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As someone who is tasked with raising a Black male child, my task is daunting. How do I raise him to be aware without becoming bitter? How do I teach him to be fearless in a society where a great many people wish to harm him for things that he has never done nor will do?
How do I teach him to be just when there seems to be so little justice around him? How do I instill strength in him knowing the burden that his strength will bring? How do I model the benefits of patience when I have none left myself?
We live in a world where I will never feel comfortable allowing him to ride his bike without riding with him or driving behind him in my car or knowing that the only place that I am likely to feel comfortable allowing him to run by himself is on the campus of @PaulQuinnTigers
But here’s the thing, my parents and grandparents never painted a picture of fairness to me. I was raised on the stories of midnight marauders who terrorized their southern years. I know what it is like to be called out of your name and harassed by those sworn to protect you.
That is the reality of my race. That is the reality of my life. I am not shielded from this reality by my degrees or my profession. But, I will not allow the bitterness of others to define me or my child’s life. He will be strong and he will be resilient.
He will be unapologetically brilliant and self-aware. He will speak and he will listen. He will think and he will act. He will learn the lessons that he is taught at home and at school and he will forge a path that will be uniquely his own. But most of all, he will keep coming.
He will remember Eric Garner and George Floyd; Sandra Bland and Tamir Rice; Trayvon and Emmitt; Thurgood and Charles Hamilton Houston; and the Freedom Riders and all those HBCU students who sat, marched and shouted. He will also remember those who did & said nothing....
