The author's son.
y son wears a hoodie every single day to school. He covers his head faithfully and rarely hears friends say hello as we walk inside or adults saying good morning as he tends to be lost in his own world, muffled by the hoodie around his ears.
My son would do anything for his little sister and happily get her candy. He would even question any adult questioning him for no reason — as we have taught him to stand up for himself, speak out for what is right, and question authority. He would run from strangers. He would, however, feel safe with a police officer.
I think.
My son, however, can do all of these things without fear. He is white. He ‘belongs’ in that suburb. He looks like every other white kid in the area and a ‘neighborhood watch captain’ would easily dismiss his walking down the street as a normal, every day occurrence. As would a police officer. As would the community.
As a white mother to a white son, I’ve never had to explain to him what he should and should not do when confronted by police. I’ve never had to talk with him about how the world views him or prayed he wouldn’t be next.
Yet we live in a world where people deny racial issues still exist. They do not even understand white privilege. They actively cry ‘reverse racism’ as if they are the victim. They even have the nerve to call those who fight for racial equality ‘race baiters,’ ’racers’ and have attempted to spin and twist and re-write history as if THEY have lost out because Americans owned slaves and those slaves were oppressed for generations, after which they were then oppressed under Jim Crow and then under the institutionalized racism that continues to permeate our culture today.
Yet these NON ‘of color’ victims’ have started a very dangerous trend, a very risky trend, a very uninformed and downright stupid trend that has them looking like very scared white folk, realizing their hold over the majority-and power-is slipping.
You see, as ‘one of you’ I get to hear all about it from family and friends and neighbors and others who seem to think that just because I am white I ‘understand’ what they mean when they say ‘our neighborhood is changing’ and ‘that school has too many kids who don’t speak like our kids’ or ‘you know the high school only recruited him because he can play ball.’
Then there are the comments on blogs and national media calling the NAACP racist, the United Negro College Fund racist, and those who support our President racist because we have the nerve to notice these overwhelmingly white people are angry and saying things and doing things they would NEVER do if the man occupying the oval office were Caucasian.
They say all these things while innocent children, carrying candy in a suburb, are shot for walking down the street while black. As Jackie Summers writes,
The concept that you are suspicious.
The concept that you have to justify where you are and what you’re doing.
The concept that there are people who are so afraid of you, they feel they’re protecting themselves and others, by killing you, even if you’re unarmed.
The concept that those charged with law can show up, knowing exactly what happened, and choose not to uphold it.
The concept that it requires a national outrage to incite justice.
The concept that there are those who would vociferously defend the murderer out of one corner of their mouths, and accuse the murdered from the other.
For no other reason than the color of your skin.”
Yet if you were to read a Right Wing blog today, you would think THEY were the victim of horrible racial attacks. The last I checked, white children like mine, even in hoodies, even walking in a suburb with candy, were not being shot for walking while white.
It is far from time for the white, right-wing to drop this act of victimhood in the American stories of racial inequality. It is embarrassing. It is ignorant. It is offensive.
Trayvon is not the first black child to die, he will not be the last. We owe it to every child to move the discussion on race FORWARD. Forward means NOT back to eras that have long past and have long ago put an indelible mark of hatred and evil on our nation that some on the right seem to think has been made up for, erased, or should be at the very least whitewashed, refusing to feel guilt for something they had nothing to do with. I don’t feel guilt as a white liberal, I feel anger. I feel anger that some conservatives say they see no color, claim to operate on an even playing field, and refuse to even discuss racial implications in any debate for fear they will have to be honest with themselves, our history, and the glaringly obvious fact we have NOT come as far as we would like to think.
We owe it to children of color to know the world MY children have grown up knowing. Where they don’t need to be told that they have to make allowances for other people’s racism because …”That’s part of the burden of being black. We can be defiant and dead or smart and alive.”
It is time to change the conversation, and it starts with the adults. I have no right to send my son to school tomorrow morning in his hoodie without fear, when so many other mothers will be sending their sons off wondering if they will ever come home.
About the Author
Thank you! Thank you Thank you …for telling the truth . It’s people like you who will help to change things..when I say what you said …I’m pulling the race card. THANK YOU !
Our world is changing…there is hope. It is just not moving fast enough!!!!! I am a white, middle aged mother of five. 3 of which are multi-racial. And I know first hand that it is just pigment or lack thereof. You cannot tell the character of a person without getting to know that person. And ultimately, that is all that matters. I know that it is a mistake to think that “all” of any race thinks or does anything the same way. I am a white woman and could care less what color your skin is. Do I have biases…well sure…they just aren’t race related…I get a little nervous around people who are intolerant, people who are excluders instead of includers, and politicians. Everyone has there own truth..we just need to start listening.
I think the thing is that it is possible to be “mostly not racist” but harbor a very subtle form of it. You can have people of color for friends, extended family, co-workers and truly not discriminate against them, but still harbor some reservations when it really gets personal. I think a good test is to ask yourself “would you be perfectly comfortable if your daughter came home with a person of such-and-such race/ethnicity?” I bet that even extremely open-minded people might find that truthfully they would face some discomfort with some races in that question. Good people of course would overcome that, but it is important, as your article tries to point out, to recognize the psychological reality of how racism works. It is subtle, pervasive, and has not actually been solved in our society yet.
I appreciate your honesty. Respectfully, I would like to give you a thought, my bi-racial son has had many heartbreaks over the years because he has fallen for a girl and she for him. And then she takes him home……It doesn’t matter that he is sweet and Christian. Doesn’t matter that he has served his country with two deployments to Iraq. He just is black and male. My bi-racial daughters have not had these problems, I guess they aren’t as threatening. This is his truth. And he will be the stronger for it. But it sure is a shame.
Thank you for so eloquently stating what his been bursting in my chest since I first heard of Trayvon Martin. Would Geraldo Rivera so cavalierly suggest that clothing be changed if it had been a white youth dressed in “Goth” and a black murderer who feared for his life? I think not. While I do not ask Zimmerman’s neighbor/supporter to change his opinion, I do ask him to consider how his feelings would change if his had been a white neighbor’s child gunned down by a black volunteer watchman. If we could all be as brutally honest as you have chosen to be, we could acknowledge that a black child’s life is not valued as much in our current climate. We can only make positive changes once the problems have been identified.
thank YOU for speaking truth…much respect and peace to you! if only we as a whole could be so honest-perhaps then we could move on to a point of healing…
Thank you!! From my heart to yours. I wish all white people would come forward, and just be honest with themselves and the world. Only then will we maybe able to make a change
Thank you for this essay. As a young black woman, stories like Trayvon Martin’s, Oscar Grant’s and countless others make my blood run hot with anger, and then make it run cold with fear. There definitely has to be a more honest dialogue about race in America, and its implications, and reading essays like yours really help boost my morale that in fact, there might be a day when we can openly and honestly talk about these issues in valid ways, and not the “rhetoric” way that it’s (not) discussed in politics and the media.
Thank you – the is a brilliant and touching essay
Newt Gingrich just can’t give it up. He will never be the President of the United States. He cant miss a single chance to attack President Obama. He is so mad inside that a Black Man became President and reached heights that he himself will never reach. He doesn’t realize that he is unsuccessful because of who he is as a person. He is one of the “afraid of losing power white boys” who just can’t live with the idea that a black man could possibly be more intelligent and more deserving than himself. The “right wing” descriminates against everybody that is not a white male. It is pathetic that in 2012 these bigots and their like (Rush Limbaugh/Glenn Beck) are willing to make things up as they go. Small men so afraid of losing the advantage. It is so scary that Rush has a supposed 20million listeners. Its 2012, The United States, yet we are all shocked at the discrimination and bigotry that we are seeing in our country. They call President Obama a divider. Are they really that blind to not see or recognize that THEY are the dividers? God help this country. Rush and Glenn are right wing puppets. They spew hatred and have incited the biggestwar we have ever seen “inside our country.
One of the biggest problems is the lack of psychological screening on authoritive figures. You don’t have to have a PHD to see that some KKK members are filtering into jobs with “guns” which puts them in the perfect position to do what they like to do in a legal manner!
BACKGROUND-psychological tests should be mandatory and they should live in the community they service!!!!
Totally agree!!!!
I agree with you 100%. It’s a sneaky trick to turn things around in one-fell-swoop like that–to negate the history and present tense of discrimination against black and brown people and then say that even mentioning it is itself an evil. It’s perfect. Can’t remember it, can’t talk about it. Violá, disappeared. Of course, those who promote that version of reality think that it WILL go away, magically. Well, for them it doesn’t exist and doesn’t bother them, what they want is for everyone to stop reminding them that they have white privilege.
Ignoring the problems of race since the 80s until now has not made them go away. White privilege is as prevalent as ever. Denying people their right to live free of the restraints others’ preconceived notions put on them/us is one of the more important cultural battles we must have to move forward. And, as you say, that is what we need to do–move forward, not backwards. S/he who defines the debate, defines the outcome.
Thanks for writing this. All of us “liberals” (I prefer progressives) have been silent and have backed down for too long. Time to make noise and be heard!
There was a lot of truth to that line when the President said it Randy. He took a ton of heat for it, but it was dead on if you ask me.
“Yet these NON ‘of color’ victims’ have started a very dangerous trend, a very risky trend, a very uninformed and downright stupid trend that has them looking like very scared white folk, realizing their hold over the majority-and power-is slipping.”-EKV
Clinging to their guns and bibles anyone?