Black Lives Matter
I wrote this…. days ago… and at first I thought….. maybe I should stay silent…. maybe I shouldn’t poke at the already boiling chaos, but I refuse. I refuse to stay silent. My family needs a voice. My black friends need another voice to chant with them, to scream with them… one that has somewhat felt the pain and heartbreak that they feel on a day to day basis. I stand with ya’ll…. with us! Enough is Enough!
This morning as I sat… drinking my coffee, I scrolled through the chaos on Facebook…. my heart is broken. I CAN’T BREATHE! He begged! He told them over and over! He called out for his mama! I CAN’T BREATHE!
I am a white mother of two beautiful brown skinned boys. My husband is a hard working black man. While you may say that I would never fully understand “Black Lives Matter”…. I fully do.
I have witnessed on many occasions the disrespect and level of uncalled for indecency towards myself with my family present.
When I first met my husband, the looks of pure disgust and hatred we would get as we walked together through Walmart or any other place we would go…. the whispers… We ignored them even though deep down we wanted to say something, we wanted the world to see that it was okay to love someone from a different race… but we just kept going.. holding our tongues and holding each other’s hand… a little tighter.
When I announced to my own family that I was pregnant for the very first time. It seemed like almost all of them washed their hands of me and forgot I ever even existed. Of course it hurt, to not have your family there to support you no matter what….. but I expected it. Yet, we kept going.
After our first child was born, my so called “father” decided he wanted to be a part of his grandson’s life and for a while he was. We took trips to Mississippi to visit. He and my husband would fish together. We’d grill and spend time together. Until one day, I received a phone call informing me that my father was going around referring to my child as a “Wigger”… I was heartbroken. However I should have known that any chance of ever mending mine and his relationship would never really work because I knew deep down that he was racist. A few years later, he tried to “fix” things again. After I spoke with my husband and some of my other family about it, I decided I’d try one more time. He asked to come get the boys for Christmas day. I let him. He fed them chilli and found some already bought “girl gifts” from under their tree and gave them to my sons for Christmas and sent them home. …. Never again.
When my grandmother was in her final days at the hospital. They had called the family in. My father called me and told me and my sister to come. Of course we went, I loved my grandmother but the only person I had there with me for support was just going to be my sister and I knew she had them still so I asked my husband to come with me. They despised me for it. I was completely frowned upon. I didn’t let it bother me. I went to do what I meant to do and that was to kiss my grandmother, tell her I love her and say goodbye. I knew that even if I had not took my husband with me that they would have still been angry that I showed up simply because I am married to a black man.
Another occasion, my boys and I were looking for a buggy at Walmart and saw a woman.. (white) pushing hers back into the corral, I smiled and walked up to her to ask if I could take her buggy and she looked at me and my sons and she made a bee line to the man behind me also needing a buggy. The look on my kids faces…. They knew as well as I did, what that was really about.
Once I went on a trip to New York with my husband. He drives an 18- Wheeler. On our journey up there, I don’t remember exactly what state we were in when we stopped for something to eat but we were tired and hungry. The truck had been broken down on the side of the road for the past five hours with no stores.. bathrooms… nothing. We had to be towed to a truck stop. Inside the truck stop was a restaurant. When we got seated, the waitress..(white) snarled her nose up at us.. got our order, brought our food out and never came back to check on us at all. I would have understood her not coming back had they been busy.. but we were the only two people in the dining room and the fact that she made the face that she did made me feel like it was because he was black and I was with him.
When my oldest son was entering the 5th grade, we moved from the city to the country in hopes that our boys could be raised in a better community and school system than the one we were in. Disappointment hit me quick as my children were bullied on the school bus for the color of their skin. The little girls at school would want to be his friend but because their parents wouldn’t like it…. they wouldn’t be. I have watched my child come home heartbroken so many times. I have watched him cry because nobody wanted to be his friend. I was so hurt because he was hurting and I didn’t know how to fix it. But that’s all I wanted to do was fix everything for him.
What do you do as a white mother of two black children and the wife of a black man? You pray! You stand up for them! You use your voice! I have prayed over my children, with my children. I worry every single time that my husband steps out that door to head to his next delivery that anywhere between point a and point b, something reckless could cause us to lose him forever. Sure it could be a simple accident, anything. I worry about it all but who’s to say he doesn’t run into a riot and the unthinkable happen? Who’s to say that he won’t get pulled over by a racist cop and be shot or anything just because of the color of his skin? So I pray that God will keep him safe and bring him back home to us safe and sound.
This morning I watched a video of a FedEx driver driving his big rig through a riot. The rioters were trying to bust out his windows, climbing up onto the side of his truck. He pushed the gas, completely unaware that he was dragging a body. He was just trying to get himself to safety. Trying to get back home to his family safely! My heart broke! I was so scared in that moment for my husband’s life! For my soon to be black men!
This has got to stop! Hatred is getting us nowhere but deeper and deeper into chaos. Everyone deserves their shot to be treated equally.
I, as a White American woman, will stand up for equality and I will die fighting for the right for my black men and women whom I love and cherish wholeheartedly! Black Lives Matter!
BLM Products Used In These Photos
PhatKatt Poses:: BLM Protest Posepack
*dimma* Black Lives Matter Protest Signs
~On A Whim~ 