By Autumn McDonald, New America, June 4, 2020
I date myself with a reference to Rodney King, and I do so intentionally. I was fourteen when he was brutally beaten by LAPD officers; I had no thoughts of kids, or how a parent protects them. But in households around the country, Black parents were having “the Talk” with their children— an intense, high-stakes training on the realities of racism— in the hopes of inoculating them against disproportionate police targeting and brutality.
My oldest child is now seven years old. A few nights ago, we discussed George Floyd’s death. Even with my high-level, simplistic explanation, he understood and was brought to tears. He thought at first that I was speaking of the past, and I could see the fear on his face when I explained that this wasn’t “back then.” He asked lots of tough questions about hate and racism, and ended by telling me he wants to leave the United States. He was terrified.
Like my son, I am deeply afraid—and it’s based on a lifetime of experience. The week that California schools closed to accommodate shelter-in-place orders, parents in my son’s class were scheduled to meet with the teacher, principal, and district leaders to discuss four instances of the use of the N-word in my second grader’s classroom. A “friend” once told my son that he was his slave. And when he was just four, another parent at soccer practice called my son “violent and hostile” for raising his voice slightly—while his blonde-haired teammate, who was speaking in the same way, was simply “overtired.”
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