When I was in my late twenties and decided to get back into boxing my mother panicked and said something in front of me to my step father, a former pro boxer; a squat creature by the name of ‘Stump’, “But he can’t box. Black men box. Nobody can hurt a black man!”

And so the myth of Black Superman had propagated through the lynchings of Jim Crow through to the irrational liberal sensibilities of my dear bleeding heart mother. Stump gave her the ‘It’s okay Baby’ wink and put his arm up over my shoulders and gave me the standard advice that Italian boxing trainers had given to Irish boxers before encountering their first black opponent since at least 1911, “Don’t even bother hitting the head, other than to bring their guard up. Crack that body. They don’t like taking it in the ribs. And step on the feet. Walk all over their feet! They have skinny shins. Scrape the shins while you walk all over their feet!”

Stump then patted me on the back and winked to my mother, “He’ll’’ be fine.”

Today, walking into a ghetto supermarket on my return to Harm City, I was reminded of this racist sentiment when I saw a mother and her brood leaving with their groceries. Mamma was pushing a cart full of food as her four children, from 12 down to 18 months, ranged out in front of her. The 18-month old was being cared for by the eldest child. As they neared the exit the mother said to the 12-year-old, “Set Little Man down.”

The 12-year-old set Little Man down.

Little Man [for no black male can ever be a ‘boy’ not even in the cradle] staggered—at only 18 months and still tottering along in his attempts to keep up with his elders—and crashed into an empty toddler-sized Nestle s’ refillable water bottle. His small head made a ‘gong’ sound on contact and Little Man began to cry.

The older brother looked up at his mother questioningly as if to ask if he should comfort Little Man.

Mamma looked at her eldest and proclaimed, in terms that Stump would have sagely agreed with, “Shit, let his ass be. He a nigga! Got dat hard nigga head!”

She looked up at me, smiled as if inviting me to breed my own race of warriors at her loins, and quipped , “You know it true Baby, da Lord made niggas with hard heads!”

If you say so Miss.

If I ever get the local UFC franchise perhaps I’ll retain you as the basis for my athlete development initiative.

James LaFond, 7:14 p.m., Sunday, September 28, 2014