Copeland's Corner: April 19, 2023
What can you teach your kids that can potentially save their lives if they mistakenly ring the wrong doorbell?
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Being Black in America is exhausting. Especially if you’re a Black parent.
Like just about everyone else in the country, I’m horrified and outraged by the shooting of 16-year-old Ralph Yarl in Kansas City, Missouri. He’s the African American teen who was sent by his mother to pick up his younger brothers from a friend’s house and got the address wrong. He had the right house number, but the wrong street. The poor kid rang the doorbell and the white 85-year-old homeowner opened fire, shooting the young man in the head. After the child fell to the ground, the homeowner shot him again.
Miraculously, Ralph Yarl lived. He somehow limped away and knocked on several doors in the neighborhood asking for help before collapsing on the porch of one of the residents, who then called 911. As of this writing, the teen is in the hospital where he is in stable condition and expected to survive. Information on the severity of the head trauma has not been released. As for the shooter, he was arrested immediately, held for 24 hours, and then released. After protests and outrage, the homeowner was re-arrested and charged with multiple felonies that could possibly send him to prison for the rest of his life. Authorities have said that there was “a racial element” to the shooting. The attempted killer, of course claimed that he fired in self-defense. He “feared for his safety.”
By all accounts, Ralph Yarl is a good kid. He’s a good student. He loves music and plays in the school band. It’s his dream to become an engineer. I tell you this so that you know who the child is before right wing media and racist propagandists inevitably try to demonize him and use various contortions to make the shooting his fault. It’s disgusting, but rest assured, as the homeowner gets closer to trial, you’ll be subjected to this garbage.
One of the reasons it’s exhausting to be a Black parent in this country, particularly the parent of Black sons, is that you live in a constant state of fear that something like this can happen to them. You can raise them to be polite, respectful, upstanding citizens. You can have “the talk” with them about how to behave in the presence of police. You can teach them how to approach and deal with strangers and still, some yahoo with a gun can shoot them because they rang the wrong doorbell and “he was afraid.” The worst part is, that in many jurisdictions in this country, when (and if) a case like this goes to trial, the fear will be deemed justified and the shooting understandable. How do you defend your kids against that? What can you teach them that can potentially save their lives if they mistakenly ring the wrong doorbell?
The big problem with shootings like Ralph Yarl’s is the huge number of ridiculous “Stand Your Ground” and “Castle Doctrine” laws in this country. These laws basically say that if you’re scared and you’re armed, you can shoot first and ask questions later. Black men are demonized in this society so many whites are conditioned to fear them. They’re taught to view them as dangerous. That being the case, if a Black kid rings your doorbell, he must be there to rob, rape or kill you, so pull out your firearm.
I have two sons and they’re both grown men, ages 28 and 34. Even though I don’t worry about their safety as much as I did when they were teenagers just starting to drive, I still worry. Being a Black male is enough provocation. My oldest son is a popular sports radio talk show host in the Bay Area, and he was still accosted by police while walking home from covering a Giants game in San Francisco. He was wearing his press pass around his neck and it still didn’t matter. The police saw him walking down the street and believed him to be a potential threat. The worst part, for me as a father, is the sense of helplessness. I’ve taught my boys all I can, yet a traffic stop can quickly turn deadly and there’s not a damned thing I can do about it. So, I worry.
If there’s anything good about what happened in Kansas City, it’s the fact that Ralph Yarl is still alive. Thank God for small favors.