James Shropshire Sr. – October 1942–March 2008
My soul is sore because it aches for a vision it can never behold again. I am sensitive to the touch because, even though we made peace with his eventual transition, I wish I could have said more — or have said things earlier.

As I’ve been blessed to travel around the country, interviewing thousands of prominent, prosperous African Americans and persons from other cultures, I occasionally heard people describe childhoods so horrific that they would have been Hollywood blockbusters if their stories were adapted to the big screen. The experiences helped soften the hardened outer walls of my heart as I began to take mental inventory of my many blessings instead of focusing on the things that went awry. I thank my father for being there for us and growing up with us. I thank him for pushing me to be on the honor roll in school when I felt like coasting on the waves of mediocrity and lounging on the shores of idleness. Even though my father had the type of temper that would sometimes explode out of him like projectiles, causing my siblings and I to recoil with fear, he never let us down as a family. My stomach never growled when I was growing up in Akron, Ohio. I don’t ever recall the lights going out. I can’t remember ever living with the heat off. We never received handouts. I remember him being a fastidious caretaker of the family finances, never mortgaging our future for frivolous thrills or trivial trinkets. He lived for his family. I don’t remember him ever saying ‘no’ to me even when my infantile requests were unreasonable or tinged with typical childhood selfishness.

I thank you, Dad, because you were married to my mother. You were never a baby’s daddy or a close affiliate with America’s penal system. You never mistook the front of a liquor store for a living room. He never joined any of the concrete country clubs located on many urban street corners. He never cheated on my mother to engage in reckless romps with Jack Daniels or Seagram’s Gin. He was never idle or shiftless. I thank him for enduring the trauma for America during the Vietnam War, even though America didn’t always reciprocate the love he gave her. He taught me how to work hard, and because he forbade the utterance of any slang whatsoever in the house (sometimes with physical reminders), I subsequently became very acquainted with the English language and I now enjoy the fruits of that labor.

In fact, I lived in relative comfort as a child and did not want for anything. I would often sit in the pew beaming with pride as my ultra-conservative father channeled the Spirit of God through him to wage war against iniquity and the forces of evil. His fire-and-brimstone sermons in Ohio registered high on the Richter scale, captivating and impossible to ignore. I loved how we went out to eat after every Sunday service, then retreated to our ‘den of testosterone’ to gorge ourselves on a ridiculous amount of sports. To me, that was living. I miss how he’d pour the family into the trailer or truck every summer and peel back the asphalts of America’s highways, turning the East Coast of America into our personal playground. My love of travel and adventure emanates from those priceless childhood excursions.

I miss how when I was a kid, he’d get up and read the paper then allow me to read them, which enhanced my understanding and love of words. When I moved to Atlanta a decade ago, I loved how he accepted me back into the house every holiday even when I stayed away far too long without checking in. I loved how he forgave me even as I consciously and subconsciously held grudges against him or blamed him for circumstances far beyond his control. I loved how, after overcoming the emotional hardships of his own upbringing, he could freely tell me he loved me. To me, that’s all that matters.
I love you and miss you terribly.
Bye, Dad.
–James Terrance Shropshire Jr., aka “Terry”

Not guilty.

That phrase keeps repeating — both in my head and too often, in the judicial system itself. The acquittal of officers in the shooting of Sean Bell served to remind African Americans that the system too often views them as expendable. Black life apparently doesn’t count for much in the annals of justice, and it didn’t just start with this case. The fact that this case was tried before a judge instead of a jury is a giant red flag as far as I’m concerned. Anytime you place the fate of a case completely in the hands of an individual, you raise the probability of that individual’s personal agenda overriding their ‘better judgment.’

In this case, the NYPD’s ‘glass shield’ and the entire New York judicial system’s overwhelming need to absolve the NYPD of all wrongdoing led to an acquittal. The resentment that African Americans feel toward law officers isn’t arbitary — it’s rooted in a deeply held mistrust from years of abuse.

Not guilty.

There will be those who dismiss this as yet another example of how black America cries foul whenever things don’t go ‘their way,’ and how this tragic event will be milked by black leaders looking to get face time by playing the race card. But when the incidents continue to happen specifically to persons of color, what else could anyone think? I’ve been in rowdy clubs more times than I care to recount, I’ve attended house parties that quickly got out of hand. When I’ve been at a gathering with majority white patrons and police were called, there was never the same sense of tension and anxiety (in either the patrons or the officers), as when the cops are called to a party full of black folks.

Not guilty. Those words keep repeating; along with the lyrics to a song that Bruce Springsteen wrote to protest the 1999 killing of Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo by the NYPD:

“Is it a gun, is it a knife/ Is it a wallet, this is your life/ It ain’t no secret/No secret my friend/ You can get killed just for living in/Your American skin …” from “American Skin (41 Shots)” by Bruce Springsteen
–todd williams