The Road Rarely Taken

A retired cop turned poet challenges black men to stand up for their community.

by Brian Hickey

Ron Stokes memorializes important dates on his kitchen-wall calendar. This month, the 22nd holds special prominence. "Faheem Thomas-Childs would have turned 14 today," it reads.

"Would have" is the operative phrase. Faheem didn't live to see 11 thanks to the crossfire bullets that struck him while he committed the mortal sin of walking to T.M. Peirce Elementary the morning of Feb. 11, 2004. Stokes never met Faheem. But, like it was supposed to do to every last one of us, the unfathomably senseless murder of an innocent child made him cry for change, yearn for a time when people took accountability and worry for the future.

To explain why, Stokes points to the side of his refrigerator. There are images of one child as a newborn, toddler, preteen and smiling 14-year-old who still has the world in front of him. They're of a teenager now living just across the Betsy Ross Bridge, a good student whose dreams of playing college basketball aren't far-fetched.

"Look at those pictures of my grandson. Looks just like Faheem," says the 59-year-old retired cop. "Faheem Thomas-Childs is what changed me."

He'd spent 27 years on North Philly streets making friends (with the community who he says embraced a cop who'd rather connect than cuff) and enemies (with fellow officers who thought he should cuff rather than connect). But when it comes to that job, it was actually the 1998 heart attack that changed the affable, thrice-married Stokes' daily regimen.

Having worked in the 39th District for two dozen years, he toiled alongside the players in a corruption scandal that saw rogue officers sully an entire force's reputation. That sickened him, too. The health woes brought retirement, but seeing TV footage of two cops crying on the curb outside Temple University Hospital after trying to save Faheem six years later, drove him right to a typewriter.

"To those who killed Faheem," his missive started. "Tell your story, bear your shame, accept your fate. You still have something you've denied Faheem ... a chance to be a man."

Then, the retired cop headed to a church at 21st and Lehigh, where police and school officials were hosting a community meeting. There was a microphone for the audience to offer comments, so Stokes vented.

"It's time to stop all the 'black, Afro, we, us, ours' stuff. I thought we were making advances, but all you want to do is shut me out of your lives," he said that night, after leaving out fliers. "Everybody was screaming at me, telling me to go back to the Northeast, more offended by the message carrier than the killings. It got to the point that a couple of Muslims offered to walk me to my car so I could get home safely. Imagine that."

Yes, this man who dotes on his African-American grandson is white. It was difficult, but Ron Stokes internally deflected the collective taunts of racism that night. The message he wanted to share was too big to get lost amid knee-jerk name-calling.

Nearly four years later, that mission hasn't changed. Stokes says it's more important now than ever to be honest with ourselves. The murders are happening in black communities so it's up to the black community to face reality, stop blaming others and unite much like it did on Monday, when hundreds of fathers walked their children to school on "A Day of Male Responsibility."

Having channeled much of the passion into poetry, Stokes e-mailed a poem he'd written about this issue to me (see sidebar) after reading a piece about the Strawberry Mansion All-Star Baseball League [Cover Story, "It Takes a Neighborhood," Aug. 23, 2007]. Finally, he thought, an example of what needs to be done to stanch a wound that's now festering into a third generation that favors a "prison chic, no-snitching" ethos that's left a culture teetering on the edge.

But much like that day at the church, the writing could lead to calls of bigotry. Stokes still couldn't care less. It's his truth, and he wants you to hear it.

"I believe shame works, so let 'em cry racism. I'm out to save my grandson," he says. "Slavery wasn't stopped without a lot of white guys having to endure being called 'nigger lovers.' I want some black men to grow the balls to endure being called 'suspect' or 'Tom.'"

As we all should.

(hickey@citypaper.net)