Bad Ideas by Joseph Capehart

When asked the question,

“Are you a criminal?”

Your answer probably shouldn’t be

“I might be”

Even if the answer is you might be.

When being pulled over by the cops,

Do not pull down your pants and

Press your black ass to the window

As some form of identification.

When making out with your girlfriend,

Do not make a hilarious joke about

How it’d be weird if you were her brother.

These are all bad ideas.

The kind of bad ideas like

“Shouldn’t you know better?”

“Who the hell does that anyway?”

Type of bad ideas.

I don’t remember the exact moment that I learned silence.

Maybe it was a quiet game.

Maybe it’s always made sense to me that the winner

Is the one who keeps his mouth shut.

That the survivors never wore their skin too loudly.

Maybe it was time.

Maybe it was decades of tiptoeing around in my own skin

Praying that the world wouldn’t remember how easy it is

To swallow a black boy whole.

I learned silence when I realized

that everyone around me was hungry.

That the applause and the insults

thrown at my skin were actually the sound

Of growling stomachs,

Waiting impatiently for a meal.

I learned silence

Every time I was patted on the back for not being

“One of those” black people.

For not wearing my pants like they’re being

weighed down from a heavy heart,

For not sounding like I came from anywhere other than here.

I learned silence when I realized I don’t have to say anything.

Most of the time I’m registered a threat the moment I show up.

How many times have I opened my mouth only to hear someone else’s voice?

How many times have I realized that this body is not my own?

That I’m never going to be anything more than who you’ve already decided I am.

You. My God. My ventriloquist. My frankenstein.  

Piece me together from the black boys that you’ve picked apart,

Call me monster,

And then run me out of town.

I’ve heard the way that you talk about young black people.

You say “how can they be so angry?”

“How can they be so loud?”

Which to me, sounds like

“How can they be so brave?”

“How can they laugh and sing and dance

And love with such dangerous skin hanging from their bones?”

Don’t they know that they are not safe here?

Don’t they know that this world is so so hungry?

I learned silence like I learned survival,

Like I learned camouflage,

Like I learned hiding in plain sight,

Like I learned being the cool black guy.

The cool black guy that laughs at the racist joke,

That doesn’t dirty clear skies with black fists.

The cool black guy that knows that being black

Is no way to live.

So when asked the question

“Are you a criminal?”

Know that the verdict has already been decided.

Your dark skin was a preexisting condition.

When being pulled over by the cops,

Rehearse the name of black lives turned gravestone,

Put your hands on the wheel,

And don’t make any sudden movements.

When making out with your girlfriend,

Do not let her get so close that she can

taste the fear and anger that you hide beneath your tongue.

These are all bad ideas.

You should know better.