The KINGS of New York: Cliff Means
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The KINGS of NY is an online campaign by the K.I.N.G. Movement NYC Chapter as part of their collaboration with Baruch High School. KINGS of NY aims to tell the unique and personal stories behind chapter men. NYC. The views shared do not necessarily reflect or represent those of The K.I.N.G. Movement.
I was definitely on the OJ trajectory. I grew up middle-class in the inner city of Detroit. Kind of Cosby-ish. Two parents and a poodle. Which was dope. I lived and attended school in the city. But I attended after-school and summer programs in the suburbs. It didn’t take me long to realize there was a difference between the majority-white suburbs and the majority-black city. The businesses in the burbs were all open and flourishing. Despite being middle class, half the businesses in my neighborhood were boarded up or on the verge of closing. In the burbs, everybody seemed happy and light-hearted. In Detroit, folks seemed angry and defensive. I subconsciously began to equate ‘white’ with safety and warmth–and ‘black’ with poverty and struggle.
But even still, I knew my time in these privileged spaces was just a temporary illusion. I remember talking with a white friend in the locker room at a fancy racquet club. There happen to be a black janitor in there at the time. And my friend says ‘Why do you live in Detroit? You should live out here with us’. I had to only be 12 years old. But me and the Janitor looked at each other with the ‘smh look’ and just laughed. Or when I was in a van full of kids and they all told innocent stories about never going to Detroit because their parents said it was too black and too dangerous. It bothered me, but I still viewed white culture as an escape.
That escapism continued into my college years when I became a Christian and ultimately became immersed in a brand of evangelicalism that was heavily tied to white religious fundamentalism. I developed a simple view of the world where there were good guys and bad guys. I was the super hero christian who was going to save the hood. My intentions were good. But I was also grossly ignorant. I was now mainly telling poor black and brown people to pray their problems away to ‘clean up their act’. Similar to how colonial missionaries tried to convince Native Americans that a lack of civilization was their problem. Not the European explorers sent to rob them of their culture and resources. It wasn’t until some years later that reality started to set in.
I remember when Obama was elected. I wasn’t his biggest fan. But I respected him. So when I heard folks referring to him as the anti-christ I couldn’t believe it. I’m thinking ‘Here’s a man that did everything y’all ask black men to do, and yall manage to call him an anti-christ?? Like you had to find the worst characterization available to you in the Christian tradition to describe him?’ In another instance, a white friend of mine who I viewed as a role-model of sorts fixed his mouth to say ‘If I told you 10 years ago that this country would one day elect a man with the name Barack Hussein Obama you’d think I was nuts!’. That really startled me. I clearly recognized that what he said was both racist and Islamophobic. But I stayed quiet. I asked myself what it was about me that made him feel so safe saying that in my presence without flinching. I started realizing how much I played the role of the ‘safe black guy’.
The comfort I felt in these spaces started to erode.
It came to head one night. I was returning home from a long day of work in a 12-passenger company van I drove for the Christian organization I worked for. As I pulled up in my driveway. I saw cop lights flashing. The cop was screaming from his car and I couldn’t understand the man. So without thinking twice I go to get out of the van.
As soon as I opened that door and went to get out the cop drew his gun and yelled ‘Get back in the car!’ I did. ‘Show me your hands!’ I did. The cop then approaches my car and gets a look at my face (guess I ain’t scary lol) and came down from his adrenaline high. ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘Umm..I live here’ ‘Well, there was an armed robbery in the area and you fit the description of a young black male in a van.’ I began thinking about what would have happened if the cop was a ‘shoot now, ask questions later’ type. I could have been killed. I strongly believed the cop would have gotten off since I attempted to get out my vehicle. Who knows how the police report would have been written? “Dark outside…got out the car…black shiny object in his hand, etc.” Here I was doing everything they say a black man is supposed to do, but I found myself in a potentially life-threatening situation.
That represented a major wake-up call for me. I realized in that moment, my middle-class upbringing and time in white spaces didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered in that moment is that I ‘fit the description’.
I became more vocal after that. I’d speak up and challenge racist tropes. I found that the same people who were willing to join me in a benevolent missions to ‘save the hood’, were now labeling me political and ‘race obsessed’ for simply acknowledging the systemic injustices that helped create the conditions that existed in cities like Detroit. Those warm and fuzzy feelings I once associated with majority white spaces began to change. The lack of common understanding and awareness of the issues facing people of color actually made those spaces feel hostile.
It helped me re-evaluate where I came from. Detroit was not a product of an inferior people with an inferior culture–which was part of the self-hate ideology I subconsciously believed. But many of the majority black and brown cities are full of Kings and Queens who’ve seen their royalty spiritually and systemically broken through systematic and historical injustice.
I determined that my Christian faith would no longer be a tool for oppression. But a tool of empowerment. That is why I am a K.I.N.G. man. That is why I took a knee in Detroit.
Cliff is an RN, VP of K.I.N.G. NYC Chapter and currently studies the intersection of Sports, Race and Politics in the 20th Century at Queens College.
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