Trigger Warning: The Hidden Truth behind A Black Woman's smile.

I woke up two days ago to the news of George Floyd’s death and I was frozen, literally suspended in time. His murder, his gruesome murder was plastered all across the television, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok. No matter where you were, there lied George’s lifeless body. I could not escape the sound of his pleas for mercy, requests for water and solemn cry for his own mother. As a mother of 3 young boys, nothing is more terrifying than imagining a world where your child needs you and you are not there to protect them.

When I examined my own outrage and discomfort, I questioned why I was so dismayed? I mean I had witnessed so many young men and women of color killed before some in front of my own eyes, some on tv and some I just heard about in passing therefore, I wondered why this news of George’s death struck me so much more deeply and then I realized why?

It was not just because enough had been enough it was because I too had been the mother on the receiving end of news that my own child, my 8 year old son had been the victim of an assault so vile and so unacceptable that he too could have been George Floyd. 

Yes, my child was choked by a white middle aged man at his elementary school. Just let that sink in, his elementary school. The very idea of writing these words are enough to send chills down my spine and quivers to my fingers but yet here I am. My 8 year old son, who would never assault an adult under any circumstances became the victim of his own skin for simply making a play on the man's name. My child was grabbed forcefully and removed from his seat, suspended into the air, feet off the ground, hands around his neck, hanging like strange fruit. The man who seized the opportunity to embarrass my child felt proud and the adult onlookers, all white, glorified themselves in the assault and dignified themselves in willful blindness. And I, his mother, was not privy to the occasion. Had it not been for a concerned parent, no one would have even bothered to notify me. Not even my own child because he feared having his ipad taken away. To be honest that was the first time that I realized something much more had been taken. My child had been robbed of his participation in child like things, his presumption of innocence snatched and he was left powerless in his inability to defend himself. I began to question myself about all of my parenting choices evaluating them one by one.

For weeks I found myself, randomly falling down my own stairs, walking myself into circles, unable to concentrate or even remember who I was. The biggest question I struggled with was how my husband and I had allowed ourselves to fail as parents? When did we create an environment where our child didn't find comfort in our arms but instead found consequence. The thought of it is something I am still grappling with today. I also began to ask myself did we not watch enough Lean On Me, Higher Learning or the Hate You Give? All of these movies have become somewhat a staple in our home, a message we wanted to send to our child about the world outside of himself and outside of our walls. A world where at one time I delighted in the ability to provide a good education, a safe school and what we call “options” but now a world where I am disgusted with myself for fleeing from the comfort of the inner city where my child could at the very least find solace in being wholly inside himself.

When I took my child to see a therapist the question was asked “so how did the incident make you feel?” and my child’s reply “I honestly didn't take the incident too seriously.” When I asked him why didn't he take it too seriously, his reply to me was “because this stuff happens to us all the time.” His words slapped me so forcefully that I, a brown woman, as brown as the soil outside ran as red as the blood shed by our ancestors on that very soil.

In an effort to cope, I started seeking therapy myself so that I could have someone evaluate my own psychosis. I realized all the violence I witnessed growing up left me triggered and that I was also triggering, triggering my child, whose mind was clearly not ready to understand what was happening in the world around him. 

What I feared most wasn’t that we had triggered him into silence, it was that we had triggered him into acceptance. So when George’s lifeless body flashed across my screen, I was back, back into November 20, 2019 and I again was frozen. I rose from my bed knowing that I had begun drifting away from myself but I still continued forward and boom just like that I was on the floor at the bottom of my own stairs. My husband and 8 year old ran to me find out what happened. And as I shuttering in my own embarrassment, I said I had slipped on the carpet but I knew inside that was not true. I found myself in silence and sad but more importantly deeply triggered. It’s amazing how the human brain can suppress stress, anxiety and fear but the one emotion that always lingers in the background jumping out amongst all the others is almost always rage. A rage that for many of us we are constantly trying to suppress and to hide. A rage that you almost have to dissociate yourself from in order to remain productive.

As a woman of color raising all boys, I carry both fear and rage with me every single day. I wonder if my child will die like Tamir Rice, if my child who loves to run could become Ahmuad Aubrey. If my child who was only 8 years old, could have been George Floyd. The reality is it doesn’t matter who you are or what your political views are, what matters is that you take a moment to recognize that these black men are not just #hashtags, these men belong to us.

James Baldwin once said, “being black and conscious in America is to live in a constant state of rage” and I agree but I’d also add that being black and conscious in America is live in a constant state of survival. White aggressions, even if they are micro, they stay with us simmering in the back of our minds, stewing and replaying whenever we are triggered and it doesn’t matter if we are home, if we are at work, or just sitting in the coffee shop, they are there and with your slights we feel them.

 And to white people this is a reminder of the emotion simmering in the background jumping out among all the others—-rage. A rage that can longer be contained because the idea that you would think that this is acceptable is triggering. The idea that you haven’t even acknowledged this death in the workplace is triggering, the idea that we should carry on as if this didn’t happen is triggering. So when we show up to work and WE are quiet, it's because we are triggered. When we request the day off for an unexplained reason it’s because we may have been triggered. For all the people out there who have never lost a child, or who have never been discriminated against or who have never spoken out against complicit silence or willful blindness, the message to you: We are triggered! And for many of us there is a seething rage in our minds, stewing in the background calling us to action. A call to action that is pushing some of us to protest, some of us to change, and others toward a desire to own our own and to forge a future for our children so unimaginable that our ancestors would be proud.  

But for others, it's pushing them to a different kind of rage, a type of rage that can't be contained and one that is literally catching fire. Where once your triggers may have silenced or discouraged us, they now call us to radical action. 

And this is a trigger warning.

-Amirah

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