In Baltimore, some nights, on some strips, even the the shortest walk can seem eternal. I make my way to a friend’s birthday, eager yet freezing. From around the corner, a throng of young brothers materializes like baddies in a 16-bit video game, and my thought-plane is tilted on its axis. I’m no longer thinking about how dick-chillingly cold it is, or how pumped I am to see old friends for the first time in a while.

I’m thinking about whether I should cross the street. Then, seeing that construction has the entire opposite side of the street blocked off, I hate myself for even considering lunging into traffic to “escape the horde.”

The kids (and by now I’m close enough to see that they are in fact just kids) draw closer, and I comfort myself with the thought of Dave Chappelle’s bit about how he crosses the street when he sees a group of black males approaching, co-signing on my self-loathing bullshit.

More than anything else, as much as I’d rather not, I think of the recent Medium piece by fellow Baltimorean Tracey Halvorsen, wherein her frustrations with rampant violent crime in the city, sadly, often perpetrated by Black youths, come off as little more than White Fright, post-American self-centeredness, and diffusion of responsibility run amok.

Why do I feel this way? Tangled up, on fire. Is it because there have indeed been attacks, murders even, in scenarios not unlike this one? Is it my father’s distant yet constant reminder that if I look like a victim, I become a victim — that “V” word pinging around in my head like a ricocheted slug.

Before I know it, I’m walking directly through the crowd, chest out, in full Tupac Terminator mode, stride steady, with sharp eyes and measured breathing. Finally able to cross the street, I keep them in my peripheral. My desire to not end up a statistic outweighs my desire to be fair.

But in the day that follows, looking back, I was more Schwarzeneggeresque than I originally estimated. Cold, calculating, not so much fearless as heartless. That night before on Franklin St., I wasn’t thinking about whether those boys were as afraid of me as I approached, or that they were all some mama’s baby. I am reminded, sourly, like a sudden swish of bile in the mouth, that on nights like this, for all too many, I am what I fear.

Languishing in the bleak places my mind can drift in these strange times, navigating a world that sometimes seems only tolerant of me as a man, never quite welcoming me at all times, in all places, I consider the expectations of me held by society at large. I start to think about what kind of beautifully fucked up luxuries I’ve been afforded by the color of my skin.

Surely, “black privilege” has been bandied about by conservative blowhards and by the very possessors of the totem alike, a dubious toolkit to be wielded at one’s own peril. But what exactly does that mean for me, in an age of Stand Your Ground, Three Strikes and Stop-and-frisk?

Am I left to think that whereas my white counterparts are asked to check their privilege, constructs that lend to ease of access and security of being in a broad array of life’s circumstances and challenges, I am forced to be OK with the fact my white neighbor’s guest damn near jumped out of her skin when I emerged unexpectedly through our courtyard gate, cuz ya know?

A mind too often made cynical, hateful even, by sporadic, yet highly publicized recent, fear-fueled killings of black youths not much unlike me by errant, poisoned souls will tell me over and over again that my privilege is that I am seen by many in the world who don’t look like me as a threat, as something to be legitimately feared. Thus, I’d best check myself before I wreck myself. Or rather, before someone else wrecks me.

As a kid, when I’d become aware of what I perceived as fear of my unforgivable blackness, I felt the unmistakable sting of otherness. To cope, I reconfigured that pain. “Yes, this shit could be advantageous,” thought punk-ass, teenage, lunch-money-seeking me. Yet maturing, understanding the depths of this sinister game of fear, the child’s play ceased.

The ugliest facet of my psyche will tell me that my privilege is that I do have the right to remain silent, long before any cuffs are slapped on, because if I don’t keep my mouth shut, on the wrong day, this cop hassling me over expired registration stickers could be the one who ends my shit. It tells me that I have the luxury of being more than six times more likely to be locked up than my fairer-skinned brethren, and that I’d best thank my lucky stars for that.

It tells me that now, I have the dumb luck of being able to count cops and the Michael Dunns and George Zimmermans of the world among those who plug holes in my chest, for anything from playing my music too loudly to asking for help in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the system, to boot, may very well see to it that my killer does not experience the fullest extent of justice in the wake of my death.

At the other end of the peanut gallery, the bellicose conservative mouthpiece will scream from the hilltops (as long as there’s an audience and ad revenue involved) that my black privilege can be seen every day in the admissions processes of our nation’s colleges and universities, or in the tooth-and-nail grind of the still-testy job market.

Lil’ Limbaugh will argue that my ability to “play the race card” is an unfair advantage, a dirty trick in this “post-racial” America someone keeps squawking about. America’s Sweetheart also asserts that I’m privileged to have an entire month during which to celebrate my history (“They oughtta change Black History Month to Black Progress Month and start measuring it”). So what do I even have to complain about?

And I’d be amiss to forget everyone’s favorite (well maybe not everyone’s) benign stereotype, more kudo than slight, that brothers are slangin’ more weight downstairs. But what good is anecdotal anatomical science with a gun drawn on me because I stumbled into the wrong corner of the suburbs at twilight?

Black privilege can’t just be about how cool it is that so many, for so long have wanted to emulate black style or creative expression. Additionally, black privilege is also not the right of the oppressed to stoop to the chicanery, hatred or fear-mongering of the oppressor.

Furthermore, I cannot accept the Nixonian notion that we were “gifted” with athletic ability, so why complain about being prey to poverty, higher incarceration rates, and the disintegration of our familial structure? In the minds of deluded individuals of all colors, my privilege can be seen in the recording studio or the playing field, and like Daryl and John, I can’t go for that.

“… when you get to some of the more shall we say profound, rigid disciplines, basically, they have a hell of a time makin’ it. … In terms of good lawyers, even though a lot of them go to law schools, I mean, it is not really their dish of tea.” — Richard M. Nixon

In the face of the failed justice seen in the George Zimmerman and Michael Dunn trials, it becomes clearer to me what exactly black privilege is. For me, my privilege is a resiliency, a mental toughness whose bedrock was laid down centuries ago by ancestors who lived more hell in twenty-four hours than I will in a lifetime.

Through the cascading pain and injustice dealt us, and through all the shit we’ve put ourselves through worshiping false idols in innumerate forms and complexions, we have built a spiritual fortitude that must be tapped into to not only survive, but to thrive. It is an unshakeable pride in one’s self, one that must be rediscovered on a daily basis most times. And for many of us, it is a knowledge of “both” worlds, rather than just insulated comfort in our own.

This is not so much an assertion of supremacy as it is an appeal. And not just an appeal to black folks, but to the entire motherfucking human family. I cannot bring myself to pardon the kingdom of fear and hate that leads to the death of a kid like Jordan Davis. And I cannot profess to facing the violence and persecution that my forebears lived, fought and died under the yoke of (although there has been plenty of shit that’s been rolled my way that makes me say hmmm).

What I can fathom is that an infusion of love and understanding will make arguments for privilege of any sort obsolete. For me, playing the tape back on Jordan Davis’s death, thinking of all the close calls with cops and fear-stricken suburbanites alike, a message of love is not hippie bullshit. It’s what’s necessary.