“I think it’s a nice gesture, but I think that it’s more important to see what the city does in terms of actions, policies that have an impact on people’s every day lives,” says Tamika La Salle, an associate professor at the Neag School of Education.

I knew what it meant to be a Black man in America well before I was a parent, before I found out that shoveling my own driveway involves risk, that buying a house brings the potential of lowering property values, that signing up my kids for an education involves countering forces that erode their self-esteem — when schools are still largely segregated and security officers are summoned disproportionately to deal with Black students. But knowing these things now, how can I leave all that at the door?