This America
Broken syllables and jumbled pitches fall out of my mouth as I read a picture book to my children. The roughly brushed paintings on the pages reveal only general figures and obscure the details of facial expressions, so they are watching mine – and I’ve lost control. I’m choking on words from a book intended for children ages 4-9. I’m 32. I pause and hug my babies to gather myself. My kids lean in to me, one on each side, looking up at me and then each other across my chest. I have to explain how we all got here…
…not how we got into this particular embrace, but how we all got here. In this house together, in this city, in this state. In this country. This America.
My babies, both the color of a caramel latte and just as perky, warm, and sweet, are starting to embark on this journey of understanding who they are in the context of this country. They know they are Americans. They’ve participated in Independence Day parades, worn the garb, handed out candy and temporary flag tattoos. We shoot off fireworks at the end of our driveway every year, we display a flag on the front of our house year-round. Their grandfathers on both sides are Army veterans. One of them, a Vietnam War Vet, passed away before they were born due to Agent Orange complications. We are most certainly American. We’ve felt the deepest pain of protecting American freedom.
American freedom.
The book I’m stumbling through brings all this to the forefront, confuses it all the more – “Freedom on the Menu” by Carole Boston Weatherford. The beautiful yet crushing impressionist paintings capturing the emotion of the time are by Jerome Lagarrigue. When I purchased this book and others like it, I did so because Black History Month has an important purpose, and I have a parental duty to spotlight racial history in America for my multiracial children. To remind everyone how we got here. To not let our ugly past be forgotten. To remind everyone where we came from (not so long ago) and to keep our eyes toward continued progress.
I watched the tracking information fervently, waiting for these books to arrive on my doorstep, excited to teach my children – to create these “woke” future American decision-makers. But once they hit my door and were in my hands, my gut sank. The excitement died. It all got very real for me. Me, a white woman in the Bible Belt, I have to tell my children about white privilege, white shame, black resilience, and the remaining kaleidoscope of characteristics that got us here. And I’m choking. Literally and figuratively.
What is segregation? And more importantly – why? Why was it?
Why? Why? Why? Mom? Why? Mom? They want to know. They ask me this question that all children repeat until you lose your shit and shout, “BECAUSE IT JUST IS!” This time that response won’t do.
Instead, I lose my shit and cry. They are horrified that white and black people had separate drinking fountains. That they could be jailed for ordering a banana split at the café counter. That they were spit on for simply being present in certain spaces. “They.” My babies. Their people. Not mine. My people were the ones doing the spitting.
So how can I answer this question? How can I explain why?
Why? (insert admission that there were actual American laws that allowed this)
Why? (insert explanation on white people’s “feelings” toward other people)
Why? (insert explanation on their “feelings,” their fears)
Why? BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE FUCKING AWFUL.
But I can’t spit that out, so I cry and I hold them. I pull them to me and inside I scream, I shout my fears knowing that someday I’ll have to go backwards in history from the Civil Rights Movement. I’ll have to tell them that segregation was just one piece of this ugly American history, this heinous path to American freedom.
I’ll have to tell them how we all reached this continent. How they got here. How I got here. I’ll have to tell them who built the country, who did and did not get paid, who did and did not have choice, have freedom. Who felt the deepest pain of building that American freedom.
American freedom?
Their father, a proud black man, sits across the room from us in a chair and just stares at me with that “I told you so” look. He knew I’d struggle through this. He knew this was nothing to be excited about.
He breaks the tension of the moment by asserting “SAY IT LOUD,” to which all three respond in unison, “I’M BLACK AND I’M PROUD” from smiling faces. This is a normal occurrence, as James Brown is a regular in our home, and I’m thankful for this particular interruption to my meltdown. I needed his help. This chant, that I don’t participate in, am not a part of, still gives me strength as their mother.
I recover and reach the end of the story. The main character, a sweet, perky, warm little girl, gets her banana split. All is well. My kids take the victory and snuggle in their beds, slip off to whatever land awaits them on the other side of their eyelids, a tiny win in this lifelong battle toward their very American dreams, their fragile American freedom.
– Kate, Woman of a Certain Rage