Jogging While Black
By: Shu Wilson
Tags: African American, Police Brutality, Black Lives Mater, Jogging, Introvert

December 10, 2020

Covid-19 has had an impact on all of our lives. Being an introvert, death and economic devastation notwithstanding, it has been great for me. I now have a reason for not going out with a loved one. “I would, but Covid” has been one of my favorite phrases during the past ten months and instead of the usual auditory eye roll that I would get from my more gregarious compatriots, I get an “Oh. Yeah. You’re right.”

But as much as I’ve been enjoying having a legitimate reason for not leaving the house other than to venture to the local grocery store for sustenance or a department store for toiletries, I have experienced one of the few drawbacks from the quarantine: not being able to go to the gym. Yes. As introverted as I am, one of the few things I actually enjoy is going to the gym. Something that I did pre-Covid 4–6 times a week. I’ve had my gym jaunts sporadically for most of my life. My mother was grandfathered into a 24-Hour Fitness special since I was 12 so I’ve been going to the establishment at a fraction of the cost for most of my life.

Upon approaching my thirties, I realized that I was morbidly obese. Through diet and a LOT of exercise, I reduced that to just regular obese. I made it a point during my weight loss journey to go the gym frequently because I abhor doing any exercise outdoors and would rather drive 20 minutes to walk/jog 2 miles on a treadmill than to walk/jog the same 2 miles around my neighborhood. But now that all convenient 24-Hour Fitness locations are closed due to the pandemic I now had to do my exercise regimen at home and this meant venturing the concrete jungle of my neighborhood instead of the climate-controlled, water fountain-a-plenty sanctuary of my gym. And therein lied my dilemma.

If you couldn’t tell by the title, I’m black. A 6’3”, 300+ pound, dark-skinned African American male who is very nice, kind, and courteous but doesn’t like to smile. I’ve been told that I have the male equivalent of RBF. These are the facts about myself that I’m consciously and subconsciously aware of every time I leave the home.

2020 and particularly the murder of George Floyd has placed a beaming spotlight on police/black relations in this country. It’s very disheartening that it took the planet to come to a standstill and one of the most horrific moments ever captured on a smartphone to have some real significant dialog on the subject, but such is America.

Like any significant effort to spark significant change, there were those who prefer the status-quo trying to stop it.

All the MAGA-hatted, anti-BLM, counter-protestors in New York comes to mind.

On the surface, this was nothing I haven’t seen before. Some cop is filmed killing an unarmed black person, people protest, the cop is put on administrative leave, and depending on the fervor of the case. The officer is either cleared of any wrongdoing or indicted, tried, and then cleared of any wrongdoing. A process that dates back to Rodney King.

But this time seemed different. In good and bad ways.

The good: for the first time the entire nation, for the most part, agreed that what Officer Chauvin did was reprehensible, and we saw actual police reform in some police systems across the country.

The bad: officers were on high alert and in defense mode. And when already skittish cops are more skittish it’s usually not good.

Like the rather disturbing press conference by NYPD Union Head Mike O’Meara where he lamented to the nation how upset he was at the terrible treatment of the police by society. Where he pleaded to “Stop treating us like animals!” This was said by a member of a police department that implemented stop-and-frisk. An ineffective policing tactic that almost only affected black and brown people and temporally suspended their civil rights. Also, the confirmed stories of federal agents kidnapping protestors in unmarked rental vehicles in Portland and detaining them without charging them. And let’s not forget poor Stacy Talbert of the McIntosh County Georgia Sheriff’s department who was so afraid of the treatment of police by the public that when an order took too long from the restaurant with glorious golden arches, that she fled the drive-through without her Egg McMuffin because she feared it had been tampered with and made a tear-soaked, viral video of her weeping and telling the world the “[she] hurt, too.”

Taking all of this account made my 6’3”, 300+ pound, dark-skinned African American, smile averting self, think twice about just going for a jog in my rather diverse, but still mostly older white, area of the Inland Empire.

But during the first few months of the quarantine I, like most of us, put on weight. And I didn’t want Covid circumstances to get the best of me. So, I did what all black men do in this country, I did a personal checklist to mitigate the chances of a deadly encounter with the police if or when I was stopped by one.

Trying to find a funny picture for the article I was shown multiple images Ahmaud Arbery. A black man killed while jogging by a group of white men in Georgia earlier this year.

Around this time, it had begun to heat up in Southern California, so I had a dressed-down look. Good, I thought to myself. No need to wear a hoody so I’ll wear a tank top and shorts so my entire form would be visible. I’m a rather distinct individual so there shouldn’t be any discrepancies if some other African American man commits a crime, or just looks suspicious in my general area.

I would need to bring my inhaler (asthmatic), my phone and earbuds, no need for keys thanks to smart home technology but the last few things that I usually keep on my person is where the genesis of this article comes from.

Due to the pandemic a face covering has been an everyday essential for most people on this planet and even though I would be exercising outside many of my neighbors had also put on quarantine weight so there were a fair number of people out during my exercise time due to it being the coolest part of the day. So of course, I was going to wear it while exercising but I remembered some videos I’ve seen of black men being escorted out of stores or being temporally being detained by police because they were wearing a face mask, during covid. So, this thought crossed my mind. But being asthmatic I decided I’d take the risk.

But a large black man, who doesn’t have the shape of a runner, running in the morning with a mask on amid mostly white people running as well gave me pause.

The next thing I usually have on me is my wallet, particularly my ID. There was no need for me to have it because I didn’t plan on buying anything on my jog since there aren’t any stores in the area and if I did need to buy something, I could just use Apple Pay. But the ID is what worried me.

The shorts that I wear don’t have deep pockets. That’s not usually a problem for me because I run with my phone in my hand and my inhaler stuffed in my socks, so I don’t have to worry about it falling out of my pocket. I looked up to see if it was mandatory for Californians to have a form of identification on them at all times and the state doesn’t have a “Stop and Identify” law. So legally I was covered but when has a law or absence of one stopped the police.

We’ve seen the scores of cases of African Americans being arrested for usually, non-arrestable offenses. Just this June in Tulsa two black teens were violently arrested for jaywalking. There is a chance I may unknowingly jaywalk on my jogging route so even though I’m not legally required to have my ID on me there’s a chance I could be detained for jaywalking or maybe I “fit the description” of a serial jaywalker in the area and since I have no identification me I can be detained by the police for a significant amount of time because they have to be thorough when ridding the streets of the menacing black jaywalkers. Or maybe they have a ticket quota to meet and like it’s been pointed out by former NYPD Sergeant Edwin Raymond and in the state of Missouri, police departments have always over ticketed the black community. They have used us as cash cows to supplement their budget. They do so by targeting middle and lower-class areas because it is less likely that they can afford to fight the ticket.

But also due to my running attire, I don’t have a place on my person to securely have it and not lose it. I could put it in my sock along with my inhaler, but I’m reminded of Levar Jones, a black man who was shot by an S. Carolina state trooper for getting his license because the trooper thought he was getting a gun. So, if I happen to get detained by the police and they ask for ID I would have to reach down near the inhaler bulge in my sock to get my ID. My inhaler is about 3 inches long and not shaped like a gun but who knows what a cop might think. Stephon Clark was shot and killed in his backyard in 2018 because police mistook the phone in his hand to be a gun, so it’s possible that they could mistake my inhaler for an old western-style derringer and open fire on me.

The last thing that I usually keep on me is a safety knife. A safety knife is a knife with a glass breaker and seat belt cutter in it. I have been in a few car accidents that I have been lucky to walk away from mostly uninjured, but this is something that would have been useful in those accidents rather than me relying on the kindness of strangers to extricate me from any wreckage. So, it’s something that I’ve come to have on me at all times. I never intend to use it necessarily for self-defense. I mostly use it to open boxes or pry something open. When I began carrying it a made sure to read every knife law in California and the knife and my style of carrying was completely legal, but we’ve seen what can happen to a law-abiding black man when carrying a completely legal weapon on him.

And these were the thoughts that I had.

At 5:55 am.

Getting dressed.

To go on a 20-minute jog.

As a black man in America.

It’s a thought string I’d had so many times that I was surprised that I was surprised by it. It’s second nature for back men in this country.

I was taught this way of thinking at a very young age. I’ve always been tall and big for my age. So, when I was 10 my father sat me down and told me how to deal with authorities, not just law enforcement. My father, being a large person himself, has been a victim of “Law and Order.” He told me that since I will more than likely be “the biggest nigga in the room”, that an authority figure would try set the tone by subduing me. If I’m the person causing a disturbance or not. It’s a tactic that’s been adopted by people in jail. On you first day in, you find the biggest person on the yard and knock him out. We all have heard that in some old prison movie, but my father lived it, and so have I (another story for another time). But even my smaller, melanated associates have received a similar warning from their parents.

I never thought about the facts of life extra chapter that black parents have to read to their children.

It’s second nature.

It’s almost evolutionary for the black community.

I often think about the hilariously funny joke by D.L. Hughley in where he anecdotes about the lack of black people in extreme sports. His reasoning being that being a black person in America is an extreme sport on to itself (explaining comedy takes the comedy out of it, forgive me D.L.). Watching that I laughed. Hard. Because the funniest jokes have a degree of truth in them.

And that’s how a lot of black Americans feel. So, what is an overweight black man who can’t go to the gym, due to a global pandemic but has to begrudgingly exercise outdoors, do?

Should I wear a mask but make sure to take it off when I’m near another person or a cop so that he or she can see my face to know I’m not a fleeing criminal? Just some fat dude trying to lose weight.

Should I buy some workout shorts with deeper pockets so I can keep my license on my person without fear of losing it, but I would have to reach in my pocket on the off chance I’m detained by the police? But that brings that danger of reaching for my identification and we all know how dangerous that can be. Maybe I should engineer some special shorts for African Americans with a transparent, license sized velcro pouch so that the police can see that is what I’m reaching for. Hopefully, that could work.

Should I just leave my trusty, legally owned, knife at home? I do feel a little better carrying it being someone running at dawn in areas where there aren’t other people at times but I also like not giving police officers a reason to shoot me because I have a, albeit legal, weapon on me.

I don’t know.

These are just the thoughts of a 6’3”, 300+ pound, dark-skinned, African American male who doesn’t like to smile, at 5:55 am, getting dressed to go jogging in 2020 America.