My children, thoughts after Trayvon Martin

Before having the ultrasound that would tell us the sex of our second child, I watched and wondered with amazement and curiosity my misshapened belly swelling and contorting in ways that it did not during the first pregnancy.  "It's definitely a boy!" family members, friends, and strangers would point out, giving me all sorts of "proof" of this.  "A boy for your husband.  Good job."  At this, I would cringe.  The thought, the expectation that I might need to keep popping out people until a boy was handed over to my Cheshire grinning husband made me nervous and frankly quite sick.  I wasn't sure I would be the best mother for a boy and worried about raising a biracial little boy who would want to take the lead from his father who had not at any time during this lifetime been a black man.

Yes, such is the way my brain works.  I thought of my uncircumcised (My husband is French and would find circumcision completely barbaric and ridiculous.  I actually agree, but all the other kids would be circumcised which would further alienate and complicate.), bi-cultural, bi-racial, brown-skinned boy trying to navigate the world of American boyhood.   Baseball, football, ultimate Frisbee, basketball, all games my husband has never played nor enjoyed watching. I wondered if I would have to stand in front of the house teaching this child how to do and love these things, maybe even coach so that he just might have a fighting chance on the playground.  Untucked shirts, pants hanging low (even if low-ish that's pretty low for a French guy who pulls his pants up close to his chest), and unkempt hair just might be too much for this Euro metrosexual who loves cologne as much as wine. 
I panicked before I even had any idea the sex of the baby.  Would I be the one to have "the talk" with our son?  About how he was sweet and lovely with curls and an eager smile until he went into the local convenience store at twelve for some wholly unhealthy snack, until he and his friends sauntered home from school laughing and talking loudly about whatever it is teenage boys talk about, until he turned too quickly at a stop sign while driving a car full of his friends, until he wanted to date one of his lifetime playmates and then became "the black boy."  I hated the thought of explaining that though he loved space and astronauts, science, art, music, girls, and skateboarding, people would look at him suspiciously because of the color of his skin, just waiting for him to do something wrong.  I cringed thinking about explaining how "no matter what your white friends are doing, don't you get caught out there doing any of it!"  The same message that, even as a young girl, I received.  

All these things gave me pause, but none like needing to teach my little brown boy that though his parents were a mixed couple with a European father and an African-American mother, in the eyes of the United States of America he would be a little black child, a black boy, and that being a black boy was somehow "less than" no matter what we'd taught him.  I agonized over having to explain to him and to his father that while yes he was indeed a boy of mixed heritage, in the United States definitions and criteria for Americanship are nebulous, and that here one is often forced to "choose a side", to simplistically label, and that  black, no matter what popular culture (music, games, sports) would tell him, was not cool on the street, in your car, in the store, on a date.

How would I explain that even our president, the leader of the modern, free world still had to spend more time than necessary explaining who he was and where he came from, so much so that it often seemed like that was the only question anyone wanted answered, nevermind a sluggish economy and serious world issues to tackle.  I woke up many nights in terror as I heard my husband describing our children as "metisse" or "Creole" with all the sincerity in the world, really having no idea what a young son of ours would endure. My husband is an altruist when it comes to race and culture, expecting that all should be open and curious about our differences and excited by our similarities.  I hated to be the acid rain on the parade, but after all my years in this country I was not so optimistic about people.  I was prepared if I needed to be, but extraordinarily grateful when the ultrasound told us that, once again, we were having a girl. 

I am not proud of this.  In truth there is a lot of shame for me that I just did not think I could bear it, could not live up to what a little black boy would need to become a strong, dignified, self-respecting black man in the face of overt and covert racism and discrimination.  I knew that because of my fears and my inexperience with boys and males, that I would be a strict, aggressively clingy, overprotective mother.  And that that could be possibly emasculating and harmful to the boy who  just might not ever learn how to defend himself because at every turn, there I would be.  I just knew that I was not great with boys and would take the responsibility of leading him and showing him a path through our racist, hypocritical culture as though it were a life and death matter.  Already, my girls know that Mommy holds them accountable for more than many of their friends are held.  They know that there are rules about self-respect, public behaviors, how we treat others, what we call them, and how we judge. 

This afternoon, after a walk with a friend in a local reservation, we stopped into a Starbucks in a neighboring town.  We were dressed in athletic gear.  She with a fanny pack (very cute LeSportsSac) and I with a small, shoulder-slung backpack.  She suggested we browse at a cute shoe store and also a little dress shop that looked promising.  I bristled but not noticeably.  We perused together and were met at the door by the shopkeeper who was kind and all smiles.  We did not buy anything.  I actually did not have any money with me, but we muttered to one another something about the shoes being cute and hoping to get back soon.  On the sidewalk I mentioned to her that I don't usually go into small shops or boutiques, malls, department stores, anywhere really, dressed like I was for fear of being followed.  "Shopping while black" I told her.  She was quite surprised.  I have known her nearly all my life.  She is astute, incredibly intelligent, fair, open, very liberal (maybe even more so than myself) and had never considered this at all.

How I wish Lily and Virginie will not have to learn this.  And I hope that they will not have to defend themselves against people who believe them to be sexually promiscuous, aggressive, emasculating,  or less attractive or intelligent than their white counterparts.  I hope that they are not given more to bear, too much to carry while others are given less to handle.  I hope that they will not have to be representatives from the Planet Black or Planet Biracial explaining all the time who they are and what moves them.  Can we still not find common ground? 

When I hear the story of Trayvon Martin unfolding, when I see the injustice, when I see the hypocrisy, and the laissez-faire attitude with which a black life is considered, when I see how easy it is to describe a tall, lanky, unarmed black boy as suspicious with little disagreement or worse, ignored concern of good neighbors,  my heart bleeds for us all.

Trayvon Martin could have been our child and but for the grace of God he could have been yours too.  Hold your children close tonight.  Whisper in their ears how they are loved, how you will honor them, how you want with them to make the world a better place.  Then tell them how even in the leading country in the world, a citizen can be gunned down on the street, a child,a playmate, a friend,  by a vigilante who thought that he, dressed like all the other teenaged boys in the world, looked suspicious.  Let your kids know this, so they can feel it and help us change the world.