Resharing a post from 2014, because nothing has changed.. "I am the mother of a Black man"

My son in an action shot - Kung Fu form

And when my son was 3 years old, I was teaching at an alternative school out in the boonies of the high desert in Southern California. It was a class for "at risk" students who had been expelled from schools in their districts. My classroom was their last chance before incarceration; their last opportunity to earn credits to return to school. 

Most of my students had probation officers for petty crimes they'd committed in the community.   This population, along with Special Needs students, was my absolute favorite. I would choose to teach these kids over "Regular Ed" students any day. However, in this environment, out in the sticks, I was surrounded by a group of adolescent boys, ages 14-17 - who were of either the Skinhead or Neo-Nazi mindset. It was 1994.

In this particular classroom, there were only three boys of color. Two Black, and an Hispanic; oddly, the Hispanic was a wannabe Neo-Nazi - and barely tolerated by his crew.  And there was one, very quiet white girl. She'd been kicked out of school for a concealed knife that didn't quite make it through the scanner. She said it was for protection against mean girls who were bullying her.

This group was a lively bunch. About 16 in all - and I had an easy-going, male Assistant Teacher; he was white. After a couple of weeks laying down my rules and my way of conducting class - something amazing happened. One of the white boys from whichever group (I forget), raised his hand and said, "Hey Teacher. Me and my boys can't understand why we like you. We're not supposed to like Black people." It was my moment. Because during these first few weeks of class, I'd already had to change seating arrangements, mediate between factions, and squash the racial chants: Black boys, one fist raised: "BLACK POWER!"; white boys, two fists raised: "UNDER WHITE DOMINATION!". Yes...they'd shout those words, just like that. Black boys first, then the rest would echo.

It was my moment to bring it all to a halt. And I did so by using the resources supplied by the County of San Bernardino (my employer). They had a vast library of video tapes - Historical documentaries on the making of this country, and all the peoples who came to this land, by choice and by force. Since the class enjoyed "movie day", and did their best to behave to earn the reward, it was easy to quiet them down. Basically, it was American History/Social Studies. And they got an eye-full. 

I didn't even start with slavery. We watched the history of the Irish immigrants, and the discrimination they suffered when coming to America to escape the potato famine (1820-1920). Then there was the tape on the Japanese American Interment - post Pearl Harbor; one on the Chinese Exclusion Act ,1866- immigrants who had worked on this country's railroad system; another on the discrimination against Italian immigrants; then, the Indians Appropriations Act of 1851. The class was educated on the Jewish ghettos in Europe and America. ("Ghetto" is an Italian word that became the name for the neighborhood Jews lived in. Ghetto: the poorest part of the city).

Movie day was once per week - but the class demanded to have an hour video tape, daily. By the time we got to the enslavement of Black people from Africa - the boys and girl had come to this conclusion:  "The white man has oppressed EVERYBODY! We didn't know!" At the end of the 3-part video on slavery, all of them were in tears. They apologized, and thanked me for opening their eyes, without judgment or negativity. They thanked me for just coming with the facts. (That was the Lord. He kept me quiet.)

I don't know where those young people are today; they'd be mid to late 30's, pushing 40 by now. But I do hope some of them made it out of that desert experience and are somewhere being useful citizens. Some of them came from homes where cooking Meth was the family business. When I look at what's going on in our society/world today, I think about that experience, 20 years ago. And I think of how we trained our children in my home. They had to be excellent in school and respectful to their elders and others; but they also had to have a defense mechanism. They had to be watchful, without being paranoid. And how in the world do you instill watchfulness without creating paranoia in your children? It took much prayer, and a strong constitution every time we sent them off to school.

I'm the mother of a Black man. It's 2016, and he is 25 years old now.  He's already been racially profiled - stopped by TWO units because he "fit the description" (in Alabama).  Although he was trained in martial arts from an early age and is capable of defending himself physically; and extremely articulate - able to virtually talk his way out of anything... my son is no match for the random person, or rogue cop with a gun. And no classroom video presentation of the atrocities of this nation's history is going to quell the current situation.

Lord, protect us.