Growing up in rural Maine I saw a lot of guns; even shot a few. So, it was no surprise that my younger brother’s favorite toys were weapons. He brought them in the car, to restaurants, and even to bed for comfort instead of stuffed animals.
Fast-forward nearly twenty years, and now I am the mother of a young son in New York. He was three, and we walked weekly to our local grocery store. I always let him take a toy to entertain himself and fill his hands so that I could shop. On this day, he chose a small wooden pirate’s knife—part of a Melissa and Doug costume he received.
My white privilege allowed me to think nothing of it and to see the knife as just a toy. As we walked hand in hand, my son jabbed at trees and sliced through the air. I smiled, thinking of my brother. Then, I noticed people looking a little longer at us, crossing to the other side of the street. One woman passed and sucked her teeth at us. She was an older black woman. I looked back at her. Usually, older women dote on my son. Tell him his hair is beautiful and want to touch him. Why the disdain? I wondered.
I didn’t think that my black son holding this toy knife would be perceived as anything but quirky. The toy was cute, and he expressed his odd love for pirates. To everyone else on the street that day, I was teaching my son that playing like this in public was okay, to swing a knife, even if it was a wooden one, and to mimic violence.
Upon this realization, I was angry. I wasn’t going to have my son miss out on any part of life or play any differently just because he was black. The world was wrong to treat him differently than my brother did years earlier. I wasn’t going to change him for this cruel world. The world would have to change.
Eleven days after my son’s fourth birthday, two police officers in Cleveland shot twelve-year-old Tamir Rice. He was playing in the park with a pistol that was reported to 911 as “probably fake.” It was an airsoft gun. A toy. He was playing. He was a boy, like my son, a black boy.
My mind changed in that instant. I thought back to the wooden knife. Maybe people thought it was real. Maybe because of my son’s skin color, he would never be seen as playing and would instead always be seen as a threat. I couldn’t treat him with the same rules as my brother because they lived in different worlds, separated by not only twenty years but also by the color of their skin.
Is this fair? No. But I can’t change the world (right now). I can only protect my son against it. So now, I don’t buy him weapons of any kind. He’s in third grade, and all his friends at school are playing video games, specifically Fortnight. He keeps asking to play them, but I say, “No games with guns.”
He doesn’t understand, and I hope he never does. I hope that by the time he grows up, the world will change enough that he doesn’t have to limit himself because of other people’s ignorance and fear. My heart can see a future where he can wear a hoodie in any neighborhood, reach into his pocket, drive a nice car at night, BBQ in a park, and live without fear.
Heart wrenching and beautifully written!!
Thank you. I hope it strikes a chord in someone who needs to see it.
This gave me goose bumps! You know how I feel about guns as toys (I think we have talked about this)… I have a white daughter, who of course (although also a New Yorker) will have a different experience in life as her cousin who is black) And yet still, I think it’s really important to teach kids to play in other ways and with other toys. I mean a gun is meant to harm or kill something/someone… why would it be ok to teach your kid to simulate play where they are shooting someone? Anyway, another great blog and I really hope many read this!
Thank you. Love you
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