Recently, the Dallas Morning News featured a story titled: A Black Family ‘did everything America said we should’ but still endures racism daily.
The reporter, a White woman, introduced her readers to a wealthy Black family. The parents met at Harvard Law School and they raise their three sons in a five bedroom home with a pool and tennis court.
The father is a partner at a big Dallas law firm. He grew up in a military family in Colorado “where he was one of the only Black kids in town”.
The mother is a United Methodist pastor with her own strategic consulting company. Her father was a college professor at Harvard and her mother was assistant director of financial aid at Tufts University.
Now the story centers around the Dallas police shooting, when five officers were shot and killed by a Black man while they were on duty securing a march against police shootings that occurred in other states.
The wife called the husband at the law firm, told him about the police murders, and made him promise to stay overnight at the office, because at the office “he’s safe, well-known and well-regarded, out on the streets… He’ll just be another Black man, a potential target on this night of fear, fury, and revenge.”
The reporter wrote, “The drive takes only ten minutes. He would probably be fine. That small uncertainty captures what it’s like to be African-American today.”
The wife said, “We did everything America said we should do,” and yet, the reporter continued, when they step outside their usual circles in Dallas—they cannot escape racism in America. No matter their credentials or accomplishments they’re still Black.
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