A single mom to three boys working hard to live my truest life. I hope as I share the beauty, the gratitude, the grief, the hard…you find inspiration + hope to show up to your life as honestly as possible.
All in Social Justice
“I have a dream that one day the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”
—MLKJR
Raising Black sons & having Black friends & learning from Black mentors + pastors doesn’t mean I get a pass on doing the work, doesnt mean I’ve arrived anywhere worth accepting. It doesn’t mean I know an ounce of what it means to live Black in America.
Was talking w/ Baby’s Dad about #georgefloyd: “I think about if his mama had to see these videos, hearing him cry out for her...no mother should ever have to go thru that. I imagine your mama having to go thru this and...” He said, “Lets take it a step further: imagine if that was your Sage you were watching, hearing him cry out.” I’ve got another black child on the way.
Every time we see brown bodies abused or murdered, it hits me on a visceral level. That could’ve been Hakeem, Kevin, Mike, LaMrkus, Andre, or Josh. It could have been Christina, Brandie, Jazmon, or Jess. The list of lives it could have been goes on as the list of lives it should have never been goes on.
Here is the prayer I've been mulling over today, on MLK Day:
May I never forget the privilege it is to parent these children whose skin is darker than mine, whose hair is textured and curly, whose lips are fuller, who come from descendants of Africa.
May I never forget that my whiteness has oppressed them for generations upon generations — continuing to too — and that they + their ancestors were and are made in the very image of God. We must always start with the Truth that each of us are made in the actual image of God.
May I show my white son what it means to be a white person who loves Jesus and understands that His grace is big enough for us to sit in the truth that we play a piece of the evil that is white supremacy, and we get to choose to ignore it OR be a part of the bridge being led by people such as Dr Martin Luther King.
Something I've seen and even bought into until I became an adult with my own thinking is that society likes to stigmatize kids who are in foster care or who were adopted. I didn't even realize I bought into this.
They are seen as less than, unwanted, and often times "behavioral." They are labeled "the bad kid" by peers and even adults. Sometimes we don't even realize we see them this way, often it is implicit and subconscious bias deep within us...that's the trouble with our society. Things are engrained into us without even realizing it, and these things continue to churn the way our world works, spinning abusive and unjust cycles.
And sure, many of our kids's behaviors hurt other people. That is real. But, I'd argue that every single kid hurts another person with poor choices; they're all developing and learning what is okay and what is not.
Their sadness permeates our home, and we do our best to balance the tension of sitting in the sad and engaging in fun activities to create a variation of childhood memories.
We hear a lot that they are lucky to be with us. It's one of those well-intended statements that makes me sick and sad and all the things in between.
When you slow down to think about it, they are living some of the hardest stories known.
They aren't lucky, you know.
Lucky is winning the lottery.
Lucky isn't being ripped from your family and all you know, being forced into a system that doesn't have its stuff together, and into a family of strangers.
Never did I imagine that by the time I was 25 years old, I would have experienced miscarriage and a full term pregnancy, adopted our first son, and began the foster care journey.
When I envisioned myself as a twenty-five year old, I surely didn't think I'd be in the broken trenches with little humans, so worthy to be safely and securely loved but so deprived of it too. It's much more "attractive" and "Instagram worthy" to live that cute life of procreating biologically, and in order, making little mini-me's, perfectly spread out. You know? We all know typical families aren't perfect, but it's often easy for me to look at them and think, "Dang, they are sure cute and sweet. I wonder what that's like." I’m sure people have looked into my tiny frames in the past and had similar thoughts...that’s just the thing with social media...right?
If there is such a thing as “the wrong side of the tracks” then that is exactly where I came in to the world!
Born a mixed race girl, straight into a system that never had any good intentions for me. My mother was 13, a child herself, and already in foster care. It didn't take long for her to do what she knew best: run away.
So round and around I went, place to place, family to family.
During these years I experienced all the things. All the hideous, really bad, hateful, traumatic, evil things. I learned to be quiet and “good" on the outside but inside my head, it was angry and loud and chaotic.
Don’t be afraid to dip your toe into the waters of a culture that is not your own. Splash around a bit. Come with an open heart so that you can better affirm the differences in your child of color.
Don't miss this powerful post with author and friend, Concetta Green.
As a black family, we are constantly reminded of our blackness everywhere we go and through our day to day interactions.
When we engage in conversations, it becomes evident very quickly through our accents that we are immigrants. The next question usually is: Which part of Africa are you from?
As we continue Black History Month, I have the privilege of sharing with you a bit from Sopha Rush.
Sopha is best known for sharing with young women who are striving daily to become more like Christ, encouraging them to pursue God wholeheartedly, in every aspect of their life.
She's a biracial black woman, pursuing Jesus and her husband, and now motherhood.
Over the last 3 years two very specific things have happened to me that have caused me to change how I look at Black History Month and how I identify as a black man in general:
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But we would also get questions like: “How do I teach my kids how to be black?” or “I want to make sure my kids know who they are, how do I do that?”
If we want to be people of the Gospel—true Jesus followers—we need to know about oppression and social injustice. The heart of God is justice, the Gospel at its core is God pursuing justice, reconciliation, and redemption.
If we want to be white parents of children of color—or already are—we need to put on our big kid pants and talk about this. We need to dive into the realities of our white privilege, push against our white fragility, and actively work towards tearing down the evil that is white supremacy.
I want my son growing up proud of his blackness.
I hope he claims it, celebrates it, finds confidence in it.
People already ask me, "What is he?" From talking with my friends of color, I know this question won't stop when he's old enough to respond for himself, and will continue through his life.
I usually say, "Biracial," unless I'm feeling really snarky, then I smile and say, "A toddler."
Saying my son is biracial is true, yes, but often times I wonder if it is doing him a disservice in the long run: our world is very black and white. It just is. For now he is a super cute and extremely adorable toddler. But soon enough he will be a 15 year old black teen, looking like an 18-20 year old black man.
Growing up, it never dawned on me that I was white. I just was. It wasn't something I needed to notice or care about, it was just how I and my little world was. Everyone looked like me and if someone didn't look like me, it didn't matter much because I knew God created all people equally.
And then I was married and our world sort of fell apart—or so it felt—and we found ourselves moving from one town to another city and attending a church passionate about the Gospel and racial reconciliation. My husband started grad school and had documentaries to watch, like Eye of The Storm. We were in the adoption process and were reading everything we could regarding adoption, including adopting outside of our race. In the heat of an intense and discouraging election season, it seemed as though scales fell off our eyes and we no longer had the option of being blissfully ignorant to what our world was really like.
