My Children are white

My children are white. The word white does little to reveal who my children are as people. I often use words like hot tempered, compassionate, darling or even fresh to describe my children. Not white.  

I’ve noticed that we are quick use the word “black” to describe African-Americans as if this simple word reveals everything one would need to know about your daughter’s professor or the teenager who took your order at Panera. It’s one of the many hidden forms of racism still present in our culture today.

My children’s race, however, matters more to me now than it ever has before. As a mother of white children I have become painfully aware that I have no idea what it is like to be the mother of black children. What does it feel like to know that your black children can click on YouTube and watch a white police officer shoot a fleeing, unarmed black man in the back?  

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This is what it is like to be a mother of white children:

• After the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, my children returned to their local public school with police officers greeting them at every entrance. The police officers were there to make the children feel safe and it worked. These kind women and men stood in their uniforms, greeting the children, their hearts breaking for the community of Sandy Hook, but still smiling at each child who passed.
  
  
• My eldest son learned about drugs and alcohol from a police officer who visited his Boy Scout troop. The police officer assured them that it is always better to speak up and seek help than to hide. My son believed him wholeheartedly. Why wouldn’t he?
  
  
• Recently a child we love with special needs ran away. My children were terrified as we searched for him. My daughter spoke up reassuringly, “The police will find him and take care of him.” They did, and there was no judgement, just understanding.
  
  
• A fully uniformed police officer attended our outdoor Easter service to squeeze in a few moments of worship while on duty. The children in my community were delighted to see him. He’s well-known and loved. They hugged him.  
  
  
• I have taught my children that Police Officers are the “good guys” they can always depend on.
  
  
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I don’t know what it like to be a mother of black children. I can only guess:

• I would instill in my children a fear of the police.
  
  
• When my boys became teenagers I would teach them, much like the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee taught students in the 1960’s, how to cooperate with police so they would only end up in jail, instead of dead. 
  
  
• I would teach my children to avoid police officers whenever possible. If there was a police officer patrolling a particular area, I would explain that they should avoid that area.
  
  
• When my children received their driver’s licenses, I would stay up late at night, not fearing a car accident, but that my children would be stopped by the police for speeding.
  
   
  
  

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This latest shooting of an unarmed black man stuck like a rusty nail into the bottom of my sole; just a mile away from where Walter Lamer Scott fell to the ground my dear friends are raising two black boys in North Charleston. They are beautiful boys. They are filled with all the same energy my two boys are. They like to read themselves to sleep like my boys. Their mother is so deeply in love with them that she describes their beauty to me over the phone, just as I count my boys long, heavy eyelashes. Their father, like my husband, carries them on his shoulders. Like my family they gather around a dinner table every evening and pray before their meal.  

I would never use the word black to describe these two boys. I would use words like lean, mischievous, wildly funny, and bright. Yet these boys are black. And the truth, if we want to accept it or not in America, is that black boys and men are more likely to be shot by police officers.

I ache with anger. My heart breaks for the mothers of black boys in America. Yet as a Christian I am left bewildered as to what next. Prayer seems anemic. Writing, trite. Calling my friends to share my lament, removed. Political action, useless. Yet I refuse to be hopeless during this Eastertide, for there is resurrection. God’s workers are active. Black ministers are preaching forgiveness, police chiefs are improving training, citizens are demanding accountability, the press is committing to more equitable news coverage. This is no time for naïve optimism, but this is the right time for hope, hard work, and honesty.

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