BMP

“Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”

– Unknown

I say it every time my students take an exam, test, or quiz. “Now is the time to put away your cell phones and other electronic devices. Please put aside your notes, books, etc. and bring a pencil or pen to the seat I assign you for the exam.” I proceeded to divide my students up by three to each row, with two seats between them. I’ll skip a row, and do the same thing again. Three students, every third seat, then skip. I tell them once they have the exam, if they have a question – raise their hands, etc.

There is always one student who asks, “Mr. Murphy is this really necessary? Do we have to be spaced out like this? You can trust us.” To which I reply, ” If you want trust, go to a priest…I’m a teacher. I have BMP…Black Male Paranoia, so it’s not about you. It’s about me.”

Was I born with this condition? probably not, once I recognized racism and how society would treat me despite my best efforts “to get along”. I can remember feeling like this is a thing, a condition, a trigger for me to be aware of how my black body moves in various spaces. It’s how I walked, talked, and carried myself was always under inspection. I felt “always on stage” in the world while people, either verbally or physically critique “my performance”, my life.

Being raised between two sisters, my mother made her male child know the differences. “You don’t hit girls… don’t do this or that….you’re a young man.” As I got older, less little-boy-cute to little-boy-menacing, My mother would quote from her own “little black book”, the infamous tract book that floated around Harlem in the 1980s. It was the dos and don’ts of how-to-raise-a-black-male rules. How to speak to law enforcement, authority figures, etc. What to say and what not to say. She would add “and always have two dollars in case you need to make a phone call. You say nothing without me being there to protect you.”

These rites of protection played out in various ways and forms over the years. If I was walking down the street or in an elevator. If there was a white female (age may vary…from 17 to 71). I would adjust, both physically and vocally, to make her feel safe. To show that I meant no harm, that I wasn’t a threat.

Usually, the female in question, who as I got older, were women of different colors and cultures. They still clutched their purse, drew back from me. Some women even would step into the street to avoid me on the sidewalk. Or cling to the arm railing in the elevator praying for their floor so they can get off. I wasn’t someone’s son, brother, husband, or father. Regardless of my upbringing, my education, my degrees, and the positions I held. “You are something to be feared,” my BMP informed me.

My BMP was present when in high school when the girl I was dating lived in the next town over. I would literally walk over to her house or back. Not having enough bus fare for a two-way trip. On several occasions walking back to my town, a police car would follow me right up to the bordering streets of my town. As if they were escorting me out. Sometimes driving really slow (they’re cops, they can do that regardless of traffic) or passing me by, then go down another street and circle back. The officers never asked if I was lost, needed help, or anything. Just their silence stares at a sixteen-year-old male who just wanted to enjoy the company of his girlfriend who happened to have a different zip code than his.

BMP kept me aware. I was at a laundromat around the corner from the housing complex where we lived. I distinctively remember having on my du-rag and my walkman listening to music, washing my clothes. It felt good I was trying to maintain my appearance – hair looks good, clothes look good. Obvious to everybody and everything. I was enjoying the feeling of my black body being safe. I remembered a cop snatching the earphones off my head. He told me to sit down on the ground, with two other black boys I knew from the neighborhood.

Everyone else was told to leave the laundromat. The three of us sitting there on the floor. The whole incident jolted me back from the space I was flying in. I wasn’t aware of what was happening around me (“always pay attention to your surroundings” one of my mother’s rules). There had to be three or four patrol cars, two in the front of the laundromat, and one in the back. I thought why do you need four patrol cars for three black boys in a laundromat?

I remember one of them told me to take off my du-rag. This singular act made me realize that I had to comply, I had no choice. My appearance was was being questioned. It wasn’t mine to keep to myself and enjoy. It was subjected to his and the other officers glares and comments.

On the floor for what seemed a long time (it was about an hour). They told us we could get up, told everyone else to come back into the laundromat. It seemed there was a robbery, I believe the corner liquor store. The suspect was a black male, young, and bald. Bald? Bald? I had a du-rag on, you can see the patterns of my curly hair underneath the cloth. They knew my hair eliminated me as a suspect. I had to be guilty of something, right? They had to strip me of something? it reminded me of who was in control. “You don’t have freedom in your black body” my BMP said. It was right.

If I had a dime for the countless times I was pulled over, I could retire on the interest it would draw alone. I thought I could put my BMP to rest. Over the years, paranoia eats away at your core of being. I would sing a lullaby of peace and equality, lull it to sleep perchance to dream. Forgetting it was essential to my survival. I needed it. Living in this skin would remind me eventually.

Growing older, one of my accomplishments was being a home owner. My wife and I found the perfect house for us. Seemingly in the perfect neighborhood. After a couple of years being here, I went out for our “Thursday Take Out”. Traditionally on Thursday we do takeout and enjoy television for the evening. I drove to the Chinese Restaurant in the center of town to pick up our order.

Just as I was pulling out my BMP noticed a patrol car behind me. It followed us through the quiet suburban streets that I love to walk through and marvel at the houses and lawns. The patrol car followed slowly over a walking bridge that I would cross with my children. When they were younger. When I believed I could protect them.

It followed BMP and me around the park that I love to walk around. The route among the trees has a rambling path that comes out to playgrounds, basketball courts, baseball fields, and a community pool. The “protect and serve” emblem followed us right to the Stop sign before turning up my block. To which the patrol car sped past me, quickly turn up the block after mine. My BMP said, “He did that to cut you off as you get to the top of the street!“ BMP and I knew I lived at the top of the street, the patrol car doesn’t.

I pulled in the driveway, as the patrol car came from the other direction, slowed down, then stopping. In my driveway, my property, the illusion of homeownership – my land, seemed to evaporate when he gets out of his car. A blue uniform, clean-shaven Whiteface.

“Do you live here?”

“Yes, I do. Can I help you with something?”

“Did you notice me behind you -“

“You were following from the Chinese restaurant.”

” I wasn’t intentionally …I thought you had ran a Stop sign.”

“You thought? Why didn’t you pull me over?”

“Well, never mind, have a good -“

“Officer, what is your name?”

“Well I did run your plates and it seems that the registration on your car is due. I wouldn’t move it if I were you.”

” You didn’t state your name?” which fell on deaf ears. He had got back in the patrol car and disappeared into the night. I tried to keep calm. This was over ten years ago now. Now and then, driving the same route, my BMP says, ” Remember when you use to love route.”

The civil unrest currently burning through our country and into the hearts of its inhabitants is just getting started. The blatant disregard for black lives and bodies. Where a lot of hurt, anger, and frustration are being displayed in the various fires and seemingly acts of destruction in our communities. Nationwide BMP is being spoken into existence, not just mine. They were getting a chance to breathe, to be heard. A sense of realization over paranoia. My wife asked if I always felt this way. My wife, the proud Jamaican, she is wasn’t born in this country. She didn’t fully understand how this manifested over the years, eating away at my self-esteem and peace of mind. Without hesitation or regret, both BMP and I said, “Yes, I do.”