“Mom,” my then 8 year old daughter Cady said to me at the over crowded McDonalds Playplace. “The boys are yelling 'run away from the black boy’ at Everett.” My sister in law, who was home from college for a visit turned to me and said “I thought I heard something like that while you were in the bathroom but I wasn’t sure.” I looked again at Cady, she was clearly upset and expected me to do something. I could see my happy two year old Everett, busily, running, climbing, finding his way up, sliding down, and doing it again. He was the only AA child playing this day. Minutes went by as I watched Everett. If there was something going on he was completely oblivious and then I heard it, words that turned my blood cold “Hurry!!! Here he comes, run from the black boy!!!” It was distinct, loud and clearly directed at Everett. More voices joined in each mirroring versions of the same. Some of the boys were too young to know what they were saying, however, some were not.
I got up stood in the middle of the room. Without thinking I reacted. I know my voice was raised but it was also shaky and I am sure I appeared upset, I was. I addressed the parents in the room and asked them to please stop the game some of the children were playing. I looked around the crowded room, one mother had her head down and she was giggling. I have a nervous giggle sometimes at the worst moments, but this just infuriated me. Another mother looked at me in horror as if to say, 'I’m sorry but I’m clearly too embarrassed to address this at this time with my children….' only I don’t know what she was thinking, I never will. Some of the boys playing the game were her children, I knew it and she knew it. Everyone else seemed to be looking anywhere but at me, as if I wasn’t there.
Nobody got up, nobody asked their child to stop. I heard it again “run away from the black boy!!!” giggling and screaming as they began to run. Enough, I thought. I turned to the pack of children and explained this is not a nice game to play and that they were not to talk to my son that way. They didn’t even look at me just kept on. Another boy yelled at the top of his lungs “run away from the black boy!!!” He then proceeded to run from my 2 year old baby as if he were a monster. I walked towards him, slammed my hand HARD on the plexi glass to get his attention, pointed my finger at him, this time I yelled. “Do NOT talk to my son that way!!!”It worked,I had caught their attention.
As I thought about it later I am positive most of the parents there that day would not have wanted their children to talk like that, yet they did nothing.Did I shame them? I didn’t mean to, I only wanted to stop it. How was I to do that without embarrassing anyone? That was impossible. But how could I have handled this without anger? I always have to wonder what upset Cady more, the boy’s unfair game or her mother’s reaction? I want to reflect assertive but controlled responses.
Another important lesson I gleaned not just from this experience but many others: We cannot ignore race with our children, all of our children, not just our biracial or AA children. Even if your family is CC, you have to talk to your children about race and racism. I feel that not dealing with these issues is part of why this game happened in the first place and why it continued. In an ideal world we would all be “color blind” but we don’t live in that world....yet.
