Mamas, Cops, This Week
All the mamas trying to protect their children, all the children not allowed to just be
If all the mamas in the country had 15 minutes advance notice and superpowers, they would have swept him up. All the mamas in the country would have linked arms, plunged to the street, and grabbed George Floyd before his head ever hit the pavement. All the mamas in the country would have cradled and flown off with him before he ever uttered Mama in his dying breath. All the mamas had their hearts cracked wide open as they heard their children crying when he cried, Mama.
I am a mama, a white mama of a girl with gleaming chestnut skin, glossy, tightly curled brown hair, a girl whose skin, hair and body make her unsafe in the world, a white mama of tall young man whose sides are always perfectly shaved, a person who generates fear, a Black man.
I have tried to write about my daughter’s walk through the world, about how I became her mama, about how I learned the talk of mamas to their black children. I have tried to write about me, a white woman, becoming her mama, about how her first mama made an impossible choice not to rear her beautiful baby.
I have tried to write about the voices, the places, the push against her childhood, the pushes that turned her from a trusting little girl into a young woman, still caring and loving, but wary.
I have tried to name what happens when a kindergartner, with little hair twists and multi-colored beads, a fourth-grader wearing a Scooby-Do shirt, a high schooler in a blue marching band uniform, is called violent because she is a kindergartener, a fourth-grader, a high schooler, who is an ordinary child, but black.
I tried to write about the times the police have pulled her over, harassed her, trashed her car, ticketed her for a minor incident.
I have tied to name what happens to my skinny high school son, sent home for sagging and bagging jeans, about whom I am called because he’s been talking to “Chicago people” — code here for Black, my son assumed to be dangerous because he is a mouthy normal high-schooler, but black.
All the mamas who would have picked up George Floyd know all these stories. All those mamas have tried to keep their babies, their teenagers, their young men, safe.
And this week, even as the man who murdered George Floyd is on trial, a 20-year-old is killed during a traffic stop, a 13-year-old is killed with his hands up, the body of a murdered 11-year-old girl found after months, a little girl remembered with her favorite purple shirt, candles, and balloons — the search different than it would have been for a little white girl with the pull-at-your-heart smile. How many mamas must rage? 400 years of pain, rage, anguish, even alongside the joy and pride and resilience that have sustained families, mamas, children.
There is no end. There is no end to fear. My son called tonight, holding a white business envelope from the unemployment office telling him the limits of his unemployment. He had called me three times, scared. He has had a steady job for nine years. I tell him to call the office. He calls back, he says someone has used his name, correct address, correct employer, and social security number to attempt the unemployment claim. He tells me the police are coming to his apartment. My heart starts to pound, and I tried to keep the alarm out of my voice. Why are the police coming? To take a report, he says, the unemployment office said to call them, it’s a crime. But an administrative crime, I say, why are the police coming to your apartment? It’s OK, mom, it’s just for a report. Call me later, I say.
He doesn’t call. He had said the cop he spoke to was pleasant, had a Southern accent. This reassured him because the man sounds like my parents, also white, who loved him, their black grandson. I do not find the man’s accent reassuring.
Next day, I hear the cop came, straight-forward, he took the report, holding a camera on my son.
On the news, the grief-stricken families of the 20-year-old, the 13-year-old and the 11-year-old share their anguish. Always, more families.
I try to write. I have read and read, all the stories, all the accounts of men, women, parents. Tonight, I do not know how to write or read anymore.
No talk will keep my children safe. No news coverage will generate enough outrage. There are not enough sorries, promises to do better, conduct training, make policies, deep conversations, tears, not enough from me and every other white person, to quell all the fear of all the mamas.
Do the mamas with their superpowers need to swoop down and carry off all the children from the top of those empty promises, carry them to an exo-planet with a softer sun, smaller bodies of water, and air? And air?
My heart will crack wide open as I join my daughter’s hand with the mama who gave her life, my son’s hand to the mama waiting in heaven, my heart will crack wide open as I join their hands with mamas flying to safety.
And I, with my cracked-open heart, will climb back onto the pile of promises, conversations and tears, to be a white person, perhaps making another world.
This is not a safe world for my son and my daughter. And all the rage of all the mamas cannot change that.
But my daughter, my daughter says this. You cannot take your steps in fear, mom, you have to take care but live life. Have joy, mom, don’t just walk with fear.
