When I was little, my dad was different. He had a scent that distinctly belonged to him - some sort of black ice car freshener with black and mild and cigars. Every time I was in the car with him, he would have his Reggae music blasting loud enough for people inside their houses a block away to hear. He would drop me and siblings off at school in his 80 or so blue Lincoln Town Car and all of our classmates would turn to the sound as we pulled up. He used to come home with random things he found on the corner of a street or sitting by the trash on the curb at someone's house.
He would tell us stories about his childhood - how he would take rims or tires off of cars, or build bikes from stuff he took out of junk yards, or how he was always in trouble at school. He told us how he used to walk from Delaware to Maryland, from his moms to grandparents.
But eventually something changed. It happened gradually, but looking back now he is not close to the same as he was when me and my siblings were little. He stopped smoking in front of us, got a more normal car with his music turned down, started listening to pop on the radio, no longer asked us to bring him beers on the couch because we shouldn't even touch them. Then eventually he would pawn his Xbox and get rid of his rims which he used to love.
Eventually, I asked my dad about this, why things were changing like they were. A part of me figured it was because of our financial state, where we fell on the poverty line. But my dad's response was that it was "safer". No longer having his "drug dealer" car made him less likely to get profiled and pulled over. The music down drew less attention to him. Little things like that to stay "safe". He told us that we should "embrace our white side" - always claim to be white on government forms that ask for race (because most used to not have a "two or more option").
Part of this didn't sit right with me. Not that all of the changes were bad, but how could something that had been a part of my childhood my whole life suddenly be "harder"? Especially because we've visited my dad's family once - and it was one of the few times I've seen him genuinely smile. Being back with his family in Delaware, with the community he grew up in made him light up. I was around six at the time but will never forget how in his element he looked. So how could something that made my dad so happy, like genuinely happy - a part of him and a part of me - be so dangerous?
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