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I was running errands with my youngest two children in tow when an acquaintance of ours spotted us and came over to say hello. She looked at my son, marveling over how much he had grown since she last saw him a few months ago.
“Yes,” I smiled, “He’s a big boy!”
She replied, “Such a cute little thug.”
My son is 2 years old.
As a black male, I knew he would inevitably face discrimination, and that this would be increasingly true as he got older and bigger. I knew that unlike my friends mothering white boys, I would have to prepare my son for racially-motivated encounters with police, teachers and store managers. We would have to discuss with him the fears and prejudices that some parents may face when my son wants to hang out with or date their children.
What I didn’t realize was how early in my son’s life he would be stereotyped, labeled and feared.
The “thug” encounter wasn’t the first time I had felt the weight of parenting a black boy in America.
A few weeks ago, I took my children to a preschooler’s paradise: the local children’s museum. My toddler was drawn to the iPad set up in the play bank. He happily had full reign of the device for several minutes until a fellow toddler arrived, a white girl dressed in jeggings and a peasant top, her wispy hair in pigtails accessorized with oversized bows.
