How does it feel? *D’Angelo Voice*
Y’all. We’ve been skating on this ice for a looooong time.
There have been numerous books, blogs, and (painful) instructional videos related to talking to children about race.
So I was really excited to watch PBS’s The Talk which aired this week, hoping that the show would focus on the painful emotions caused by police brutality for minority families.
While The Talk did add multiple perspectives to the dialogue (e.g., parents, police officers, and community members), there continued to be a blind spot that the documentary did not redress.
Given that there is no one right way to stay ‘unshot’ around police officers, what on Earth does it feel like to have to talk to your kids about such racial encounters?
To be fair, I have a bias. I am a clinical psychologist by training and have learned to ask all about feelings and emotions. Sometimes, ad nauseam. Kids will hit me with the eye roll emoji on some “if this woman asks me about my feelings one more ^*$#ing time” look.
And yet, in EMBRace (the clinical intervention my team developed to process racial encounters with parents and kids), we rarely have folks telling us they’re tired of talking about their emotions.
On the contrary, we have had families engage in very deep processing of the ways in which they have to be mindful of social environments, their own behaviors, and the subsequent emotions of both parent and child. It’s not just what you say to cops, it’s how you AND your kids feel.
The problem with the procedural (the what) is that we haven’t fully conceptualized the humanity (the why).
Why is it important to expose our emotional vulnerabilities when telling our children our deepest fears — that one day they won’t come back to our loving arms?
As a family clinical psychologist, I know that parents feel a primary obligation to ensure their child’s safety. They constantly tell kids to look both ways before they cross the street, not talk to strangers, and clean their rooms (I’m less sure what this has to do with safety, but just know it gets said a lot).
However, when a dedicated agent of the state poses a threat, rather than protects, our children of color, what can we say to assuage our and our little one’s fears?
To acknowledge our own fears would be to recognize that others see our children as less than human — as monsters, thugs, and snakes.
“Once people start dehumanizing children, I am convinced that they can do anything else.” -Dr. Howard C. Stevenson, Jr.
When we just say what to do to stay safe(ish?), we are missing the point entirely that there are special things we have to say to our beautiful children. And. That. Makes. Us. Mad. As. Hell.
To say, “put your hands on 10 and 2…because if you don’t, you may be killed and that makes mommy quite sad”, would require a parent to unearth his or her own fears, trauma, and racial experiences. It would get messy. It would result in tears. But it would also help reify their humanity as a child worth getting emotional over. And not after a t-shirt gets made in their honor. But while they’re here on this Earth.
Simply put, our kids need answers. They need to know that — despite the harsh ways others may feel about our Black bodies — in this house, I love you. Deeply. With emotion. And you can always come to me to be reaffirmed of your right to exist.
Because when the rules don’t work, my tears will speak more words than you ever did to that cop.
