The meetings about everything but basketball have come too often this summer for University of Tennessee at Chattanooga basketball coach Lamont Paris and his Mocs. The latest occurred Monday, the day after Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back by a single policeman in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
“It’s hard to know what to say to them sometimes,” said Paris, an assistant at the University of Wisconsin before being hired to take over at UTC in 2017. “We talked about self-preservation, what to do if you’re pulled over by the police. We talked about complying with the police officer, no matter how ridiculous you think a request is. We talked about keeping your registration and your proof of insurance in your visor instead of somewhere low so that you’re reaching up instead of down.
“We told them if you’re wronged, we’ll work on that later. But first priority, unequivocally, is self-preservation. That’s the world young Black men are living in right now.”
To an extent, the whole world is dealing with self-preservation right now due to the coronavirus pandemic. That’s why we’re so strongly, and rightly, encouraged to wear masks. Social distance. Wash our hands. Again and again and again.
But for much of Black America, self-preservation is a different kind of potentially life-or-death issue. While most in white America see the police as our friends, our protectors, the people we reach out to in times of trouble, Black America is painfully reminded time after time how few individuals in authority they can trust.