On the opening night of the Democratic presidential debates, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio shared with voters that he had “very, very serious talks” with his biracial son about the threat of police to black youth in America.
Dante de Blasio, 21, a recent Yale graduate, expounded on his father’s comments saying he was “in fear” of police in an opinion article published in USA Today.
“When I was in eighth grade, my family and I went to Atlanta to visit some of my mother’s relatives. Toward the end of the trip, my white father and two of my black cousins sat me down for a serious talk. They told me I was getting older and they needed to make sure that I knew how to talk to the police,” wrote De Blasio.
“The consequences of a small mistake could be — getting arrested or maybe even shot … They kept stressing these possible consequences, worried that a 13-year-old wouldn’t understand.”
In 2014, Mayor de Blasio, 58, ignited a firestorm when, two weeks before two New York police were murdered, he suggested many officers were racist. “I have had to talk to Dante for years about the dangers that he may face,” de Blasio said.
“A good young man, law-abiding young man, who would never think to do anything wrong. And yet, because of a history that still hangs over us, the dangers he may face, we’ve had to literally train him — as families have all over this city for decades — in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him.”
In his article, Dante de Blasio, whose mother Chirlane McCray, 64, is black, recounted how he was visiting a friend during spring break in San Francisco two years ago. To get to his friend’s apartment, he describes navigating through a seemingly unsafe situation with relative ease.
“All the storefront windows had bars on them, there was a man on one street yelling at passersby, trying to goad them into a fight, and homeless people were openly doing hard drugs on the sidewalk. But honestly, I wasn’t that scared. I was from Brooklyn, and I truly believed that I knew how to carry myself well enough not to be messed with.”
He wrote that he had “no fear” during this walk until a police officer pulled directly in front of him while he was waiting in front of his friend’s apartment door.
“For years, I had been aware of the fear I caused as a young black man — I had seen people cross the street to avoid me, I had been followed around stores — yet I could still hardly believe someone thought that I was trying to break into a home. But the truth was obvious: Somebody had called the police on me.”
De Blasio began to panic and quickly type in the code his friend had sent him to enter the apartment, saying he had not given the officer time to “step out of the car” to question him.
“That fear I felt is not unique. That lecture I got from my father and cousins has been given to countless young black people. We’re taught to fear the people meant to protect us, because the absolute worst-case scenario has happened too many times.”
