This is a departure from my normal topics and tone but it’s one that’s on my heart and I care about as much as anything else I share on here. Maybe even a little more.
Tonight, I will participate in the National Moment of Silence (#NMOS14). I can up with 25 reasons why I shouldn’t off the top of my head but I keep circling back to reasons why I should.
I pride myself on being a mother. It’s not my greatest accomplishment but it is one of my favorites. I’m a Mocha Mom, I’m a mommy blogger, I’m a PTA mom, I’m a mom advocate, I’m a mommy ambassador and I just live being a mommy at this stage in my life. I even put it in professional and personal bios as “Mommy to 2 Young Children.”
What I don’t say is I am a mommy to 2 black males and while they’re young children, they will grow up to be black males. If genetics has anything to do with it, they will grow to be tall strong men like my husband. An incredibly loving man who happens to be big, tall and brown and has told me that he is intentional in talking softly as not to scare white people. My husband could have been described like Eric Gardner, so I’m going out as a wife.
My young children will grow up to 17 year old young men who will be handsome, smart and start to feel themselves as 17 years old do. They will want to turn up the music a little louder in the radios of their cars when we are not around to tell them turn it down. They will be a little flip sometimes but they are going to be excellent young men who I will love forever. They will be described in the same terms that Jordan Davis’ mother used about her son, so I’m going as a mother.
As a mother, I cried the night of the Trayvon Martin verdict and couldn’t put my 13 month old son in his crib when he cried for me because I could only remember Sabrina Fulton and that she was a mother who couldn’t hold her son that night or any other night.
For every reasons that I shouldn’t go, I keep coming back to the 2 reasons why I will. I am the mother to two young children who will grow up to be black men and if I don’t go, I won’t have done everything I think I should have to support another mother.
I don’t expect everyone to join me but I would ask that you say a prayer and light a candle for a moment of silence if you can tonight at 7:20 pm. Regardless of your views, people have died and we want to honor their memories.
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