List of Fears

I'm not scared of cops...that much. I'm aware that they can kill me with impunity but I grew up in the 1980s in the middle of a drug war so my brain is hardwired to fear death by street criminals or stray bullets more than cops. I know that the arrests for random acts of violence rarely happen and you can't arrest a stray bullet for murder. The words 'innocent bystander' are usually connected with 'tragic' in the news reports. I was raised to be good and stay clear of bad folks so if I had a violent and untimely demise, I would assuredly be innocent. Right after that on my fear list was getting kidnapped b/c it was the 1980s and we were all told that strangers were going to kidnap us, do bad things to us, and throw us in a ditch. Next on my list of fears was car accidents, and then it was plague-like diseases so AIDS, cancer, rare strains freakish strands of hepatitis that wipe out an entire family eating at a restaurant. If I were growing up now, covid would be on that list.

So my personal order of fears were 1) random acts of violence 2) kidnapping and/or targeted violence 3) car accidents 4) disease. After that, came cops...maybe. They were definitely in the top 10 but I spent so much energy on just the top 4 that things further down on the list (animals like poisonous snakes and sharks) were fears I reserved when I wanted to 'switch things up' and have anxiety about something else. I would ask my friends for their top ten b/c I was a weird child. My white and black friends had radically different lists. I found that white friends didn't fear stray bullets and certainly didn't fear the cops. Cops wouldn't even make their top 20 list. Cops? No, they help. White kids were mostly scared of kidnapping and maybe disease. White male straight friends weren't even scared of kidnapping or disease. Their entire list of fears consisted of freak accidents, snakes, and sharks. When you tried to explain that more people died from vending machine accidents than died from sharks, they would laugh. But I wonder if there was a secret lists they had in their minds. A list they dare not speak in mixed company.

In college, there was only one time panic spread through the dorm. We were told that someone suspicious was walking around, possibly casing out the place. People locked themselves in their rooms. And for a split second, I did too. Then I thought...hmmm...let me go see this thing people are panicking about, My suspicions were confirmed: it was a black kid. A prospective student wandered in. He was a nerdy skinny kid with glasses. A parody of Urkel. Someone saw this kid and ran to a person and said 'hide' and then that fear spread through the dorm. At a certain point, maybe the race got dropped from the description (did it only get dropped with me?) The police and campus security was coming. I ushered the Black teen out of a side exit and told him were to go to avoid the encircling forces. An odd look came over his face. Maybe he was offended and embarrassed or enraged. Maybe I was all of those things for him too. He thanked me and quickly walked away. In that moment it felt like we were immediately joined in a conspiracy. A mundane moment was charged with a familiar instinctive urge to protect this random black person from harm via cops and security. It's one of those underground railroad moments when you two black people conspire...to live. 

Meanwhile in the other world, the white students were relieved when campus security came. The officers found nothing. I did not tell them the student they were looking for was black and harmless. I told them nothing. I said I didn't see anything. When we got to the cafeteria I let my white friends know 'that was a harmless Black prospective student who just wanted to ask a few questions.' Oh...there was a pause. No one knew what to say next, so the conversation just moved along. We continued eating. I realized that this was actually something I feared that was on my top 10 list: white people's fear. It would surely kill me quicker than snakes or even cancer. Their fear is all-pervasive and can snatch up a Black life in a moment of panic. No one bears any responsibility for the panic. It lurks underneath pleasantries and dinner. I am surrounded by it.