The child abuse case of Minnesota star running back, Adrian Peterson, has
focused some, but not nearly enough, attention on the issue of child abuse in
the African American community. Peterson
has admitted beating his four year old child with a tree branch, explaining his
actions by saying that he was only doing what his father did to him. Most African Americans completely
understand where Peterson is coming from.
One of the more popular refrains in the black community goes something
like this, “My momma whipped my behind and I turned out O.K.”
The truth is that historically, black parents had to beat
their children severely to try to keep them as safe as possible in an incredibly
unsafe place: The United States. If a
black child looked at a white person the wrong way (not to mention if that
person was a white woman) that child could forfeit his life. Of course the most famous case in point is
that of Emmet Till, whose vicious
lynching became a rallying point of the Civil Rights movement. Till’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, admits,
in her biography, Death of Innocence,
(incidentally written by my friend, Chris Benson)
that she sometimes could not bring herself to discipline little Emmet as much
as she should have. The obvious
implication being that had she been more firm, perhaps he would not have
whistled at a white woman and subsequently murdered.
Divergent child rearing practices are only one of a plethora
of issues that demonstrate the enormous divide in the experience and culture of
white and black Americans. Black parents
have looked on with disgust as white children have run utterly amok in grocery
stores and other public places, throwing tantrums and engaging in behavior that
would have embarrassed any black parent to death. I remember once many years ago, being in a
store in while a white child behaved so outrageously badly that I leaned over
and whispered to the white woman who was ostensibly watching him, “You know,
there isn’t a jury in the land that would convict you if you knocked the hell
outta that child.” She looked at me in
utter bewilderment.
I would no more condone allowing a child to run wild in a
store any more than I would condone using a branch to beat a child bloody, as
Peterson did. But the world is changing
and when we don’t examine why we do what we do, we wind up being stuck in inappropriate
behaviors that are no longer necessary, as well as counterproductive
attitudes. The world is still very
dangerous for black kids, but the nature of the danger has changed. We have to worry about brutal
police, as well as neighborhood crime; neither of which can be softened by
beating our kids. Having more than two
decades experience in Child Welfare under my belt- as both a worker and an administrator-
I have been appalled at some of the attitudes I’ve heard expressed by black
folks concerning corporal punishment. We have to beat our kid. They too hard
headed to obey if we don’t.
It’s saddening and more than a little embarrassing to hear black
folks turn what had been a survival tactic into an indictment of our own
children as somehow super recalcitrant. Yes,
most of us (including this writer) who received this severe punishment turned out
OK. But if we are going to get to the
next level, that attitude needs to change.
We beat our kids to make them conform; to walk in lockstep with everyone
else, grow up and get a decent job. But,
I believe, the time has come to broaden our horizons and expectations for our
kids, not just to get a decent job, but to create
decent jobs. The creativity and
sense of self worth that is required to challenge the system and create a
presence in places like Silicon
Valley is the same creativity and self worth that has been deemed as “uppity”
and cause for attacks from folks like the KKK.
We teach our kids to color inside the lines and to think
inside the box. Empowered parents teach
their kids the exact opposite. One of the most powerful (at least for me)
scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie took place in the film, “Searching
For Bobby Fisher.” The protagonist’s
(a kid) teacher held a conference with the father and explained that the child
was being distracted by a “chess thing.”
Every black parent I know of from when I grew up would have gone home (angrily)
and disciplined the child for not falling in line behind this teacher. But the dad, played by Joe Mantegna, totally
understood that his child had a genius for chess that was beyond the
comprehension of this rather limited teacher.
He stood up for his kid! He stood up for his kid’s right to be that
genius!
There is another aspect to the African American approach to
discipline, when it’s taken way too far.
That is the good church folks who take being “washed white as snow” just
a tad too far and literally want to “beat
the black” off children. But that story
is for another blog.
