Dear Black Parents

[pnwmom]

http://verysmartbrothas.com/dear-black-parents-please-love-your-children-so-they-wont-grow-up-to-be-clarence-thomas/

DEAR BLACK PARENTS: PLEASE LOVE YOUR CHILDREN SO THEY WON’T GROW UP TO BE CLARENCE THOMAS

My daughter will be six months old in a few days. She is a smiling, rolling, bouncing, and burping bundle of Blackness. She’s amazing, hilarious, and perfect. She is also a minuscule masochist who doesn’t waste opportunities to find new ways to potentially injure herself. (For instance, just yesterday, while holding her while typing, she decided to head bunt my laptop. And then she started crying for 10 seconds. And then I got scared thinking she was really hurt. And then she starting smiling and laughing like “Got you, nigga!“) Which means that my primary parental objective at this point is to make sure she’s still breathing.

She will eventually age out of this slapstick infant stage. And while keeping her alive will always be paramount, other more complex objectives will enter the picture. Like making sure she knows how to recognize a high ball screen and when to hedge on her man. And cultivating a sincere appreciation for pancakes. And sugar on grits. And teaching her the lyrics of Radiohead’s “Talk Show Host.”

But mostly I want her to be in love with who she is. Not a suffocating, consuming, constricting, and narcissistic love where she’s the only meaningful entity in her universe. But a love where she’s able to acknowledge, accept, embrace, and find the beauty and the value in all the things that make her her. A love of herself and her skin and her nose and her lips and her hair and her people and her parents and her Blackness that exists without reservation or shame and permeates and inspires others around her to strive for their best selves.

SNIP

[forjusticethunders]

1. It took me a hell of a long time and the love of a wonderful woman

to love my Blackness, because I had to learn to accept that I was valuable and worthy as who I was and who I can be. I wish my family had done the same when I was growing up.

[JustAnotherGen]

2. I love this site

And I love this article!

[pnwmom]

3. I think this article

Last edited Tue May 31, 2016, 05:28 PM - Edit history (1)

really speaks of some universal truths for a parent of any race, don't you?

Though parents of black children have an additional challenge because the prevailing standards of beauty tend to be white standards.

[The Polack MSgt]

4. K&R

Also, the cookout tips were amazing.

Thanks for the tip on Very Smart Brothers.

On my list of need to visit sites from now on.

[jtuck004]

5. "But mostly I want her to be in love with who she is. Not a suffocating, consuming..." lol.

Her odds would be ever so much better if you get her educated outside the U.S. of A.