It happened countless of Times. The door opens up and it is Time for the routine walk. You both make eye contact and the words are spoken. “I will stay on my path and I will be extra careful.” Of course, your son or daughter will do exactly what they set out to do.  Who are you worried about? You are worried about their life and the skin they are in. Whether or not if your child has a diagnosis of any type of syndrome/disorder it will always be Secondary.  This wasn’t for me but for you. All I could think of if the dots were being connected and the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fit together. Will we get a whole puzzle? Will some of the pieces come up missing and the story will never be told correctly.

Wow! Mark Zuckerberg got up and put on his sweats and hoodie but he probably didn’t get stopped by the cops for looking suspicious. I had to make sure my son was not wearing a hoodie but there was no guarantee he would make it back home in one piece. He was not dressed to impress but for safety.  Guess what?  Is there such a thing as safety?   Throughout my child’s life, he suffered from asthma and the medication he had taken made it hard for him to lose weight. I don’t know if Mark was sleek all of his life. Mark was socially awkward but it never stopped him from reaching his full potentials. I bet Mark’s hoodies became more of a popular dress code than a non-verbal threat to his community.  It is a shame how the coin is so unpolished on the Flip Side Of The Chart.

There is something about a young black overweight male that is perceived as a gentle giant, a bully, or a huge Mandinka slave.  How did anyone derive from this perception? When my son was in middle school I noticed whenever he would become frustrated the teacher’s documentation read like a horror story. Not only that my son began to look more grown up on paper than his actual age. Something was really wrong with this picture. How can you be only in middle school but look like a full-size adult on paper?  Even at the manifestation hearings, I had to remind the superintendent, the principal, and the teachers my son was a child, not an adult. Was the school system documenting my child for the prison system or for an early grave?  Did the test scores of the schools and their triple-A rating mean more to them than the child? It must have meant something.  So much pressure was put on testing the school districts got busted for cheating nationwide. Many children fell through the cracks when it came to their mental stability. Who was going to be the first draft pick? It sure wasn’t going to be the children whom the school districts stigmatized for many years entering the small yellow bus with Special Education written all over it. Where in the hell does this concept come from when your child acted out he would immediately be thrown in a separate self-contained school better known as the DAY SCHOOL? Parents stay on top of your child’s documentation.

This is probably the hardest stories I have ever written. Knowing for years what the outcome was going to be before the barrage of murders had taken place.  Going from doctor to doctor and the doctors not addressing the race issue. Moving within your family and they didn’t want to address mental illness. Being Black an under attack spelled it in the story Got No Time To be Disabled. My son said it best. “They Can Kill Us With Impunity.” NLD will always be Secondary. Just as he was diagnosed with NLD, panic, anxiety, stress, and depression is Secondary to the original diagnosis of NLD.  This is not an NLD’s world. Inclusiveness instead of isolation is the key.   Having a diagnosis of NLD does not define the person he is.  He has to live in the skin that he is in.  Being Black is not a disability. He now understands he cannot exist inside a group’s thread but has to live with the reality of being Black.   Those prayers were just not for my son.  Knowing the Truth is tough. The Truth rides alongside consequences. The conversation has always existed and the doors of the church will always be open for change.

The sharpness of my son’s tongue is Precision. It is always what he says make people so pissed off and angry. He does not recognize that he has insulted you are if a person thinks he sounds threatening.  There will always be Collision with people who do not want to hear or know the Truth. These are the people who act on their words. Not the ones who speak with a sharp tongue, Precision.  Collision will always turn their back, react, and attack.