For years I went around saying that I never wanted to have children but then three distinct things happened to make me (kind of) change my mind. First, the election of Barack Obama as President of the United State. I remember watching the news and hearing interviews in which Black Americans recounted for the first time that they felt as though they could tell their children that they could be the President of the USA and have it not be a lie. Hearing those statements made something ping in the back of my brain: I didn't want to raise children in a society where they would be limited by the color of their skin. Really, who would? Many do but to be honest, I get that hardship and passing it on didn't seem right. But then we got a President who looked like the people I came from, and that made me see this country in a different light. Second, we re-elected him. Third, I fell in love and thought, Sure, I could reproduce with this man. Now, nothing is perfect. Obama is struggling. There are people out there that refer to him as the nigger President. Relationships eventually lose their glossy newness (now we talk about Drain-o before bed, pick out sheets, and fold each others underwear). I find happiness in the mundane. Even still, I feel hopeful, like I could maybe have a baby.
I felt hopeful.
Because people still call Barack Obama a nigger and even if the Airman and I have children, his whiteness will never overshadow their blackness and that blackness is still so undervalued in this society. After the Newtown shootings I was actually afraid to go to work. One morning I cried so hard that the Airman told me that maybe I should take a day off. I felt fearful of the world. Of my world as though any minute it would devour me and I would never be heard from again.
I find myself feeling similarly in the aftermath of George Zimmerman's acquittal. I'm afraid for my brother and my cousins and my uncles. I'm afraid for my friends and for their sons because it really does feel like open season for the hunting of young, Black, men. And now I'm reminded (because when you live in a bubble, it is so very easy to forget) that it's not just the neighborhood watch or the police you have to be afraid of; it's that fact that no matter how hard America tries, no matter how civilized and polished we try to appear for the rest of the world, we are still a nation full of hate.
How could I even begin to think of raising a child in all of this?
I can't. I don't think I will.
Earlier today I thought: My White friends are so lucky. They can have babies who will unlikely ever find themselves in Trayvon Martin's position. They might never know what it's like to be followed around a store or be called a nigger or carry the burden of being a member of a race some deem worthless. But really, they are not luckier than the Black babies being born today. As long as we continue to demean and devalue any human lives, we are all suffering. Whether or not we can see it, it's true.
Even knowing this, I'm back to thinking that I don't want babies.
I felt hopeful.
Because people still call Barack Obama a nigger and even if the Airman and I have children, his whiteness will never overshadow their blackness and that blackness is still so undervalued in this society. After the Newtown shootings I was actually afraid to go to work. One morning I cried so hard that the Airman told me that maybe I should take a day off. I felt fearful of the world. Of my world as though any minute it would devour me and I would never be heard from again.
I find myself feeling similarly in the aftermath of George Zimmerman's acquittal. I'm afraid for my brother and my cousins and my uncles. I'm afraid for my friends and for their sons because it really does feel like open season for the hunting of young, Black, men. And now I'm reminded (because when you live in a bubble, it is so very easy to forget) that it's not just the neighborhood watch or the police you have to be afraid of; it's that fact that no matter how hard America tries, no matter how civilized and polished we try to appear for the rest of the world, we are still a nation full of hate.
How could I even begin to think of raising a child in all of this?
I can't. I don't think I will.
Earlier today I thought: My White friends are so lucky. They can have babies who will unlikely ever find themselves in Trayvon Martin's position. They might never know what it's like to be followed around a store or be called a nigger or carry the burden of being a member of a race some deem worthless. But really, they are not luckier than the Black babies being born today. As long as we continue to demean and devalue any human lives, we are all suffering. Whether or not we can see it, it's true.
Even knowing this, I'm back to thinking that I don't want babies.
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