uncle ruckus in a suit: dear Lawrence Otis Graham

“People like Oprah and Bill Cosby shouldn’t be compared to Jay-Z and Beyonce,” Graham said. “While all the people on the list will be millionaires and billionaires, it is also about where did you go to school? Who are you married to? What med school did your granddaddy go to?” - Lawrence Otis Graham

first read this article:

I taught my black kids that their elite upbringing would protect them from discrimination. I was wrong.

"Lawrence Otis Graham is an attorney in New York and the author of 14 books, including “Our Kind of People” and “The Senator and The Socialite.” - the Washington Post

Lawrence Otis Graham

"It is the moment that every black parent fears: the day their child is called a nigger." - L.O.G.

     First of all, the fact that you think that every black parent's biggest fear is being called that, exposes your willful ignorance. I guess that you thought that your "Ivy League education" , "house in a liberal New York suburb and an apartment on Park Avenue", "preppy clothes, perfect diction and that air of quiet graciousness", and the fact that you casually throw around words like 'accoutrements' excused you from the every day racism that black americans encounter every day. Life is not Princeton University. Life does not give out AP Credit for racism and allow you and your family to place out of it. 

       The fact that you even italicized the word 'nigger' like its such a foreign term and concept...I just cannot. 

      The child reaction to this (" “Why would they do that — to me?” he whispered breathlessly into the phone.") reminds me of when a family buys a new born kitten and treats it like a baby and ,at some point in the future, the cat sees itself in the mirror for the first time and is legitimately shocked to find that it is not a human. 

     I think that the real issue here is that you're an Uncle Tom(or Ruckus) who managed to convince himself that the Ferguson protestors, Trayvon Martin, and the everyday black american were/are inferior/criminal and choose deserve the discrimination that we face because we choose not to assimilate to this white-washed 'politics of respectability'. I hope that your son's traumatic incident shows you that the solution to racism is not assimilation because black people are not the problem. The problem is the racist ass attitudes and institutions, so if you want your son to stop being called a 'nigger', stop fighting the victim and start fighting the perpetrator. no matter how much you assimilate, at the end of the day society still sees you as less than human. 

OH and maybe if you would have allowed your son to listen to rap music, he would've learned this lesson 10 years ago when Kanye West tried to warn him: