At the time, my sons’ played in our playroom. They chatted incessantly
about what superheroes they would pretend to be and what adventures
they would take throughout our house as we waited for the rain to stop so we
could go outside. I wiped my tears away and regained my composure, more
resolved than ever to be present. To soak up every drip drop of
their beautiful life. To love them with every piece of
myself. To ensure that I do my part to make the world a
better place for them. To make them better than
this world.
beautiful, golden boy – in the midst of the overwhelming love I
felt for the new soul placed in my arms, I saw an opportunity. I saw
an opportunity to raise the type of man, I had always hoped to encounter.
The type of man I had unexpectedly found in the man I chose to marry.
Men who didn’t throw bottles at women who spurned their
advances. Men who didn’t expose themselves to high school girls on subway
platforms. Men who didn’t call women bitches and
hoes. Men who didn’t chalk up a women’s worth to her reputation or
sexual appetite. Men who valued the little girls they helped create.
The arduous steps I had taken to that hospital bed had hardened
me but holding that innocent life in my arms, I realized who he
would be was yet to determined. I could fight to make
sure he was better than the type of man I had once endured.
That afternoon, as I watched Eric Garner’s life slip away from
him, all I could think of was what kind of man his
mother had dreamed he would become. Had she watched him play in the
house on a rainy day? Had she loved him with all her might and
worked tirelessly to make sure he was a “different” kind of
man? Like me with my husband, had his wife been challenged by his
kindness… by his respect? Had his children felt the wholeness of a father
who valued their lives? Had his daughter been one of the few brown girls I’ve
ever known to call herself “Daddy’s girl”?
Fact is, I don’t know. The NYPD didn’t stop to question what his
mother’s dreams had been for him. They didn’t stop to ask whether he
mattered to his wife or his children. They didn’t stop to ask whether he
had ever objectified a woman or argued for her humanity. They saw
the same dark brown skin I wear every day and decided it didn’t matter.
They saw the same black life, I, as a black woman, have created and
took it. Yanked it away on a crowded city street.
I do more than shed tears for Eric Garner, I bleed for him. I
bleed with him as I would for my sons. My husband. My
brothers. For all the beautiful life born to a black woman’s
womb. As long as black women create black boys and black men create
black girls, I will bleed. Our separateness is a divisive fiction.
A fiction no clearer than when I held my new baby boy in my arms.
Marching for him is the least I can do.
Faye
Faye McCray 
Leave a comment