Mother-to-Mother: An Open Letter about White Privilege and Fragility

Dear Former Neighbor:

It’s been years since we were neighbors. Our children are grown up and are making their own ways in the world, yet you came to mind when I recently read the poem, “I am the Rage” by Dr. Martina McGowan.

One evening you called me, “Valerie, I wanted to talk to you. I’m not sure if you’re aware of what happened between Hailey and John?”

I already knew. Days before, on Halloween, my son, John, was out trick-or-treating with his friend, Ben, a couple of neighborhoods away. Though thirteen years old, they still enjoyed going out collecting candy. Even more than the candy, the boys loved the freedom of wandering the neighborhood, meeting up and greeting peers and of course, dressing up. For the third year in a row, John dressed as Death, scythe and all.

In the well-kept neighborhood in Coralville, Iowa, while crossing 12th Street, John spotted Hailey. She hadn’t seen him. He came up behind her, placed his arm loosely around her neck, and shouted at her. His intent: to scare. It was Halloween after all.

You asked, “Did you know John grabbed Hailey around the neck?”

“Yes, he told me about it,” I responded.

You paused. “I’m not trying to alarm you, but he scared her really badly,” you continued, “Hailey’s had nightmares. She’s really shaken up.”

I knew what you were saying, where you were going.

“Now, I’m not going to call the police.” My heart began to pound, as it also sank deep in my chest. “I know that John was just kidding around, but he hurt her, and I wanted you to know. We’ve really had a tough weekend here with her nightmares and anxiety.” Your voice was serious, concerned that he would strike again.

I knew exactly what I was supposed to say and said it: “I’m really sorry to hear this. I knew he’d scared her, but I had no idea how badly.”

“Well, thank you. I wanted you to know, so he doesn’t do this again.” You paused again. “Hailey will be okay, but he might really hurt someone next time,” you warned. “He needs to know that what he did was wrong, that he hurt her!”

I roll my eyes and bite my tongue. Hurt for her is synonymous with discomfort when for me and my son, hurt can mean imprisonment, broken bones and/or death. We speak a different language. I assured you that I would talk with him, make him understand how harmful, even  dangerous his actions were. Satisfied, you hung up.

How was I supposed to hear your message? I heard that my son, a thirteen-year-old Black boy, was a menace. I heard that you thought you could seek law enforcement for support if your daughter wanted, but that through your benevolence, you’d decided against it. I heard that the fault lay only with my son, and that your daughter, your innocent, pure daughter, was a victim who had never done anything to cause any malice between the two of them.

I went to John in a rage, “Why didn’t you tell me that you scared the fuck out of Hailey?”

Bewildered by my alarm and level of anger he said, “I don’t know. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”

“Well it was!” I screamed back. “I just got off the phone with her mother. Hailey’s mother claims that she’s having nightmares. What the hell did you do?”

He started to explain. He and Ben had crossed the street from Ben’s neighborhood in order to enter the other, a less upscale subdivision on the other side of the road. They were walking, going from house-to-house when he saw her. She was with a couple of her friends. John admitted that he found Hailey to be annoying. So with Ben in tow, he approached her from behind and grabbed her by the neck, yelling in her ear. He knew he’d scared Hailey, but it was Halloween and it was par for the course. He hadn’t seen it as a Nightmare on Elm Street kind of an incident.

“Why did you do that?” I asked.

“Because I don’t like her. She’s mean and bossy,” John responded.

“Well, you can’t do that. You can’t put your hands on a white girl! No matter how annoying or stupid she might be! Why the hell would you do that? You know there is no defense when we are considered to have wronged them!”

He shrugged.

I’d already had “the conversation” with him about what it means to be a Black man. What it means to be perceived as a threat even when he’s done nothing to be threatening and how important it is for him to carefully monitor and manage his own body and actions, which is different from his friends. This is the burden I carried for moving my children into the most affluent, whitest area of town; where they are often one of two, maybe three students of color in their classrooms in elementary school where million dollar homes flank the hill across the street from their school. This is the environment where I’ve raised the boys since we moved to Iowa from the equally white, but less affluent outer suburb of Everett, Washington, just before John and his younger brother turned eight and their youngest brother, my lightest-skinned child, was two and a half. (The differentiated treatment between my children due to the differences in their skin color was also another issue we always needed to contend with as well.)

“Don’t you understand? If she wanted to call the police and charge you with assault, she could. What would I do then? I can’t hire a lawyer and get you off? Do you know what would happen to you if they took you to juvey? Do you know what they’d do to you?” I became more and more upset.

I’d spoken to him about the danger of touching girls, PERIOD! But that touching a Black girl, he’d at least be given the benefit of the doubt; a chance to have a he said, she said because the ground between the two is more even, and he might have a better chance to argue his point. But in the case of a white girl. There is no argument there. He will always be wrong. This time, I was desperate to make it stick. I wanted him to know that under no circumstances is he ever to touch a white girl unless it’s mutually agreed.

I spanked him on his bare bottom. I metered out corporal punishment so a police officer wouldn’t have to remove him from my home in handcuffs. So a judge would not have to sentence him for assault or rape or any other number of charges the system issues when black men are caught with the wrong white girls. So my son would never see the inside of a jail or prison cell. Better that I do this, than the world does worse.

And John took it. He took each whack. Felt the sting on his butt. By the end he was crying in pain. I felt I’d done what I could to make him understand. To ensure his safety. And ensure it’s never forgotten. I love my son and I fear that he has no idea what the world may hold for him if he cannot learn this message. I have seen the results of Black men who’ve been broken by the system, and I’m anxious simply thinking about my son becoming involved in the juvenile justice system that provides little justice to Black boys.

Now my son is nearly twenty-eight; your daughter must be twenty-six or twenty-seven. Our children don’t interact, but when I read “I am the Rage,” I’m transported back in time:

I am the mother who wields the belt that cuts both ways

that beats my children

in hopes that You will spare their lives

These lines struck a nerve. To be honest, I didn’t even finish the poem because those lines brought back a powerful memory between our two children: your white daughter and my Black son.

After the deaths of Trayon Martin, Tamir Rice, Laquan McDonald and countless others, the narrative is different. Back then, we only were concerned with what my son did wrong. The question of why he would dislike your daughter was never a thought. We only discussed the actions you felt were needed to protect your daughter. You never considered what I had to do to protect my son. In your eyes, Hailey was the only victim. In reality, my son was a victim too. He was victimized when his childish horseplay was interpreted as a physical assault. Your privilege freed you to share the disturbance of your household, never considering the disturbance your threat of police involvement brought to my own.

And now, years later, I know the harm I perpetuated on my own son out of fear of what life, what people like you, might do to him. I feel ashamed that I fell prey to your biases and your skewed notion of right and wrong and that I didn’t defend my son. So quick to appease your sensibilities that I didn’t stop you and speak about my big-hearted son who always went out of his way to make others comfortable and was the last person to hurt anyone in the world. I didn’t cut you off and ask you what your daughter had done to my son to make him so disagreeable to her? Back then, you had to be pretty egregiously irritating for John to actually want to go out of his way to do something to you. Instead, when I finished the conversation with you, I caused more harm to my own child than what should ever have happened.

I tell you this now in hopes that, as a mother, you will have a conversation with your daughter. Remind her that being Black doesn’t equate to being a menace. Help her to understand that her interactions also count and that she needs to consider the life, thoughts, and feelings of others, not merely her own. I hope you hear my message with the intent of helping your daughter ensure that her daughter doesn’t have the same experience with a boy like my son. We need to work together to break this cycle in order to make a better world for our grandchildren-to-be. Don’t you agree?

Sincerely,

A Black Mother