I wasn’t going to post this picture of my son, because it felt so intimate somehow. So innocent, sweet, and like I needed to protect it.
Then in my grief and confusion this week upon learning about another parent’s loss of their innocent, sweet, and hoodie wearing little boy, who they can no longer protect, I realized it was the least I could and should do, because their son Trayvon is my son Sam.
If you haven’t already signed the petition, or acted in some way to bring justice to the young man, who looked just like Sammy, only he was ten years older, and armed with a bag of candy for his little brother when he was shot dead, please do so here.
Love Isn’t Enough has a special Trayvon edition here.
Because Trayvon is ALL OF OUR SONS.
I lay awake at night praying that my sons will know what to do, when someone asks them what they are doing there, or in this car, or on that sidewalk with a tone they must recognize immediately as needing to know in a particular kind of way or else. How will I, the white mama have any idea how to raise them to know what a white man might intend to do to them if they don’t know the right way to act, or else.
Trayvon was just seventeen years old, walking to the store to buy his little brother some candy, talking to his friend on the phone, visiting his father in a gated community in Florida. His killer, a community watchman, has had no charges brought against him, after admitting to shooting and killing Trayvon 24 days ago.
Please join us in keeping national attention on the injustice. Please join me, in doing our part as parents of Trayvons everywhere to insist that a child is a child, is a child. A child is our responsibility to protect.
3/25/2012 I am adding a link to this post at Rage Against the Mini Van titled “Required Reading on the killing of Trayvon Martin”
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My deepest sorrow reaches out to his parents, and as well to the parents of the Jewish children, and the family of the Jewish father shot in Toulouse, France Monday, another blatant act of racism and hatred. It is all unfathomable.
Somehow, saying that this was a beautiful post seems inappropriate even though it is beautifully written. So I will just tell you that it is an important post and thank you for writing it with love, compassion and justice in your heart.
Thank you Lara. I have been sitting with how to address, speak about, act for a few days. This post was one of those that wrote itself. Placing it on the blog, is also placing it within the life stream so to speak of a narrative for my sons to read one day when they are older…. It will allow us many opportunities to honor his life, and to prepare them for theirs I hope.
This has been weighing on me heavily as well. This tragedy scares the crap out of me! Exactly my thoughts, how do I teach my boys the perils of being a young African American male? On a more philosophical level, WHY do have to teach them that because of the color of their skin they are suspicious or must be somewhere they are not supposed to be or must be up to no good. It just makes me want to cry thinking of my beautiful, innocent boys being hassled for no fair reason other than their skin and their gender. But we must as it could be a matter of life and death. If this man is not arrested for this crime we have slipped back a hundred years to a time when white men were not punished for doing anything to a black man. Sad, sad, sad.
Kim
This really sums up my feelings in the past weeks thinking of Trayvon. I go to bed with him on my mind and wake up with high hopes that his murderer will pay for his senseless act. I do this because this story hits home, terrifies me and also makes me stronger. I know we as mamas of beautiful brown boys everywhere must prepare them for the world they will enter as men.
It is scary for grandmothers also…
Yes, yes it must be.
Thanks mama c. I too have had these thoughts heavy on my heart, always and especially each time I look at my brown boy with long eyelashes and a smile that flashes.
So good to hear from you here. Yes, yes, and yes. TO making the world smaller, so our long eye lashed beautiful brown boys and girls can take up all the space they deserve safely in their walk to create a better world too.
[…] will write more too, but you should start by heading over to Mama C and looking at her beautiful son, Sam and read what she has to say. What I know is that we all […]
There is so much to say, and I am so glad you said something. Many good and important things. You inspired me and I wrote a bit tonight after a silence. I don’t know if this will seem odd, but besides all the many things I have to say and the many,many things about which I agree with you– I believe that one of the starting places for me, and for all of us– is to get close enough to one another so that we can cry and shake and hold tight and have the courage to do what needs to be done.
In that spirit, I write after not having commented for a long time now (not because of lack of interest for sure!) to send my real outright love to you and your family– I am glad to be your sister in this work and I look forward to the day of meeting sometime.
with love and appreciation, Laura
I agree with it all.Courage and closeness with our neighbor, our family, our dear friends. Courage to know them all, and have them know us. It is a world lacking courage in so many ways in this context of the word. Lots to consider Mama. Thanks for your post and post!
There is so much I don’t understand about the entire incident. Like a black mom said, black boys are adorable when they’re young and then overnight, they become a “threat to society.” We can’t be blind to this or complacent. Thanks for posting. Sometimes, I don’t say much because my thoughts are so incoherent.
[…] To transracial adoptive parents, if race is a scary space for you, please be responsible and find the support, resources, and education you need to make it a space where you and your kids can learn and grow. Your children’s race is not a card they can play when it seems convenient and then hide in their sleeve when it isn’t. Your children’s race is in their very DNA and is showcased for all to see 24-7. If you can’t hear me, a transracial adoptee, then please listen to these transracial adoptive parents here and here. […]
Wondering if you’ve seen this blog:
http://johnson-mccormick.com/2012/03/and-you-wonder-why-i-dress-my-boys-the-way-i-do/
I’ve become obsessed with these stories
Peace to you and your family.
[…] mama post that most got me is MamaCandtheBoys’ Wearing a hoodie and sweatpants or… I am so glad she chose to share the photo of her adorable, precious, vulnerable son. It seems to […]
[…] Mama C. reminds me that these photos have some resonance in a hard way, with current events in the world. I am always conscious, especially as a mom, of the world we adults have participated in, created and also inherited. And whatever you or I did or didn’t do to land us where we are, I think about our job as people and as parents, to leave the world and our young people with something better– in particular, a world in which we’ve ended racism. I didn’t set out to write a post about Trayvon Martin or about his mama and daddy or about the racism in the world, and I wasn’t thinking about the world outside our door when I said, “go stand by the bookcase, so I can take your picture this morning”. She (my daughter) and they (the pictures) are just beautiful. I wish there weren’t such current meaning in these sweet, silly morning photos. I’ll enjoy them and hope you will too–nonetheless. […]