Dwayne Morgan

Transcript

when i was in high school there was a miracle mart grocery store not too far from our school and we would go there at lunch time and we would buy stuff for for lunch and for snacks and that sort of thing and one day as um i was leaving the store the manager stopped me and said uh he needs to check my bag and i i didn't have any problem with this but i mean everybody's cashing out doing their thing and he's like i need to check your bag and he says you people only come in here to steal and i was like all right

okay so now i know what this is and he's saying this loud enough that everybody who's you know cashing out now they're they're looking they're trying to see what's going on and he goes through my bag finds nothing leaves the bag there for me to put all of my stuff back in the bag and i'm angry i'm embarrassed possibly i've just um confirmed some stereotypes that maybe some people have and then i have to collect my things walk back to school sit in class pretend that none of this happened and for many of us we go through our life often pretending because there are so

many things that have happened to us that we just can't say to anybody no one's going to believe us so sometimes they say oh you guys have a chip on your shoulder and it's not that there's a chip on our shoulder just we're ready for the next time it happens because there always seems to be a next time i started my own business when i was in high school and i was going to a meeting with an organization that was very supportive of what i wanted to do and i was meters away from the door to this organization and out of nowhere within seconds i

was surrounded by six police cars and i had no idea what was going on i was in my own world just walking to this meeting and they stopped me and they said there was a robbery at the mall and i fit the description now here i am young teenager dressed up in a nice shirt leisurely walking down the street i have no idea who would rob the mall and be walking leisurely down the street people that i was coming to meet with started coming out of the organization to come to my defense and were told to get back inside or they would be arrested so

they had me there surrounded by myself same scenario we have to search you check your bags all that sort of stuff so they go through trying to run my information check my bags don't find anything and it goes over the radio oh the person we're looking for is off in some next direction and they just drop my bag jump in their cars and leave and i'm standing there with the shame with the embarrassment with the people who i was going to meet looking out the blinds wondering what is going on what is happening who was this young man and i felt like i wanted to

burst into tears but i had to hold it together because we spend a lot of time and energy holding things together it's part of how we survive in a society that makes it difficult just to be just to be yourself so when i found out that i was going to become a father i instantly did not want to have a son and it pains me to say that because in what should be the most joyous time i didn't want to have a son who would have to endure the same things that i had to endure and i know that it isn't easier for black women

but i've never walked their shoes i know personally how difficult it has been to walk in my shoes and i didn't want to have a son who would follow in those footsteps and it was 4 am when she woke me and i can still remember the cold sweat on the back of my neck like it was yesterday 12 years have now passed and i can still remember the pregnancy test in my hand and how it felt like my heart and my world had stopped simultaneously and nobody knows this but at every doctor's visit as he would perform routine ultrasounds i would look from the ground

to the screen hoping praying to god that none of the squiggly lines that i was seeing would confirm this little being as a boy and i don't feel good about it but i've lived a long time in skin despised simply for its hue so every november i go populist not out of disrespect i'm just not a fan of remembrance day remembering that there has never been a plane sent to save us we are the displaced our bodies and religion stolen we were given a new prophet as they used us to make prophets ask nike what a black man is worth for hundreds of years we

have been killed as a form of amusement gunned down with no fear of repercussions so don't blame me for not wanting to be burdened by the birth of a black boy born into a world built on his back forcing me to teach him how to write and his rights knowing that even my greatest efforts can't keep him alive when his skin is a threat so yes i stood there staring blankly at a screen hoping praying to god that none of the squiggly lines that i was seeing would confirm this little being as a boy maybe having a girl would increase my chances of not having

a child who'd grow up to be a hashtag trending because the killing of black men has been a trend since forever so we write black lives matter not to try to inform others but to try to convince ourselves in a world that is constantly showing us otherwise and my heart can't help but break for those parents who have had their children snatched from their lives it was an april afternoon when i found myself pacing around the delivery room wondering if my prayers would be answered at 3 20 the most precious little girl was presented to me and i cried uncontrollably for hours knowing that i

had just been blessed not because having a girl would make her worth more but because we live in a world where black boys will always be worth less thank you you

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.