The Fire This Time

Racial profiling occurs when people perceive members of certain racial, ethnic, or religious groups as threatening, based only on appearance. This term particularly describes the behavior of law enforcement against people of color, as evidenced in practices like the stop-and-frisk searches that Emily Raboteau mentions. The neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman considered 17-year-old Trayvon Martin dangerous for his appearance; Jesmyn Ward describes how people used racial stereotypes against Martin even in death: “Zimmerman and the jury and the media outlets who questioned his character with declarations like He abused marijuana and He was disciplined at school for graffiti and possessing drug paraphernalia saw Trayvon as nothing more than a wayward thug” (4). Garnette Cadogan experienced racial profiling firsthand when a man struck him while he ran through New York City: “I assumed he was drunk or had mistaken me for an old enemy, but found out soon enough that he’d merely assumed I was a criminal because of my race” (138-39).

“The Talk” describes a parent’s warning to their children, particularly those of African and Latino descent, about what to do when police detain them. Emily Raboteau describes her questions about raising children of color in the wake of the Charleston shooting and the protests in Ferguson: “In the back of our minds that summer of 2015, as an uprising and its violent suppression raged in Missouri, was the problem of when and how to talk to our children about protecting themselves from the police” (157). The many deaths of unarmed black Americans by police, in addition to the Charleston massacre, exacerbated parents’ fears of losing their children in random acts of violence. Emigrants of color like Garnette Cadogan and Edwidge Danticat did not receive “The Talk,” but Danticat considers how to present the realities of racial profiling in America with her daughters. Danticat looks to James Baldwin for inspiration: “In his own version of ‘The Talk,’ James Baldwin wrote to his nephew James in ‘My Dungeon Shook,’ ‘You were born in a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible that you were a worthless human being’” (212-13). The end of Danticat’s essay presents a “Talk” of her own, in which she warns her daughters about discrimination but urges them to fight injustice and maintain hope.

The Black Lives Matter movement arose in the 2010s, after a spate of deaths involving white shooters and unarmed African Americans. This activist movement gained force after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and remained a means of resistance against racial discrimination in the United States. Claudia Rankine’s essay describes the formation of Black Lives Matter, saying, “a more internalized change is being asked for: recognition” (151). Black Lives Matter memorializes those who have been lost in acts of racially motivated violence and the pervasive threats against black life. Although only a few of the anthology’s writers mention the movement by name, many of them discuss the value of black life and describe their grief over those like Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.