Two years ago, while on a hospital gurney, my mother told me that she had to be cynical to be Black and survive in this country. With scent of antiseptic wafting in the air and alarms blaring out codes and directions, she took the hectic moment to explain that there was a part of you — or her, anyway — that would always want to feel safe here but expect to be disappointed. You would love to trust the law, even as the regularity of police brutality built up your reasons not to. And that someday you’d find a health...