Black Mothers’ Fear

People who know me best know I’m an empath, an optimist, an advocate and a writer. I’m passionate about fairness and equality and I live my life following the principals of love, truth, peace, freedom and justice. But most importantly I’m a mother; through and through. 

I have devoted my life to raising six amazing, talented, intelligent, kind and resourceful  Black children. I’m really no different than any other black mother. I love my children and would give my life for any one of them. But being the “glass half full” person that I am, I’ve struggled the past few weeks with processing the world as it truly is; the world I’m expected to raise these beautiful children in, one where on whim my babies could be taken from me without any ramification. I’m distraught and disheartened. 

In speaking to a privileged person this week I learned that some people believe that how Black children are raised has a bearing on their outcomes, in situations involving racism. 

How we raise our children impacts many facets of their lives; true. So, we should teach them right from wrong, tell them they’re awesome and encourage lifelong learning, BUT also true is that how we raise them has absolutely no impact on their outcomes in matters of racism and white supremacy. Do you think for an instant that the mother’s of so many Black men and women tragically taken from us didn’t do their best, sacrificing, praying and crying just like all the rest of us Black mothers? 

Racists don’t stop to ask what church a person attends or listen to how articulate they are before they pretend our people are a “threat”. And why should it matter where they come from or how they were raised? How does that influence their right to life? 

The men and women being killed aren’t being because of what they’ve done or not done, it’s because of how they look and because privileged folks still “have the right” to tell us what our rights aren’t. 

During this conversation the privileged person said “but you’ve taught your kids not to put themselves in a position where they’d be threatened.” The statement halted me, eerily sounding like justification for those who have been killed thus far, as if they put themselves into a position to be. “What position is that,” I asked.  Perhaps, one where we don’t jog, or bird watch, or sit in a bench, or wear a hoody, or enter our own apartments, or take a nap or even breathe?! There are no extraordinary circumstances here! Doing everyday things puts us at risk. 

How can you protect your children when every single thing they do is not only seen as a threat, but is punishable by immediate death without due process? And when they’ve taken the last breath from us, they’ll say... well he used drugs, she was sick, he failed English in 11th grade, their great grandfather was a runaway slave... any excuse to devalue the life they stole so that somehow this senseless killing is more justifiable. And many in our wonderful country, America, the land of the klan the home of the slave, (wait how’s it go?) set back fifty years under our current “leadership” are outraged with our demands to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. As if we are asking for too much?? 

So we’ve rallied our allies, and we march arm in arm to increase the breadth of the voices that have long been muted, in hopes that the unification will be enough that the racists in America will now see that they are the minority. 

But at night Black mothers everywhere are haunted by a dying man calling out for his mama to which she’s helpless. I could be that mama. I am that mama. We all are. Black Mother’s fear.