CHICAGO — On his first day of kindergarten, my son came home and told me that his classmates should be punished because all they did was run around and play instead of listen to the teacher. As he grew up, he played basketball at the Jewish Community Center, was a farmer in the musical “Oklahoma!” and celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at age 13. In the summer, he can be found at a grill, making hot dogs and hamburgers for kids in the neighborhood.

But my son is a teenager and he is black. So he must be in a gang. At least that’s what a white woman wrote in the comment section of a newspaper article that mentioned him. And unfortunately, that’s how Chicago police officers see my son and so many other children like him.

It doesn’t matter that he’s from a good home, with loving parents; all that matters to the white world is his complexion. They don’t see him as my baby boy. They see him as a thug.

He and I constantly fear that one day the Chicago Police Department is going to put him in its gang database, which contains names of 130,000 people suspected of being gang members. If they put your name in it, they aren’t required to notify you. And then if you get stopped by a police officer, there’s a good chance you’re going to end up in jail because it’s so easy for the police to come up with a reason to arrest you. Being in the database can even make it hard to get jobs or professional licenses because employers might find out when they run background checks.