THE REAL THING.

The first time I heard "Cranes In The Sky" by Solange, it immediately resonated with me. I found great personal meaning in the song's theme about the coping mechanisms we employ in an effort to not only run away from our problems, but to make ourselves feel better, even if just for a moment. It's been my M.O. for years. I convince myself that if I suppress certain feelings, hide from certain issues, they will just go away. As we all know, that's not the case and it, in fact, does quite the opposite.  

This has been very true for the last eight months of my life. The feelings of depression and anxiety that I've long struggled with, but never confronted, started manifesting themselves in ways that left me unmotivated and unwilling to take care of myself. In the past I've been able to side step or distract myself from these issues, much like Solange writes in Cranes -- "I ran my credit card bill up -- thought a new dress would make it better. I tried to work it away but that just made me even sadder". This time around, however, the weight of these feelings impacted me like never before and I wasn't able to pull myself out of the doldrums like in the past. I was powerless against a general apathy that was pervading every aspect of my life which is why a little over a month ago, I decided to leave Brooklyn, my home for the last two plus years and move back in with my parents in New Jersey. Being home is giving me the emotional space to really confront what's been going on and allowing me to have a bit of a reset, which I'm enormously grateful for. I know it's going to be a process, but it's one that I'm willing to be patient for.

Making this video was part of that process. I needed to prove to myself that, not only could I follow through with a project, but that I could facilitate my own opportunities to create art. As a musical theatre performer, I think that too often I get complacent about putting my artistic fulfillment in the hands of others so even though this is just a short video, it's a big step forward for me.

A huge thank you to Solange for writing such a powerful piece of music (now grammy nominated wooo) and for addressing issues in the black community that too often are stigmatized and undiscussed.

Mental health is important. Self-care is important. Art is important.

There is a fear in this country.

A fear that, when acted upon, manifests itself in the deadliest of manners.

It is a fear of black people.

Specifically, black men, who have historically been painted as untrustworthy. As villains. As the boogeyman.

This fear is taught, more often than not, passively, and engrained in children from a young age who then go on to perpetuate it as adults. The difference between this fear and others, however, is that many other fears are widely acknowledged and one is given the tools to confront and overcome them.

A fear of the dark. A fear of heights. A fear of public speaking.

Not this one though. No, instead we as black people are taught to assuage and almost comply to this fear. We learn to adapt to and navigate white spaces. There is a code of conduct and if we veer from it, we run the risk of being seen as unrelatable, subversive, aggressive.

There is an exhausting amount of conscious effort that goes into our everyday lives – an constant self-awareness that we must use in certain environments. But I have to ask, what is the goddamn point when it seems like we will always be prejudged anyway?

One needs to look no further than a statement made at the Terence Crutcher crime scene, just moments before his murder. A man in a police helicopter circling above can be heard saying,

“That looks like a bad dude, too. Probably on something.”

Someone please tell me, how can a man in a helicopter – literally dozens of feet in the air – so easily assign such a characterization to Crutcher, who at the time was not holding a weapon but had his arms in the air?

It was, as it so often is, because of his blackness.

A black man in America is assigned guilt before the thought of innocence has even entered the conversation. It really doesn’t make a difference as to whether or not he has engaged in illegal activities because it has been pre-maturely assumed that he has done something wrong. For instance, does it matter that Eric Garner was illegally selling cigarettes? Does it matter that police were after Mike Brown because of a petty theft he had committed earlier in the day? Does it matter that reports are coming out that Terence Crutcher had a vial of PCP in his vehicle and was possibly on the drug at the time of his murder? No, because these men were already a target. More so, are the negative aspects that the media so readily focuses on (in an effort to delegitimize them), really deserving of the brutal treatment and punishments – executions rather – that each man received? Absolutely not. There was pre-determined aggression towards them. Aggression stemming from fear. Aggression that would not have been used on white men.

I, myself, am a 6’2, 200+ pound black man. I am constantly thinking about the perception of me in white spaces, and the grossly unfair and prejudiced snap-judgement of Crutcher is precisely what I am afraid someone might be thinking of me at any given moment.

I’ll never forget an experience I had when I was just thirteen. I was riding my bike to a friend’s house but when I got there he wasn’t home. This was before I had a cellphone so I couldn’t call him. I saw two of his neighbors – both white, both around my age – and decided to ask if they knew how long he had been gone. As I began approaching them, one turned to the other, and said, “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”, and then they both sprinted inside and quickly locked the door.  This was all before I could even open my mouth to speak.

I immediately knew, even then, why they had run off like that. And it stung like a motherfucker.

This was not a simple case of stranger danger. This was an assumption that I, being a black male, was a direct threat.

And these racist ideologies are not going away. One must be hopeful for the future but things will not change until we start having real conversations about race and perception. I had one such conversation with an eight year old boy, whom I used to babysit. He was white. The conversation was prompted by a comment he had made about my driver’s license photo. He was curious to see what my license looked like and when I gave it to him he quickly said, “Haha Dan, you look like a criminal”. I was caught off guard. “What do you mean bud? How do I look like a criminal?” He matter-of-factly said, “I don’t know. Facial hair, dark skin, you’re not smiling”. I asked him if he would be afraid of me if he saw me on the street. “Of course not. You’re you”. “But what if you didn’t know me?” “I don’t know. Am I being offensive? I’m sorry if I am” I assured him that he wasn’t offending me. From a sociological standpoint I appreciated his candor and we spent the next few minutes having a really great conversation about race and stereotypes and the media. I’m not sure if it truly resonated with him but I hope that, on some level, it left an impact. Children are barometers of the truth, no matter how harsh. And the truth is that because of the media, because of centuries of racist culture, and now because of a race-baiting presidential candidate, this child equated the image of a non-clean cut, non-smiling, black man with that of a criminal. 

This exchange. My daily life. The never ending barrage of black deaths in the media. 

One cannot deny that there is an underlying and irrefutable fear of black people in this country. It is a fear that leads to heinously biased assumptions which, in turn, lead to an ever increasing devaluation and loss of black lives.  

So I ask, shouldn’t we be the ones that are afraid?