I interrupt my scheduled programming of Baby Jasmine Is About To Be One posts because today is THE day that this has to be said. Those of you long time readers of my blog and any of you who follow me on Facebook know that I am passionate, passionate about race issues. I have blogged at length before on this topic as can be read here if you scroll past Jasmine and her hair!
So...if you are reading this from the U.S., you have to have heard about the murder of Trayvon Martin. Shot and killed in February because he was walking to a friends house at night, alone, unarmed, with nothing on him but an iced tea and some candy. Why was he killed? Because he was seen as a threat to a man on neighborhood watch.
Why would a teenager minding his own business be seen as a threat many have wondered.
Trayvon Martin is a black male.
Who wore a hoodie and walked alone in the dark.
That is why he was seen as a threat.
Period.
This story has been ALL over the news, our president even weighed in on the tragedy. Over 2 million signatures have made the petition to have Trayvon's killer arrested...the most in the website change.org's history. That's right... this man who stole a teenager's life away has not been arrested yet because of the deep seeded racism that prevails.
You can sign the petition to assure that happens here.
I believe he WILL be arrested and prosecuted.
But what does this have to do with any of us? Kids are killed all the time in gang violence and other means, why has this "random black boy's" death been so impactful to so many people? I wondered that myself. But I know God's hand must be upon the media attention this has brought about. There is something brewing that has got to come from all of this.
It is a fact that this story has particularly taken the adoption blogging world by storm.
And that is where I come in.
Like thousands of families in this country, my sons...
my precious boys look like this:
Adorable, aren't they?Everyone thinks so.
But one day these precious boys will be looked at with suspicious eyes.
Their presence will no longer light up a room of white faces when they enter, but will suck the air out of it.
Adults and children alike will divert their eyes and cross the street when they come walking down it. When they go into a store, they will be followed sometimes. When they are pulled over by a police officer for running a stop sign, they will not be given a routine ticket and told to "have a nice day"...they will be suspected of having drugs or weapons in the vehicle. In a job interview, they may be suspected as having a felony. If they raise their voice or get angry as everyone does, they will be seen as a stereotype. And it won't matter what they are wearing or what they are driving, or what college education they have acquired.
OR even that their momma and daddy are white.
Why is this so?
Because both of my sons will be viewed as the biggest threat to upper class white society.
A big black man.
I have talked about white privilege before here.
And I had a few hateful commenters that tried to deny that this existed, even a blog stalker who left the worst racial slurs in comments. Thankfully I tracked down who she was and where she lived and contacted her. I have not heard from her since.
I said to her and I will say it again, that under NO circumstance will I ever again publish those on my blog...so take your bigotry somewhere else.
What I will do is give you this to read.
This is a blog written by a black dad who knows he will have to teach his five year old son very soon about how society will view him one day...and how he is to behave accordingly. It was very eye opening for me to read. I also once again have to commend the popular author, speaker, and blogger, Jen Hatmaker for her incredibly poignant blog on this topic where she writes an open letter to Trayvon's Mama. It is moving beyond words. I wanted to capture some of it here for those of you who won't take the time to go over there to read it:
Jen Hatmaker says,
"I nonchalantly enjoyed my white privileges my entire adult life, one of those people who said “racism is dying” and “things are different now” and “we’re colorblind” and casual ignorance like that...
But then we decided to adopt two children from Ethiopia, and in November 2010, as I was shopping for their very first care package to send over, I was standing in the middle of the Target toy aisle, and I sent out this SOS text:
Where are all the black baby dolls?
I sat down in the middle of Target and cried my eyes out.
How did I never notice this? How was this my first sense of outrage over this discrepancy? How could I have yammered about the end of racism and “a fair system” when evidence to the contrary was staring me in the face every single day?
I never understood the systemic racism that persists in this country, because I didn’t have to. The system is structured to grant me privileges and power through no merit of my own; simply by virtue of my skin color. This same system denies and protects this oppressive hierarchy, conditioning white people to not even see it.
I casually consumed my white privileges – these unearned assets that granted me the benefit of the doubt and free passes and guaranteed security and permanent insider status – assuming that anyone else, anyone, could enjoy these same advantages by making good choices and working hard.
But it is simply not true, because the same system that keeps me on top keeps you on bottom.
Please know that as for me, I promise to do the hard work and ask the hard questions and enter the difficult places to turn the tides for my son and all the black sons, and I grieve that it is too late for yours. I hope the national outcry for Trayvon has comforted you; so many of us see him. We are hungry for a better world where our boys can walk down the street unafraid and unfeared.
Please accept my hand; I stand with you, two moms demanding more for our sons. I am sorry you’ve lost Trayvon, my sister. I’m so very sorry. May his legacy help us move into a wider space together, tearing down walls and stereotypes and fear and building communities where we truly love our neighbor once again."
Please go to her blog and read it in it's entirety.
~Jen Hatmaker has once again put incredible words to what all of us white moms of black kids have felt and are feeling in the face of this tragedy.
We cannot turn a blind eye to this anymore.
We can't.
We are ALL of us responsible for how this is going to change things moving forward, and I believe it will. I do not naively believe that Trayvon's life lost will thereby make my sons' lives more safe. No. That will not happen. But I do believe that his life and legacy will open BIG doors of conversation for this nation to begin to have about the realities of racism and stereotypes and freedoms that some are given naturally and others are denied simply due to their skin pigmentation. Education brings awareness.
And awareness brings on change.
THIS is a conversation we all need to have.
Will you join with me in discussing this?
So many white people avoid race talk in an attempt to come across as tolerant.
We don't need tolerance, we need education!
If you spend anytime with me you will soon hear issues of race quickly come up in conversation and it is okay to join in. PLEASE join in. Please show me that my kids matter.
Please acknowledge that they are indeed black. It is okay. Because they are.
Please do not say foolish things like we are all the same in the sight of God and race doesn't matter or I will rightly question that you do not understand the beauty of God's choice in the creation made in His image. I will not call them cute little names like "chocolate" or refer to them as my "brown kids" in an attempt to dial down their "blackness".
They are African Americans.
They are Black Americans.
Please do not act like their blackness is something to be overcome or ignored.
Society will not ignore them.
And that lately has become my biggest fear.
When I sent my tiny son off to the school bus this morning and watched him scamper across the street, I prayed that no one would illegally come whipping around the bus (as a car did a few weeks ago) and hit my baby. I prayed that the bus driver would smile at him and that the kids would want to sit by him. And I choked up when I waved goodbye.
Because I can't protect them from being black.
I can't.
But I can pray. And I can speak out on these issues and hope that my words and story will make a difference in someone's heart who may not have thought about it that way before. So I will SPEAK UP and I will PRAY HARD.
I will pray that my precious boys will not share the same fate as another mom's son did because of skin color.
That is what I can do.
What will YOU do?
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