Forget the flowers, give black mothers the option to breathe easy
By Toni Johnson-Simpson
One of the peculiarities of the post-civil rights era has been the persistent imagery of a widow’s club as lived by the late Betty Shabazz, wife of Malcolm, the late Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin, and Myrlie Evers-Williams, wife of Medgar.
Today, a new sort of imagery dominates the public imagination, and it’s unfortunately represented by mothers bonded over the blood of their sons: Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayon Martin, Lesley McSpadden, mother of Michael Brown, Gloria Darden, mother of Freddie Gray are a few but certainly not all. When Mamie Till Mobley bravely made the decision in 1955 to leave her murdered son’s casket open so the world could see up close the evil that is racism, we collectively hoped the decision by Emmett’s mom would the last time the nation would need to learn a lesson in such dark and stark terms.
Given repeated instances by those in authority to ignore the humanity represented by black members of society, Toya Graham made sure she wouldn’t be joining this club anytime soon. Like so many mothers of black sons, she was left with only two options: Beat him upside the head and down in the street to keep him out of harm’s way or stand over a casket one day holding his lifeless body.
Since we’re inching toward Mother’s Day, I’d like to ask for a gift just for mothers of young black boys: May we please have more options?
Graham saw her son on television participating in the deliberate acts of violence against police officers in Baltimore in response to the death of Gray, 25, an unarmed black man killed in police custody. Graham reacted as the entire world, glued to their screens, watched.
Much debate has taken place over Graham’s compulsion to go to the streets and physically hit, pull, yell and swear at her son in the name of protection and love. It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective and garnered much applause and news coverage.
I rewound the DVR and played the scene for my own 12-year-old son twice. Then I closed my eyes, knowing as parents, we all have an instant instinct of protection when our children are in danger. It starts when they are infants, and we watch them sleep for fear they will stop breathing. We act with lightening speed when they choke on their bottle and we hold our breath when they are learning to walk for fear they will bump their heads. We spring in some type of Wonder Woman flight if they dare cross the street without holding our hands. It makes us have bionic ears and eyes in the back of our heads. You see we sense their danger before they even know it exists.
With our superior protective skills, we never expect harm to come to our sons. So when our boys are killed in the streets, we are overcome by grief and disbelief.
We never expect it to happen even though we see it happening to others. In the face of #blacklivesmatter and now, #blackspring, we have reason to hope: Police killings of African-Americans have fallen 70 percent over the past 40 to 50 years, according to the Centers for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet, the rate of killings remains much higher than that of whites, Latinos and Asians.
This is not new information, but perhaps a new awareness has emerged. But what are we — all Americans — going to do with this awareness?
As the mother of a black son, soon to be a teen, living in a suburban community where most people do not look like him, I want more options. I want the option for my son to walk through his own neighborhood wearing a hoodie and to make it home safely. I want my son to be pulled over by the police for a non-violent offense and receive a citation and arrive home safely. I want an opportunity for the justice system to see him as a young man who is loved, cared for and protected. I do not want him regarded as an automatic menace because he is a black man.
I respect Toya Graham’s decision to refuse membership in this long-standing club however inelegantly she handled herself. But the bigger question is why can’t mothers of black sons have more options?
Toni Johnson-Simpson is executive director of Denton County Friends of the Family and a Public Voices Fellow at Texas Woman’s University.
