A photo affirms Ralph Yarl’s humanity. Should it need to?

There’s a picture of Ralph Yarl that continues to make the rounds throughout various forms of media. It’s an image of Ralph, with his box haircut and stoic smile, posing with a bass clarinet almost as radiant as the youth’s brown skin. What stands out to me is that this picture serves as public relations, although the photo wasn’t taken with that in mind. Its purpose now is to affirm Ralph’s humanity.

The reality that such an affirmation is needed is the entirety of the problem.

The Kansas City, Missouri, teen is now recovering from gunshot wounds sustained because he knocked on the wrong door to pick up his siblings.

I have often wondered the age at which society sees Black males as threats – a designation that serves as a cruel and sometimes deadly rite of passage. Previously, I allowed myself to believe that age was 12, when Tamir Rice and the toy gun that he played with were both misinterpreted as being dangerous. I have since learned that even Black preschoolers are not exempt from overzealous and punitive measures, and perhaps while not as fatal, certainly just as significant in the dictating of culture.

There is a notable flashpoint in the emergence of that culture – a silent, yet deafening 1915 film titled “Birth of a Nation.” It is aptly named. The film celebrates an era when, although slavery had ended, racist attitudes were being entrenched rather than purged.

Irrational fear of Black people is at the root of America’s racial angst, and those stereotypes have been used to justify racial violence, as explained in a statement that the movie attributed to then-President Woodrow Wilson:

“The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation ... until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the southern country.”

The enduring legacy of the Confederacy extends far beyond the Southern region of this country. Our inability to effectively hold violent white zealotry to account remains evident – one recent example being the failure to muster more police protection for the nation’s capitol against the violent protesters of Jan. 6. At the same time, irrational fear too often treats Black activists seeking equality and self-determination as dangers to public safety or even as treasonists, which further deepens the lines between the American dream and the “American nightmare,” as Malcolm X put it.

That fear – perpetuated by media, by Moynihan reports, by mug shots – revealed itself in a Kansas City neighborhood and, except for a miracle, would have claimed Ralph’s life. According to Ralph’s account of the shooting, that fear haunted him from house to house as he begged for help and for someone to call the police.

That same trepidation cost a former Florida A&M football player his life some years ago. Jonathan Ferrell had been in a car accident and sought nearby help. He knocked on a resident’s door, who promptly called the police. Mr. Ferrell ran toward the police and after one officer employed a stun gun and missed, another officer fired the fatal shots.

Against stereotypes, against supremacy, against all odds, Black males find they can express humanity. I see it in my progeny, two beautiful children who look like their father. I see it in the similitude of Ralph Yarl’s expression and complexion, his boyish looks, his smirkish grin. It exists in soulful handshakes and head nods.

Such humanity also affirms itself in self-defense, as Huey Newton and the Black Panthers did in ideology and action during crucial points in 1967. Mr. Newton declared that Black people had “begged, prayed, petitioned, demonstrated and everything else” against historical and system wrongs, only to be met by “more repression, deceit, and hypocrisy.” This desire for safety is a response to justifiable fear. And fear is the thing. 

Some believe we should attack fear with facts, others with feelings. I believe we should employ both. The rightful telling of history cuts through ahistorical “lost cause” narratives of the Confederacy, and modern-day incarnations of those who fight Black authors and critical race theory with such fervor.

More compelling than literature and legislation, however, is love. The moment this week when students walked out of Staley High School in Kansas City for their friend, their brother, their classmate will endure for their entire lives. The gesture suggests more than the anti-establishment nature of children, or a burning desire to leave class. This might be the start of the best lesson they will ever engage in, that to know your neighbor is to love your neighbor, and any violation of that sacred bond means we ALL must respond.