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Maya James (14:08)

The first time I really found out I was black was when I was three and we had just moved to Michigan. My dad's always been really cautious, just like me. He told me that I'm black and people are going to treat me differently for it. You can tell a little kid that, hey, those other kids don't want to play with you because they think that you're too light skinned or they think you're too black. And that would happen a lot. He told me the first time about his family in Texas when I was five because my parents never down talked me. They always talked to me like I was a person and they always gave me a very big vocabulary. So I was talking a lot. We always had these conversations before bed. I told him that I thought it was awesome that I was black or something cool like that. I was like, I like being black. And he was like, that's really good because a lot of people have suffered for it. And I've watched people die. I've seen dead bodies hanging from trees. I've seen people get drive by a shot. I've seen my brothers and me and he had 10 siblings all get chased by dogs coming home from school because some racist white kid just wanted to torture them and they had to deal with it because that was Texas and that was normal. That was completely normal. The first time I was called a nigger I was in kindergarten and I was 5 years old and I knew what it meant. My kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Engel, was really sweet and she hated that I had to learn what the N word was. So she made the kid write me a letter. And it goes kind of like this. Dear Maya, what I said in the hallway last week was wrong and hurtful. I have respect for everything you and your people faced and I am very sorry. I don't know if you have ever had a six year old write to you, but that is not anything that they could Even come up with. It's beautiful, it's eloquent, but it is not something that a 6 year old can write. It is something that a kindergarten teacher can write, though. And I started to notice this kindergarten teacher script as I left kindergarten and as I kept getting older and going to different grades, the names always changed and the thing that they said was always worse than the last. It drove me to do something. So I started educating myself. I started learning about black rights and Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks and Malcolm X and Charles V. Hamilton. I love that guy. I was so young and I was starting to get my own ideals about race. And it was beautiful. But that didn't help how bad I felt. So it was when I was in fourth grade in science class on Martin Luther King Day and we were set up with this projector on this big screen showing the I have a dream speech. And the whole thing just captivated me. His words got louder and louder and they got filled with more passion. And I noticed that no one in the entire class is paying any attention. And I am baffled. I don't know why no one would listen. I also noticed that there was a girl I know, her name is Katie. And she was in the corner of the room in what I can only describe as a fuming pile of anger. Something about this had really, really pissed her off. She was scrunch faced, sad and fiercely angry. She was pulled aside because she was being rude and like having a hissy feeling in front of the whole class. She said, Mr. Middaugh, my dad told me not to believe anything that you say because you're just trying to give us a liberal agenda and Maya's a nigger. By my first year of middle school, I was having sharp rocks thrown at me every day. And I was being called the N word all the time. Kids love to go up to you and ask you if they can tell you a racist joke. They think it's really, really funny. Like, oh, can I tell you a racist joke? And every single time now I'm like, no, no, you're not my friend. You're not the person I want to be around right now. Like, you have just showed your ass to me. But back in the day when I was in middle school, you had no choice, otherwise you were pinned as being too sensitive. So I would say, yeah. And they said, what's the difference between a park bench and a black man? One can support a family. And I think of my dad and it's so wrong. They're so wrong. My dad has Always been the bigger man. He's always been colorblind. And sometimes it makes people pin him as an Uncle Tom. But he never judges bigots. He never judges anybody. He knows they're wrong. We talk about it. He knows his views politically and socially. He just respects everybody. And he always respected me. My number one bully was named Cody Waite. And he would tell me I was sweaty and gross smelling, I was unlovable, and that I was just trash and dirt and no one would ever want me. And the teachers weren't helping at this point. They were just as racist as everybody else was. I remember having to clean a cafeteria table with janitorial supplies because I sat on it and the lunch lady said, no one would want your butt on there. It's so nasty. And I knew it was because I was black. I was watching another white kid, like, sitting on the table right next to me. And then my two girl bullies tell me that I'm unlovable again and that no one will date me and no one will take me to my first middle school dance because I'm so gross. I remember one of them, Scarlet, she actually told my friends to stop hanging out with me. And I go into the bus on the way home, and Cody doesn't stop telling me these horrible things. And my other bully, Logan, starts calling me the N word. And at the point where I get home, he's like, being violent towards me and telling me he'll kill me. I say, why are you doing that? Why are you doing that? And he's like, you're nothing. You're nobody. If I killed you right now, no one would care. And I said, really? If you're gonna threaten my life, I'm gonna call the cops. Because this was not the first time my life was threatened. I say, I'm gonna call the cops. And he says, do it. No one's going to believe you because you're black and I'm white. And it always works out that way, doesn't it? After I walk home from the bus stop crying, I go into my mom's bathroom and I try to figure out how to take her razors out of her leg shavers so that I can kill myself. And this is the first time I've ever felt so lonely and so impulsive and so angry. And it's the first time I've ever thought that I shouldn't be alive, that no one should live like this. My mom walks in on me and she says, what are you doing? What are you doing, Maya? Why would you do this. Why would you do this? And she. She takes me and she brings me into her room, and she sits me down. I just burst out in tears. And the only thing that I can say is, the kids at school hate me, Mom. They hate me because I'm black. And it's been going on since I was 5 years old. And this is the last day that I can handle it. My mom looks down at me. I can tell she feels horrible, and I feel horrible. And we both don't know what to say to each other, and so we just cry for a little bit. She tells me how my brothers were bullied racially in California for different reasons. How my brother had a gun pulled on him, and how she was bullied on the way home from school. And how horrible it is, but also. Also how horrible it is that we have to grasp the fact that this is based on just my color. And then she tells me. She says, you can be a school of choice student. You can decide what school you feel safe in before you're forced to go there. So I do, and I make friends. I make lots of friends. I even made a boyfriend or two. They were all different types of colors, and they had all different types of drama, and they've had all different types of struggles. And I focused on educating myself because that was the most important, important part of the entire equation. So I got in to interlock in. I went to boarding school, and I met Tony Kushner, Andrea Gibson, which inspired me eventually to get really deeply into spoken word. And then before I knew it, I was performing at my school and at the Portland poetry slam in 2013. I had a little itty bitty fan base, and I was, like, so excited. And even though there's no solvent solution to racism, it's what you do with the worst that really matters.

Carl Yard (27:09)

Where are you two going? We're going to the bus stop. It's 5:30 in the morning. Where are you going at 5:30 in the morning? My buddy and I, we go to high school in the city. So we have to catch the bus to get to the subway. Is that right? The next sound I hear is that of a car door unlocking. And on the other side of this police cruiser, the cop gets out, walks around to the back of the car, his hand on the butt of his gun. The passenger, his partner who's been talking to me, gets out and does the same thing. I'm gonna need you two to put your bags on the ground and back up against the wall. And my buddy Kewan Looked like he was about to run. And I grabbed him and I said, no, no, no, no.

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Carl Yard (27:57)

I got this. Don't worry about it. So the cop picks my book bag up. He starts to open up. Wait, wait, Officer. Wait a minute. I believe you need my permission before you can go in the bag. Oh, really? Well, who told you that? My father told me that. Oh, your father told you I needed to get your permission? And who exactly is your father? Sergeant Milton Abbott in the New York City Police Department, Housing Division. Now, for a moment, he had this look like he was trying to figure out a math problem. It was as if he couldn't figure out whether or not I was telling the truth and he should stop or she'd take this to the next level. I look at him and I said, well, listen, maybe you heard about him. In 1985, he had been shot in the line of duty out in Coney Island. Yeah, I don't. Well, I tell you what. We can go right across the street where I live. He's probably up, and you can ask him if you are allowed to go into my personal belongings without my permission. Looks at me, looks back at his partner, hands me the bag back. You have a nice day. As he's going to the car, I'm like, wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You want to tell me why you stopped us? And he looks at me as if he wanted to say, motherfucker. Well, there have been some robberies in the neighborhood, and. Well, you have a nice day. I was elated. My father had been on the force for years. And the one thing about he and I, we loved the cop life. We watched every cop drama. We watched every cop movie. At one point, I thought I wanted to be Roy Scheider, because I loved every movie he was in as a cop. And my dad being who he was, he told me everything about the police. I knew the Miranda rights at the age of 10, when I could say them properly. I played with his handcuffs. But when I told him what happened, he said, you know, the next time you get confronted by the police, don't be so verbose. Just do what they tell you and go from there. All right, dad? And then my father said, well, wait a minute. Listen, do me another favor. Don't ever tell another cop that I'd been shot. Okay? Don't ever tell that story. I'm like, okay. Then he said something to me that I didn't understand at the time, but he. The cops that stopped you, were they white? Yeah. Why? But don't Worry about it. Growing up as the son of a cop, I have very skewed idea of how life was. To me, it was cut and dry. The police were good. You had your bad guys. There was no line in the sand. That's how it was. My father, who had been shot in 85, took down a suspect who shot him at point blank range. So as far as I was concerned, he was a hero. And there was never any reason I ever had to doubt that the police were good until Rodney came. By that point, I was in college and had witnessed this on tv. And I remember sitting there watching and going, well, there we go. See, he's not listening to the police. That's why they're beating him like that. You see, if he just stay down on the ground like they told him. And I called my dad and we started to talk about it, and he said, you know, that's not how police work works. I said, yeah, but you know the guy, he wouldn't. He wouldn't stay down. He said, you know what, Mark? Listen, you're getting older now, and I'm gonna need you to take a long, hard look at how life really works. You can't view the police the same way anymore. You have to be cognizant of who they are, what they say to you. Because what you see and what we grew up watching on TV is not the same thing in real life. But I need you to be careful, please. All right, dad. We're good. A year later, the riot would break out in LA and in Atlanta. Our students from our school had gone downtown to protest the entire incident, with the police getting off. Unfortunately for them, the neighborhood thugs went along with them and tore up downtown Atlanta. So the next day, when the students decided they wanted to march again, they were met with a wall of police and riot gear. And my father saw it on television. He immediately calls me and he goes, listen to me, I'm watching tv. Do not go outside. Okay, not a problem. No, listen to me. Do not go out there. Do not try and do anything. Stay in your room. But I went out there, and as I'm walking down the street, I hear it. I hear the helicopters, I hear the students screaming. I see at the corner students throwing rocks and running the opposite way. And I'm running down there because I have to see this firsthand. And as I turn the corner, this thing like a demon with long fingernails and razor blades goes up into my nose behind my eyes and start scratching as I start taking in tear gas because I'd never Experienced that before. And I'm coughing and I'm wheezing, and I'm looking and I'm trying to see, and it's just chaos. There's rocks being thrown. There's a wall of police moving forward. I'm watching friends, fellow classmates getting beat down, getting dragged into cars, being stopped, being pushed into the bushes. And all of a sudden you start hearing. And that's the tear gas cans flying over us. And. And you see the smoke. And I'm trying. And I see these guys, and I'm like, if I could just make it past that wall to the command center on the other side. I'm the son of a cop. I can talk to them. I can try and figure something out. And I make my way around these guys, and I get up on the hill and there are these cops, all these white cops standing together. And I start to walk over, and I'm like, hey, hey, let me talk to you. And the cop looks at me, grabs his baton and goes back up. And I'm like, wait a minute. I need to. You need to back the fuck up. I'm like, no, wait a minute. My father's a cop. I don't give a shit what your father is. You get the fuck back or I beat your ass and I put you on a bus and take you downtown. And for the first time in my life, I'm afraid of the police. And I realized that being the son of a cop means absolutely nothing in this situation. So I turn around and I start to head back down. And there's one male dorm, freshman male dorm on campus, that sits in the middle of this street. And the cops have surrounded this building, and they're firing tear gas into the building. And as the students are running out, they're beating them as they come out into the street, grabbing them, putting ties behind them and throwing them on a bus and hauling them downtown. And I'm watching this, and I'm confused because I can't get this madness and what's going on? And I look over and I see the chief of police standing there. And he looks just like my father. A black man in command. And I hear my father in my head, don't go out there. Don't go out there. And I realize he didn't want me to see this. Not this way. After that, my complete respect for the police changed. And I understood what he meant by being cognizant of what was going on around you. I have a daughter now, and there's going to be a day where she's going to come to me and we're going to have to have this conversation. And the one thing I do know that I'm going to tell her is that there are police that represent the finest. But you, like me, need to know where the line in that sand is drawn. Thank you.

Kevin Allison (36:15)

That's all for this week's classic Risk singles episode. Now, don't miss out on our regular full length episodes. There's a brand new one every Tuesday. And everything you might want to know about us is at risk-show.com.