In their young efforts to comfort my despair over George Floyd, my boys offered this: “Mom, he did have meth in his system and had been previously arrested for armed assault using a gun on a pregnant woman.”
I screamed silently inside my own head: So fucking what if he did.
Deep breaths. I recognized this as an opportunity. I explained that even if those things were true, they were irrelevant to his murder. A police officer’s job is to uphold the law and protect people. It is wrong for a police officer to kill an unarmed, non-threatening person. That is murder. And the murdering of Black people has been allowed, normalized, and defended since long before even our parents were born.
What I told them: George Floyd was unarmed. He was fully apprehended, incapacitated, and murdered on camera, while three other officers stood by and did nothing. This is the same culture that shames victims of rape and abuse by pointing to something—anything—the victim did, as if that explains or justifies the abuse. It never does. Abusers cause abuse. Victims do not. Ever.
I did not burden my children with the full list of names—Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Stephon Clark, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling, Eric Garner, Laquan McDonald. My sons are still young. They are still in disbelief that law enforcement can and does kill vulnerable, unarmed people—including children.
Yet we have also seen white, heavily armed mass shooters peacefully arrested and escorted for food. The contrast is not subtle.
Now, when we see a Black man, instead of fearing what he might do to us, we consider what might happen to him. I recognize that the threat extends to all Black and brown people, not just men. I also acknowledge my own conditioning—how media taught me to fear Black men. That programming was deliberate. And it was wrong.
My growing awareness of the privilege and safety of my non-Black skin sits beside the understanding that I do not have to fear for my fair-skinned sons in the way Black mothers must fear for theirs. I cannot imagine the terror of sending your child into a world that sees their skin as threat.
Black mothers and sisters, I see you. And I am paying attention now.
