Thinking About Trayvon

Every time I've heard the name Trayvon Martin over the last several days my eyes have filled with tears. And I've really struggled with how to put into words my reaction and response to the tragic death of this young man, so I've avoided posting, writing or even talking about the situation. But it has weighed heavily on my heart.

In an alternate life, it would be easy to turn off the news, avoid the newspapers, tune out the debacle playing out in Florida. But that will never be a luxury that I can indulge. Not as a parent raising a young, black man in America. It should not be an option for any person to ignore what happened to Trayvon. In the United States of America. In 2012.

Today President Obama said that if he had a son, that son would look like Trayvon Martin.

I do have a son, and he does look like Trayvon Martin.

My beautiful, brown son, Ian Tariku, makes the world a better place for being in it. He loves super heroes and dancing and Hot Wheels. Today we read comic books curled in a chair together, played a rousing game of hide and seek, and discussed his need to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables every day. This week he practiced the letter D and the number 8 at school, and I signed his field trip form for the petting zoo. He's getting his hair cut tomorrow, just like Levi, another brown boy from school.

Ian's favorite person in the world is his little brother, with whom he builds elaborate traps for alligators. Just a few days ago he told me that he doesn't care about his birthday this year, just July, when he gets to go visit his Grandma Susie again. He's taking swimming lessons, and recently proved to be a switch hitter in tee ball. Tonight he cracked me up by making one of his bad guy figurines dance a swivel hipped combo and revealing the villain's super power to be the ability to pass noxious gas from his rear end, sound effects and all.

My son is so smart and funny and tender and loving. When he came into our lives as a tiny little survivor, we promised to keep him healthy and educated and safe with the same love and devotion of his first family. It should be unthinkable that such ignorance and injustice exists in the same bright world as Ian that would threaten the promise of his future. His and Levi's and Trayvon's and any other brown child who happens to cross paths with the wrong combination of suspicion and  arrogance and weaponry.

I'm sad to live in a world without Trayvon Martin. It is incomprehensible to consider a world without Ian. The world is a better place because he is in it. I hope the world can learn from the tragedy of Trayvon and become a better place in his memory. But what's more, I hope that we as concerned and terrified parents, friends, and citizens will refuse to let the world forget that until injustice is erased for good, no one is safe, especially our most precious children.

That is my fervent hope. For my son. And yours.