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.
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.
