Mother Of A Brown Boy Speaks – Open Letter About Social Justice

{Mother Of A Brown Boy Speaks} Open Letter About Social Justice

One of the main things that has been on my heart lately is about social justice for our children. As a mother of a young brown boy in America, I cannot ignore what has been going on with social justice in the USA and worldwide, in recent years and for centuries, in regards to the treatment of men and boys with darker toned skin – our brown boys. If you do not want to hear about this topic of civil rights and social justice, please stop reading now. I will be sharing very strongly because I know how important it is for mothers (and grandmothers) of brown boys to speak up, in America, and everywhere in the world. Civil rights is important for the whole world to talk, think and pray about. It is not just an American thing.

PROMINENT LEADERS PROTECTING THEIR OWN FIRST

When certain prominent children do the most heinous of crimes, even murder, certain prominent leaders rally and cover it up, even at the top levels of government. They hide the video. They declare it an “accident”. And the responsible prominent youth are never found in the unsolved cold case mysteries in police files all over our nation and world.

When our young brown boys do lesser crimes or any kind of crime, they are pursued fiercely by deputies of the justice system who are brought on board by our prominent leaders. The child had no chance from the moment the deputy spotted him walking in the street. He was either going to be in jail or dead that night. Most of the prominent leaders would not advocate for the young brown boy, like they do for prominent children.

Because the justice system’s prominent leaders protect their own first, there is no slap on the wrist for overzealous (or scared) deputies. These deputies don’t know how or choose not to do anything beyond using a gun or other methods of deadly force. They just get a pat on the back for a job well done “keeping the peace”. Keeping the peace to the prominent leaders equals using deadly force, with no other options being considered for young brown boys and men. Prominent leaders protect their own from this treatment, but they leave no room to consider the civil rights of the brown boys and men.

BLAME AND SHAME FOR BROWN BOYS

There is not even an expression of remorse by the leaders for the lives of young brown boys and men. Only blame and shame are expressed by the prominent leaders. But for prominent boys who commit devastating crimes, there is barely and rarely a reprimand. This is why most incarcerated boys and men are mostly brown.

The prominent leaders’ messages are loud and clear to a mother of a brown boy in America:

• Prominent leaders don’t plan to ever change. Status quo must continue.
• Deputies assigned by the prominent leaders must keep brown boys in their place as an essential part of “keeping the peace”. And deadly force is the go to – it is their main choice for keeping peace. The laws are set in place to ensure that even the grand jury can uphold this status quo for them.
• So, Mamma’s teach your boys right. But, if they mess up, and they will mess up because brown boys are like animals, expect the harshest treatment possible to come to them directly and swiftly. It doesn’t matter how minor or how great the mistake was that the young immature brown boy has made.

Mothers And Grandmothers
of Brown Boys Please Speak Up #ButterflyHomeschool

BROWN BOYS’ MOTHERS MUST SPEAK UP

And as long as the brown boys’ mothers sit back and say nothing, things will stay the same. Violence is not the way. However, we, mothers of brown boys, have options:

• Use Your Voice – Silence NEVER works.
• Boycott is a voice in and of itself – Money ALWAYS works.

Only Father God can give real justice. And, He does that through using bold fearless leaders, including brown boys’ mothers, to peacefully and persistently protest. We must not give up and must raise our voices.

This mother of a young brown boy protests. Things in the institutions of our nations’ communities, and in the international community, must change. Prominent leaders and their deputies must find other ways to keep the peace without continuing to funnel the brown boys either to jail or to the grave. Leaders need to want to find a better option than these two. Their hearts and minds will only change as we keep speaking up; as we keep boycotting.

We won’t resort to violence. And we won’t stay silent either. And we will find ways to re-direct our money into the influential leaders’ businesses who are also willing to stand up and speak up for our children, the young brown boys.

MOTHERS AND GRANDMOTHERS: Keep paying attention, praying and speaking up, as Father God leads you to do so. Some of us moms are not brown, but our children, and other children we love, are brown. All of us moms must use our voices and our money to help our leaders know that we expect them to make better choices; that we expect them to put pressure on prominent leaders to make the changes our society needs to move past this persistent problem.

We love all of our children, no matter what they look like. And continuing to advocate for the brown children will help the whole world. We can even see that with South Africa and with America’s civil rights movements. They have rubbed off on nations all over the world and shaped social justice movements worldwide. Social justice for brown boys will have an impact on proper justice for everyone. We are all connected. Please choose to pray and get involved, instead of ignoring and staying silent about this.

Teaching Time Concepts And Fall Back

TURN CLOCKS BACK 1 HOUR TONIGHT

In the Eastern USA (we are in Atlanta, GA), we turn our clocks back an hour tonight (Sunday Nov. 3rd at 2am).

FYI: The Mommy Butterfly is Donna Marie Johnson and is also the host of a podcast and annual conference called #MarketLikeAQueen

 

WHAT IS DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME? (Source: Wikipedia)

Daylight saving time (DST)—also summer time in British English— is the practice of advancing clocks during the lighter months so that evenings have more daylight and mornings have less. Typically clocks are adjusted forward one hour near the start of spring and are adjusted backward in autumn.

For some reason, I’ve been feeling more tired lately in the mornings (probably because it is so dark), so I am truly looking forward to gaining an hour and having more early morning daylight. I am a true morning person and hate when it’s so deeply dark in the mornings.

TEACHING TIME CONCEPTS

We have been teaching our kids about time concepts even before they could read (or read well). Part of why I taught them so early is because I had a very difficult time grasping time concepts when I was in elementary and middle schools. I really don’t know why, but I think it was because adults may have just assumed that I knew. However, I didn’t know how to read an analog clock properly until I was about 12 to 14 years old.

Even though it’s embarrassing to admit that, I own up to it so that I can be vigilant to make sure our kids get time concepts. So, over the past several years, explaining DST (daylight savings time) to them has been like pulling teeth, but when I asked them about it the other day, all three of them actually get it. They used to think they’d lose an hour in the Fall. But now they understand that they get to sleep in when time Falls Back and are excited about it, just as much as I am.

TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR TEACHING TIME CONCEPTS

So, we have used manipulatives, like paper clocks, to teach our kids about analog time. That helped to introduce the concepts, but, the real learning came when they were forced to use real analog clocks in real life situations. However, our house is filled with digital clocks in pretty much every room. So, what did I do?

I disabled all of the digital clocks. You should have heard their whines when I did it, too. However, at the end of that month, they knew how to tell time.

How do you teach your kids time concepts?

I look forward to hearing how you make it fun and easy for your kids to learn time concepts. Please share.

~Donna Marie, The Mommy Butterfly