Adventures with Auntie

Shannon was determined to hit both Ikea AND Concord Mills on the same day.

AND we did!

I literally drove back from Atlanta one day and the next we were back to Charlotte.

This one was in tow on our epic shopping adventure!

I wanted to post this because he was basically a dream. We had a blast. Wanna see?

First we had to cover some basics.  As the Black Auntie of a blonde baby, I have to make sure he is educated in an abundance of things. One of them is food. Here's my 3 yr old dipping like a boss at Popyeyes y'all.  I couldn't be prouder.

We also spent quite a lot of time playing in mirrors which was evidently very fun in the dressing room of Eddie Bauer. And yes, Shannon and I both managed to pick up some items.

On a more serious note, I'd like to ponder something with you. I was recently listening to some political commentary on Blackness and I was struck by the fact that the assumption of the behavior of Black boys is one of a sinister nature. Society at large assumes that a little Black boy is doing something he shouldn't simply because he's Black.  

Now what does this have to do with my sweet boy? Well I often times do things in public with him or even just think about him and I realize there are things he does and places he'll be able to go that a boy I gave birth too wouldn't be able to do without suspicion. He can run and play and be seen as cute even if he disrupts someone else's path or runs directly into them.  Those baby blues can do no wrong but will my own son be given the same benefit of the doubt?

Black bodies are viewed as suspicious. 

Examples? 

Trayvon wasn't doing anything illegal but he was murdered for walking while Black. 

Renisha McBride was only going for help, which she falsely assumed she could expect from her fellow American, but she was shot through a closed and locked door.

Here's one closer to home though. LP went behind the clothes between the wall and the clothes and was basically walking back and forth to see if I could see him/track him. Now, other shoppers were shopping in this area and sometimes he'd peak out at a stranger. Would that stranger have smiled and been so excited to see his little face if it had been brown?

If his running around the store had been in a brown body would he have been cute? adorable? or a terror? unruly? 

I don't know, but I'd like to live in a place where a 3 year old is a 3 year old and their boyhood antics are assumed to be as innocent as they are. 

I'd like to live there, but I don't. 

I don't live there. 

I live in a place where I'm terrified of having a Black son because his very presence is seen as threatening. 

I live in a place where parenting a boy is something I don't want because I don't want to know what its like to be a childless mother.

This is the only boy I can see myself parenting because I won't lose him senselessly.

How deep does this terror run? Deep enough that I'd adopt an embryo and give birth to a son who looks nothing like me just so he could be seen in the same light as LP. Consider that. Consider the fact that I'd rather adopt a son who is White than give birth to a Black one. What does that say about the society that my son, Black or White, is being born into?