“I cannot and will not remain silent.
I think it’s human nature to distance oneself from tragedy. You hear a news story and you quickly assess all the ways you are different from that victim. You rationalize why and how that victim ended up a victim. It allows you to think ‘It will not happen to me. It will not happen to my family.’ It allows you to keep your peace.
But recent events have me pausing, and I’m begging you to pause, too. Slow down your automatic thought process, challenge your own personal bias for a moment and hear me out.
I have raised a white son and I have raised a black son. On paper they are the same. Tall, athletic, smart, kind. I love them equally and fiercely. Society, however, judges one by the content of his character and the other by the color of his skin.
As a mother it breaks my heart to write this or even to think it. I want my sons to live in a loving and accepting world. But my brown son has to deal with things my white son never had to and never will. Living in denial could cost my son his life.
My brown son doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt like my white son does. He has been questioned in stores, walking in his own neighborhood, pulled over multiple times. Assumptions have been made that he lives in the projects, people act surprised when they hear how “articulate” he is or that he’s actually smart and not just a skilled athlete…. And even though my white son is equally as eloquent no one has ever considered it noteworthy. It’s just a given.
