Local News

A dad wrote an open letter to a neighbor who complained about his Black Lives Matter sign

“I wish I could tell you why this sign means so much to my family,’’ he wrote.

By Kristi Palma @kristipalma

October 30, 2015

2 minutes to read

The New England father of an 8 year-old African-American girl wrote an open letter to his neighbor after the “Black Lives Matter’’ sign he posted on his lawn drew an anonymous complaint.

The Asian dad is married to a white man and together they are raising an African-American daughter and Hispanic son.

Here is the sign, which he also posted to his Twitter account:

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“I wish I could talk to you face-to-face,’’ he wrote on his blog, Confessions of a Pseudo-Gaysian Suburban Dad, where he writes about gender, race, parenting, and theater. “I wish I could tell you why this sign means so much to my family.’’

He posted the sign two weeks ago and last week discovered a letter on his door from the building commissioner, stating an anonymous complaint about the sign was made through an attorney.

After speaking with the town, he said he realized that his sign technically violated zoning bylaws. But, according to the dad, his sign isn’t the only one in violation. He wrote the following:

I can’t help but notice the other signs that are also clearly out of compliance: signs touting an open house at one of the expensive private schools in our town or the latest incentives to go solar. I wonder if those signs are prompting you to call your attorney and file another anonymous complaint.

The dad went on to say that in a few years his son, who has a “full head of kinky hair’’ and likes to wear baggy basketball clothes and hooded sweatshirts, will “look a lot like Trayvon Martin’’ when he walks down the street. And his daughter “might grow into the 14-year-old black girl that an overzealous police officer threw to the ground before drawing his gun last June in McKinney, Texas.’’

The dad said he has no plans to take the sign down, though he will make sure he follows the zoning laws.

Wrote the dad:

[W]e wanted to prove to our children — and by extension our neighbors, including you — that equality is something that matters to us. It’s not enough to just expect equality, and sometimes it’s not even enough just to work for it. We need to demand it.

The dad writes, in the letter, that he lives up the street from Thoreau Elementary. He ended the letter by telling the neighbor he’s available to talk anytime.