Mothering in the Mire: For the Mother of Mike Brown and Black Mothers Everywhere

One month ago, today, Michael Brown Jr. was shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri.  I sat down to write this post several times within the last month, but could not bring myself to do it. I was inundated with Facebook statuses, tweets, instagram pictures and the like, about this tragic shooting.  But what could I say?  What should I say?  I turned on the television and people aching for justice were met with tear gas, tanks and other methods of brute force, as if they were adversaries!  As each day passed, it became more difficult to process that it was 2014 and not 1964. 

I still have so many questions.  Two that remain are:

1. What about the mother of Mike Brown? AND

2. How much trauma can one group of people take?

(I do not know how to even begin to deal with the second question, so I will focus on the first.)

While I am not yet a mother, I have the capacity to become one.  As a black woman, whose body can produce black children, I could not help but wonder if someday, I might stand in the shoes of Ms. Lesley McSpadden, mother of Mike Brown.  I wondered on the one hand, about the courage it takes to raise a child in a land not created for them and on the other hand, I commended the courage of black mothers to keep doing so.  Black mothers keep mothering, even though "every 28 hours a black person is killed by a police officer".  Black mothers keep mothering, even though our children are being killed while in handcuffs (Oscar Grant), for wearing a hoodie (Trayvon Martin), for listening to music (Jordan Davis), for asking for help (Renisha McBride) or while walking down the street (Mike Brown). Black mothers keep mothering black children, even though we live in a society, which fears black skin.  I wrestled with this feeling of hopelessness and wondered if I could ever become a mother, given this reality.  

It was during this time that I came across an old (April 2014) Essence magazine article by Melissa Harris-Perry entitled “Mother’s Day.”  She recounts the death of Jordan Davis, an unarmed African-American male shot and killed in the backseat of an SUV in Florida for playing rap music.  In this article, she mentions having met the mother of both Jordan Davis and Trayvon Martin, in a close time frame.  She writes,

“It is impossible to be a Black Woman in America without wondering, at times, if our country hates the ones we love.  It would be easy to allow the grief of our recent losses or the history of Black life in America to make us shun the task of mothering.  We have inherited the historic audacity of Black mothers in this country.  We have dared to create families, to embrace our beloveds, to bear our children and to pour our whole selves into them even when we know that a hateful world awaits.  To love our children without reservation is an act of courage—one that was passed down to us, and one that we must continue.”

*Photo taken at Howard University: "Hands Up, Don't Shoot"

While I agree with Harris-Perry that we must remember the historical narrative of the black mother’s audacity, and the current narrative of the black mother’s continued courage, (especially in light of these not-so-new racialized realities), I would like to add to her argument. For me, there is also a theological narrative, which gives us hope.  It is this: We (black women) are a part of God's story, because we are a part of human history.  If God put us in the story, God surely put our children in the story.  Therefore, we must also come to see black mothering/child-rearing as the continued work of God.  If this is so, in like manner, we ought see our children as indeed, bearing the image of God (Gen. 1:27).  This means that the lives of not only black parents, but also black offspring are and will always be valuable—even when the world at large decides otherwise.   

 #MikeBrown #DontShoot #Godtalk #BlackMothers #blacklivesmatter  #GodMadeTheSkinImIn

Is Feminism Flawless? —A Commentary on the Complexities of Womanhood

Feminist: One advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men.  It seems that the conversation around what it means to be a feminist has always either elicited concord or conflict.  For example, in December, shortly after Beyoncé’s release of her fourth music album, I came across a blog article titled: “The Problem with Beyhive Bottom Bitch Feminism.”  There followed a thread of over 400 comments from women of various ages, wrestling with the very definition of feminism.

 

But feminism isn’t flawless.  When constant questions are raised as to whether artists like Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé are feminists, I am reminded of this.  In fact, while some like to romanticize the details of the feminist movement and assert that women across color and circumstance were on one united front advocating for the equality of all women, the contrary is true.  Black women were not included in the definition of woman.  Works like Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I A Woman?” manifest the black woman’s unapologetic struggle for her society to view her as fully woman.  In fact, many scholars deemed the plight of the black woman in a majority white world, a “double bind.”  Essentially, as stated by Anna Julia Cooper, black women were “confronted by both a woman question and a race problem.”  Therefore, given that the aims of the feminist movement excluded black women, I wonder if any black woman— Ms. Minaj, Mrs. Knowles-Carter or otherwise, can truly call herself a feminist.

 

In addition, women deserve the freedom to create our own definitions of womanhood.  Some may desire to express that meaning by using the words: feminist, black feminist, womanist or none of the above.  And that’s just fine!  Our true power lies in our ability to define womanhood on our own terms.  Moreover, the benefit is that each of these terms may challenge us to think of womanhood in ways that we hadn’t before. 

 

In one of her essays, bell hooks discusses the representation of the black female body in popular culture.  For hooks, she is empowered when notions of womanhood “subvert sexist and racist representations” that have pervaded our society.  While this is an honorable and necessary task, does it force women into a sort of existential straight-jacket?  If a woman constantly engages in overturning images, which undermine her gender or sexuality, is there any middle ground?  For example, a woman may say that she refuses to marry because she does not want to support the sexist institution of patriarchy.  Or is there a way for her to operate within the system (institution of marriage) and be an equal to her husband?  Or if a black woman refuses to wear a mini-skirt and halter top for the sake of not upholding the “black woman as Jezebel” stereotype, where is her freedom to dress as she pleases?  For me, the freedom lies in the ability to create and recreate a personal definition of womanhood as often as needed.  While subversion of “racist and sexist” images is important, my definition of womanhood cannot stop there.  If it does, I am merely tip-toeing around the meaning of womanhood (which includes sexuality) as opposed to embracing it! 

  

Also, it seems that being a woman is difficult.  While there are days that it comes with ease, there are also days that being a woman comes with struggle.  Maya Angelou confirms this for me.  She writes, 

Being a woman is hard work. Not without joy and even ecstasy, but still relentless, unending work. To become and remain a woman commands the existence and employment of genius. The woman who survives intact and happy must be at once tender and tough. She must have convinced herself, or be in the unending process of convincing herself, that she, her values, and her choices are important. In a time and world where males hold sway and control, the pressure upon women to yield their rights-of-way is tremendous. And it is under those very circumstances that the woman's toughness must be in evidence.

In our struggle to be women, we must remember that we are human.  We do not possess all of the answers of what it means to be a woman.  If we had all of the answers, what need would we have of the Divine Mother’s spirit to guide us on our journey?  It may be that the definition of womanhood is fluid and not static, growing as we grow.  Perhaps womanhood exists beyond any of the labels that we have imagined.  It may be that it is as breathtaking, as vast and as mysterious as the horizon.

 

 

Letting Go of Shame: A Psychoanalytic Reading of The Prodigal Son

Series: Diary of A Divinity Student (Entry #4)

This past semester, I participated in a Student-Faculty Colloquium at Howard University School of Divinity.  I was a student-respondent among three faculty-respondents.  This exercise allowed me to further explore an area of great interest: the intersection of psychology and religion.

(A Response to Dr. Jay-Paul Hinds’ “Shame and it’s Sons: Black Men, Fatherhood and Filicide”)

    What is filicide?  Upon preparing my response, I asked myself this question.  As a result, I could not help but notice that Christ, himself, was a victim of filicide.  According to the Christian story, we are saved by a Father, who begat a son, and killed that son (by way of the cross).  While we emphasize Christ’s degradation and use it as a source of empowerment that invites us to a personal faith-journey of metamorphosis, there is something quite unsettling about this model.  While Dr. Jay-Paul Hinds, in his paper, “Shame and Its Sons: Black Men, Fatherhood and Filicide”, asserts the contrary, it is my opinion, that shame is not a secure base from which to nurture our sons and daughters in the black community.  We are surrounded by a culture of shame.  Furthermore, shame is a complex emotion and it is unrealistic that wholeness can come from such a broken place.  In this response, I have identified the following three areas of shame: theological, societal and familial. 

First, our sons and daughters are oftentimes exposed to a theological shame, as a result of church upbringing.  We are taught that we are to be ashamed of our “sinful” human nature, and that is in fact, proof that we are in need of a savior.  I am reminded of the short story, by Langston Hughes, entitled, “Salvation,” which depicts a thirteen-year-old boy, who was shamed into salvation, if you will.  In fact, our shame is two fold.  Not only are we made to feel a sense of self-disgust as a result of our “sinful” human condition, we are also reminded of the shamefulness of the cross.  Christ sacrificed his shame for our own. Songs such as “I Know It Was The Blood,” further prove this point:

They nailed him to a tree; they nailed him to a tree for me. 

They pierced him in his side; they pierced him in his side, for me. 

One day when I was lost, he died upon the cross and I know it was the blood for me.

Essentially, we are taught that we must admit our shameful shortcomings, accept the gift of salvation, or Christ’s shameful crucifixion was in vain. 

Second, our sons and daughters, growing up in the United States, encounter a societal shame.  It is the shame of bearing black skin.  We live in a land, which enslaved, lynched, and segregated our ancestors, and in many ways still seeks to oppress us today.  Let us take the recent, story of Trayvon Martin, for example.  Many of us know the story.  He was a black, young male, walking through a white neighborhood, on his way to purchase iced tea and skittles, never to return.  And sadly, in our society, such degradation of black males is not uncommon.  Or, for our daughters, beyond the skin, there is a shame attached to black hair.  I am reminded of Tiana Parker, the teary-eyed six-year-old girl in Tulsa, Oklahoma sent home from school because the school “banned natural hairstyles such as afros and dreadlocks.”  Due to these underpinnings of theological and societal shame, I argue that this emotion is not a foundation of familial empowerment for our sons and daughters in the African-American community.  

 

 *Trayvon Martin and Father, Tracy Martin

However, I applaud Dr. Hinds’ use of a biblical paradigm to shed light on family dynamics and issues of mental health.  This is often a taboo topic in the black community.  Moreover, I hold that in the story of the prodigal son, the father is a starting point for analysis of the family structure, not the answer to it. 

Third, Hinds asserts that for both father and son, mutual shame or vulnerability can serve as a platform for empowerment.  Namely, Hinds assumes that the father is in a healthy enough place to relate to his son, to begin with.  Given the social issues surrounding the father-son dynamic, in our context today, of which Hinds states its effects adequately and with much analysis, the end goal of reconciliation by way of mutual vulnerability seems to understate the complexity of the issue.  Next, Hinds assumes that the father is aware of his own shame and willing to admit how it has impacted the father-son relationship.  The father must do his own internal work before attempting to address the son’s.  As the father, he may not be ready to undergo such a difficult process of self-introspection.  Especially, if his own shame as a son (the father) has not been addressed in his own life.  If the father and son come to a healthy place were reconciliation is possible, it will not come from a place of familial shame.  The father is not all encompassing, possessing all of the answers that the son needs for his own development.  For me, this solution echoes the paternalistic-patriarchal model of our theology.  Perhaps some of the questions we ask God, we hold the answers to.   Perhaps the son has more to say than the parable exemplifies. 

           *The Return of The Prodigal Son by Romare Bearden 

 

From what place should fathers relate to their sons and daughters?  In the story, maybe the father did the right thing in not addressing his son’s inner shame.  Maybe the father was aware of what he COULD provide: monetary as opposed to emotional support.  Perhaps the task for the lost son or daughter is to realize what the father can provide—if anything.  Perhaps it is why the prodigal child took the voyage to begin with.  Throughout our lives as sons or daughters, we will leave home many times.  We will leave in search of a community drastically different from the one in which we were raised.  Or, if the home is a toxic place, one’s journey may not permit them to return home often.  Theological, societal and familial shame are not springboards for hope.   In this case, maybe a healthy home is more psychological than physical. Perhaps this was the case for the prodigal son. Perhaps this (realization) is the place from which growth can occur.