Sigh. This week blogging about homeschooling just seems hollow. In the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the resulting protests, riots, and discourse on social media, I feel weary and emotionally spent. Then my daughters asked my husband and I who was George Floyd during dinner. They have cell phones which we monitor. They don’t have social media, but they do have access to the News app.
I thought I was emotionally drained, but that question sparked a mixture of anger and tears within me. Right now there are a slew of posts being circulated encouraging parents to discuss racism, race relations, and current events surrounding the Black Lives Matter Movement. There are book lists being suggested to encourage conversation on these topics as well as history that many are just discovering in light of everything that has happened these last two weeks or so.
As an African-American parent, I’ve been astounded at the number of white people, namely white parents, who’ve encouraged facilitating these discussions with their children and reading these books that would normally be confined to Black circles. I know that this is a good thing, but frankly, I must confess that I understand why white parents have previously neglected and or avoided these discussions with their children. I could be wrong, but maybe they wanted to shield their children from some of the harsh realities of this world. Maybe they wanted to protect their children’s innocence and the joy a little longer.
It angers and saddens me that we to have these discussions with our teenagers in the first place. I balked at my daughters having to watch the disturbing news coverage of the Amaud Arbery, Atiana Jefferson, and George Floyd cases. I know that seems like such an unusual stance for an African-American parent, but my reasons stem from my own childhood.
For 14 years—from pre-K through twelfth grade– I attended a predominantly white, private high school. I’m pretty sure that the tuition is now so high for this school that I probably couldn’t afford to send even one of my children to my alma mater now. Even so, there were only nine blacks in my graduating class and comparatively speaking, our class had a large number of black kids. From middle school through high school, I knew what it was to have to take on an entire room of conservative, Evangelical white kids to include the teacher, when it came to discussions on race. At a young age, I experienced constantly having to explain and defend myself, my culture, and the entire Black race (as though we are a monolithic people) to a room of dismissive kids who parroted the insensitivities and ignorance they’d heard from their parents and the conservative talking heads like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
I was an avid reader and I dang well had to be in order to be prepared to take on societal discussions that really were emotionally above me as a child. I’ll never forget sitting in a middle school history class participating in a discussion on slavery and being told by my teacher in front of the entire class that black people loved being slaves because they got free food and clothes. I remember that teacher being dead serious after the blatant ignorance she spewed and set the narrative for a bunch of equally clueless preteens who did not know enough history to recognize the farce she tried to pass off as truth. I’ll never forget that before she made that statement I’d participated in vigorous debate, but after she said that I was speechless. She’d defeated me with a depth of ignorance and dare I say, malignancy, I didn’t know how to rebuttal.
I grew up hearing about black folks and white folks all my life. I was trained from a young age to view everything through the lens of race. White folks actions and behavior was judged based on their white privilege and black folks response and behavior was judged based on history and the slights, microaggressions, and injustices we’d had to endure. By the time I turned 18, I was militant, angry, and in pain. I didn’t realize the effect having to navigate a majority environment had on me until I attended Prairie View A&M University, a historically black college and university. It was the safe space I needed to heal from the pain of always having to explain and justify my heritage and my existence. Once I broke free of such an oppressive environment, I privately determined that I did not want my kids to have to deal with that aspect of my childhood.
Fast-forward to being reborn in Christ and being cleansed of much of the pain and anger I had internalized. Jesus gave me a new lens through which to view the world—a biblical lens. Which is why my daughter’s question at the dinner table stirred up so much anger and tears. You see when my husband and I decided to homeschool, we jumped at the chance to raise our children with a biblical, Christian worldview. We’ve worked so hard to try to teach our children about who God says they are and to shield them from the burdensome, painful aspects of our heritage. In my mind, they should be able to just enjoy their childhood without having to be burdened with these issues. Unfortunately my husband had to remind me that it is our job as parents to socialize the culture and the things of this world to our kids. They need to know the world they are facing and the burden they will have to shoulder as black people. It is our responsibility as parents to not only disciple our children in God’s word and the idealism of the way things should be, but also in how God’s word applies in light of reality. What they believe will be tested and they will have to reaffirm their faith and gain peace from why they believe what they believe. If I fail to educate them about history and current events, I leave them vulnerable to a world that wants to silence them, diminish them, and make them feel less than.
One thing that gives me comfort as a Christian, African-American, parent is that homeschooling allows me to discuss history, namely American history, in much greater depth than what they’d get in public school. In teaching my kids about our history in this country and before we , I will have to expose them to the pain of the past, but it is also my opportunity to show them how God has faithfully kept us through all of it.
