On
July 19, 2016, Kate Riffle Roper posted this essay on her Facebook
page. It is worth a read for us all.[1]
Racism exists. It is real and tangible. And it is
everywhere, all the time.
When I brought my boys home they were the cutest, sweetest
babies ever. Wherever we went, people greeted us with charm and enthusiasm.
Well, not all people and not everywhere. But, to me, they were the “wacko”
exceptions. I thought to myself, “Get over it.”
Now my boys look like teenagers. Black teenagers. They are
13. Let me ask you these questions. Do store personnel follow your children
when they are picking out their Gatorade flavors? They didn’t follow my white
kids. Do coffee shop employees interrogate your children about the credit card
they are using to pay while you are in the bathroom? They didn’t interrogate my
white kids. When your kids trick-or-treat in, dressed as a Ninja and a Clown,
do they get asked who they are with and where they live, door after door? My
white kids didn’t get asked. Do your kids get pulled out of the TSA line time
and again for additional screening? My white kids didn’t. Do your kids get
treated one way when they are standing alone but get treated a completely
different way when you walk up? I mean a completely different way. My white
kids didn’t. Do shoe sales people ask if your kids’ feet are clean before
sizing them for shoes? No one asked me that with my white kids. Do complete
strangers ask to touch your child’s hair? Or ask about their penis size? Or ask
if they are “from druggies”? No one did this with my white kids.
Did you tell your kids not to fight back because they will
seen as aggressive if they stand up for themselves? Have you had to honestly
discuss with your husband whether you should take your children to the police
station to introduce them to the officers so they would know your children are
legitimate members of your community? Have you had to talk to your children
about EXACTLY what to say and not to say to an officer? Have you had to tell
your children that the objective of any encounter with police, or security in
any form, is to stay alive? It never occurred to me to have these conversations
with my white children. In fact, it never occurred to me for myself either.
There is no question that my boys have been cloaked in my
protection when they were small. What I did not realize until now is that the
cloak I was offering them was identification with my whiteness. As they grow
independent, they step out from my cloak and lose that protection. The world
sees “them” differently. It is sweet when they are adopted little black boys so
graciously taken in by this nice white family. But when they are real people?
Well, it is not the same. And they still look like little boys. What happens to
them when they look like the strong, proud black men I am raising?
The reason why the phrase All Lives Matter is offensive to
black people is because it isn’t true. Right now, in America, my black children
are treated differently than my white children.
So when you say All Lives
Matter as a response to the phrase Black Lives Matter you are completely dismissing
the near daily experience of racism for those with pigment in their skin, curl
in their hair and broadness of their nose.
I am posting this so you can see the reality I have
witnessed and experienced, because, frankly, I didn’t believe it was true until
I saw it up close, directed at two souls I love, over and over again. So,
please, use this post as a pair of glasses to see the racism that surrounds
you. Then we can actually make progress toward all lives being valued and
cherished.