First in a series #Blacklivesmatter Not long ago I got a 3 AM phone call. Every parent fears such a call. But this call hit confirmingly on the unique fear of every mother of a black son in our country. My son had been shot. We were fortunate, the wound was not too serious. And arguably he might have avoided the encounter by being somewhere else at the time. But, the call was an echo—an echo of the woman who used to live downstairs coming up the steps one morning to tell me “they killed Dusty last night.” And her son was gone. And the “they” who did the shooting, as the gun-wielder in my son’s case, were never identified. It echoes the call that must have gone through another family the night that Jeremy was shot and killed. Or when Roger died. Or when Dennis was killed. All but one of these victims were black. All were male. All were people I knew, whose families I know. All were loved. And each of these young men grew up with what educators and social workers have come to call “risk factors.” Such risk factors typically are listed as poverty, single parent families and very simply being black and male. When such professionals use short-hand to refer to populations “at-risk,” I always want to ask, at risk for what? But, I know. At risk for dropping out of school. At risk for a mental health diagnosis. At risk of being incarcerated. And though we don’t talk about it, don’t put it into our grant applications, at risk of dying young of violence. There is a “they” out there that is killing our young men. The specific person, or the reason that they pull the trigger varies, but there remains a commonality between these lives of persons I knew and those of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Jordan Davis and many others. And that is that they have grown up “at risk.” And despite all best efforts of their loved ones to teach them not only the right path in life, but also the safe path, we as mothers, as parents and communities cannot save them from the heightened risk attached to their lives, or the reality that their life, from birth, has mattered less to the world at large than others. What that looks like is that there is no sense of outrage when we know that infant mortality rates are vastly different for blacks than whites. There is no outrage that regardless of what we may think about the resources that go into public education and whether they are wisely distributed, the end result for blacks lags behind that of whites whether we measure graduation rates, test scores or college matriculation. And we, like the worst moralists of Dickens’ time have taken once again to blaming those who are poor for their very poverty, cautioning against help or concern lest we discourage their industry. Is it any wonder that so few question when young black men are regarded by internet bloviaters, by some members of law enforcement and even by some such young men themselves as being expendable? That it only takes a few clicks to run into someone talking about thugs, or thinning the herd, or Darwinian deaths or suggesting that had some only cooperated and listened to the police everything would have been all right? We have a problem and it goes deeper than simply understanding that poor people bear the brunt of most things and black people are disproportionately poor. This matters, of course. When carelessly implemented drug policies prefer incarceration over treatment and fuel foreign drug cartels, poor people of all colors are the first and worst of victims. When misguided budget-tightening cuts social and health supports, poor neighborhoods are hurt. When the minimum wage lags behind growth elsewhere, poor people in general are harmed. But, to the extent that poor to us means black and black means thug, lazy, welfare queen, criminal, dangerous, violent, drug-addicted, illiterate, mentally-ill, dysfunctional, or any of a slew of other descriptors, their problems will never be seen as our own, no matter who we are. And the young men growing up black will be at greater risk than can ever be wholly countered by even the best of middle-class, educated, employed and attentive two-parent families. This is what I have come to understand as a white woman raising a black son. I cannot fix the world for him. While I want him to walk strong, tall and proud, I also know that this very behavior may in some circumstances be interpreted as arrogance that creates problems. While I want him to understand that he has an equal right to the protection of laws, to an education, to walk down the street, these all come with a caution that because of who he is, or who he is seen as, these things may not be realized in reality. And I understand that a 3 AM phone call carries an extra resonance because there is a “they” that cares little for his life.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 04:49:27 +0000
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