Trayvon Martin case: How 5 young black men see race and justice in US

The Monitor approached, at random, five young black men in Boston, Los Angeles, Coral Gables, Fla., and Louisville, Ky., and asked them to talk about the Trayvon Martin case, race relations, hoodies, and, of course, their own life experiences. Here's what they had to say.

Lheadry Powell, 25, teacher and coach, Los Angeles and Pomona, Calif.

Daniel B. Wood/The Christian Science Monitor
‘I don’t think that [Obama’s election] has done anything to improve the situation, but at least it’s not worse.’ – Lheadry Powell on race relations and President Obama’s election.

Lheadry Powell knows what it feels like to be under suspicion, whether he's in his own neighborhood in L.A.'s gang-ridden Watts or 45 miles inland in the college town of Pomona, where he teaches troubled high-schoolers for the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

"You name it … walking, in stores, in my car, in malls, getting ice cream," says Mr. Powell, who grew up in Compton, Calif., and now also coaches high school football. "I'm always being racially profiled – by the police or women on the street who give me looks and clutch their purses tighter when they see me coming."

He says police pull him over four or five times a month on average, for "driving while black." Officers "go through my trunk, my glove compartment, look under and behind the seats," he says.

Powell says his parents, like many parents of black boys, gave him the "talk" when he was growing up: how to dress, walk, act, and speak in situations from shopping in stores to being stopped by police.

"They said to be polite. Look people straight in the eyes. Tell them exactly what they want to hear without attitude. Always carry items out of the store in a bag."

To this day, Powell says, he tries to follow all their advice.

– Daniel B. Wood, staff writer

2 of 6

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.