I am a Black Cop's Kid
An excerpt from my new article about growing up with a Black cop for a father.
Please attribute any references of this article to Kareem.substack.com
I recently wrote an in-depth article for Amazon about the trials and tribulations of growing up in the Sixties and Seventies with a Black cop for a father and how that influenced the man I was to become, both as an athlete and as an activist. The following excerpt gives you some insight into what it was like for me as a child in New York City during the most violent civil rights unrest in U.S. history. My father’s badge was both a moral compass and a burdening weight. And that, as Robert Frost says, has made all the difference.
“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”
—Frederick Douglass
For fifty years I’ve been both defending and criticizing the police. I’ve criticized them when their actions reflected the violent systemic racism that resulted in the deaths of unarmed minorities. I’ve defended them when their good works were overlooked. I especially didn’t want all cops lumped together as a monolithic hive-mind, the way so many have done with marginalized people in this country. They, too, have a voice that needs to be heard. This precarious tightrope act has resulted in venomous backlash from both sides. I’ve been accused of being both a Black anti-cop agitator and an apologist for racist police violence. My ability to see both sides isn’t the result of trying to please both sides; my perspective is the result of having been raised by a Black police officer in New York City during the most tumultuous civil rights upheaval the country has ever been through and of the effect both those influences had on me throughout my life.
My father—Lieutenant Ferdinand Alcindor of the NYPD—was a transit cop working out of the 145th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue station who patrolled the subways, trains, and platforms to keep people safe. He was dedicated to serving all the people of New York City. But he was also committed to being a role model in the Black community, to being seen as someone who recognized the inequities of being Black and who silently bore that burden with dignity and purpose. Many of the principles I hold dearest about justice and activism are the result of his noble example, even though he definitely wouldn’t agree with all my public political stances or the steps I took to promote them. He didn’t support my boycott of the 1968 Olympic basketball team or my participation in the Cleveland Summit, nor would he have endorsed my criticisms of the police after the murders of Michael Brown, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor or my enthusiastic agreement with the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. But he certainly would have agreed with my desire to serve my community. This is the story of how my father’s role as a Black cop gave me a unique perspective on the front lines of activism, how it inspired me to action, and how it shaped the form that action would take. Not just as a Black activist, but as a student, an athlete, a writer, a man, and an American.
This is a reader-supported newsletter. Both free and paid subscriptions are available. The best way to join the community and support my work is by taking out a paid subscription.
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” —Desmond Tutu