Claiming These Men As Her Own

Tuesday, the Matron heard the news today that yet again a white police officer who killed an unarmed black man was not indicted, this time in New York. This is news some people take note of a LOT. IF you are a black person in America, someone is after your men. Targeting, arresting, beating, and imprisoning black men (women too, but the Matron is thinking men at the moment) is something that white folk -- maybe especially here in the Midwest -- don't really have to think about. Sorta not right smack in front of us. Her, anyway. Then yours truly thought about what she’s taught her children -- that whoever they love, she will love. The Matron has taught her children to love freely and huge, to love without hesitation or boundaries or rules. Their love might be same-sex, black, white, rich, poor, transgender, brown, asian . . . whatever. Today, hearing the news (once again) about injustice against a black man -- crimes -- she drove past a young black boy, bundled up against the cold and trudging his way home and realized that if her children have truly incorporated that message of love, then this black boy might someday be her grandson. If her children have the whole wide world of humanity from which to choose a life partner, their children might not be necessarily white. Because she is thinking men at the moment, black men in particular, she looked at that little boy beating it home after the school bus and thought: my baby. Grandson. From this day forward, that is how the Matron will see all black men, too. Those little boys grow up and then those men might be mine and she would HAVE to see the injustice, would forever know when her own blood spilled. Why wait? She will claim them as her own, now.