I wasn’t going to talk about Cyrus Carmack Belton. I wasn’t going to talk about Karmelo Anthony or Kohen Wiley. These sad stories catch heat in the algorithm, and everyone has a thought.

For me, this is a daily battle. My students die. My students kill. After Philando Castile, I found these cases extremely draining. What am I going to learn from closely following them?

I know the system is set up to be unjust. Is one more story going to change my mind, especially with America’s current trajectory? No.

I’m not saying this is the right thing to do. I still fight the battles, but I pick them. Every fighter needs time to recover, and the death is unrelenting.

Of course, these topics come up, and I become informed enough to have a discussion. Sometimes those conversations spark something, and today I’m compelled to write, no matter how difficult the subject.

Black boy boundaries

Most people have heard about Karmelo Anthony at this point, but I’ll give an abbreviated account.

Anthony is a teenager who went into a rival team's tent during a track meet. Austin Metcalf asked him to leave. Karmelo refused and warned Austin not to touch him. Austin did not listen, and Karmelo fatally stabbed Austin.

Does it change if I tell you Karmelo Anthony is Black and Austin Metcalf is white?

Should it change?

This is the point I want to come back to, but I need to point out the reality. Race played a factor. There were no Black people on the jury, and Anthony received 35 years.

If we are being honest, many people would change their perception of this case if the roles were reversed. We’ve seen the other side of this story many times. It is hard not to bring up how Trayvon Martin and Cyrus Belton’s killers were found innocent. There are countless names I can rattle off who were killed just for existing because their Blackness was viewed as a threat. Unfortunately, to fully discuss this horrific thing, we need to do so within the context of the world in which we live.

I wasn’t in the tent. I don’t know why they told Karmelo to leave. I haven’t followed the case closely. I encourage anyone who wants to break down every bit of evidence to do their own research.

I didn’t want to spend time with this story, but after a discussion on Medium, I felt the need to write. The question was whether Black boys have different boundaries. Do they respond to life's stressors differently? In short, are they more violent, more willing to kill than other groups? Of course, if this is the defense, it plays into racist narratives. The questions stemmed from an article by Dr. Stacy Patton.

Dr. Patton is a professor at Howard University, and her article addresses Austin’s father. She explains that she is returning the same energy America has for murdered Black boys. Instead of asking why these Black boys are killed, we ask what these boys did wrong. How did the parents fail?

Dr. Patton asks the same questions about Austin and his father. She accuses Mr. Metcalf of teaching aggression and entitlement and calling it leadership and confidence. The headline to her piece is that she claims Mr. Metcalf failed to teach Austin that Black boys have boundaries.

Oh, that line is an eyecatcher.

However, after reading the piece, it is clear to me that Dr. Patton is doing two things with that line. She is trying to point out the racial hypocrisy in this case while pointing out why Black boys feel the need to be on guard around white people.

She isn’t claiming that Black boys have different boundaries than white boys; she is saying that Black boys have boundaries too. They are also human and deserve respect. She wasn’t trying to attack a dead child but a racist system.

This does not justify Karmelo’s actions, but perhaps it gets closer to explaining them. I’ve seen a few comments in various places that ask, “Why did he have a knife?”

This is likely coming from people who live in a country in which there are more guns than people, and many of those people worship those guns and take them everywhere.

Yet, a Black boy in a mostly white space carries a knife in that same country, and there is confusion. A Black boy carries a knife around white people in a country that has a history of beating or killing Black boys for looking wrong, jogging wrong, playing wrong, cooking wrong, breathing wrong.

I don’t think the threat that day justified Karmelo’s actions, but I can see how he got there.

Respect culture

John McWhorter, a professor at Columbia University, also threw his thoughts on the table. He attempts to answer two questions:

“Why does a boy spontaneously justify stabbing someone on so thin a pretense? And why do so many Black Americans see his 35-year prison sentence as racist?”-source

In short, McWhorter explains that it comes from the culture of disrespect. Respect is so important to young Black males that any amount of disrespect must be dealt with in extreme measures. (According to McWhorter, this does not necessarily mean murder, but extreme violence is not off the table.)

Although he argues this mindset started with poor whites and was picked up by poor Blacks, he basically implies this mindset is now part of Black culture.

In other words, middle-class Black boys also embrace the respect culture mindset.

Let’s break down this idea that respect culture is exclusive to Black boys or synonymous with Black culture. I’m a Black man who teaches Black boys every day. I watch kids attempt to navigate high school. I’ve worked at juvenile detention centers. I grew up in “the hood.”

Do you know what all of those places have in common? If you allow someone to disrespect you, you become a target. I’m sure most people have heard some version of “find the biggest bully and punch him in the mouth, and no one will mess with you.”

I was a nerdy new kid in middle school. I looked like an easy target, and they came for me. I understood enough to know that fighting was a last resort, but I also knew I could never walk away and look weak because it only meant I would get it worse next time.

Luckily, my mouth did most of the heavy lifting. However, I did find myself in a few fights. There are two types: the “relatively fair fight” and the “you lose if you win fight”. Both are about respect, but they work differently.

In a “relatively fair fight,” two people have a disagreement, throw hands, and move on with their lives. In many cases, the boys are friends after. These are the only fights I ever participated in, and they are still a majority of the fights I see at the school today.

The other type of fight usually involves getting “jumped” or using weapons. Sometimes this comes after a fight. These fights are usually gang-related, and losing isn’t an option. Any type of disrespect has to be handled.

A couple of years ago, a student bumped into another student at a dance. Two days later, a group of gang members attacked him in the middle of the hallway. This level of retaliation isn’t common for something so small, but it is an example of how groupthink works with these kids.

It is unlikely that any one kid would choose to retaliate because of an accidental shoulder bump, but when the eyes of the gang are watching, any other choice becomes unthinkable.

We all know gang life is dangerous. I tell my students every year that they are shortening their lives if they get involved in that stuff. So, why do they do it?

Life is already so hard. Many of these kids come from bad homes or don’t have a home at all. They couch surf, not knowing where their next meal is coming from. The gang promises safety, shelter, and food.

This isn’t exclusive to Black students, and neither is the respect culture. Poverty and location play a bigger role than race. Some of my most violent students are white. Gang life also isn’t exclusive to boys, with girls often being quicker to fight than boys.

It doesn’t matter who you are, when you truly have nothing but the respect you’ve worked to earn, you are more willing to lash out to maintain that respect.

We live in a world of endless videos and news. I’ve watched many white people, men and women, commit crimes on camera because they felt disrespected. (Go look up Karen crashouts, and I’m sure you will find plenty of examples.)

Masculinity

“That Black male ego is something I think we as Black men have to deal with because it has led to a lot of people leaving this world too soon… it comes from the fact that we have been so emasculated in American society… Because we have not been allowed to be men freely in the open sense, wherever we have issues with each other, that pain, that trauma, that rage, that anger manifests itself” -Dr. Umar Johnson

Skeptical White Male used this quote in his article on this topic. I struggle to believe Dr. Umar is genuine at any point, but he does occasionally hit on some good ideas.

The patriarchy hurts everyone, and this even includes the people who benefit from it. Black men are in a unique space because the patriarchy tells them that they should be in one place as men, but racism tells them that they should be in another. It causes a type of dissonance that creates this need to bring those two sides into alignment.

The solution, sometimes, is to perform masculinity to such an extreme that it leads to death.

What is traditional masculinity if you can’t afford to provide for your family? It is violence and anger. What is the most honorable thing a man can do for his people?

Die in battle.

However, I can’t fully get behind Johnson’s last line. It suggests that Black men carry so much rage that they kill each other.

Look, I admit I imagined doing some pretty messed-up stuff to bullies in high school, but I never had any desire to kill anyone. My anger is a dull frustration at the state of the world, a constant hum. It doesn’t manifest in murderous anger.

Honestly, when I look at my kids, I’m certain Johnson is off here. My students aren’t lashing out because of the centuries of trauma. They are lashing out for survival. Sometimes they truly believe, “It is him or me.”

The narrative is strong and comes from all sides. Self-fulfilling prophecy is real.

In my 15 years of teaching, I’ve had multiple students tell me that an adult told them that they were dumb or not going to be anything. Do you know what those kids decided to do?

Do you know what happens when the whole world lays a packet of stereotypes at your feet and says, “This is you” ?

I’m sure this narrative of violence helps some white people sleep at night. It makes the world feel a little more…right. I’ve always suspected that the constant oppression post slavery came from many places, but one of those was fear. There is a fear that Black people have all of this trauma that we are holding inside, and if we ever get the opportunity, we would just…lash out!

Historically, it is what white people would do.

Austin Metcalf is dead, and that is messed up. Karmelo Anthony killed him. He is guilty of a crime.

George Zimmerman murdered a child when he was told not to engage. Acquitted.

Chikei Rick Chow chased a child and shot him in the back. Not guilty.

Karmelo Anthony stabbed Austin once. All white jury. 35 years.

This shouldn’t be a story about race. It should be about two kids and the country coming together to teach new lessons. Sadly, that isn’t our reality.