In this letter to her children, a mother talks about the fears and hopes she has and her prayers for a better world in which to live. Calling the names of those slain at the hands of the police. We are happy for her contribution and respect her anonymity.
For my children:
I can remember at an early age your grandmother chiding me for being so trusting of white people. She would tell me stories of her youth in the south where white men saw fit to walk across her bare feet with their hard bottom shoes, and call her nigger as they did it. Tears would well up in her eyes as she recalled those instances and she would shake with anger. What she couldn’t understand, was how someone could hate another person because of the color of their skin. “God doesn’t give you control over that”, she would say.
Your grandmother saw a lot as a child, and it hardened her. While raising me, she would often boast that she was pouring all of her anger in me, advising she wanted me to be able to stand on my own. Be strong, because you have to be ten times better than “them” (“them” of course being white people) to get ahead and be successful. She would say “you gotta know how to play their games, move like they move but better in order to beat them”.
Picture me a wide eyed 5 year old, wanting to believe that the all things were good in the world. Whenever bad people did bad things they were punished and the police always got it right. More important, who wanted to be angry all the time? Honestly, I didn’t get what your grandmother was attempting to do until I got much older.
While in elementary school, I watched four white police officers beat Rodney King . I watched in horror along with your grandmother when the officers were acquitted and Los Angeles burned. In college I read about Amadou Diallo a young man murdered by four NYPD police officers. Nine months after your father and I were married, I read about Sean Bell, who was murdered by police officers the night before his wedding in November 2006.
When I became a mother, my wide eyed simple 5 year old logic had fallen away. I too found myself bitter and angry with injustice, the police were no longer the good guys they were a threat. I feared for you guys. I didn’t quite understand, how to explain Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Walter Scott and Samuel Dubose. I didn’t want to be angry and bitter, but it was too late.
How do you explain to your children the law enforcement double standard and expect them to fully grasp what it means? I want you to effect change. No I will not pour all of my anger into you, however, I do want you to be cautiously optimistic. I want you to speak up about injustice however don’t attribute the evil committed by one person to an entire people. Count a person as an individual. See the times they are a changing, and this isn’t 1965 in Bishopville, SC. My prayer is that by the time you are of age to really appreciate this letter, the country will be even better than it is now.
Love you Always,
Mommy
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Letters 2 a Generation 