What I Want to Tell My Son About Ferguson

Dear Sweet 6 (and three quarters) year old Baby Boy of Mine,

The situation in Ferguson, Missouri is very simple and very complicated.  And it's heart-breaking.  And it's infuriating.  And I don't want you to know about it...yet.

But I want you to know about it someday.  I want you to understand it. I want you to ask honest, respectful questions when there are parts of it you don't understand.

I want you to know about slavery and share cropping and Jim Crow and The Civil Rights Movement and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr..  I want him to be one of your personal heroes. I also want you to know about Uncle Tom and "separate but equal" and Malcolm X and The Black Panthers and racial profiling and disproportionate incarceration practices.  I want you to see, if only from the outside, where generational anger comes from.

I want you to know that the police are there to protect you and keep our communities safe.  I want you to know that this statement is less true, or completely false, for people who look different than you.  A police badge doesn't fix a heart that beats with violent racist beliefs.  A job-issued deadly weapon doesn't make you the good guy.

I want you to know that you need to respect the police and their position in the community.  For you this is an issue of being a good, law-abiding citizen.  I want you to know that for people who don't look like you this could be a matter of life and death - wrongful, tragic, righteous anger producing death.

I want you to know that we are all equal in God's eyes.  I want you to know that you are valuable, worthy, and loved.  So is every other person God breathed into being.  This has nothing to do with the skin you're wrapped in, or the texture of your hair, or the accent of your speech, or the grammar of your language, or the style of your clothes, or the neighborhood you call home.  Not everyone believes this about all people. 

I want you to know that is wrong.  It's just as wrong when it causes a well-hidden, racist thought as when it causes a young man to lie dead in the street through no fault of his own. 

I want you to know that I am guilty of allowing appearances, including race, to affect my opinion of people.  I want you to know that you will, most likely, be guilty of this, too.  This is human nature.  This is still wrong.

I want you to know that one of the most important things you can do is be aware of this.  The more you are aware of wrong assumptions affecting your opinions and actions, the more you can work to second-guess your first impressions and see people through a purer lens.  And treat people with more appropriate respect.  And acknowledge that they, too, are valuable, worthy, and loved. 

I want you to know that this awareness takes more knowledge, not less.  More effort, not less.  More education, not less.  More practice, not less.  More love, never less.

But, right now, sweet boy, you are 6 (and three quarters), so I can't tell you these things, and have them make sense.  Because right now you are as close to knowing these things as part of your very being as you may ever be.  Your eyes have yet to be tainted by the world.  Your heart has yet to be hardened by experience.  Your mind has yet to question the value of another of God's children.

I want you to know that your view of other people, right now, is true.

I want you to know that I want the world (myself included) to know this kind of truth.

So right now, sweet boy, I won't tell you about Ferguson, because you already know the most important part of it. 

I will tell you about Ferguson when the world starts to take the truth away.

Love,
Mommy