For the first time since your untimely passing last year, I am actually glad that you are not here. You are so very truly blessed not to have to be here to witness the rekindling of racial prejudice and tensions for no apparent reason other than political gain.
I thank God that I did not raise you that way. From your youngest days I did all I could do to instill in you the importance of education and working hard to achieve your goals in life.
The thing is – you believed me. All the talks about working hard and studying and focusing on your future while choosing to stay positive and not allowing anyone or anything to stand in the way of your dreams paid off. You lived your life as a testimony to these things and never once rested on laurels or even exhibited the understanding that that was something that you would even know how to do if you could.
I realized this at first when you breezed through your first two and half years of high school. Passing your regents exams with flying colors and nailing your SATS in your sophomore year with a 1350 on your first try. This all while maintaining an A average that went back as far as the beginning of Junior High School.
I was reminded again when the college acceptance letters started to come in from, Temple, Howard, New York Technical College, and eventually Drexel which is what you dreamed about and geared yourself towards.
Not once during that time or even during the days to come when that ugly word – cancer would enter into our lives did you give up on your hopes and dreams for the future. It was almost as if it never occurred to you that you couldn’t be or do whatever you wanted to and that no matter what life brought your way you would handle it and just keep Moving.
We never spoke about your limitations. We never talked about what you couldn’t do. We never ever blamed or placed blame on any outside forces with regards to yoru ability to achieve and meet the goals that you set for yourself.
No one ever told you that you got to where you were because of your race or your ethnicity. Everyone who came into contact with you knew right away that you were an extremely intelligent, funny, and genuinely compassionate human being.
When I heard the comments made by Mrs. Ferraro I knew them right away for what they were. No political analysts, nor Media pundits, nor anyone, in fact, who has not lived and experienced racism first hand can say what constitutes racism. If you have not lived it and don’t know what we all know and have to live through in our neighborhoods, at work, and at school – you are no expert and are uniquely unqualified to pontificate on what statements are racist and which aren’t.
To see the events in the past few days and feel my heart grow heavy with the realization that a human being was sitting by and allowing the voices of intolerance and racial ignorance to set the tone for what is turning out to be a fork in the road in this nation’s history has both angered and saddened me greatly. It has however, also made me so abundantly happy that you my son, a black male, from a single parent household defied all of the odds and refuted all of those voices of ignorance and believing in the concept of hard work and diligent effort paying off went on to:
• Be featured in a documentary about the NYC Subway System – NYC Underground
• Graduate as valedictorian of your High School Class (this after being diagnosed with cancer) – you can read more about Dante Here
• Be named an A.J. Drexel Scholar and received a major academic scholarship to pursue a degree in civil engineering at one of the leading Universities in this country.
Its best been said by those who knew him – these are their words
Dante's Inferno
In Their Own Words