There was a moment in church that still sits heavy with me. My Black male cousin was asked to stand up in front of everyone because he didn’t have a pencil. A pencil. Something so small, so ordinary, so human. But in that moment, it didn’t feel like the issue was stationery—it felt like assumption.

Because he was a young Black boy, the energy in the room shifted. The unspoken message was clear: trouble is expected from you. Not curiosity. Not grace. Not understanding. Just suspicion.

What hurt most wasn’t just that he was corrected—it was how he was corrected. Publicly. On display. Singled out. In a space that is supposed to model love, patience, and mercy. Churches are meant to be places of refuge, not places where stereotypes get dressed up as discipline.

This is how racial profiling often shows up—not in loud, obvious ways, but in quiet moments that feel “small” to others and deeply heavy to those who live them. A missing pencil becomes a character judgment. A child becomes a stereotype instead of a soul.

And for young Black boys, these moments stack. They learn early that even in holy spaces, they may be watched more closely, corrected more harshly, and given less room to simply be children.

Accountability and guidance are important. But there is a difference between teaching and targeting. Between correction and public shaming. One builds character. The other plants a seed of mistrust and shame.

I believe faith spaces should be leading the way in showing what true equity looks like—where grace is not selective, where compassion isn’t filtered through skin tone, and where every child is seen first as a child, not a problem waiting to happen.

Because sometimes, it’s never really about the pencil. It’s about the projection placed on the person holding—or not holding—it.