*

My father never beat me!

That thought settled into my consciousness as I finished Ta-Nehisi Coates’ powerful missive to his son, Between the World and Me, two days ago.

Even when, at six, I climbed up on the chest of drawers and rode it to the ground with a loud thud. Seven decades later, I see the relief on his face as he flies through the bedroom door and sees me laughing with my brother Peter.

But then, he begins what I would come to know as his anger routine: teeth clamped around a doubled-under tongue and hands unbuckling his black belt.

That time, he pulled the belt out. But that’s as far as he ever went; the belt never touched his sons, neither hand nor fist.

When Ta-Nehisi was six, he wandered away from his parents on a visit to a park. When they found him, “Dad did what every parent I knew would have done — he reached for his belt.”

Later in the book, Coates elaborates.

My father was so very afraid. I felt it in the sting of his black leather belt, which he applied with more anxiety than anger, my father beat me qw if someone might steal me away, because that is exactly what was happening all around us. Everyone has lost a child to, somehow, to the streets, to jail, to drugs, to guns.

Between the World and Me is written by a middle-aged African-American man to his son, Samori, about what it’s like to be Black in America.

I read it in one sitting, thinking of all the nevers in my favored 76 years. There are many. I’ll tell you about two others.

For thirty-three years, I sped down College Drive, a busy street on the way to my place of employment, usually traveling at 30 MPH in a 25 MPH zone, never being stopped by the police. My Black colleague, James, was ticketed three times in his first year at the college where we both worked.

And, unlike Trayvon Martin, I never worry about wearing one of my two black hoodies during my 10,000-step daily walk around my community.

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