To the boy who called my daughters the N-word
To the parents of the boy who called my daughters the N-word:
I don’t know who you are. Perhaps we pass each other at the local Kroger or rub elbows at open house at our children’s elementary school. Maybe we both rise before dawn to sweat at the same boot camp workout or share the same pew at Sunday Mass.
I don’t know if you will be horrified by what your son said — or if you will cheer him on for learning lessons of bigotry and hate being taught at your kitchen table.
I don’t know if you believe — as he seemed to — that my daughters didn’t have the right to use a playground open to all the children in our community, just because they are black.
I don’t know if your boy, who looked to be about 6 or 7, even told you what happened.
That he and two friends exchanged dirty looks and jumped off a slide-and-climb contraption as soon as my two daughters clambered on.
That your son spit out the N-word.
That my 8-year-old heard him and quickly called me over. She was upset and confused. Why did he say that, she asked me.
That I walked over and asked your son if he had called my daughters a nasty name.
That, sheepishly, he confessed that he had.
That I made him walk over and apologize.
That one of my daughters was hiding behind a tree.
That a gaggle of middle schoolers rushed over from the basketball court to defend him.
That, after I recounted what the boy had said, one of them, likely your son’s older brother, sneered at me defiantly.
“He’s just a little kid,” he growled.
Yes, he is a little kid, but old enough to know better, I replied. So are you.
My daughters are little kids too, I told the cluster of scowling adolescents. My daughters are children who deserve to play in the park without being targeted because of the color of their skin.
You weren’t there that day, or I would have told you the same.
Did your son tell you that many of those boys continued to shout at my car even as we drove away?
That only one approached us to offer an “I’m sorry.”
Maybe it ended there for your son. Maybe he went home, kept quiet and played happily as you prepared the next day’s holiday feast.
Our Thanksgiving Eve was not so tranquil.
Instead, I had to talk to my child about the ugly history of the N-word, an epithet that can be traced back to the very beginnings of this country. I had to look into my child’s stricken face and explain how it was used to demean and dehumanize enslaved people from Africa, how it is still used to degrade people who look like her.
I had to recount the first time a racist name was hurled at me, when I was about her age and some neighborhood bullies called me a spic. I shouted them down, I told her, and kicked a few in the shins.
I had to explain that ignorant people use such names to make others feel bad, that ignorance doesn’t mean they don’t know better. It just means they choose not to act better.
Then I told her to listen to my words:
“This is important. Never let a name define you. Never let anyone make you feel inferior. Never let anyone keep you from going where you want, doing what you want, being what you want to be.”
She listened, then flung her arms around my neck and whispered. “Thank you for protecting us, Mommy.”
This was not the first time we have had this talk. It will not be the last.
My daughters, still young enough to squeal with delight as they bounce on a see-saw, are learning about this country’s complicated record with race, about the ravages of slavery and the scars it has left. They have read about Ida B. Wells and Phillis Wheatley, Martin Luther King Jr. and Jackie Robinson.
They know about the Middle Passage, where many Africans died aboard disease-infected ships, and how those who made it through the voyage faced lashings and lynchings in the new world.
They have seen images of well-dressed white mothers screaming insults at Ruby Bridges as she integrated a Louisiana elementary school. They understand that the women of “Hidden Figures” had to overcome segregation and discrimination on the road to success.
They have listened to Maya Angelou recite her poem “Still I Rise”: “Up from a past that’s rooted in pain, I rise.”
They know that African-Americans have had to be strong to survive.
They know all this not just because they are black. But because they are American.
They need to know this nation’s flaws, as well as its merits. They need to push past the glossed-over myths of social studies textbooks and grasp the realities of the past and present.
They need to know they come from a community that has risen out of chains to occupy the Oval office, from a people who stood tall and fought for equality as police dogs and hoses were turned on them.
That knowledge will forge pride. That pride will forge armor. That armor will be necessary.
Because racism can rear its ugly head even on a sun-dappled outing on the playground. Because I want them to be strong and fearless in the face of hate. In the face of boys like your son, who fling racial slurs like rocks in a slingshot.
A few days later, my daughters insisted on going back to the same playground with my husband.
With their father watching over, they romped without trepidation or restraint.
The next afternoon, they begged me to take them again.
They dashed between the swings and the slide. Hopped off and on the see-saw. Giggled with abandon.
As evening light danced on autumn leaves, we played tag, darting around trees and park benches.
A young boy, who had been playing alone, approached us and asked if he could join our game.
Within minutes, he was laughing and zipping around the playground with my daughters.
When it was time to go, he took off, running down the street toward his house.
He seemed lonely, I noted to my girls. They nodded. “At least we helped him have a happy day,” replied my 8-year-old.
The boy was white. But that didn’t matter. I beamed. My daughters are not just strong and fearless, I thought to myself. They are also kind and compassionate. It is their natural inclination.
They left the park that day uplifted, their spirits and souls expanded because they made someone’s life better. Your child can’t say the same.
As long as your son wields the N-word, he is not just wounding others. He is diminishing himself.