Suzy is a fellow blog reader of yours and a friend of mine from Creative Arts Camp. She is a retired professor of child psychology, and above you can see her four children, all from the same husband of 32 years. She put the following on Facebook, agreed that I could share this with you, and sent me these photos of her beautiful family to support her statement.
“In response to my friends who keep saying kneeling is about disrespecting the flag and anthem, I’m responding with my perspective.
It’s always been strange to me how people judge someone else on their own perceptions — sort of like looking at the world through a yellow acetate overlay and calling all blue things green. Kneeling is true blue patriotism and love of God and country. My three sons are black and I am white. Can you imagine what my black children suffered as children? Terrible racism happened to my sons in Ladue, Creve Coeur, Brentwood, Frontenac, West County, St. Louis. For instance, at an upscale grocery store, a man coughed up phlegm and spit on white me and my black newborn son who was in my arms. The white man screamed over and over, “That’s for fuc**** a nig***” and continued to spit on us. Perhaps if your high school son was driving and stopped by police on Brentwood Blvd, Brentwood, MO and for no reason other than being black, was pulled out of my car, and our family dog was jerked out and sent unrestrained into four lanes of traffic, my son was screaming that his dog was going to get run over and the police told him to shut up and stand with his hands on the car — you’d be seeing true blue (the need to kneel to end racism) rather than green (make up your own moral model about kneeling having to do with a flag and a song). Perhaps if unjust atrocities happened to your son and the perpetrators were not held accountable, you would take a knee and see true blue patriotism rather than looking through a yellow acetate overlay of privilege, flags and song. So I respect God, country, flag and anthem as they all whisper, “Take a knee. Stand up for your family and the world to end racism and murder.”
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7 Comments
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We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are. Ana is Nin
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So well written -sad to hear her experiences but good for all of us to ponder her reality! Thanks for sharing.
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Well said.
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The yellow acetate perspective has to go. And it looks like there are cracks in it right now. I just viewed the movie Just Mercy and feel this could be a game changer for some people who see it–or at the very least open some eyes to a better perspective of what the system has done and is doing.
Suzy’s experience with her baby at the grocery store–I just cannot imagine anything so despicable. And the incident with her son and their dog being pulled from the car unrestrained. I have tears just thinking what that must have been like.
These stories have to be told so that people will wake up. Wake up to our common humanity!
Thank you, Suzy, for sharing. I would like to be your friend on FB.
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And thank you, Polly, for this important post. I so appreciate it!
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Things are cracking. I feel it. Change is coming. Has to!
Keep praying and hoping, all!
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If people could see just how ugly they look when they do these horrible racists things. The old video of the elegant man in a suit being pushed to the ground and hounded by the whites who looked like a pack of rabid dogs, the Australian standing in solidarity and suffering all his life for standing on the moral ground, not to mention the despicable and horrible things a few policemen are doing, and more and more….just has me in tears every day.
Thank you for posting the pictures of this beautiful family. So so so very sorry for what the children had to endure.
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