by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Maegan “la Mala” Ortiz
I live along what is arguably the most diverse subway line, in the most diverse borough, of the most diverse city. This has provided me with more teaching moments than I would like. Lessons that I knew I would have to teach my 10 year old daughter anyway but wish I could on my terms, not as a reaction/defensive/protective move. As a NYC mami, you teach your kid the basics of safety. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t make eye contact. Watch what you touch. But as the NYC mami of a brown young woman, the lessons go beyond that. They go to the core of who she is and her budding sexual identity.
Lesson 1 : Language, Status, and Mami Has More Privilege Than You
When we take the Flushing bound 7 subway home between 5:30 and 6:30 pm, there is a certain fear in my 10 year old’s face. We’ve run into him twice already, a towering white older man who pushes his way into the elevator with us and other mamis wielding strollers, toddlers and shopping bags at 74th Street Roosevelt Avenue. Once on the elevated platform, he continues to push himself through the overwhelmingly brown crowd without a word of excuse me. Instead he yells, “What, people in Mexico don’t have manners? Do you speak English. Do you understand me?” He gets unsettlingly close to a mother with a small girl. The mother looks away as does my daughter, who moves closer to me. He eyes her and me and looks confused, like he’s not sure if she is my child. I don’t look like the other mothers, but my children look like their subway mates, undeniably Latina.
When the train rolls into the station people swarm towards the doors. Again the man begins is tirade, “Esperate!” he says with his New York accent. “Wait and let me the f**k through”. He looks at my girls and me again and when the doors open urges me to go in before him. I take a seat offered by another rider and he gives my 10 year old a push towards me, “Stay close to your mother” he orders her before sitting next to the mother with the young girl. “Do you speak English?” he asks the mother. The mother doesn’t answer with words or gestures. She avoids eye contact.”Do you speak English?” he asks her again, a little louder, a little more threateningly. “Don’t you want to be an American?” He angrily asks her, not really expecting an answer, not really understanding that the Latina mother likely already considers herself an Americana. Centroamericana, Latinamericana. “Damn immigrants,” he spits out, before exiting the train at Junction Boulevard.The scene repeats itself one more time, on another subway ride.
Lesson 2: How to Act Around the NYPD
It is the afternoon after a Latina baby has been left in a cab just blocks from where we live. On my way onto the elevated platform from the elevator I loudly grumble about being pushed around by rude people even though I have a toddler strapped to my body. A white New York City police officer asks me as I turn the corner, “Who’s messing with you?” “No one, ” I tell him and move down the platform a little. “Did you hear about the baby left in the gypsy cab? We think the mother is dead, probably has no papers,” the officer tells me. I nod my head. “It’s a shame really. That mother kept her baby really clean and well dressed. A nice family I’m sure.” He continues. I’m disturbed by the implication of clean Latina babies and pull my children a little closer.
“Did you do your homework?” the officer asks my 10 year old. She doesn’t answer. She’s been taught not to answer police except for the most basic of information. I have too long a history with the NYPD. She has been to enough rallies, marches, and memorials of young men of color shot in the back by officers. It’s not a nice position to be in, to be a 5th grader told in school to confide and rely on police when everything else around her tells her otherwise like the way officers on our block harass a woman selling tamales or check IDs on a bunch of kids only a bit older than her standing outside a barber shop. “Well did she?” the officer asks me. I lie and say she did wanting to avoid him giving her a lecture on the merits of homework. “Good girl,” he says looking at her. As we enter the 7 train, he tells us to be safe. Once inside the train my 10 year old asks, “I thought we weren’t supposed to talk to cops mom?” “Sometimes you have to play nice,” I tell her.
Lesson 3: Public Displays of Affection Are Not Always Welcome
We have just left the 7 train and are on my way to my mother’s, on the R/V line. An express train empties a crowd of teenagers onto the Jamaica bound platform. Among them is a lesbian couple, an African American young woman holding hands with a Latina. The African American girl is crying. “Why would they do that? I’m only 16 and that guy was an old man, telling me that I need a good d**k and not p***sy”. Her girlfriend comforts her suddenly realizing that I am standing within earshot with two children. “Sorry, you didn’t need to hear that, ” the Latina tells me. “No, you guys didn’t need to hear that. What assholes,” I respond. They smile and begin playing with my baby daughter all while discussing the intolerance they face as a young lesbian couple of color.
Maegan “la Mala” Ortiz is a Queens, NYC born and bred radical Nuyorican mami writer, poeta, activista, blogger, and academic coach (trying) to work at home with her two chicas, La MapucheRican (10) and the Poroto ChileRican (7 months) and her very patient partner just known as “el Chileno”. She is an editor at VivirLatino and (poorly) maintains her personal blog Mamita Mala. She wants to write a book or two and is graciously accepting offers for babysitting.
Photo by Lodigs
RE: “Did I misread this statement? Because if I didn’t, it’s incredibly offensive to me. Please, try not to dismiss the racism (inherent in our current police system) as being like a sore bum or hemrrhoids or something.”
I feel so frustrated that all discussions of race currently eventually denigrate into picking each other’s words apart and this assumption that Everything! Everywhere! Is RACIST! And OFFENSIVE! All the time!
I am as saddened by Maegan’s lesson to her children that everything absolutely must be seen through the lens of racism as I am that posters like Turtlebella will hunt and peck and find SOMETHING to be offended about ALL THE TIME.
I hope, I pray, as a mother of color raising children of color, that I am not weighing down my kids with what is — there is no other way to say this — enormous chips on their shoulder.
I hope that they will be able to move forward and grow and become amazing individuals without having to stop every few seconds and find something to be offended about, something to find fault with, something to be hurt by, something to be bogged down by, something to puposely drag them down.
So maybe what I’m trying to say is that I don’t fear them having a chip on their shoulder… I fear that chip turning into an anchor that weighs down each and every thing in their life so that they turn into adults that get offended over something like, ““I’m sure.. it’s [being Latina] a pain in the butt.” And then, on top of it, get extra, overly offensive if you suggest (Oh no!!!!!) that being offensive about it is somehow silly.
If I’ve raised kids who turn into adults who aren’t resilient enough to go through life without getting offended every six seconds, I’m going to feel like a failure. Because I hope I’m able to teach them to participate in society without being dragged down by it.
that interaction w/ the cop is exactly how I would have handled it w/ my son. I don´t believe in raising my kids to have rose colored glasses-that I constantly have to re-learn stuff to my kids is a reality. teaching kids there is racism does not mean we are teaching kids to be racist.
because my kids are mexican/puerto rican i will teach them the realities of racism in our society, and also teach them about being a member of a community, their histories, the history of racism and everything else that comes w/ being a radical parent (versus a good citizen because that is up to interpretation). this will not make them shrink inside but teach them the power of change and words, what an awful idea you must have of POC who fight racism.
seriously, a pain in the butt, that´s how y0u would describe the life of a latina?
ChipAMile – just so you know, it is possible for a parent or parents to raise their children with awareness of racial reality without the kid growing up to have a chip on their shoulder. I’m one of those kids (now 31).
I have a healthy distrust of law enforcement, but I’ve still reported crimes that have happened to me. It’s not an either/or situation as you are making it out to be.
I think I need to teach my kids to do the Obama brush off for the chip that everyone thinks I’m giving them
Chip- I’m pretty sure you already made that point before. It’s getting a bit old. Moreover, perhaps you should allow me to be offended when I feel the need to be and not ridicule me for it. I call things as I see them (and no I don’t spend all my time digging for examples of racism).
You are, of course (seems like it goes without saying but perhaps not), perfectly free to raise your children however you like! I don’t believe anyone has ever suggested otherwise. But this *is* an anti-racist parenting blog. So you shouldn’t be too surprised when most of the discussions here revolve around racism and that people call each other out when they find something to be racist or unexamined or just plainly badly worded (which I suspect was the case that I cite). I would suggest that maybe this isn’t the blog (or perhaps it’s just Meagan’s posts) for you. You seem to know what you are doing and not want to change. And that’s fine. But give the rest of us the respect and courtesy to discuss things as we see them.
ChipAMileWide, you don’t have to assume that people who are offended by something you don’t happen to find offensive are offended by every little thing in the world. You might even consider that you get offended by things that don’t offend them.
And if you wrote about those things, I’m sure you wouldn’t want people denigrating you as oversensitive. I’d imagine you’d want people to assume your thoughts, experiences and feelings were valid–even if their experiences were different from yours.
So, save your frustration. People writing here are plenty resilient.
“Because I hope I’m able to teach them to participate in society without being dragged down by it.”
I think most of us, if not all, share this hope with you.
@ChipaMileWide -
This is a conversation of words in print (on-screen, rather). We’re not talking in real time. I don’t think it’s fair to characterize that particular reaction as assuming that “Everything! Everywhere! Is RACIST! And OFFENSIVE! All the time!” I wonder why you chose to focus on the less significant opener statement about being Latina, and less on her analysis of law enforcement as an institution that can consistently prove itself to have racist motivations.
And for the record Many Things. Many Places. ARE Racist. AND Offensive. ALL the time. I know it’s exhausting and we want to forget sometimes. But there’s no denying that prejudice and bias in this country are huge monsters.
I think your reaction indicates that it’s easier for you to dismiss the larger point, and “hunt and peck” for something to disagree with/criticize. I cannot conjecture as to why you do this, but that’s certainly what it looks like. You might consider taking a second look at your (and turtlebella’s) comments.
Regarding your main point – it’s unrealistic to think that we won’t pass baggage and chips and issues on to our kids. But kids aren’t programmable robots – *they* will decide how to use the explicit information that we give them based on the implicit rules we teach them. The great thing is that we don’t have to be great parents for this to work out in their favor – just good enough parents.
Your post brought tears to my eyes and I sat within eye shot of our beautiful Ethiopian referral picture. Geda is only three months old, but it breaks my heart to think that I and my bio children will have a different “status” in our society. No…it does more than that…it makes me absolutely sick!
I will be checking your blog often for insights. Thank you.
Ah, now we get to the root of the problem.
While some are more concerned with making sure their children are raised to not be offended when people say mean and hurtful things to them, I am concerned to raise children that don’t say stupid hurtful things every time they open their mouths and then tell everyone around them that it wasn’t meant to be offensive and that others have no right to feel as they do when they’ve been stepped all over.
Gotcha…
h sofia wrote: “just so you know, it is possible for a parent or parents to raise their children with awareness of racial reality without the kid growing up to have a chip on their shoulder. I’m one of those kids (now 31).”
*waving hand* Most people of color I know, and I suspect many of us here, have that same experience/upbringing/subsequent outcome. That’s probably why these doom and gloom predictions ring so hollow. And suspect.
Experience obviously colors perceptions and the parenting choices we make. Maegan shared how she parents based on her experiences, but never once did she say or even imply that anyone who parents based on different experience with/view of cops is falling short or needs to parent her way or is doing their kids a disservice or has faulty thinking.
And yet, she has not been shown the same courtesy. Quite the contrary.
@turtlebella:
I can’t remember who in the blogosphere made this observation–AngryBlackWoman maybe?–but it was this: So often what’s said is, “I’m sorry you’re offended/hurt” and never, “I’m sorry that I’ve been offensive/hurtful.” The difference is sincerity and motivation.
Atena wrote: “And for the record Many Things. Many Places. ARE Racist. AND Offensive. ALL the time. I know it’s exhausting and we want to forget sometimes. But there’s no denying that prejudice and bias in this country are huge monsters.”
It’s maddening how it’s so EXHAUSTING for people to constantly hear about others’ experiences with racism or ways of grappling with it–and yet people of color aren’t supposed to get exhausted or angered or troubled by racism, like to the point of wanting to equip their children to deal with it.
Maeghan – I haven’t read all of the responses, but it sounds like the “towering white man” you encounter periodically is not only dangerous, but may also be mentally ill. Am I understanding that he assaulted your daughter? I understand that as a person of color you face challenges in dealing with the NYPD. I am praying though that this instance was a least reported. My heart goes out to your daughter. I ride many of the same subway lines (or, I used to rather) in the same city as you do and I can remember being afraid of people for varying reasons. It was a nightmare to be trapped in the same car or bus with them as a little vulnerable kid.
And for anyone telling Maeghan that she is somehow making a mistake by teaching her kids not to trust the police, let me give you just a short list (from personal experience) as to why you SHOULD NOT trust police and should make sure that your children also SHOULD NOT:
1) I have two close relatives (that I know of) who were RAPED at GUNPOINT by police.
2) when my uncle was a nyc cop, he saw a fellow cop think it was just hilarious to toss a young black teenager to his death off a roof in the south bronx. I don’t know what ever came of that cop, but my uncle never made it as a policeman.
3) before anyone thinks #2 is an isolated incident, my mother has a friend whose husband was a cop….he also saw a young man in the South Bronx thrown to his death by police.
4) I remember as a kid having multiple neighbors who had run-ins with the police. They were typically teens or in their early twenties and my mother knew their mothers. Yes, often these young men were doing some VERY MINOR things that attracted police attention (having a beer in the street). All they had to do was “answer back” to one of these cops and the result was often multiple broken bones.
5) Personally being talked to like I was worthless shit by police. This was typically when I was a teen and sometimes I was with friends. They could talk to us like we were garbage and not take our legitimate complaints seriously because we were young, with no power.
Just a short list…..
I didn’t feel the need to apologize for expressing an opinion because I think I said what I meant to say. As I said above, my experience is totally different, I live in a much smaller place, and I’m white. I also wouldn’t want to teach kids to believe the police are out to get them, though I do think it’s a good idea to teach them to be very careful not to do anything in the presence of the police that could get them in trouble. I don’t know if that’s another way of saying what the columnist is teaching her daughter or not. Take that in context with who I am and decide I’m completely clueless if need be.
What I do think may have been an unfortunate choice of words is “it’s a pain in the butt.” I did NOT mean that in the sense that anyone would or should feel bad about being Latina or anything else. What I did mean is that it must be a real pain in the butt to be harassed by some crazy man on the subway or by a cop for race or demeanor or any other reason. Poor choice of words.
>I also wouldn’t want to teach kids to believe the police are out to get them, though I do think it’s a good idea to teach them to be very careful not to do anything in the presence of the police that could get them in trouble.
I think this illustrates the disconnect.
In an ideal world, the only things that would get a young person or any person “in trouble” in the presence of police would be breaking a clearly defined and equally applied LAW. There would be no fears of police brutality before or after custody, and everyone would get the same quality of lawyer to handle their case if charged.
As many commentators have said above, and as our own news media reports in spurts and waves, THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN OFTEN ENOUGH. Instead, hideous power-trips like this happen: http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=4674575&page=1
So… if we DON’T teach our kids that the police COULD do acts like this, and that certain people can be targets more often for “special treatment,” because of who they are and not what they do (not that that would justify bad behavior from those in power/authority anyway)… how do we protect them? Obviously people are harassed by cops who are NOT breaking any laws.
Sigh…
Andrea, I think you just dug yourself deeper.
A) Yes, some of us NEED to teach our children the truth: the police ARE out to get us. I realize that isn’t your experience, and frankly that is because you are a white woman. But for some of us it is a reality of life. It’s not just you being “clueless” because clueless is understandable since it isn’t your own experience, the problem is you denying our reality.
B) “What I did mean is that it must be a real pain in the butt to be harassed by some crazy man on the subway or by a cop for race or demeanor or any other reason.”
No, dear, *this* is a “poor choice of words”. You have now totally MINIMIZED how truly frightening, difficult, and downright dangerous a Latina’s experience in that situation is. And I think that has already been said. I don’t think many took your comment to mean “gee it sucks having to be a Latina” but to mean “aww, that’s kinda hard”. It’s not a “pain in the butt” to be in those situations – it is much more serious than that.
Since you asked, I’ll say it. You. are. completely. clueless.
Hopefully that will get through to you. In the event that it does not let me add to what others have said much better than I did.
I didn’t grow up in this country but I got to learn pretty quickly that I should be careful around the police because it almost always has nothing to do with me doing something wrong but being black.
Here are examples:
I’m talking to a friend in front of the graduate dorm and Berkeley PD rolls up to me and starts asking questions about what were doing there. The officer didn’t code us as the graduate students that we were based on the fact that we were carrying bags and I was holding a laptop in front of a dorm. No, he coded us as black and troubling.
I’ve been asked if I needed help while I was trying to get into my office in the school of law. I’ve also had people literally cross the street when they saw me coming. (By the way all of this happened in Berkeley, the utopian paradise were people don’t see color but sure know how to reach when you’re not white.)
I would add more to this but I’m hoping you get the point. It is tiring having to experience shit like that, writing about it and then have someone who is never going to face that type of racism negates and belittles our lived experiences by telling us again and again how to live our lives and manage the dangerous terrain that is racism. It is so damn tiring.
And please keep your apology to yourself. No one asked for it and Maegan certainly doesn’t need it to continue to do what’s best for her and her family.
Obviously, you don’t need to care what I say or why. In the original post, I meant to acknowledge what a pain in must be to deal with the situation she described in the column, among other things. One of the other respondants apparently took that to mean that I was saying it was a pain in the butt for her to be Latina. I didn’t mean that, which is why I called it a poor choice of words. You apparently realized that I didn’t mean it in that way; she didn’t.
I’m not really going to jump into the fray too much here, just wanted to say that I am White and my father was a career police officer, and I think that the poster is justified in teaching her children the way she has been. Yes, it makes me uncomfortable to think that, no it shouldn’t be that way, but a lot of things shouldn’t be the way they are. I teach my kids according to reality, not the way I wish things were.
My dad was a good cop. In my own personal experience as a White woman, the only negative interaction with a cop I’ve ever had was at a community forum when I questioned their assertion that “racial profiling does not happen in our community!” But my experience will not likely be my kids’ experience.
As others have said, there are good/fair individuals, but the law enforcement system overwhelmingly is not set up for equity.
My kids are Black, my son, the youngest, is 15. I worry about him getting his driver’s license. He will learn first to keep his wallet in plain sight on the center console, not his pocket. He will learn to keep both hands on the wheel, not to reach for anything, not to conduct himself in any way that could remotely be perceived as antagonizing. He will learn these things before he learns to actually drive.
I want to thank Deesha (comment 15) for the link she provided.
I helped start a student advocacy group in my school system. One of the biggest issues we are trying to address is how the school cops in the high schools interact with students of color. Things like a 14yr old being handcuffed, put in a room alone, and being told no, he may NOT phone his family. This child had been instructed to always have family/advocate present, and told the officer so respectfully. I have told my son the same, but if the officers don’t respect that for our minor children, how do you combat that?
I will definitely be printing out a paper for my son to carry, similar to the link Deesha provided.
Andrea,
It doesn’t matter which way you meant it because they are both absolutely 100% wrong. The fact that you don’t even know what you are apologizing for and don’t seem to care that you are offensive either way just makes it all the more annoying.
Cowbell, I’ll be sure to let Christina know that others found her info helpful. Best to you.
Oh I guess I’m the she who took your words, Andrea, the “wrong way.” When in fact I did not– I said, quoting,
Please, try not to dismiss the racism (inherent in our current police system) as being like a sore bum or hemrrhoids or something.
It was the fact that dealing with racist, oppressive system is a pain in the butt that I found problematic. As Aaminah said, it’s not a pain in the butt (or anywhere else) – it’s much deeper, more complicated, and more serious than that. And yes, maybe it was “just” a poor choice of words. However, I am hoping that seeing that this was a poor choice of words means that maybe next time you will choose words more clearly. (We can all, if we choose, to learn from past mistakes. I stick my foot in my mouth often. And then I apologize– sincerely apologize). However, I refuse to apologize for being offended by the statement and its implications. And I reserve the right to not accept non-apologies (i.e., anything that says or implies, “I’m sorry you were offended”).
Cribbed from Racialicious. Maegan, you live in NYC , right?
/sarcasm
“As a ColorLines magazine investigation documented last fall, blacks accounted for 66 percent of those killed by New York City police between 2000 and 2007 (New York is a perennial leader in police fatalities, averaging 12 a year over those years). And while the violent crime rate plunged to historically low levels in that time period, the number of people killed by police has not budged—indeed, the number of cop bullets fired has skyrocketed. And it’s happened with impunity. Out of 88 fatal shootings, including at least 12 in which victims were unarmed, in only one instance was an officer convicted of criminal wrongdoing.”
I live in an area where the police have been getting a lot of negative attention, well deserved in each case, for outright stupid, and often brutal behaviour. The news media have not even touched on racism. I shudder to think what else is being done by those who are there to serve and protect.
I felt sadness not outrage, at Maegan la Mala’s blog. It is sad that little children need to be taught to be cautious about the adults in the world around them, regardless of colour. I did not interpret anything in her article, that would indicate her teaching her daughter to disrespect police.
Personally, I have had only positive encounters with police, and any speeding ticket I’ve gotten was deserved on my part. Police have been there when I really needed them to be. I was once one of those people who didn’t think white people were treated any better than those of colour, but I have had my eyes open since. I’ve also been disabused of the notion that there is no racism in Canada. There is definitely something wrong with a society in which being allowed to mind one’s own business in safety, and receive fair treatment, is considered a privilege. That is a basic human right, and everyone should have it.
As for the police, yes there are many good ones out there, hopefully more than the bad ones. Even one bad apple spoils it for the whole bunch. There does however, need to be better screening, and better training for police. We really do need to get rid of the racists, the power hungry bullies, and the knuckle heads who can’t keep a level head in a crisis situation. Perhaps then little children on subways can genuinely smile and say hello to police who ask better questions than ‘Did you do your homework.’ ( I’m a teacher, and I do think this is a stupid question to ask a little girl on a subway.)
By the way, thanks for the website http://www.tolerance.org. I will be going there when I finish posting this.
Pingback: Self Preservation « Aaminah Hernández
Andrea – I am a white woman also. Let me tell you a little something about my progression from a predominantly white world as a child to the what I see today.
We live as white people in this society. I have never once had to worry that I was going to be shot to death when coming out of a nightclub. I have never been pulled over by the police for presumed wrongdoing, I have never had store owners follow me and watch me while I was shopping in their store, I’ve never had people cross the street for unwarranted fear of me, I have never had to wonder, after not getting a job, if race was the factor (even if unconsciously) in my not being hired, I’ve never had to worry that every word out of my mouth, every action I take might be representative of my entire race, I’ve never had someone presume I had a much lower status job than I have. The list could go on and on. There is a wonderful essay on white privilege …I can think of name of the woman who wrote it, Peggy something….maybe someone else remembers.
My point is that, growing up in a fairly white world, although you may or may not even acknowledge the above, the bottom line is that these experiences are outside of our daily experience. So, to try to better understand where people of color are coming from, I’ve had to try to understand what the daily experience of a person of color might be like. For any given daily experience, ask yourself what challenges a person of color might have faced in that situation that you, as a white person, didn’t have to have a concern in the world about.
Racism is pervasive in our society. It affects the daily experience of it’s victims, sometimes in ways that I don’t think any of us can ever actually even quantify. That’s why when you refer to someone’s experience of racism as a “pain” it’s trivializing. I think of a “pain” as a minor annoyance. Maeghan is outraged not because she has experienced certain interactions with the police on a single occasion. That would hardly be worth writing an article about or even getting outraged about. What she is writing about is her daily life and serious challenges she faces as a woman of color and mother in NYC. …I know that what she is talking about is true and it’s no trivial matter or minor annoyance.
I usually just lurk here, but the comments to this post got me. Years ago, I lived in a poorer neighborhood in a city much smaller than NYC.
The crime rate was not high.
I told a friend at work about how the cops were perpetually harassing the young black men in my neighborhood – young men who were often just walking back home from highschool (I knew this because they were my neighbors). Any group of 3 or more young black men would be broken up (to be clear – police did not bother other teen-agers hanging out in groups).
The friend didn’t believe me. But then, he moved to the neighborhood and one night, he called the police because there had been a shooting outside his house and he had seen the gunman running way. He knwew the police were the good guys, so he was doing the right thing.
When the cop asked him to describe the gunman, my friend said “It was a white man in a brown leather jacket.” And the cops said, “No, you mean a black man in a black leather jacket.”
Friend: “No, it was a white man in a brown leather jacket.
Cop: “No, you mean..”
This went on for about 20 rounds. Guess who was arrested?
Really, you have to believe people when they tell you what happened to them.
Pingback: Teen Girl Attacked by Police Speaks Out | VivirLatino