Afterward, we sat around stewing in our anger. Collectively we were a doctor, a filmmaker, an executive vice president at a health care company and a writer. All of us are in our late 30s. Our places in life no longer allowed for barroom brawls. We may well have had the numbers, but we also had our new and invented selves.

For black men like us, the feeling of having something to lose, beyond honor and face, is foreign. We grew up in communities — New York, Baltimore, Chicago — where the Code of the Streets was the first code we learned. Respect and reputation are everything there. These values are often denigrated by people who have never been punched in the face. But when you live around violence there is no opting out. A reputation for meeting violence with violence is a shield. That protection increases when you are part of a crew with that same mind-set. This is obviously not a public health solution, but within its context, the Code is logical.

Outside of its context, the Code is ridiculous. Some years ago, I attended a reading by a black male author. There was a large crowd who’d come to hear him. A rowdy group in the back refused to give him their attention. He asked for it, quite nicely, a few times, but they paid him no heed. I could see the anger rising in his face, as the old laws worked on him. He was being disrespected. Again. Finally the author said loudly and menacingly, “Don’t let the suit fool you.” But it was the streets that had fooled him. Most tough guys don’t live long enough for memoirs.

Outside of its context, the Code is suicidal. The violence committed by and against black men — regardless of class — is not weighed like the violence of other males. In America, the presence of melanin itself is too often a mark of criminality. I like to think that I’ve built myself up into something. I’m a writer. I’ve won some awards. I live in a nice neighborhood in New York. If I shaved more often, I might actually qualify for my local chapter of the black bourgeoisie. But had we gotten into a fight that night, every one of us knew how the police would have seen us, and what they would have done. Violence is wrong. Violence done by black men is more wrong.