Thread by @CandiceBenbow

Some dude just said to me that prisons are full of Black men whose fathers needed to cuss them out but didn’t. A mother messaged me and said she will talk to her children however she sees fit because it’s saving their lives. And this is where I leave you.

Be very clear. Whether you call your child a bitch ass, poor ass, skinny ass mf-er...whether you tell them you will break their necks, it will not stop White supremacy from doing what it wants.

Cussing your children and threatening/enacting violence against them does not push your children to be whole and well.

It does, however, ensure that they know they have no safe places in this world.

In a world that hunts and kills Black flesh and Black spirit for sport, Black children who have been gutted in their homes learn that there is no place they can go to receive radical, transformative affirmation and love.

That doesn’t mean they don’t love their parents. That doesn’t mean they don’t understand how their parents did their best. It does mean they’re loving and understanding their parents while also trying to heal from some things their parents should have never said or done to them.

If we are to accept that parents are human and flawed, does that not mean parents can be wrong? Does that not make space for the reality that those who brought us into this world harmed us in some of their moments of deeply flawed humanity?

Many of us had/have amazing parents who love/d us. Their love lifted us. Those parents were also hurtful and their harshness seeded some insecurities we would not otherwise have. If we can talk about the love, there must be room to be honest about the pain.

Honest about it so another generation doesn’t grow up steeped in it. Accepting that our parents are human does not mean accepting that our parents will harm and violate us with their words and actions. That is a choice they do not have to make.

Raising Black children does not have to have the plantation’s imprint. Too many of us first experienced the sting of Whiteness from our parents’ Black hands and out of their Black mouths. A higher, healthier way is possible and we betray all that is holy when we say it’s not.

💕