Today I'm writing at SheKnows.com!

#WhatDoITellMySon is something I've never had to ask myself, and I'm sorry

4 hours ago

Image: Rita Arens

I have no idea what it's like to raise a black son in America — this is what I can offer

Dear James, I can't and won't pretend to understand what it's like to raise a black son ever, let alone in our current 2015.

I'm not sure I can tell you what to tell your son. You're a strong, capable father, and I have faith you will guide him in the best way possible.

Here's what I know: I was once a white person raised almost solely among white people. This became problematic because even though my family and friends didn't talk about other races, their body language suggested that the other was different — perhaps to be feared. Since I grew up in a town of 5,000 people who were 99 percent white, I didn't have to think about race much until I went out into the world.

It might be important to say that many, many white people can live their whole lives without interacting with anyone but white people. There are enough pockets of the country that are mostly white for this to be true.

Read the rest at SheKnows.

What girls had to say about people who insult them ... and then pretend they didn't really.

We need to let kids know it's okay to be upset. I'm going to show this to my daughter right now.

"I'm glad I had lunch with you guys today," I said. "I'm having trouble with my anxiety because of what's happening in Ferguson."

That we were well into our lunch was not lost on me. It's all I can think of when I see other people: that I want to talk about it, that it's like the sixties out there, that it's still happening and so many white people still think the protests are unfounded at worst or an overreaction at best. But I didn't immediately launch into it because of my white privilege. I wanted to talk about it but I waited for my window, even knowing these friends felt the same way that I did about it all. Because I wasn't positive they'd want to talk about it. 

She asked me why I didn't write about the anxiety. I thought to myself because Stacy Morrison already did it so well, and also because I don't want to co-opt the pain for myself when it is not my pain. My pain is watching their pain, and it seems selfish to claim my pain. I didn't say that part, though. I don't know why.

---

I feel like I felt after Hurricane Katrina when I saw all those black people standing on bridges, shielding their babies from the hot sun, squished into that dome, stuck.

Just. Stuck. 

And then white people focused on any little bad thing those black people did while they were stuck instead of pulling them out faster.

---

She called me this morning to say she'd been thinking of our conversation. We'd talked about how there is racial tension and even genocide going on all over the world. We'd talked about the Holy Land and Ukraine. We talked about this again, and I wanted to cry and I said, "But this is happening HERE. This is my country and we are supposed to be better than this. We get up on our high horse and police the world but look at this."

She said yes. And the Declaration of Independence was written by a slave owner. 

And we sat with that, we white ladies. 

---

She told me this ability to feel is a gift. And it is, it's what helps me to write this post and the novel about the girl with anorexia and a lot of other things that were so raw and hard to write about. I know that it is a gift. That I can't look away sometimes becomes a problem when I let it paralyze me from taking useful action. Someone very smart who works with a population who have had it very rough told me you have to let it flow through you. You can't let it stop with you. You just have to open yourself up and feel it and show it to others. 

Here. Here is the pain. 

Credit: Debra Sweet on Flickr, Creative Commons -- Howard University

It's about Mike Brown, but it's also about all of it, everything. Being followed, being pulled over, being misrepresented on the 6 o'clock news, being told what you can and can't wear, being told to hunch so you don't look threatening, having to produce ID when the white woman in front of you didn't have to, having your receipt checked with a side-eye. I don't have all the links and if I go looking for them I might not have the energy to push publish, so please believe me that those posts are real and those things really happened to people who are not white.

I say a lot that I took the red pill six years ago when Kelly Wickham asked me why there were no black people in SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK. The whole event knocked me so hard on my ass I could barely get back up. It was like seeing scaffolding where before I saw buildings. I saw what is underneath, what is not part of my daily experience, both the overt and the covert. 

---

Sometimes I try to talk about race with white people in my daily life, and I see their mouths tighten and their eyes glaze over and I know that they will turn away because they can, because the ability to not talk about it is white privilege. It's not getting into the best school or getting the best job, it's getting to ignore things that happen to people who aren't white. It's not having to care.

---

People say to me all the time it'll change with this new generation, that they aren't like us. I don't know, though. Don't you suppose people in the sixties said that about their kids? 

How many times does a little white girl have to watch the news or read the paper before she's scared of black men?

---

After 9/11 I developed a racist fear of brown men. At the time, I worked with dozens of brown men from India. Every time I got on a plane and saw brown men, I had to tell myself, just like Rajeev. Just like Rajeev. Just like Rajeev. I had to root my thoughts in a brown man I knew and liked and trusted, one of many, but the one I chose.

What if you don't know a black man?

---

These are my thoughts as I sit down I-70 a few hundred miles from the protests that continue in Ferguson. Once you take the red pill, you don't get to go back to absently pinning bento boxes and pretending a black body didn't lie on the pavement for four hours less than two weeks ago. 

Once you take the red pill, you have to let the pain flow through you. 

HERE IS MY PAIN.

I had some hard conversations at BlogHer '14 with white women who thought the women of color at Voices of the Year were exaggerating their feelings of otherness. It's true, world: White people still think people of color are making this stuff up.

The events of this week in Ferguson, Missouri, once again magnify the truth: My friends of color are not exaggerating. White people may not see it because we are not treated this way, but stigma/skepticism/suspicion is still their reality in 2014. 

We can wish it weren't true. 

We can pretend it isn't true.

Or we can amplify what is true.

We can continue to insist on the education of our white colleagues and friends and strangers about how we intentionally or unintentionally are contributing to the racism problem we have boiling in this country. We can continue to insist on change. If you're confused about what I'm talking about, click here. It's time to share what's being said.

Here are some posts written about race this week that I believe are worth reading. Please amplify them.

• The Ferguson Shooting Has Me Scared for My Son by Janene Davis
• Affected by Karen Walrond
• #IfTheyGunnedMeDown Hashtag Calls Out Media's Portrayal of Black People by Betty Fokker
• Racial Bias, Police Brutality and the Dangerous Act of Being Black by Kristen Howerton

Tonight my friend and colleague Feminista Jones has organized a 90-city National Moment of Silence for Mike Brown. Details are here. The gathering for Kansas City is at the Plaza fountain. Gather at 6 Central, moment of silence is 6:20. Wear red. I would be there but we are headed to a preplanned family reunion tonight. If you can't see things on Facebook, here are the details:

Peaceful vigils honoring the innocent lives lost and pay respect to those whose lives have been affected by police brutality will gather on August 14, 2014 at 7pm EST/4pm PT. Moment of silence will start at the: 20 minute mark.

To identify each other and show solidarity, wear a red ribbon/cloth/bandana on your right arm at the vigils. Do not wear red if in areas where doing so can cause conflict.

This google doc is so we can have a clear view of which states don’t have any vigils already established.

If you have any questions about the event, please ask them at the official facebook page or in the #NMOS14 tag on twitter.

 If you can't be there, share. Onward.

Kelly said she's leaning in, waiting to hear. She might not have been talking straight to me, but since Kelly is my race red pill, I heard her, anyway. I didn't want to. It's a week from BlogHer '13 and I had trouble with my daughter today and I have a million other excuses for why I don't want to talk about Trayvon Martin, but I hear you, Kelly, sometimes you have to talk about things that just piss you off because they are important.

I had just left a soccer match on Saturday night and was standing in line for the shuttle when I heard about the Trayvon Martin verdict. The older couple behind me were clearly trial junkies, as the woman started in on everyone from O.J. to Casey Anthony, and apparently she'd been following Trayvon, too. "Not enough evidence," she said. "I knew they wouldn't convict him."

I felt my color rising. I wished I'd watched the trial so I could speak intelligently, but I've felt this entire time like I didn't have to watch the trial to be pissed off. Trayvon Martin was walking home unarmed with candy and a nonalcoholic drink. George Zimmerman was packing heat and disregarded 911 telling him to stay away. The fact that he called 911 on a kid carrying candy is troubling enough. That he followed Trayvon with a gun? Where did this all go so badly off the rails?

With the law. 

I've thought and thought about this since it all went down, and the problem is with the culture that writes the laws. The laws are too vague. The laws may ignore common sense and ethics. And the laws and the court of public opinion have always been against the black man. (I am aware that George Zimmerman isn't white. Don't care.)

Think I'm wrong? Watch the local news in any city for five nights and tell me how many times an assailant or thief was described as a black man, then tell me how many black men actually live in that city. I don't watch the Kansas City news that often, but every damn time I SWEAR that I watch the news, a black man has gotten away with something! How many black PEOPLE are there in Kansas City?

White alone, percent, 2010 (a)	59.2%	82.8%
	Black or African American alone, percent, 2010 (a)	29.9%	11.6%
	American Indian and Alaska Native alone, percent, 2010 (a)	0.5%	0.5%
	Asian alone, percent, 2010 (a)	2.5%	1.6%
	Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone, percent, 2010 (a)	0.2%	0.1%
	Two or More Races, percent, 2010	3.2%	2.1%
	Hispanic or Latino, percent, 2010 (b)	10.0%	3.5%
	White alone, not Hispanic or Latino, percent, 2010	54.9%	81.0%

I'm guessing about half of those black people are female. Those black people sure are busy!

Or are we just more worried about what they are doing than what all the other people are doing when it comes to crime? Other people commit crimes -- they just don't get covered as often on the news. 

Now, on the flip side, how often do we hear about white people who have been kidnapped versus black people? 

In all my reading, the person who has summed up my malcontent best is Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic:

We have spent much of this year outlining the ways in which American policy has placed black people outside of the law. We are now being told that after having pursued such policies for 200 years, after codifying violence in slavery, after a people conceived in mass rape, after permitting the disenfranchisement of black people through violence, after Draft riots, after white-lines, white leagues, and red shirts, after terrorism, after standing aside for the better reduction of Rosewoodand the improvement of Tulsa, after the coup d'etat in Wilmington, after Airport Homes and Cicero, after Ossian Sweet, after Arthur Lee McDuffie, after Anthony Baez, Amadou Diallo and Eleanor Bumpers, after Kathryn Johnston and the Danziger Bridge, that there are no ill effects, that we are pure, that we are just, that we are clean. Our sense of self is incredible. We believe ourselves to have inherited all of Jefferson's love of freedom, but none of his affection for white supremacy.

You should not be troubled that George Zimmerman "got away" with the killing of Trayvon Martin, you should be troubled that you live in a country that ensures that Trayvon Martin will happen. 

And, so, Kelly, that's where this white lady stands. Am I pissed at George Zimmerman? Yeah, I am. But I'm more pissed that anyone could feel comfortable stalking an unarmed minor because he was black and wearing a hoodie.  (Emphasis mine)

Zimmerman

He's got his hand in his waistband. And he's a black male.

Dispatcher

How old would you say he looks?

Zimmerman

He's got button on his shirt, late teens.

Dispatcher

Late teens. Ok.

Zimmerman

Somethings wrong with him. Yup, he's coming to check me out, he's got something in his hands, I don't know what his deal is.

Dispatcher

Just let me know if he does anything, ok?

Zimmerman

(unclear) See if you can get an officer over here.

Dispatcher

Yeah we've got someone on the way, just let me know if this guy does anything else.

Zimmerman

Okay. These (expletive) they always get away. Yep. When you come to the clubhouse you come straight in and make a left. Actually you would go past the clubhouse.

To me that "and he's a black male" sounds a lot like Paula Deen's "of course" when asked if she'd ever used the n-word before. "And he's a black male" -- as though that's all it takes to be a criminal. "Of course" -- as though using a racial epithet is a normal and acceptable thing to do. "It doesn't violate the law" -- once covered slavery. Listen, the law is just what's written down at the time. People write the laws, and society dictates whether those laws are left to stand or rewritten. 

Clearly there's a huge gap between the law and right/wrong in the Trayvon Martin case, and that really sucks. It's a problem so huge I don't know where to start. Unlike women's health rights, there's no concrete one law to point to, to say "change this and we'll be safe." The overarching climate that made it defensible somehow in a Florida court of law to clearly single out a kid because he's a black male who's staring is the thing that needs to change, and it's so nebulous it's hard to know where to start. 

So I start in my neighborhood. I start with my daughter. I start with the people I know. I started with the older couple in line behind me at the soccer match. I told them I thought the law and what was right were two completely different things. The older couple didn't see the forest for the trees, or maybe it wasn't a Saturday-night conversation. But I'll keep trying. I don't know how much influence I have on my blog or my social media, but I'll keep trying. I'm not ignoring it. I'm trying to figure out where the fuck to start.

But I'm leaning in. And you know what? I think the fact the Trayvon Martin case got as covered as it did in the media is maybe a good thing. How many trials do we see on the national news for black kids getting shot? Let's keep the conversation going.