Mother to Son: Letters to a Black Boy on Identity and Hope

by Jasmine L. Holmes

I love these black women and the vibrant community of matriarchs who will lay down their lives for the children in their care. And while absentee fatherhood is never something to celebrate, I rejoice in the fact that black women have tenaciously taken the helm when it comes to the formation of young black men. Your daddy is living proof that they can do so well.

Exhortation is a booming business right now. As a young Christian man, I want you to be careful that you’re sincerely seeking to build up the body rather than speaking out for clicks, controversy, or name recognition. It will be a hard balance to strike. Speaking boldly is bound to garner attention, but I hope you shepherd that attention with integrity.

Your mama is still walking that tightrope. For me, exhortation is inexorably linked to empathy. To incite or encourage people, we must meet them at the point of their deepest need. We know their deepest need is Jesus. And that’s our deepest need as well. So we always have something in common with the people we seek to exhort.

We must encourage with love, not from the deeds of the flesh Paul mentions in Galatians 5.

These often lead to downfalls in the form of personal vendettas, a love of drama, arguing for argument’s sake, jealousy over the platform of someone we feel is undeserving, anger that causes us to be quick to speak and slow to listen, rivalries with siblings in the Lord, stirring up controversy, or dividing over non-essential issues of the faith.

But when it comes to matters of race, the label of “ignorance” is stigmatized. All of us want to be seen as self aware and well educated about race, but we also demand simple answers within broad categories.

legislation protected white masters who fathered children with their slaves. Under British Common Law, the child of the master took on the master’s status (free), which meant that the master was obligated to that child in the same way he was to a “fully white” child. In America, the child took on the mother’s status (slave), leaving a father free from owning any responsibility toward his offspring. Once slavery was abolished, this stigma did not immediately disappear.

Purity became the female stronghold, but black women were not considered pure. Like their black male counterparts, they were overly sexualized, but rather than being thought of as predatorial they were seen as animalistic prey.

because even though I’m a black girl, I have other merits.

Changing the narrative that has so often described black women as worthless, oversexualized, loud-mouthed, and angry, we can praise black women as strong, loyal, and fiercely protective.

But eventually, I started to think that speaking up for myself only created drama and that advocacy was characteristic only of a high-maintenance person.

You see, black women are 300 times more likely to die in childbirth than any other ethnicity—and that’s regardless of our socioeconomic status. I knew that in order to have the type of birth that I wanted, I was going to have to learn how to speak up. And I did. I left my original OB, went to a birth center, and made my needs known.

Moving to a state with twice the C-section rates as the one you were born in (Mississippi seems to be last in everything except for C-section rates) and black mother mortality rates that made my stomach turn, I knew I would have to advocate for my son and myself once again. And I have. I found my doctor after eavesdropping on a conversation at a coffee shop. I noticed two black healthcare professionals talking about how to give black mothers tools for successful nursing relationships with their babies, and I overcame every inch of introversion in my soul and marched right up to them.

There have been times when my own fear of being confused for an angry black woman has kept me from speaking up on my behalf. I have weighed the options again and again, worried that I will be labeled “difficult,” “concerning,” “scary,” or, of course, “dramatic.”

It used to be “common knowledge” in the medical community that black people did not feel pain in the same way as their white counterparts. They were simply considered overly dramatic and expressive. Many black women have told stories of how doctors did not believe their symptoms, because they assumed their patient was overreacting.

well, it’s just flesh. There aren’t a lot of ways to describe it.” “Sand, alabaster, snow, ivory, peach,” I rattled off. She smirked at me. “None of those describe my skin tone.” “Well, yeah,” I told her. “But mocha doesn’t describe mine either.”

And in that process, I’m having to realize that everyone thinks their indignation is righteous. I do. The man who posted did. The woman who retweeted did. The mere act of feeling indignation does not make it righteous.

She didn’t write her tweet devoid of emotion. I didn’t read it devoid of emotion.

could either see her as a hurting sister in Christ, a fellow image bearer, or dismiss her as an adversary who no longer had wisdom to speak into my life in any category because I perceived her to be in error regarding this one.

For you, son, I hope that you will be able to separate people from their ideas and their ideas from their pain. I want you to be unapologetic about truth in all of its absolutes and compassionate about the pain that often taints that truth.

They used to call me “nigger monkey,” and I would lash out, not knowing quite what the words meant, but understanding that they weren’t kind.

what a problem child I’d been. When we’d get in the car, I’d be anxious to talk about other things, skirting around the name-calling.

Never do I want you to subject yourself to the abuse of others. As long as you’re my little boy, I will be your champion and your defender just like Gram was mine. And as you grow into manhood, I’ll teach you how to stick up for yourself, and for others.

But if you’re having a discussion with someone who refuses to listen—who wishes you bodily harm, who wants to humiliate you, belittle you, and shame you—you always have my permission to walk away. Don’t cast your pearls before swine.