necessary first because that adjective defines so much of the experience.  Imagined and real.  

I saw the pride and fear in my grandparents eyes as I went to college.  They shared with me many things I "should NOT" do in order to keep me safe as I entered a world they were not familiar with.  My mom, too was afraid and proud.  

 

I challenged them at every turn as I learned to grow beyond their limitations and fears.  I learned to embraced the unnecessarily necessary adjective, as well as out grow it. I participated in all sorts of activities and engaged my world as I grew.  

 

And to engage that world I had to learn to grow out of the confines of the adjectives used to mentally enslave me to a stereotype.  And where did I find the aid to escape and grow?  In adjective laden groups.  African-American...  Predominately Black Greek Letter Organizations...  National Urban League...  Southern Christian Leadership Conference...   National Association for the Advancement of Colored People...  Black Ministers Association...  etc...

 

These organizations provided the thing that is most missing in the public space.  An alternative view.  A different perspective.  In short, Representation.  

 

Representation provides normalization and with normalization comes the destruction of preconceived ideologies, erosion of mental limitations, and ultimately the deconstruction of racist tendencies, both internally within an ethnic group and without.  You know, normalizing normal.  Another seemingly unnecessary necessary adjective. 

 

But normalization to a world where some things are NOT considered normal equals change.  And with any form of change, there is fear.  Fear of those who are trying to become normal and fear of those who are not used to seeing others in a sphere not historically present in a certain space, typically as a result of enforced institutionalized racism.  

 

Think for a moment, in our lifetime there was this idea that a woman running a marathon was a danger to her health.  That's in our lifetime!  Or the thought was prevelent that black men did not have the intelligence to fill the position of quarterback on the football field in professional sports.  Again this was open dialog in the 80's!  The awesome years of the 80's y'all. 

 

The only sphere where most people are accustom to seeing a male of melanin content running is typically during a sporting event.  Not casually through a still segregated southern neighborhood where those people shouldn't be on this side of the tracks.  

 

See I understand this mindset.  I've lived in some nice neighborhoods where I was the ultra minority.  And I've been "paced" by police vehicles.  I've been investigated.  Even after I took up this thing called running.  My safe space was also my occasional reminder of how some see me as not simply a man out on a afternoon job, but a black man running in the street.  Must be up to something.  Right?

 

No.  

 

Black Men "do" Run.  And whilst the adjective may lead some to believe the narrative is to drive a bigger wedge in the American dream, it is an unnecessary necessary adjective until the group of "Black" men who promotes a "Healthy Brotherhood" for all makes "black" men running a normal another day in the neighborhood occurrence without the immediate concern for theft or robbery, but to maintain physical and mental fitness enjoying a beautiful day.   Even if that man decides to cross those tracks into "that" neighborhood" to simply run. 

 

You know, just a "man" running down the street minding his own business only trying to escape for a moment, like everyone, the craziness of living in an already tough enough world without the need for an unnecessary adjective to dehumanize the individual which fits a programmed description.  

So to conclude my 5th year of running, I am dedicating December 31st to Ahmaud Arbery.  I will possibly shed some tears.  I will definitely feel some pain as I push my body way beyond the limited miles I have run in 2020.  May take me all damned day.  But I will complete not just 2.5 five miles in his honor, but 2.23 miles x 10, because he was killed on 2/23 and it has been 10 months since his death. 

 

I'll also be donating 223.00 in his name to the local Make A Wish foundation at the conclusion of my run.  I'll post details on Facebook and Instagram December 31st if you choose to donate in his name also.  

 

Rest In Peace Mr. Ahmaud Arbery and may the ideals and goals of 'Black" Men Run be fulfilled in my lifetime and let's get more "Men" mentally and physically fit to promote a healthy lifestyle.  And more importantly a meaningful quality of life for all American men regardless of melanin content or adjectives.  

#IRunWithMaud

 

Disclaimer:  These words are mine alone and does not represent the official beliefs or mission statements of any of the organizations named within this personal opinion piece or my family members or friends.  If you got beef with my words, you got beef with MY words and me alone.  I am writing this because of the impact of Ahmaud's death upon my life and my personal life experiences.