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Big city mayors have to stay as neutral as possible when asked about disputes between their citizens and the police. But New York Mayor Bill de Blasio found his voice in a profoundly moving way when he responded not as a mayor, but as a parent.

His sentiments came out in a news conference and an ABC-TV interview after a grand jury decided not to indict a white police officer in the video-recorded choking death of Eric Garner, a black suspect in Staten Island.

The mayor, who is married to an African American woman, described his own warnings to his biracial son, Dante, about making any sudden or otherwise suspicious movements in an encounter with police.

"What parents have done for decades who have children of color, especially young men of color, is train them to be very careful when they have ... an encounter with a police officer," de Blasio said on ABC's "This Week."

Asked if he felt his son was at risk from his city's own police department, de Blasio responded: "It's different for a white child. That's just the reality in this country. And with Dante, very early on with my son, we said, 'Look, if a police officer stops you, do everything he tells you to do, don't move suddenly, don't reach for your cell phone,' because we knew, sadly, there's a greater chance it might be misinterpreted if it was a young man of color."

Although the mayor expressed "immense respect" for New York's Finest, police union officials fired back. The cops felt "thrown under the bus," said one.

But I appreciated de Blasio's remarks. We have something in common. We are both fathers of handsome young African-American males with conspicuous hair.

Dante's explosively huge Afro made headlines during his dad's campaign last year as a major asset, especially with young voters. My son has long dreadlocks, today's version of the big Afro and mutton-chop sideburns with which I upset my own parents. "Grandma's revenge," I call my kid's hairstyle.

I appreciated de Blasio's remarks because one does not often hear a prominent white official speak candidly about "the Talk," which is what many black parents call the painfully necessary conversation they have with their kids about how to behave if stopped by police.

The Talk has slipped into more widespread conversations with the recent wave of controversial police killings of black men and boys, some of which -- like Garner's -- were captured on video.

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(c) 2014 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.