Raising free-spirited black children in a world set on punishing them
This article made me happy and sad at the same time.
Happy: Free children are an option for us now.
Sad: Comments from black mothers on the article. Many seemed to indicate that they didn't see the connection between raising a happy, free child to creating a fully functional, confident adult. The article wasn't widely read at all.
Happy: A black woman had sense enough to write on the connections between freedom, race, mental states, silliness, class, and confidence.
Sad: Many black people will not read this article thinking, "Well I turned out alright" because their education, status, adequate or large sums of money means they shouldn't examine the effect of being raised in Black Survival Mode
The best way I can describe Black Survival Mode Child Raising is by retelling a story written by Patricia Hill Collins or Joy DeGury at the front of one their textbooks on race and/or sexism. Whichever one it was, she tells the story of two mothers with small children in a bank.
The story goes something like this:
A little white girl is some distance from their white mother walking around, smiling at people, maybe chancing a hello at adults and other children. She's walking around from one end of the bank lobby to the other, looking at different slips of colored paper in slots that near her eye level. The little white girl may be entertaining the adults around her or annoying them a little. The white mother looks on unconcerned, continues reading her book or looking at her cell phone.
A little black girl is also in the bank.
The little black girl is with her mother on line and practically attached to her black mother at all times. The little black girl is either holding her mother's hand or holding the bottom of her mother's sweater. The girl might let go and get to stand a few inches from her mother, but she knows she is go no further. The little black girl watches the little white girl and wants to play too. But she knows that she's not allowed to move away from her mother.
When the black mother gets to the teller window, she is distracted. The little black girl sees her chance to move around a little. She doesn't get but three or four steps away before another black woman, a stranger, draws the black mother's attention to her daughter's movements. The black mother thanks this other black woman and sharply calls her daughter back to her side, making her hold onto the bottom of her sweater so she knows exactly where she is.
I hope some black people do not recognize this behavior. But I'm betting most will. Furthermore, I'm betting more than a few black people will think the white mother is a bad mother for not "controlling" her child. I'm betting some will throw up child-might-be-kidnapped smoke-screen when white children aren't snatched a higher rate than black children. I'm betting a number of black people have no idea that the black mother is demonstrating "over-control" and this "over-control" is born directly out of slavery.
If a black child, during the days of slavery, made the slightest mistake or upset massa that child could be hurt, killed, or sold. Today, massa has been replaced by Children's Protective Services.
More than one black woman, like Laura Browder in Texas, has come back from a job interview a few feet away to find out she's going to have to talk to Child Protective Services and a judge to get her children back. Meanwhile, a white* woman like Lenore Skenazy can start something called "Free Range Kids" after successfully giving her 9 year old $20 and a map, telling him to find his way home on the west side of Manhattan.
Yes, I know there will necessarily be differences in how black and white children are raised. Anti-black racism is real and often targets black children. White teachers, afraid of a black girls behavior (child's version of refusing to put out a cigarette in her own car) in grammar school, discipline them formally and put them on the school to poverty pipeline and recent studies indicate black girls over discipline leads to prison as well. It's been known for year that black boys who are less than perfectly cooperative are put on the school to prison pipeline.
The physical threats to black children that result from anti-black racism are very real.
But when I read the lack of concern about "happy" and "free" in the comments written by black women, it occurred to me that many of us do not realize that the mental and emotional burden of being black in this country far outweighs the physical burden of being black in this country.
Yes, I'm careful about how and when I move around white people. And I have been limited by and attacked due to being a woman as often as I have been for being black, and sometimes from within my own race. I've actually had to change career directions. And I really did feel like my life was in danger from a cowardly white police officer once. But for the most part, I've come out on top because of my class status, education, blessings, and dumb luck.
Yet, between the racial rough patches that make up 10%(?) of my life (in addition to the normal rough patches) I cannot say I've truly been free.
Like many, not all, I was raised in Black Survival Mode. I was taught that life was about duty, achievement, and survival in no particular order. I was taught that my personal achievements would reflect well on the race. I was taught "to represent." --a concept which has probably failed us in more ways than one.
And from the comments I just read, I'm thinking other black women, whether raised with a similar life list or not, "happy" and "free spirited" were not central themes when their parents were raising them. That's not what I hear between the lines of black folk chatter. I hear Black Survival Mode Child Raising between the lines.
The articles I see over and over again on raising black children are about
Yes, I know there will necessarily be differences in how black and white children are raised. Anti-black racism is real and often targets black children. White teachers, afraid of a black girls behavior (child's version of refusing to put out a cigarette in her own car) in grammar school, discipline them formally and put them on the school to poverty pipeline and recent studies indicate black girls over discipline leads to prison as well. It's been known for year that black boys who are less than perfectly cooperative are put on the school to prison pipeline.
The physical threats to black children that result from anti-black racism are very real.
But when I read the lack of concern about "happy" and "free" in the comments written by black women, it occurred to me that many of us do not realize that the mental and emotional burden of being black in this country far outweighs the physical burden of being black in this country.
Yes, I'm careful about how and when I move around white people. And I have been limited by and attacked due to being a woman as often as I have been for being black, and sometimes from within my own race. I've actually had to change career directions. And I really did feel like my life was in danger from a cowardly white police officer once. But for the most part, I've come out on top because of my class status, education, blessings, and dumb luck.
Yet, between the racial rough patches that make up 10%(?) of my life (in addition to the normal rough patches) I cannot say I've truly been free.
Like many, not all, I was raised in Black Survival Mode. I was taught that life was about duty, achievement, and survival in no particular order. I was taught that my personal achievements would reflect well on the race. I was taught "to represent." --a concept which has probably failed us in more ways than one.
And from the comments I just read, I'm thinking other black women, whether raised with a similar life list or not, "happy" and "free spirited" were not central themes when their parents were raising them. That's not what I hear between the lines of black folk chatter. I hear Black Survival Mode Child Raising between the lines.
The articles I see over and over again on raising black children are about
1) protecting them with racism
2) financial success as the true success
3) teaching them how to be proud to be black
4) financial success as safety
5) survival
6) financial success as proving yourself and all black people as worth something
Making freedom of spirit more central than survival and achievement will create a more powerful, happy, and confident adult.
The most confident adult I can think of as an example is President Barack Obama raised by imperfect white people. And I thought that long before he became president.
Did you know that Barack Obama was told again and again and again by prominent black leaders that "now is not the time" for him to run for president (whenever he began thinking about it - 2005, 2006 earlier?) These black leaders were giving him their best supportive advice --having been raised in Black Survival Mode too.
When making decisions, most of us raise a finger to the wind to see which way the racism is blowing. I don't Barack Obama does that as often. That's led to more successes than mistakes from my perspective.
So while I feel there's not much more than downside to blissfully unaware white people raising black children, there might be a little seed of potential upside of aware white people raising black children. Being less aware of racism, their children might be less on guard, less angry, less afraid and more accepting OF the reality of anti-black white racism.
By *more accepting of the reality of anti-black white racism* I mean to say, I wonder if Barack Obama's loving a white grandmother who had clearly had anti-black racist ideology teach him less fear of racism?
Of course, I've also heard things come out of President Obama's mouth that would never come out of a non-Don-Lemon raised black person. (Thinking of Barack Obama's no excuses lecture within Morehouse Commencement Speech) But it seems like he got both good and bad from being raised in the environment he was raised in.
I ask you: what can we learn from we study in the "good" parts of Barack Obama's upbringing?
Clearly, white parents of black children who are less aware of racism aren't the only ones who can raise children like a flawed but exceptional Barack Obama. But putting some psychological distance between us and our history is something we might be able to learn about by watching black adult children raised by non-black parents.
The joy, and confidence too, might fill in the spaces once taken up by worrying about anti-black white racism TOO MUCH.
I just think we have to be more aware of how slavery and slavery part 2 is still affecting us. We cannot be too proud to admit we have to self examine a little more and kick that white man out of our heads. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome is real. (http://www.amazon.com/Post-Traumatic-Slave-Syndrome-Americas/dp/0963401122)
I just think we have to be more aware of how slavery and slavery part 2 is still affecting us. We cannot be too proud to admit we have to self examine a little more and kick that white man out of our heads. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome is real. (http://www.amazon.com/Post-Traumatic-Slave-Syndrome-Americas/dp/0963401122)
We have to balance surviving real anti-black threats with optimism and mental freedom. Otherwise, why bother to give birth to children? If we want more for our children, we're going to have to have them start from a better heart and head place.
If we start from a better heart and head place, we stop seeing achievement and financial success as the only or most important proof of good life.
If we stop seeing achievement and financial success as proof of good life, competition becomes less important.
If competition becomes less important, cooperation becomes more important.
If cooperation becomes more important the equality concepts within black feminism, womanism, and anti-racism become clearer.
If equality concepts become clearer equality concepts are formed into real goals. If equality concepts become real goals faux solidarity* leaves and real solidarity takes its place.
If real solidarity takes the place of faux-solidarity, we are in a stronger position to help white people dismantle their anti-black racism.
If we help white people help themselves to dismantle their anti-black racism, we make this country whole.
From the article:
"My almost-5-year-old daughter and I do a lot of twirling at home. We pose with our arms raised in third, four and fifth ballet positions and wait for the timer countdown on our camera to tell us our picture’s been taken. We sing Janelle Monae and Emily King at the top of our lungs in the car. When she’s high-strung and on the verge of sobbing over something she “can’t” do, I assume the same superhero voice her father uses when he makes her puff out her chest and proclaim, “I can do … ANYTHING!” Then we twirl more, in imaginary capes.
I don’t always feel like doing these things. In fact, lately, I rarely feel like it. I’m terrified. In the car, I’m constantly checking the mirrors for swiftly approaching police cruisers....
I am trying to raise a free-spirited black daughter, one who will fully inhabit every room she enters without shrinking, recoiling or trying to will herself invisible at the approach of a bully, a charming boy or an abrasive authority figure. I am trying to raise her to believe she belongs anywhere she dares to venture, can pursue any safe activity she chooses, can twirl or belt out a song in public. I want her to believe she can take risks. But I am acutely aware that “free-spirited” means something quite different for a low-income black family than it does for a middle- or upper-class white one.
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*Faux-solidarity demands pretending screaming "We're all one black race" over and over again will get rid of our colorism issues.
*When a faux-solidarity that demands defense of people like Bill Cosby is replaced by real solidarity that protects all black people, including black women, we will not tolerate a predator like Bill Cosby in our ranks.
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