Born Black In America

The world has been shaken since George Zimmerman was found Not Guilty.

I cried after they read the verdict. I went outside and cried. I didn’t want my children to see me crying and ask what was wrong because looking into their faces would’ve pushed me over the edge.
There are times where I will sit and just watch Samuel(3yrs)play or listen to him telling me about his lego trucks in great detail, and I feel the lump in my throat, my eyes start to water and I think about Trayvon and his family. I am so sick of reading about what a terrible teenager he was for smoking marijuana, or that he threw the first punch. Does that mean he deserved to die? I often think that Trayvon’s mother probably watched her son play and listen to him talk. Sybrina probably had such high hopes for her son. She loved him. Now her son is gone simply because he was born Black in America.

The fact that my children will at some point suffer such hatred and ignorance for being Born Black feels like two tons on my chest. I’ve been trying to go about my day and I do, but numerous times I day I find myself drifting off. I can’t help but wonder what the future will hold for my children. To have such hate in your heart that you can take another life and feel no remorse is very disturbing to me. I can’t imagine my children not being in my life and there are too many mothers out here living without their babies because they were born Black.

I’m looking at the world differently. I went out to grocery shop Sunday and the world felt off, cold, tense.

In the days since the verdict I’ve noticed a two different camps…those talking about it, addressing racism head on, and those who haven’t mentioned it at all…waiting for the rest of us to get over it and move on. I can tell you right now that the Black Community is not going to sit quietly in the corner and talk amongst ourselves so we don’t offend anyone. We are not worried about being politically correct, we are not concerned with making people feel comfortable. We are not going to get over it and move on.

There have been so many amazing pieces written this past week and I want to share them with you.

From Black Girl in Maine: No Humanity for Black Boys, musings on the Trayvon Martin Case.

Tell me what happened to Trayvon Martin wasn’t about Race.

Frankly Black women are not exactly allowed the whole spectrum of emotions either, since typically we are reduced to simply being either angry or strong.
However for our boys and men, they are not even deemed worthy of anger or strength, instead they are simply beings in the eyes of many who must be annihilated before they harm someone.

I have been very upset about the parenting communities failure to address this issue. I love how he says we all need to say something. 
And you must read this post from her husband. What To Say About Trayvon Martin…and George Zimmerman.

You may not mean for your silence to mean anything, but it is more likely to be perceived as “not caring” than it is to be perceived as “respectful silence.”

Our  own Sol, from Odd Mama Out wrote about The Delusion that people want to believe Zimmerman is Not Guilty.

George Zimmerman has been found not guilty of the murder of Trayvon Martin. But he is not innocent. HE killed Trayvon. Shot him dead in the heart.

And then there’s A Letter to Trayvon’s Mother from Lark and Bloom.

I am going to address my own prejudices that I have. I’d like to say I have none, but it isn’t true.

From NPR Code Switch: Of Hoodies and Lost Time.

The most insidious reality of racism in America is that the tolls are rarely cut and dry. It’s not just lives lost; more often than not, it’s living lost. It’s not going there, not wearing that, fretting away minutes of your day preparing. For the worst.

Barrel of Oranges Writes Trayvon Martin, Peaceful Parenting, and White Privilege.

They have a good kid, who was walking home from the store one night, who had a promising future, and did normal teenage stuff. They were raising him in this scary, broken world, just like you likely are raising your babies. Trayvon Martin was a child, walking home from the store, when a man carrying a gun followed him, ignored 911 dispatch, and then shot him dead.

A Love Letter on Black Motherhood.

My breath stopped momentarily and a breathless shiver ran through my body. I forced a smile. I already loved you deeply, but knowing that you were a boy, and not a girl, paralyzed me with fear.

On My Brown Baby: What if Trayvon Had Come Back Home?

It’s not easy to have “the Stalking Talk,” to tell your child how the stereotype of the threatening young black male is so deeply ingrained that some people look at him and imagine they see a monster—what one researcher labels as a fear so deep that it mimics our primitive reactions “to spiders and snakes.”

People are whining and wishing we could all focus on what matters instead of talking about our differences.  Let me get this straight, your new chocolate chip cookie recipe, your family vacation, your 100th post on the many ways to make your own cleaners is more important than this tragedy?

-Darcel