I’m not raising a little Black boy, so maybe I’m not qualified to speak on this. Wait, I forgot. I AM A YOUNG BLACK MALE. I almost forgot because, fortunately, police haven’t drawn weapons on me in many years. So there’s that.

Don’t let anybody place what’s happening with these police shootings of Black kids in any “context”; young Black men are getting gunned down unjustifiably. The issue is not- nor has it ever been- what we can do to prevent this. The issue is that this keeps happening. What are you all telling your sons? At this point, what on Earth CAN you tell them?

“Never wolf-whistle at white women…” (1955)

“Don’t wear a hoodie…even in the rain…” (2012)

“Don’t be a Black man…” (Every Black man’s whole life, I think)

Seriously, what can you tell them?? Nothing comes to my mind, at least. You white, you Ben Affleck; you Black, you have an increased chance of getting shot down for something that can’t possibly be deemed worthy. I hate that this is even considered a part of real life. I hate when people say this and I hate myself for saying it, but I have to say it: we as Black people (cringe) are never supposed to accept that. However, I will never accept the types of reasoning some have expressed regarding such horrible situations:

Naw. The notion that who a young Black man is, what he is doing, or what he is wearing is somehow in direct correlation to an increasing proclivity to shoot our kids is ignorant, shortsighted, and, quite frankly, some all around FUCK SHIT. We can be poetic or we can call it what it is. Some. Fuck. Shit. So the emergence of rap music, the absence of Martin and Malcolm, and, um, whatever other fuck shit people are trying to use is a valid reason Michael Brown got gunned down for leaving a QuikTrip? Did I read that right? What about the dozens of others? Same thing, huh?

That type of thinking is not relegated to weirdos in bow ties, either (please look this guy up on Twitter. @theonebmiller. Bow tie). The post-Trayvon crusaders called for everything from keeping Black kids out of hoodies to keeping that rap noise to a minimum whilst “being out here with these white folk”. Naw. I refuse to address an issue by suggesting how I can make myself “less Black”. All the J. Crew in the world isn’t going to keep a cop from filling me with enough lead to supply Sherman-Williams with enough paint to kill us all before they realized lead-filled paint would kill us all and run-on sentences are so cool when you make obscure references and it helps to quell my anger because people are stoopid sometimes and I purposefully spelled stupid wrong or whatever but get back to the topic, A.J. I’m not telling my son to take his hoodie off in the rain. I’m not lecturing him on going smack at white women. And I damn sure am not going to tell him to let some white man tell him his music is too loud.

I will tell my son to dress for the occasion. I don’t care what you wear on your way to 7-Eleven. I will tell him to be respectful of women and that he’ll probably look like an ass if he goes at any girl recklessly and that he deserves all the ridicule in the world because of it. And 28 year-old me would probably tell young Little Homey to ‘turn the music a level higher and return the Devil’s fire’, but then my father would look at me and I’d get scared and tell him to respect other people and to not be a douchebag and I love run-on sentences but whatever. Look, having your music too loud in your car is a pet peeve and pretty douchey, but not worth taking a life over. My son will not be raised to be scared to be himself. He will be raised to understand that there are injustices in this world, and that there will always be. I refuse to have him thinking that his actions- his innocuous actions- are the sole causes of conflict. Because groupthink on this issue will be veeeeeeery conflicted once another Black kid is shot down while wearing a suit.

While we’re at it, let me address this Ray Rice issue and Stephen A. Smith’s comments regarding said issue. Everybody should stop hitting everybody. Now shut the fuck up. Ok…bye.

A.J. Armstrong is sleep tho. That’s the new motion, right? He is also the creator of The Fly Hobo and His World of Oddities