When You Get Stopped By the Police
Don't Become a Footnote
If you’re new to Raising Myles, Welcome!
I write letters every week to my son, Myles, sharing my journey as a first-time dad and spreading the love I didn't experience myself. If you've been here before, thank you for coming back. If you're new here, I recently celebrated a year of writing letters to him — that's a good place to start.
I decided to dig a little deeper and explore some topics around fatherhood, my own upbringing, and what it means to be raising a Black son. For the foreseeable future, I’ll be keeping all poems to Myles open to free subscribers and his Monthly Mylestones too, but I will be paywalling some of these letters and slowly archiving past letters. You can read more about this decision and my thinking in the letter below.
The letter today is a deeper letter about the inevitable fear of him being pulled over by a police officer.
Appreciation time: I want to say thank you to
for recently becoming paid subscriber and joining me in this journey on going deeper and contributing to Myles’ college plan I appreciate you and these beautiful words!
Month 12
If you are able to read this letter, my son, it calls for a celebration. The very thing that tried to destroy you before you knew who you were has not succeeded.
The only privilege I know in living in this Black body is being able to speak about an experience that too many of us—people who look like me and you—were not able to tell.
Dear Myles,
You might be home1, playing video games2, walking3, going for a jog4, shopping5, back turned6, sitting in a car7, six years old,8 or alone—you might not even be awake9, you might be sleep10 .
It doesn’t matter what you or your body is doing, the police will stop you—existing is probable cause. I know because they be stopping me too (IYKYK).
When I was stopped by the police, I was sitting with a friend in the same playground of the park where I went to middle school, right across from the precinct. I had just wrapped up my first year of undergrad and was visiting a friend who also attended that school with me almost ten years ago. If nostalgia had a smell, this moment was it.
We had been sitting on the bench for about an hour when I saw the officer walk in through the park gates. It felt like he came for me because he signaled me over with one hand while the other rested comfortably on his gun like an armrest. I approached,