What I Wanted to Tell the Black Mom

I wish I could have shared it with her

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

I understand why you fear for your teen son

I’m a mother of sons too, and while mine are grown men now, I vividly recall the stomach-dropping anxiety of their adolescent years. But I’m white. Whatever fears that kept me wide-eyed at night waiting for them to come home were, I’m sure, only a peek at the dread you must carry with having a Black son in America. That’s true even in our lovely, mostly progressive small town — a place you and your family relocated to, hoping to find an environment less polluted by racism than your previous home in the Southeast.

But no place is immune, as I know I don’t need to tell you. When it comes to diversity, our town comes up short, a fact clearly evident in our school district where the population is nearly 50% white, nearly 50% Latinx, with a smattering of Black, Asian, and South Asian families. Not exactly a rainbow coalition. Most people here are well-intentioned — Black Lives Matter signs appear on windows here and there in the shops downtown and neighborhood houses. Still, being a rural, wine-country enclave, we’re untested.

If I were you, I would probably have reacted the same way you did