Look Out For The Railroad Tracks

“Look out for the railroad tracks!”

That was the standard refrain from our parents as we left the house growing up as teenagers driving cars. Not the usual bit of parental advice one expects to hear, but we heard it. All the time. It wasn’t for no reason, though, Actually, it was for a very good reason. See, the little rural town of 6,000 in which I grew up in Alexandria, Indiana, had two sets of active train tracks that criss crossed our sleepy little burg. Getting anywhere required the crossing of at least one, sometimes two set of tracks along the way. There was absolutely no way to avoid them.

Every couple of years, there would come the inevitable news that some unlucky Alexandrian had lost their focus for a split second, long enough to enter the train crossing without realizing a train was bearing down on them. I know, it seems impossible that a train could sneak up on you like that, but they can. Especially when crossing those tracks was no longer a special occurrence, but had become a part of the mundane scenery, like white noise. Most days you’d cross those tracks, feeling the familiar “bumb bump” as you went over, and not give them a second thought. You even became familiar with which tracks were “smoother” and which you had to cross at a slower speed. It was all built in to the equation of living in Alexandria.

But, occasionally, the equation didn’t add up, and someone lost their life. Not because the people of Alexandria were fundamentally flawed drivers. We didn’t have exceptionally short attention spans. We weren’t prone to making more mistakes behind the wheel than anyone else. We were just people driving their cars, going about their day.

Except for the train tracks. We couldn’t avoid the train tracks.

Need some milk from the grocery story? You’ll cross a track going there and a track coming back. Driving to school in the morning? Gotta cross the tracks. That drive to work every day? Two tracks, each way, for you.

We weren’t bad drivers. We just had more tracks to navigate. It was a numbers game.

When our parents said “Look out for the railroad tracks!” as we walked out the door, they weren’t saying it to be cute (though, sometimes it was). They were dead serious because our town was rife with train tracks. Because they knew, through no fault of our own, that we would be presented with more obstacles than most. Dangerous, deadly, built in obstacles. Obstacles that only needed a split second to win. One bad decision. A momentary lapse of judgement.

And the punishment was swift and final.

For others, in other cities, there’s another fear that prompts parents to warn their children of the obstacles they will face. Parents of African-American children are perpetually worried that their children will face their own set of train tracks as they encounter the world. Tracks in the form of racism, societal prejudice, unfair treatment from law enforcement, being targeted by those who are offended by their mere presence. 

Every day a child of color leaves their home, there’s a substantiated fear they will run across someone who will single them out because of their skin color, that they will be pulled over for no reason and harrassed by the cops, that they will be followed in a department store as they shop, that they won’t be considered for a job. These are the types of train tracks THEY face on a daily basis.

What if, when faced with one of these built in, societal obstacles, the African-American child loses focus for a split second? What if they make a bad decision in the midst of being targeted? What if they have a momentary lapse of judgement?

They, too, can face a punishment that is swift and final.

They are, through no fault of their own, presented with more obstacles than most. Dangerous, deadly, built in obstacles.

Do we blame them for sometimes reacting less than perfectly to those perpetual “train tracks”? Or, do we place unreasonable expectations on this particular group of our citizens, expectations we ignore when mourning the loss of someone who loses their life to a train?

For those of us who grew up with those train tracks, we knew there was a distinct possibility that we could fall victim to a momentary lapse of judgement and end up in the path of an oncoming train. The threat was real. We crossed those tracks every day.

The same is true for those with other train tracks to cross in their daily lives. Tracks that I, as a white guy, never have to encounter. But, these tracks they face are just as real, just as dangerous, just as deadly as those steel train tracks making their way through my hometown.