“To whom it may concern,”
A story by: Dennis Larone Yee Franklin
"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” - James Baldwin
As I sit at my desk on this late summer night, reflecting upon the San Francisco protest in which I participated today, attended by nearly 30,000 people of all shades and genders, I have begun to think about the best ways to truly connect with my non-black counterparts on these issues in a way that extends beyond telling you where to donate money, what book to read, or which petition to sign. As you are all outstanding individuals, I am sure that you all have done some, if not all of these things. Nonetheless, as many Instagram stories boasting interracial pinky swears and aesthetically-pleasing graphics suggest, you will never fully understand “what it is like to be black”.
In thinking about a solution that could solve this lack of connection, I came to recognize that most of my acquaintances know who I am on the surface, but they, and certainly you, do not know my full story regarding how I came to be the young man that I am today. So, I plainly present to you my story, and I hope that in reading this lengthy, yet poignant life-reflection, you are able to get just a bit closer to understanding “what it is like”.
I was born in Oakland, California in the year 2000 to an African-American father and a Chinese-American mother. Oakland at the time was considered to be the fifth most dangerous city in the country, which would be scary for most, but for my family it was a small damper in our hope for a happy home, for we undeniably had great privilege. My father was finishing up the tail end of his career at Goldman Sachs which was preceded by his service as a Navy Seal and ABC cameraman. My mother had just completed her journey as the Director of International Affairs for San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and would soon become a Managing Director at United Airlines. Both of their careers had been lengthy and successful, which they believed would place me in a position to achieve whatever my mind desired. We had, and still have, a big orange house that sits in the predominantly-white area of Oakland called the Oakland Hills, boasting pristine views overlooking the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. As I said, we were privileged.
As I began to grow, my parents thought that my biracial background would intertwine the two cultures and allow me to choose how to identify, which would surely only add to my future charisma. Unfortunately, the combination of my skin color and society quickly decided this identity for me. I was black, with a hint of Asian if you really looked deep into my eyes. This identity crisis was not life-threatening by any means, but somewhat difficult. Not only was I uncomfortable in my own skin, but my connection with my mother weakened as we began to move through our daily life. I clearly remember my four-year-old self hearing a woman ask my mother “So where in Africa did you adopt?”. It was these hurtful, yet oddly frequent interactions that drove me to instinctively hide my Chinese side from the world and stick to what society told me I was, and that was black.
So here I was, a “black” kid now attending a 95% black private grade-school in Oakland called Northern Light. My parents felt that it was best to send me to a school with kids who looked like me so that I would not feel more out of place than I already did, and this was undoubtedly the right decision. It was here where I was taught on a daily basis that “Impossible is Nothing”, “Shower the people you love with love” and “Use music to change the world”. I naturally became compassionate, sympathetic, and loving towards those that surrounded me, but it was difficult for others in my grade to do the same. You see, in my 5th grade class of 13 students, only five including myself ultimately attended a four-year college, while the rest either only attended community college or dropped out of high school altogether. Many were born into drug-stricken and/or one-parent households, which only distracted them from internalizing these tender ideals from which I was able to benefit every day. For me, school allowed me to expand my mind and learn to think critically. For them, school was just a place that they could go to escape reality. As previously mentioned, I had privilege.
Fast-forward to my first year of high school. I now attended Head-Royce, ranked the 35th best private high school in the country and located just a few minutes from my home. This was the first time I had attended a predominately white institution in a predominantly white neighborhood, but thus far I had not really experienced any of the racism that was so often mentioned in the news. Besides my mother and her family, I was mostly around black kids and black people, even while playing ice hockey, as the local rink constantly promoted diversity in the sport. So I was as excited as ever to take on this new challenge and chapter of my life, but I quickly realized that the world did not quite share the same utopian ideals to which I had become so accustomed in the past.
After my third day of school, me along with three friends that I had made, decided to stop by a convenience store after school. One of these friends was black while the other two were white. As we entered the store, the cashier turned to us. “You two”, he said, pointing at me and the other black kid. “Take off your backpacks”. It took me a minute to comprehend what had happened. ‘Why didn’t the other kids have to do that?’, I wondered as I aimlessly sauntered around the store, barely noticing the cashier’s assistant hiding at the end of each aisle, meticulously watching and moving with me as I browsed the snacks and pondered this irregularity.
The very next week, I attended my first hockey tournament outside of California in Chicago, Illinois. Following a goal that I scored in our first game, a large child on the other team got into my face and yelled “Go back to Africa!”. Seconds later, as if he was waiting for his son to initiate the confrontation, the boy’s dad yelled from the balcony, “fucking nigger!”. At the time, I had never actually heard this word said out loud, so my shock was accentuated. I was in awe that things like this could even be said to a child without repercussion. Now two weeks in a row I had become a victim of a racial bias/attack. I began to understand that my privilege was not as exorbitant as once thought.
Super fast-forward to Columbia University. I had recently graduated from the Taft School, a private boarding school in Watertown, Connecticut mainly comprised of kids from wealthy, old money families. Racism had appeared so frequently by this point that I was numb to its presence, hardly flinching when I walked past the “The South Will Rise Again” banner at a house in downtown Watertown. So my reaction to the killing of Barnard Student Tessa Majors on December 11th was more instinctive than ever. As the news began to break that the murderers had yet to be apprehended, and all that the police knew was that one suspect was wearing a green jacket, a number of friends, all of whom happened to be white, texted and called, exclaiming their fear of the situation through statements explaining that they would never enter Morningside park again and hoped to never encounter a robber in New York. I responded in agreement as I continued to receive these messages. Yet within five minutes of hearing about the news, my black roommate Lani and I turned to each other. “I am never wearing a green jacket again”, we said in unison.
This, my brothers and sisters, is how I differentiate regular privilege from “white privilege”. Lani and I knew exactly how we would be perceived in this situation. Regardless of my well-to-do background in which my privilege was elevated significantly compared to my black peers, on that day I could think of myself as no better than them, for my fate could very well be identical simply due to my skin color. No resume, CV or transcript, could set me apart from the “thugs” that roamed New York in the eyes of the police. While many students on campus feared being the next victim, me and other black men feared being the first suspects. This idea extends beyond merely the police, and rather applies to all of the aforementioned encounters that I have had in society in which my education, wealth, and home life have meant nothing to those who do not know me. I am black first, and then a personality. But for many white people that navigate this world, this narrative is flipped on its head.
I hope that although you cannot fully understand what it is like to be black, you can at least try to define people such as myself as more than solely black. It is these types of slight changes that quite frankly make all the difference. I am certainly proud to be an American citizen. But as with every community, there is always more work that may be done. Our diversity of nations and states makes us unique when compared to all other countries across the world, so acknowledging and celebrating these variations in the human experience can only bring us closer as individuals.
Sincerely,
Dennis Larone Yee Franklin
