Although mothers expressed worries that cut across gender, this section explores the specific concerns they described in raising African American boys versus girls and the strategies they used to address those concerns. Mothers primarily spoke of ensuring their sons’ physical safety in interactions with police officers, educators, and members of the general public, and preventing their sons from being criminalized by these same groups as “thugs.” They were negotiating a racial empathy gap in which their children’s, but specifically their sons’ actions, would be interpreted more negatively than those of their white peers.
For their daughters, the mothers in this study were primarily focused on ensuring that they developed strong self-esteem, along with independence and self-worth. Despite being middle- and upper-middle class, and thus having more resources than their lower-income counterparts, these mothers felt limited in their abilities to protect their sons and daughters from the challenges associated with being African American boys (and future men) and girls (and future women).
NAVIGATING THE CONTROLLING IMAGE OF THE THUG
I interviewed Karin, a married mother, while she nursed her only child, a daughter, in her apartment. Karin let out a deep sigh before describing how she felt when she learned her baby’s gender:
I was thrilled [the baby] wasn’t a boy. I think it is hard to be a black girl and a black woman in America, but I think it is dangerous and sometimes deadly to be a black boy and black man. Oscar Grant and beyond, there are lots of dangerous interactions with police in urban areas for black men . . . so I was very nervous because we thought she was a boy. . . . I was relieved when she wasn’t. It is terrible, but it is true.
Karin’s relief at learning her child was not a boy underscores how intersections of racial identity, class, and gender influence the concerns that African American middle- and upper-middle-class mothers had for their daughters versus their sons.
It is important to note that the interviews for this research took place in the aftermath of Oscar Grant’s fatal shooting in Oakland, California. Grant, an unarmed African American man, was shot in the back by Johanness Mehserle, a white Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer. Grant was lying face down on a BART train platform and was being subdued by several other officers when Mehserle shot him. On July 8, 2010, Mehserle was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter—not the higher charges of second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter.24 The incident was dramatically depicted in the full-length movie Fruitvale Station.25
For many of the mothers I interviewed, Grant’s death served as another reminder of the distinct experiences that their sons, brothers, nephews, and husbands would have as African American boys, teenagers, and men when interacting with law enforcement and other members of the general public. It also underscored that they would have to teach their sons how to interact with law enforcement and, importantly, how to navigate those interactions so that they would be left unscathed. These mothers questioned whether their sons would be received by law enforcement as good kids from middle-class families or as threats to public safety.
Mary, introduced earlier, described a conversation that regularly occurred in her mothers’ group that revealed her worries over adequately preparing her son for the gendered racism she believed he would encounter:
With our sons, we talk about how can we prepare them or teach them about how to deal with a society, especially in a community like Oakland, where black men are held to a different standard than others, and not necessarily a better one. . . . When you are a black man and you get stopped by the policeman, you can’t do the same things a white person would do. . . . We talk about our sons who are a little younger and starting kindergarten. What do we have to do to make sure teachers don’t have preconceived ideas that stop our sons from learning because they believe little brown boys are rambunctious or little brown boys are hitting more than Caucasian boys?
Charlotte, a married mother of four sons, who lived in an elite and predominately white neighborhood, held back tears as she described her fears about how others would respond to her children:
I look at [then] President Obama. I see how he is treated and it scares me. I want people to look at my sons and see them for the beautiful, intelligent, gifted, wonderful creatures that they are and nothing else. I do not want them to look at my sons and say, “There goes that black guy,” or hold onto their purse.
As these mothers’ accounts demonstrate, concerns regarding African American boys’ treatment—particularly their criminalization—emerge early in their sons’ lives, and not just in school settings but also on the playground and during other childhood activities.
Nia, a married working mother of two sons, described interactions with other families at local children’s activities. She called it “baby racism.” She recalled,
From the time our first son was a baby and we would go [to different children’s activities], our son would go and hug a kid and a parent would grab their child and be like, “Oh, he’s going to attack him!” And, it was just, like, “Really? Are you serious?” He was actually going to hug him. You see, like little “baby racism.” . . . I have even written to local parents’ listservs to ask, “Am I imagining this?” . . . Almost all the black mothers wrote in, “You’re not imagining this; this is real. You’re going to have to spend the rest of your life fighting for your child.”
Nia, like the other mothers in this study, believed that when African American boys participated in activities comprised of primarily white middle-class families, their behavior faced greater scrutiny, and innocuous behaviors were quickly criminalized.
Participants believed the process of criminalizing their sons’ behavior began at an early age, and it was pervasive, not confined only to educational settings. Although mothers had no way of knowing how others were actually thinking about their sons, numerous studies support their beliefs that society at large interprets the behavior of African American boys differently, as opposed to white boys, in a range of settings.26 In other words, race and gender trump class. These mothers believed their sons’ racial identity, despite their middle-class status, marked them as “thugs” who were poor, uneducated, violent, and criminal. They recognized they would have to actively and continuously challenge that marking, assert their middle-class status in mainstream white society, and engage in a continuous cycle of respectability politics.27
Although most mothers in my study believed their sons would face challenges related to the image of the thug, a few did not. These mothers attributed their lack of concern to their sons’ racially ambiguous appearance. Kera, a married mother, said of her two sons, “They could be damn near anything depending on how they put their hair. . . . I don’t think they’ll have the full repercussions of being a black man like my brothers or my husband.” Kera’s comments echo research that suggests that skin color differences impact African Americans’ experiences in employment, school, and relationships.28 Her sons were protected because they did not fit the stereotypical image of what an African American looks like. But this protective racial ambiguity represents the exception that reaffirms the rule.
Mothers also believed boys faced more pressure to prove their “blackness” than girls did, in part, because they believed their sons had a more limited range of identities they could express while still being viewed as authentically African American by their peers. Indeed, when African American boys do not conform to the subordinate versions of masculinity assigned to them by the broader society, they often face challenges to their racial authenticity and their masculinity.29 Nora, a married mother with a son and a daughter, said,
There is a lot of pressure for black boys to assume a more “thuggish” identity. There aren’t enough different identity spaces for black boys in schools . . . and so I want my kids to have choices. And if that’s the choice, I might cringe . . . but I would want it to be among a menu of choices. . . . I don’t think there is the same pressure for girls in terms of performing their womanhood.
Similarly, Nia believed