Please know that it comes from a place of love, and pain.
My heart is broken. This week our country witnessed a murder on national news. I can't shake the images and I can't stop thinking about it. I believe that George Floyd was murdered senselessly and the thought of what it must be like for his family and loved ones is unimaginable. As a woman of color, I definitely feel sadness, fear, frustration and extreme anger.
I welcome you all to share your thoughts here if you like, or with me in an email. We have to get it out - stuff like this is poison. In all honesty though, I do feel freakin' pissed off.
My Mami Sisters, we are vital in making sure tomorrow is better for our children. As I have met most of you who are local, and now many of you who are not, I can say that you are all clearly strong and smart women. You're good people who live good lives. Like me, I know you all plan to teach your children to respect others and treat them with dignity and kindness. I honestly believe that is true of all of you - all of us. I realized this week though, that I need to step it up. I need to be even more intentional about teaching my little African and Mexican-American Princess that racism and mistreatment of others whom we deem "different" is WRONG. But like her black and brown relatives before her, she also needs to learn how to deal with HATE because it will be thrown at her. There's no way around it. As a human being however, she needs to know how to deal with it when SHE feels it too. She needs to have the tools to cope with it in either instance. She needs to learn the self control that is necessary to conduct herself with dignity and respect regardless of what she feels. Will she always succeed? Hell no. But I feel that if my husband and I do our job right, as well as model this behavior, she will also have the tools to make things as right as possible when she does screw up.
As I discussed with some awesome new Mamistad members I met on our info chat yesterday, I know that we moms are capable of more than many of us realize. As cliche as it sounds, we moms are raising the citizens of tomorrow! That has never meant more to me than right now. We have such a huge impact on the future of this country and the world because we are raising the people that will populate it, govern it, nurture it, doctor it, police it, regulate it, care for it or damage it. WE are the ones who can make a difference in the future by teaching our children compassion and love and how to deal with hatred.
I plan to make sure that my daughter is a better citizen than I am. I want to give her the tools to realize that I can only take her so far - that she needs to grow and learn beyond my capacity to teach her. I want her to make a much greater difference in the world because her understanding of it has the capacity to be far greater than mine is. Hopefully, it is true that with each generation, we really do get further than the one before us - because damn, right now, sh%t looks pretty freakin' primitive.
As your bossy big sister :) I want to challenge you all to step it up with me. I KNOW we're all great moms, but we need to make sure that our babies are getting the real message! They really do deserve better than what's playing out on TV today. They also deserve to know why it's playing out like this. Hatred can't just be the awful thing that screws everything up and that we all wish would go away. It's here to stay and we all know it. I just hope that as human beings, we don't keep getting blindsided by it - that It doesn't have to have the last word.
This is a hell of a crazy time in our country. Pandemic, riots, economic issues, soon, hurricanes...you name it. I feel like we're at a tipping point but I also feel hopeful because I know what's coming - OUR CHILDREN. They're going to be better than we are, smarter, kinder, broader thinking. They're going to be these things because we are their moms and WE KICK ASS.
Thank you for reading. I love you my sisters. 💙
M, ~c
“Momma!” Floyd, 46, calls out. “Momma! I’m through,” the dying man says, and I recognize his words. A call to your mother is a prayer to be seen. Floyd’s mother died two years ago, but he used her as a sacred invocation.~Quote by Lonnae O'Nealhttps://www.nationalgeographic.com/…/george-floyds-mother-…/
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