for trayvon.

i can't seem to let go of his face, that sweet gentle smile and eyes full of life.  i keep finding pictures of his mom and his dad, reading their words about their son, not fully understanding the pain they feel but still not being able to ignore what it is.

he was my son, too.

i say this from my safe house, from my white skin, from my blue eyes.  i say this as a middle-class woman, still married, with a job that i live by and believe in with all my heart.  i say this as an outsider to  many lives, but as an insider to the reality of this country.

i say this as a mother of a white boy, secure in the fact that there is no reason to fear him walking down the street.

and i say this wondering what it is i can do, what i can possibly provide for my privileged child to help him understand his place in this world; the fact that he will be chosen first, be looked upon with pride, be seen as a great possibility instead of a liability or a statistic.  

he will be just fine.

but today i realized that i have a job to do, a new kind of parenting that i have been entrusted to provide.  trayvon's parents would ask me to.  his community would ask me to.  i have to do this, in order to combat the institutionalized racism embedded in myself, in my family, in my world.  i have to, in order to make things a little bit more right.

the job is simple: tell my son like it is.  let him know of his privilege, and tell him about his surroundings.  explain how far back it goes.  speak the names of the boys lost, and tell him of their stories.  show him pictures of trayvon and oscar grant III.  tell him what they liked, how they played, what their favorite things were.  make them real.  

and then enable him, engage him to make change.  have him stand for what is right, and have him aware of his own thoughts.  talk to him out loud, be bold in my opinions and be brazen in my faults.  let him see that racism is inherent in all walks of life, let him see how it hurts, let him see how it destroys.

let him see how shallow, how small a person can be who believes skin color denotes behavior.  show him how much fuller an open heart can make one person's life.  

this is what i can do for my son.  this is what a white mother can offer in this time of strife and sadness.  this is what i can do--walk the walk for trayvon and all of the boys lost.  i can only hope that my heart's beat contributes to the healing that we need, and helps me to see myself more clearly.

sweet boys.  may my tears for you meld with your peoples' tears, so that we have the evidence in front of us that speaks to how entwined we are: water from our bodies that mirrors each others' sorrow.  we are the same, i am your mother, i am your sister, i am yours, and you are mine.

only together, no other way.

 for my son, for my other sons, this is the truth i know tonight.