Thread by @CandiceBenbow

Timelines are a mess right now.

I’m holding close Black children (young and old), who navigate difficult relationships with their parents for a number of reasons and aren’t given room to be honest about all of its complexities.

My space will always center them.

We love to talk about the trauma of hyper-religiosity and religious fundamentalism on Black people in theory. When we see some of the fruits of it in real time, the conversation changes.

For a project, I’ve been sitting with the people who encountered Jesus and talked through with my friends the time when a parent brought their child to Jesus and said he was possessed.

On that Zoom call, my friends and I—who all have different relationships with our parents—remarked that nobody ever asked the child anything.

It completely erased the reality that this child could have been living and growing into an understanding of themselves the parent rejected. It completely erased that this child could have been reacting to mistreatment and abuse at home.

While it is true we would have never known any of this had Kerrion not made it public, some of us are glad he found a medium through which to say something. His father’s account, even if it’s what people largely believe, is not the only one available.

And yes, a family matter has become public fodder, the “it’s none of our business” position many are taking (especially Christian leadership—the same leadership that want you to come to them for counseling) is profoundly lazy.

The fact this has polarized many speaks the presence of trauma in Black parenting and child-rearing. Simply put: folks ain’t (just) projecting; folks are having reactions to an incident (knowns, unknowns and things that can’t be publicly shared) that hit too close to home.

I would hope that, all of us, despite what “team” we find ourselves on, we can make room for the ways parent-child relationships for some people have changed the trajectory of their entire lives.

There’s gotta be grace and understanding for the fact that, at the end of the day, people just want the folks who brought them into this world to love *them*.