We are almost 10 days into the Siege at Ferguson.  Not a military action, thousands of miles away, but an overzealous law enforcement response to protests waged in the wake of an unjustified police shooting in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. While watching the coverage, and reading many of the articles and blog posts that have been written in the wake of this latest tragedy, numerous people have mentioned the continued efforts to dehumanize the victim of the shooting, while demonizing the protesters.  The media tactic has been around as long as newspapers have been in print, if not longer, and all those who have called the news media out on this shameful habit were obviously correct in doing so.  They are missing one crucial fact, however.

In order to be dehumanized, we have to be seen as human.

Like so many things in America, the routine dehumanization of Blacks can be traced to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. The entire southern economy was built on and depended on the free labor of those captured or sold into slavery in Africa , then transported to these shores for sale.  In order to justify the highly profitable, but morally reprehensible, practice of chattel slavery, as practiced in the U.S., the argument had to be made and emphasized that these were not people, but things.  No more than animals to be worked until they died, then you could either by more, or worse, breed them.  Even in the Census, slaves were only counted as 3/5 of a person.  That this point of view existed for at least 200 years prior to the end of slavery, is very telling about how attitudes towards all minorities, not just Blacks, developed over time as the nation grew.

After the slaves were freed, when most Blacks were just trying to live peacefully and support their families, the Ku Klux Klan formed.  Although, if you look carefully enough, their services weren't really needed.  After 200 years of being conditioned to believe that an entire race of people were all mostly lazy, ignorant, or animalistic, those in positions of power: the bankers, landowners and politicians, had no interest in creating a fair and just society were all men could propel themselves up the socioeconomic ladder by their own hard work.  There is no profit in that, for them anyway, so we have the invention of the system of sharecropping, a system meant to keep Blacks as close to a condition of slavery as possible, while also managing to sweep in the rural poor as well. It was during this era that we also saw the beginnings of the "Us vs Them" style of politics, which used the by now widely believed stereotypes of Blacks to scare poor Whites into believing that the Blacks were out to take away their livelihoods (rather than just trying to live independently), and/or commit some heinous crime against them.  American has always had a need for a "villain" (in order for someone to be declared a "hero"), and due to the fact that Blacks are highly visible, all that is needed to keep the population in fear of a certain group is to find someone who fits the definition of what they are afraid of, and parade that person out front, as often and as loudly as possible, drowning out the fact that the vast majority of the population is not only nothing like this person, but probably has more in common with the person being fed fear then they realize.  The purpose of the KKK was two-fold: to keep Blacks "in their place", which meant not doing well enough for themselves that they saw themselves as equal to the whites of the time (the phrase "Uppity Nigger" was coined during this time); and to control the remainder of the population through feeding into their fear of the "Other", thus allowing those in power to stay in power.

Just underneath the surface, although slavery ended 149 years ago, the lingering notion that Blacks (and other minorities) aren't really human, hangs heavy in the air over any media coverage of events surrounding largely minority communities.  Therein lies the rush to portray them in as negative a light as possible, especially when their death at the hands of an authority figure is in question.  Which leaves the parents, relatives and friends to tell the story of a complex life, rather than the caricature the law enforcement community needs you to believe in order to justify their actions.  They have to feed the fear.  Do not think there is not an economic component to this in these days, just as there was back then.  Now, those that benefit from media reinforced fear of the "Other", are not just the bankers, landowners and politicians (who sell fear as a means of staying in office), but the Military, Law Enforcement agencies (it is called the Prison Industrial Complex for a reason), home security companies and gun manufacturers all receive massive budgets, and huge profits, from selling seeming safety from the mysterious "Other".  The "Other" who in reality is more like them than they realize, if they would only see beyond what they are told to believe.

All races of people have people within that race that are criminals, fools and ne'er do wells.  The multi-award winning TV show Breaking Bad, and the much discussed show Sons of Anarchy, show that the drug trade and gang violence are not limited to urban minorities, concentrated in inner cities.  Rural America has it's fair share of issues, but those that live there are largely given the benefit of the doubt (or they used to be) in interaction with law enforcement and subsequent treatment by the media.  For Blacks and other minorities, the lowest common denominator is the default by which they are measured. Always. Minorities often have to go far above and beyond in order for the world to know that our loved ones and friends were not the "Thugs" (code word for all minorities) that they are being portrayed as.  The ultimate scenario of Guilty Until Proven Innocent, is what they have all come to expect.  Which, 149 years after the end of slavery, is a shame.

When William Shakespeare gave that speech to Shylock during the court trial in The Merchant of Venice, he was making a comment about the view of Jews in Elizabethan society during the late 1500's.  What does it say about us as a technologically advanced, presumably First-World country when we still have to ask those same questions in 2014 in a mid-western suburb?  If all you know about an entire group of people is what you've been fed in the media, and maybe had one or two interactions with a few representatives, how much do you really know, especially if you are going to continue spreading the lies, fear and hate?

My son is 21.  He is already a veteran of being stopped for no other reason than "because", and was taught early on to be polite and respectful to law enforcement, no matter how they may be treating him.  He is funny and charming, but he can also be temperamental and easily upset if he feels that he is being treated unfairly.  He is by no means a perfect person, but neither is he some sort of always to be feared "Other", and like most parents of imperfect Black males, this is what I worry about most.  Having to defend my son should one day, propelled by fear, paranoia, and 350 years of being repeatedly told that my son is not a real person, some law enforcement officer will misread a harmless word or gesture, then completely overreact, thereby turning my son into another heartbreaking statistic.  Which they would then try to justify by bringing up the fact that he wasn't a great student, and whatever else they can think of, dig up or make up.  Which would leave those of us that loved him in the position of trying to remind the world that this wasn't some animal; this was a son, brother, nephew and friend, that was wonderfully human, flaws and all.

We all are.  Now if we could only realize that and treat each other accordingly.

Addendum on 12/1/14: I am re-posting this today, instead of another post I was writing, because this subject seems even more important today, in the wake of the Grand Jury verdict, than it did when I first posted it 3 1/2 months ago.  I truly believe that our historical inability to be perceived as human beings is slowly beginning to tear away at something deep in the fabric of American society, and if we don't stop this dehumanizing of the minority population, we are setting ourselves for a societal failure that we will not be able to handle or contain.

I want you to know I saw the look of distress on your face as I closed the door of the daycare this morning.

I recognized it immediately, which is why the extra hugs and kisses before I left for work.

I used to look like that too. I was the rare child that started hating school in Kindergarten, and spent every school day of the next 13 years (K-12th grade) smiling on the outside (most of the time anyway), while inwardly counting the days until it was over.  The difference between your experience of school and mine is that up until this year, you absolutely LOVED school.  You liked doing your homework, and looked forward to challenges and writing reports.  I started noticing a subtle shift the closer we got to Christmas break, though.  Assignments would slip through the cracks, here and there.  You quit putting in the same effort you did before, and getting you to work through things went from the breeze it was to a trying experience of tears and half-hearted effort.

Any inquiries as to what had changed were met with shrugs, and nearly whispered "I don't know"s.  Up until last night, when comparing an F on a random assignment with a long list of A's and B's on tests given the same week, and I realized that the two pictures didn't mesh, and I called you on it.  I told you that we could work this one of two ways:  I could go the punitive route, and just punish you for the bad grade, or we could talk about what led up to that, and see if we could find a way to stop this from happening again.  Much as I said yesterday, I can't help you fix it if you are not honest about what's going on.  Even though, after it all came out in a low defeated voice while staring at the accumulated dust at the bottom on my dresser, I don't know if this is something that can be fixed.

At the ripe old age of ten, you have begun that trip into the realm of the girls that don't want to seem too smart, lest they not have any friends.  I had so hoped you wouldn't have to go through this.  But as I watched you develop anxiety about school (the likely source of the bathroom issues and the resulting taunting which only made everything worse), I knew at some point I would hear this one admission that I wanted you to avoid.  That I thought women and girls had left behind in the 20+ years since I left school.

I purposely chose this semi-suburban environment because I wanted you to have a different academic experience than the one I had.  Inner city schools were okay for smart girls, but a great deal of support was needed to keep girls from becoming socially isolated because the other kids weren't sure what to make of them.  I aimed to not move while you went through elementary school so that you could make, and keep, the same friends, building up a set of social skills that I never really developed while we moved from place to place.  I didn't expect that to develop into kids that knew your weaknesses, and took obscene delight in pointing them out to you at every opportunity.  I figured because you were conventionally attractive, you wouldn't catch even 1/10th the hell I caught going through school for not being attractive enough.  I didn't realize until other people started pointing it out that you have a lighter version of almost my exact same face, along with the same big, coarse just barely manageable hair that does exactly as it pleases, which is usually the one thing that you DON'T want it to do.  How well I know that story.

You are a girl that loves math and science, who currently wants to be a teacher when you grow up.  I smile and tell you that this is wonderful, and you can do anything you want to do.  Internally I fight a war between encouraging you, and fiercely wanting to protect you from the rough waters that await a girl interested in STEM fields, especially as you prepare for your final year of elementary school next year, and from there prepare to navigate the far more treacherous territory of middle school.  I worry about you losing the sweet, funny, quirky nerd that you are to the jaded, outwardly tough, bravado spouting street kid that the surrounding neighborhood seems determined to turn you into.  I am divided between being awed by, and afraid of, the fact that as small and thin as you are, you really don't take any crap from any of the kids that pick on you because they are bigger than you, mostly because I told you not to.  My own experiences with being routinely bullied left me determined that my own children would never have to put up with the cruel jokes, snide remarks, and occasional physical confrontations that I was told to "ignore, and they will leave you alone"  (the biggest lie kids are told), however, in this age of strictly enforced Zero Tolerance policies, I fear your efforts to stand up for yourself will end in a flurry of suspensions that, rather than keep you from being a victim, might get you labeled as a troublemaker.  Which, by the way, is what started happening to your brother in middle school, which was so frequent by high school, that it was one of the many contributing factors to him dropping out.  Which is what I DON'T want to happen with you.

You have many more days of school to go, my darling daughter, and I will do the best I can to teach you, guide you, and help you learn how to get through them.  I can't guarantee you I will know all the right things to say and do to encourage you, and I know that as much as I would like to, I can never shield you from  all of the negativity that will come your way.  Nor should I attempt to keep you too sheltered, as you will need to learn how to deal with less than ideal people and situations.  But know that I do love you, and I am always willing to try to do whatever I can to make your journey a bit smoother (short of doing everything FOR you, but you knew that already), or at the very least, help you make sense of whatever is going on around you.  I think I can do that much.

I hope this helps.

Do you know the difference between nerds, geeks and dorks?  Being a nerd goes beyond simple intelligence; it is the possession of a great fountain of occasionally useless knowledge about a wide range of topics without the filter needed to know exactly when to share what.  Geeks are usually enthused about one or two specific subjects, about which they can talk to you, non-stop, no matter what other topic is being discussed.  Dorks are usually intelligent, but missing certain key elements of information, will argue loudly, and wrongly, for whatever the point is that they are trying to make.   Rolled eyes and requests to "Shut up about it already!" be damned.  The common element that draws them all together is a lack of social skills beyond what is minimally needed to function in society.  The pursuit of information for information's sake is the highest priority; interacting with people is an inconvenience that must be dealt with only when absolutely necessary.  This over abundance of information, the ability to not just apply it correctly (most of the time, anyway) but translate that into phenomenal test scores, often at the expense of developing social intelligence can get people labeled a lot of things.  For the sake of this post, I'll just focus on the name I am most familiar with: the Nerd.

I know of whence I speak.

I am currently on my fourth decade as a nerd, having learned to read at four years old.  I can geek out about certain subjects, as can most nerds, but I don't enjoy debate, and can read at least some social cues, so I narrowly escape the dork.  When I get interested in a subject, any subject, I can be a somewhat obsessive researcher, just so I can feel confident enough to discuss the subject with anybody that asks about the subject once I bring it up.  I have been known to read a book, then if that book references another book or two, I might just read both of those as well.  And I can retain most of what I read.  Of course that means I have been known to accidentally lapse into TMI  (Too Much Information), giving people more information that they asked for or needed.  When I finally started noticing eyes glazing over (or looking around for a way out of the monologue),  the development of a shy smile and a little self deprecating humor to ease the tension from those accidental over share moments helped a great deal.

Social anxiety comes early for the Nerd.  Good grades and high test scores often come at the cost of time spent playing with other kids.  Parents that are not careful to make sure that kids have downtime and outside activities run the risk of building the perfect academic beast that has no one to play with at recess.  Then again, if a kid is both socially awkward and has no hand eye coordination, recess might turn out to be overrated.  I can remember many a day of getting picked last for every recess activity because everybody knew as well as I did that anything involving me and a ball was going to end in complete and utter disaster.  I was always the guaranteed "out" for the other team.  In Jr. High School (middle school, nowadays)  I was the kid that got a C because I at least dressed for PE.  Other than running laps, which I could do without tripping over my own feet, most of the time, any athletic  ability passed me at a clearance of 35,000 feet, which is roughly the altitude of most commercial aircraft, but I digress...

There is no one particular look to the Nerd.  They come in a wide variety of shapes, colors, sizes and hair lengths.  In fact, most clean up real nice when they want to or have to.  Key words: "WANT to or HAVE to".  The vast majority of the time, the Nerd couldn't care less what they look like to you.  They would rather be working on their latest project, testing a new theory or figuring out a tricky line of code.  If they're comfortable, they are generally more productive, and productivity means EVERYTHING to the Nerd.  Being made to look a certain way is a card best played sparingly, and only if absolutely necessary.  Some are actually quite attractive.  If they feel like making the effort.

The Nerd is the original non-conformist.  Conforming to what the cool kids did was always a lost cause, so why continue trying to play the game?  The Nerd was the first person to embrace the mantra Just Be Yourself, because imitating someone else was a fast road to disaster.  Many a Nerd can quote you chapter and verse about how they tried to  fit in at some point in their lives.  This was generally inspired by wanting to hang out with some group (Lest you think otherwise: Yes, Virginia.  There ARE adult cliques!) of people that were thought to be at or near the top of the social strata.  The Nerd would then change anything about themselves that was deemed unacceptable by the group: Hair, clothes, manner of speaking, conversation topics.  Whatever they felt they needed to do.  After a while, one of two things would happen which would prove the old movie cliche to be entirely true:  the group would find some way to push the Nerd out anyway, or the Nerd would figure out that not being genuinely themselves was not worth the hassle of keeping up an appearance acceptable to someone else full time.

Despite all this, the Nerd manages to reproduce.

I myself have given birth to two Nerds.  My son wasn't your regular academic go getter. Far from it.  But he did develop quite an affection for Manga and anime, which he follows on every medium available to him, and can give you more back story on any anime character than you ever asked for.  Although with his naturally argumentative nature, he can occasionally slip into Dork territory, his saving grace is a sense of humor that allows him to escape whatever verbal hole he digs himself into.  He will look into any subject he is actually interested in, enough to give himself some working knowledge of the topic so he can talk about it without sounding stupid.

My daughter came to Nerdom through school, the same way I and most of my fellow Nerds did.  A powerful combination of grades and test scores marked her entrance into the realm of the Nerd, and her recent passing of the Cognitive Abilities Test, or CogAT, which certified her placement into the Gifted and Talented program, solidified her place in the hallowed halls of the Nerdsphere.  I am getting her into the habit of looking up anything she has a question about, and trying to introduce the concept of reading for pleasure.  She loves math, and is almost insanely good at rapidly absorbing Math concepts, something I always had a hard time with.

In this generation, the Common Nerd is clearly evolving.  No longer content to be a shadow on the wall of popular culture unless he or she conforms to it, The Nerd is taking ownership of his or her own particular quirks, and letting the world know that they are in fact, good enough to play on the playground with the cool kids.  As is.  Witness the popularity of TV shows like the Big Bang Theory and game shows like Jeopardy, that not only entertain you, they challenge you to think a little.  The Nerd now exists outside of the classroom and the lab.  There are Nerd athletes, models, actors, artists and any other profession you can name.    My son is both a budding chef and a developing stand-up comic.  My daughter has a talent for dance and an interest in cheerleading.

And both children are conventionally good looking.  If and when they feel like putting in the effort.  Which I don't force them to do, unless there is a valid reason.  I know the rules.