It was a little over two and
a half years ago, right before I was about to be married that I was asked the
question, “Are you prepared for what you and your family will experience seeing
as how you are marrying a black man?” Being a white girl raised in Salt Lake
City, Utah I was offended. The man I was speaking with took notice to my
offense and simply said “I don’t mean to hurt you, I just wanted to make sure
that you were aware that things will be different than I think you are
expecting. Things will be harder.” I explained that I was fine and that things
were going to be great.
Two and a half wonderful years later, our son is now 5
and our youngest is almost 2 and the woman that I am now often looks back at
that day and wishes I could have understood what he meant. I wish I would have
understood that my husband would be pulled from his car and handcuffed, placed
face down on the ground and arrested while I watched his helpless face, all
because he had recently expired tags on his car. I wish I would have known that
people would accuse my husband of kidnapping our oldest son because he’s white
while simultaneously praising me for being a saint who graciously adopted
a little black boy. I wish I would have understood the mean words that can
escape someone’s lips when speaking about our mixed little family and the
heartache that follows. I wish I would have used that time to consider how I
would explain to my boys why people weren’t always nice.
In the past few years, there have been multiple events
that have transpired that have caused me to really decide where I stand. I’ve
watched and read and talked about men and woman of colour being shot and
disrespected by law enforcement and I’ve found myself on both sides of the
fence. I’ve tucked my babies into bed and watched them sleep and with tears in
my eyes I’ve thought, how do I protect you from the world? And I’ve also looked
my baby in the eye and said “You better make smart decisions. Safe decisions.
No robbing a gas station. No walking down the street swinging a sword around.
No rioting. You are to be respectful. You are to be a member of society that
contributes to the world. You are to be proud of who you are and your heritage.
If you are anything less than these things, you might not come home to me one
day.”
I suppose that part of the problem with the world is
that once you are White you will never be Black and trying to understand their
fear based on their experiences will always be hard for you. I would say that
it’s been about 8 years since I had a taillight out on my car. I went over a
year without fixing it before my uncle offered to fix it for me, not one day
did I ever even think about it. Fast forward to about a month ago when my
taillight was out again. Given my experience as a white female in the past, my
current self had chosen not to fix it and instead save the money. My husband was
crazy paranoid. He talked every day about the need for me to go and get it
fixed. He would drive my car always on the lookout for police and in the event
that he saw one he would quickly take another road, pull over to the side and
wait for them to pass. I wasn’t quiet about my annoyance to his situation often
complaining about his need to feel that because he was black the police were
always out to get him. He would always patiently respond with “Babe, we just
don’t need that problem.” Our taillight is now fixed but as I listened to
the news of a man being shot in his car and the initial reason for the stop was
a busted taillight I found myself feeling panicked. What if that was us and my
lack of respect for his fears would have taken this same turn for the worst? I
went to sleep that night wondering what the future looked like for my family
but when I woke up the next morning I would only realize that things were about
to get worse, not only for my family but for everyone.
The world is full of people. It’s not full of police
officers, doctors, teachers, Asians, Hispanics, Males and Females. Our earth is
full of people. People who fortunately and unfortunately have the same equal
opportunity to decide how they live their lives. It’s full of people who get to
make decisions whether they are good or bad. It’s full of people who are
affected by those decisions whether they are good or bad. It’s so easy to get
caught up in the idea that the problem is US against THEM when the reality is
that it’s good versus evil and always has been. People don’t come out of the
womb hating their neighbour. Hate is taught and learned. Hate comes from the
inside. It’s felt and it lingers. Hate pushes you to find revenge for what you
feel is unjust and unfair. Equality is something that we can only hope for and
in a perfect world it would exist but the reality is that it doesn’t now and
the sad truth is that it’s probably going to be a while if ever.
So what do you do now? Now that 5 police officers are
dead because of the bad decisions of other PEOPLE. What has that fixed? How
many people are going to bed tonight wishing their loved one had come home,
black or white, but because of hate they will never walk in the door? All I
keep seeing are officers who are afraid of my husband now more than ever. I see
wives begging their husbands not to leave whether they are leaving the house
with a badge or black skin. I see parents teaching their children to be afraid
of the police instead of teaching them to respect those that put their
lives on the line to keep us safe. Or parents who pull their children closer
when a black man sits to closely on the bus. Ultimately the difference that I
want to see in the world doesn’t come from finding justice for those that have
been mistreated and disrespected. It comes from what I choose to teach within
the walls of my own home. It comes from raising law abiding citizens that
respect those around them. It comes from teaching your children that wrong
decisions are coupled with consequences and that life isn’t always fair, it was
never meant to be. It’s about seeing people as just that, people. Not as their
skin colour or what they do for a living. Not as who they choose to marry or
what they choose to worship. It’s about seeing people as free humans who choose
their life and make their own decisions and then finding peace within what you
can control. It’s about showing the world through how you live that they were
wrong about what they thought they knew about you. It’s about teaching them
that while racism is still alive and well, we are working to teach our kids to
grow up expecting a better tomorrow regardless of circumstance.
All lives matter but the truth is that Black lives
haven’t always mattered. It is important to place an emphasis on finding
solutions to our deepest fears as we watch our loved ones struggle to be
treated equally. Violence no matter how oppressed you may feel will never yield
the trust and peace filled relationships we yearn for. Taking the life of a
father or a mother or a husband or a wife will never bring back what you may
have lost. It will not take away your fears and it will not calm your troubled
soul. It is not paving the way for any future that we hope to be brighter for
us and our children. Hate breeds hate and our only hope left in this world lies
within what we can control. Hope isn’t in your Facebook status, your Ksl news
article debate or even your good-willed peace protests. It starts at home and
it starts with you.
Source: Foreverymom
I believe that man is a spirit, has a soul and live in a body. As such, that someone lives in a 'black house' doesn't make him black! If you judge me by the colour of my house then you have a problem.
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