Mother of Black Sons

Last Memorial Day, while most were celebrating the holiday with a well-needed break from COVID-confinement, I announced to my children that they would be catching up on all the assignments that remained missing on their Google classroom logs. After some complaining, they each picked the easiest assignment they could find and went to work. My middle child, thinking he was being smart, decided to watch a series of video clips on slavery and the civil rights movement that had been assigned for social studies. His brothers complained that he was not working but simply watching YouTube videos. But after verifying that they were part of an assignment, that also included a written response, I allowed him to continue. About 20 minutes later, my youngest motioned for me to look at his older brother. I looked over to find him sobbing silently into his folded arms. His headphones prevented the rest of the household from hearing the video, but the gruesome images of slavery were having a profound impact on him. I left him undisturbed. He needed to know the truth.

As a proud quasi-helicopter parent, I have been deliberate about protecting the bodies, minds and spirits of my children. I adopted an organic diet during my pregnancies to ensure they had the most wholesome environment possible. I took the full amount of maternity that was available to me to ensure that I bonded with them as newborns. I breastfed exclusively for the first six months of their lives. I created my own concoction of natural butters and oils to nourish their skin.  My friends often joked that I was a bit excessive in my efforts, but I could not imagine doing any differently. They are the most important people in the world to me. And as their mother, I had the exclusive privilege of being able to nurture them in a way that would impact the rest of their lives. I wanted to them confident and strong, so I worked to create an environment where they never had occasion to question their worth.

However, my task became more difficult as my children grew up and began to interact with the public. I recall the first experience shopping for daycare; my husband and I were often dismayed at the treatment we received from certain childcare institutions. “If they treat us with such contempt, how would they treat our child?” we wondered.  The reality of being black parents in the U.S. began to sink in. As a black immigrant, I never had to think of myself in terms of my skin color until I arrived in the U.S. I did not have a concept of blackness in the same way that I am not aware of my breathing. But my children will never experience this freedom. They have been identified based on their skin color from their first breath and will have to fight to dispel other people’s beliefs about their blackness for the rest of their lives.

As I tucked them in later that evening, I asked my son about his reaction to the videos. “I can’t believe white people treated black people like they’re not even human,” he said, with a quiet tone and still visibly upset by what he had seen. I comforted and gave a him goodnight hug and kiss almost as if to say, “This will never be your experience. You are safe.”  The next morning, he walked up to me as I prepared breakfast and declared, “I can’t believe that white people think they could do all those things to black people, and all they have to say is ‘sorry’ and its all over.”  I gave him a pained smile and told him a harsh truth, “I wish that were the case. Most people don’t acknowledge any responsibility for slavery because they say it happened 400 years ago.  They think that black people should just get over it.” This, too, took him by surprise.

In fact, my children are largely unaware of the reality of racial injustice in their homeland. It’s not that they’ve never experience racism–we live in Massachusetts, after all. But I’ve never named it. When my son, while a kindergartener, was punished for insisting on trying to play with kids who did not want to play with him, the only black kid in the class, the teacher explained that it was a matter of safety. She did not encourage kindness or a sense of community, but felt students had the right to refuse to play with this black child and that he needed to accept it.  When he asked to change his name to “Chase” or “Aiden” or wondered why his hair couldn’t be tussled, I gave an answer that reaffirmed that he was perfect just the way he is. When, while listening to the radio in the car, a story comes on about “another unarmed black man,” I swiftly change to a podcast or turn the radio off. When, during a visit to a local museum, we were followed for 90+ minutes as we toured the exhibits, I asked my companion to take them to the car before confronting the guard about her decision to give us a private escort. When, during a visit to a “Meet a Scientist” event a local university, five campus officers appeared in the area within minutes of our arrival, I kept them engrossed in learning how to extract DNA.

It’s too soon, I tell myself; they don’t need this burden.

However, most recently, I have been so alarmed about what is happening in our society that I struggle with my decision to allow my children to continue to be ignorant about the truth regarding racial inequality. As a mother, it is a torturous conversation to have with your child. To them, people are people. They think of cops as heroes. The youngest wants to be a cop when he grows up. Once at a gas station, he asked a policeman for an autograph. I wonder what the officer thought of that request.

These days as I behold them, still naïve and innocent, it hurts to think of their future as black men in this land; for neither education nor wealth can fully mitigate that stigma. My instincts are to protect them at every instance, but that is impossible. I can’t protect them from the hatred or bigotry that is codified in our laws. I can’t protect them from discrimination and poor treatment from people who refuse to see their character. I’ve moved across the country in search for a safe place to raise them. There is no such place. Deep in my heart I know that I am going to have to fight with every fiber of my being just so they can have a chance. But if that’s what it takes, that’s what I’ll do. I am a mother of black sons.

This article is posted with permission from Sheila LeGrand.

Like most of the pictures on TeensParentsTeachers, the picture posted with this article is courtesy of a free download from Pixabay.com.