I Am So Sorry

A friend posted a blog link to her Facebook- a link to a piece pleading for others to speak out about a child's killing. (It seems now not to be there so this link may well not work) My friend's new blog post is as inspiring and full of pain.
It was asking where is the outrage (from teachers) about Jordan Davis death (and the verdict in his case). And I suppose also pointing out such sheer pain over the problems in Florida for young black men.
I'm nothing in this world- to compare to a 14,000 member blogger with a great internet footprint. My advocacy on-line has been sharply curtailed after two people in my small world complained about it to my District. Apparently my posting student art as exemplary pieces to inspire other teachers by what I'm doing was deeply upsetting-such a waste of instructional time I believe among other nitpicking. My blogging was seen as something to delete. But I did begin working as a blogger in 2006, to talk about students in poverty and the outrageous amount now dedicated to testing and teaching to test- that shift from curriculum and instruction was being inflicted on students I taught as narrowing that removed art, music, science and much more from poor kids. Thus I was an advocate on some small level to this as it seemed to me to affect students in some very unfair ways.
So she is directly calling out to me-because I do advocate. And I think more importantly my friend is calling as well.


I have several ways I could/should respond.
One is as a mother of a son who is 19.
After listening to Jordan's parents after the verdict I felt the verdicts in the trial first as a Mommy.
With my tears of course. 
His mother was just so simple in speaking her truth, so clear.
His mother requested prayer even for his killer. I felt that so deeply. It was so overwhelmingly good of her. She allowed me to see that there are no sides for her. There is the enormous wrong that was his loss, shooting death, and then the humans that messed up to allow a world so upside down such a thing could be.
His parents reached into the parent in me.
I could see so many parents I've worked with over the years in teaching as well. All deeply loving their child.

I will share some thoughts thinking about being that Mommy. Awhile ago I heard a piece I posted here. LeVar Burton was talking about what he tells his child about behaving as a young African American in our country. It was very difficult for me.  But it addressed what to do if pulled over by an officer while out driving. Essentially it was painful for me to so clearly be reminded that his son has to behave extremely carefully specifically because he is black. There was nothing unclear about that.
Of course I thought about my son. I thought about the sheer volume of things I've asked him to think about as he is out in his life-knowing his hallmark seems to be a serious lack of taking me seriously.

Less than a month ago my son gave me the greatest challenge of my parenting life. I know this is deeply private.
I came home to find him with a BB pistol shooting a target in our tiny yard. You know I might as well have said wrestling a brontosaurus while drinking a margarita- it was that unimaginable to me. At no time have we ever allowed him to have any weapon or replica weapon-ever. From 2 months to today. As a teacher I could not take weapons in my children's environment-not on their video, not in their language-no play of that kind. I realize a lot of the world disagree with my perspective. Anyway I came home early-at a time I'm never home. At three over six. I'd felt strange-and called it a day. There he was-doing whatever he thought he was doing- giving me such a shock  (one I intended to go to my grave never speaking  of again until the pain of this made me feel I wanted to explain it as a Mommy), I was looking at him through the backyard glass door. He handed it over immediately, as I yelled "give me that gun" and it is gone-forever banished-gone/destroyed- and I do not think he will ever forget my reaction. I am not going to say it was a smooth, pretty, reasonable or without tears, yelling, full of the greatest fear I've ever let him see talk that followed....But I will say this, that moment of his foolishness-totally legal I was told-could have been his last. Say if a scared neighbor had called police. Or decided to handle it. Who saw him across a lawn and reacted. And he might well have been shot because dangerous crime has escalated here lately. My God. I'm still sick at heart. It broke my heart that day to see such stupid in my child.
A boy's foolish moment becomes a last. That was all I could think, could see....I'm still sick about this.

Had I ever told him that this was something you cannot try out? was I CLEAR enough?
What did I miss?
I kept screaming-What are you thinking?
Of course, he was definitely not doing too much of that.
Of course I hadn't told him that rule in that specific a way.
And the point isn't that-the point is I saw a kid just doing a dumb, dumb, dumb thing he said "for fun." And it took me a month to be able to really regain rational speech. If I have.

That day and for a week later if I thought of what I saw- my heart beat arrhythmically and I developed very high blood pressure and almost an inability to speak normally to my son.
So what I can say is that I clearly fear for my child, students, I fear for them making just kid mistakes, or failing to understand bigger consequences, to understand situations. I fear their being shot. Or in the case of my son-shooting some child in the yard with a BB or a million things. Things I cannot anticipate.
So as a mother....I know Luca likes to ride his skateboard. I KNOW people hate them. And I thought THAT was my greatest fear-his going out to skate in places I totally fear for his safety.

I think you get where I'm going.

Extrapolating to adding that a child can be seen as a hood by a piece of clothing,  or through skin color, or by some stereotype now seen  as dangerous-it makes me so fearful. Florida sounds so totally polarized and armed- I don't think I could make it through a night there. What kind of world have we built? I find myself saying-you cannot be out past 8, you cannot go in gas stations, do not go in 7-11's for snacks, wear your hood down, do not play your music in the car. Jack (my spouse)  ripped out the player in the car -BTW-though not for these reasons-I felt like-well great no loud music to distract him.


Now I'll talk as a person--not the mom. Not yet as a teacher. I try to imagine being at a gas station where I'm getting gas. A car with loud music is there, I'm hearing someone arguing about it, and then a guy is drilling ten bullets into a car that tries to leave. What? What?
I don't think I'd ever feel safe again in this life. Who would ever do that? A person pulling a gun out and shooting into a car like that?
What?
It is just unreal to me.
What ?

Recently I was standing in a line behind someone wearing a patch stating they were actively carrying a pistol. They had a printed patch saying this. It had a gun pic on it. After a few minutes as they told off their small child, and shoved their wife to go get something they forgot,  I left the store, well counter. I was completely afraid they would use the gun they said on their clothing they carried. Nothing unclear about it. A cruel person with a right to pack. I still cannot believe we think this is acceptable or "American." What?

I was walking to my car a few nights ago at school. A bunch of teens were loudly throwing a football that crashed into me, and my car -in missed throws. They weren't sorry and they didn't care, not really. Some called me something I think, maybe. I was afraid a bit. What if I lived in a stand your ground state and had homicidal tendencies? What if I was a lunatic? And this triggered me?

Slippery slopes.

As for my response as a teacher....I tend to think every child I teach might well be and probably is our savior. It's just a silent thing I feel deep inside. I understand like the story of my son I usually keep this deeply hidden. It has a religious overtone. I do think of life, of children, as a very important and a deeply miraculous thing. I see us as needing all of us, and part of my job is finding the good in the child and helping them to develop that. I carry this feeling that we cannot afford to lose any of us to something so foolish as shooting them. Or allowing fear to shoot them, or somehow seeing the kids in terms of villians. Anything we can do to diminish these risks I see as worth doing. One area I really see as dangerous to our mutual survival is hatreds based on prejudices, on our biases as being very dangerous. One thing I know is that fear, hatred, violence seem to destroy everything they touch.

All the rest of all of this is so complex to write and important I try to say. I have said it here at some point. But to respond to her blog directly I think the loss of this child to be a horrible, awful, terrible tragedy that never should have happened. The man that shot him must be a fool. He saw his own biases and he shot kids. For what?
I think his having the gun was cowardice and his using it was ignorance and hate fueled by fear. We are all better off when we have less access to acting on our prejudices and fears. I try not to arm my hatreds.
And I hope he will never be able to shoot anyone else.
As a teacher I fear  a student I teach one day might be hurt, and I hope with all I have this will never be. But unless we better control guns, and frame laws a bit better than these stand your ground ones -I can't believe this will be the last of this kind of tragedy. But we also need to grow our wisdom, love, compassion. You can't even legislate that-I think that comes with learning. And if we don't better work on issues of youth, race, poverty, and division in our society-I can't see this as an isolated incident.

I'm willing to care enough to advocate we try to love one another.
One thing we must do is show the compassion that Jordan Davis mother in her terrible grief was able to extend. The willingness to pray for ALL involved in this horror, for all of us in this country.
I hope she knows that her love means a great deal.