White Moms: Kyle Rittenhouse and Travis McMicheal Are Our Sons

This post is coaouthored by Rev. Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft

As racial justice activists, we were heartbroken but not surprised by the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse. While we are grateful Travis McMichael, his father Greg McMichael and their neighbor William "Roddie" Bryan were convicted in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, Arbery should still be alive. As Qasim Rashid pointed out:

“The cops didn’t arrest his murderers

The DA recommended no charges

The video was censored from public view,

His murderers roamed free for 74 days.

The entire system failed Ahmaud Arbery. This conviction isn’t justice. It’s a miracle. Don’t relent.

We must keep fighting for justice.”?

- Qasim Rashid

As white moms, seeing white people time and again annihilate Black and Brown people with no accountability strengthens our resolve to raise our children antiracist, encourage our siblings to do the same, and organize in our communities. It is imperative we do so. White supremacists are online recruiting our sons .

White moms: we must be the generation who breaks from our past and raises our children very differently from how we grew up.

The white home has been white supremacy’s unit of reproduction since 1619, when the Jamestown settlers imported a boatload of white women from England as ‘tobacco brides’ to make plantations an intergenerational enterprise. For 400+ years, white women’s role has been to bear white heirs and teach them white supremacy, an evil, violent and false ideology. White people who profited from land theft, genocide and slavery justified their violence by claiming it necessary to protect delicate white women and children from “subhuman” Black and Native men. Some white moms forced enslaved women to raise their kids, and even breastfeed them. As their children grew older white moms taught them to hate the Black women who had cared for them so tenderly.

During the century-long struggle to secure women’s right to vote, white women treated Black women as second class citizens and persuaded white male lawmakers that granting women the right to vote would strengthen white supremacy by doubling the number of white voters. White moms organized the United Daughters of the Confederacy and paid for authors to write textbooks lauding white supremacy and statues of Confederate leaders in public spaces. They fought against school desegregation in the North, South, East, and West.

In 1955 white mom Carolyn Bryant spoke with her sister in law about her interaction with Emmett Till, who came to her store to buy candy. Bryant’s children nieces and nephews overheard her, and told their fathers about it, who kidnapped tortured and killed fourteen year old Emmett. An all white jury acquitted Roy Bryant and J.W. Millam. Later in life, Carolyn Bryant, still alive at age 87, admitted she lied under oath at their trial.?

Every generation of white moms, with a few exceptions, have found it in their self-interest to preserve the advantages of our skin color, pass the advantages on to our kids, and educate our kids to believe in white superiority, no matter the cost to Black and Brown people. This includes white moms with left, right, centrist and apolitical beliefs. Beginning with Nixon’s Southern Strategy, Presidential candidates have won by messaging to white parents to vote for them to maintain our racial advantages. Today white moms across the political spectrum are bribing their kids into college, bullying school board members to teach lies about US history, hoarding opportunities for their kids, and voting for politicians proudly and covertly espousing racism. The January 6th white terrorist attack on our democracy was orchestrated by white women who led a multistate bus tour to drum up participation, secured the permit for the rally, and organized logistics. White moms gave birth to and raised the angry armed white men who are terrorizing our society.?

Photo: Amy Kremer speaking at the Save America March rally, January 6, 2021, that culminated in Trump supporters storming the US Capitol. She and her daughter Kylie Jane Kremer cofounded Women for America First, the organization that organized the Save America March rally , and communicated with Trump's family on burner phones throughout January 6, 2021 . She and ten others affiliated with the group were?subpoenaed ?by the?House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack ?in September 2021. Photo on the Women for America First website .

While Wendy Rittenhouse claims Kyle shouldn’t have gone to Kenosha and she didn’t know he was there, he learned from her- and centuries of whiteness she did nothing to contradict -that it was his right to show up at a Black Lives Matter protest with an AR-15. He and every other armed angry white man in America learned from Judge Bruce Schroeder and the jury that they would not be held accountable for doing so. Millions of dollars have been raised to support the Rittenhouse family and Wendy now enjoys a much improved lifestyle. It’s easy to imagine Leigh McMichael imparting similar lessons to Travis McMichael- or at least not contradicting Greg McMichael. Fortunately their jury reached a different conclusion.?

White moms: it is imperative that we teach our children the opposite. Black Lives Matter. So do the lives of all people who believe Black Lives Matter . We are a country founded on the right to peaceable assembly to demand change. No one should show up to a protest armed. Noone should hunt down a Black man out for a jog and murder him.?

When white moms break from the status quo and struggle against this evil diabolical system instead of upholding it, we are not only on the right side of history, we are preparing our children to thrive in the society they will mature in. By 2045, when our children are in the prime of their lives, white people will no longer be the majority . Teaching our children to love and relate across difference as equals today is not only morally right, it will set them up for success tomorrow.?

Truly loving our kids means teaching them the truth about US history and white people’s role in it, how to recognize and respect the humanity in every one, and how to resolve conflict without escalating to violence. Sending them to diverse public schools, reading stories featuring diverse characters, and hosting dinner and house guests with a wide variety of identities. Bringing our kids to Black Lives Matter protests and City Council meetings where we testify against the policies and practices that brutalize Black and Brown people. Confronting our family members and friends who espouse racism. Paying reparations. Listening, continually examining how we uphold white supremacy, being open to feedback, and transforming.?

Truly loving our kids means truly loving ALL kids. It means not isolating our kids with other privileged kids, lying to them about US history and heaping advantages on them. It means wanting the same safety, prosperity and opportunities for ALL kids. White supremacy is a death cult that harms all people, including white people. It’s well past time we reject white supremacy, embrace the full equal humanity of all, and raise our kids to do the same.?

Rev. Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft is the mother of three, founder of Raising Imagination, a platform for socially conscious kids & communities, Executive Minister for Justice and Community Development at Middle Collegiate Church , and lives in New York City.??

Karen Fleshman Esq she her hers is a single soccer mom of two, mentor, activist, entrepreneur, attorney, author, educator, and proud San Franciscan. She is the founder of Racy Conversations , a workplace workshop facilitation company, with a mission to inspire the antiracist generation, and of Moms Allyship Against Racism