I am a mom.  I am white. My husband is white.  We have two boys.  One is Latino, the other is African-American.  That means that both my boys, as they grow older, are more likely than their white friends to be followed by security at stores, “scare” people and/or be stopped by police.  They are more likely to be hurt or killed by those same police officers.  Or hurt or killed by someone with a gun because of the color of the skin.  Once upon a time, an African-American man came up to me as he saw my husband and me playing with our younger son and asked me if I was prepared to raise my son.  I took offense to his question and told him, of course, we were.  We are his parents.  We love our boys with all our hearts. And as any parent, we would do anything to protect them from harm.  The man, however, did have a point.  I am white.  I will never have to face what my boys will have to face because of the color of their skin.  Recently, I heard a story on NPR about an African-American man’s run in with the police in Denver.  Alex Landau had been adopted by a white couple.  They never spoke about race at home.  When Alex was growing up, they lived in mostly white suburbs around Denver. His mother thought that “love would conquer all and skin color didn’t really matter.” At the age of 19, that all changed.  He was stopped for a traffic violation.  After he was stopped, he was patted down.  He had a white friend in the car who was also patted down.  His friend had a joint in his pocket and was put in handcuffs. Once that happened, Alex thought he would be ok.  Then he asked to see a warrant before the police continued the search.  He was severely beaten and almost shot by those officers.   You can read and hear the whole story here. http://storycorps.org/listen/alex-landau-and-patsy-hathaway.  The story really hit home for me. I, too, believe that love is the answer. Unlike the family in the story though, we talk about race in our home.  We have also discussed with our boys and will continue to discuss with them that they will be treated differently in the world because of the color of their skin.  We have told them if they are ever stopped by the police, to act politely, keep their hands in sight, don’t do anything quickly, their lives may depend on it. We also tell them that it is not fair.   Although we as a country have come a long way from the days of segregation, before the civil rights movement, we still have a long, long way to go as seen again in the town of Ferguson, Missouri this week.  Michael Brown who was stopped for jaywalking is dead.  Although I don’t look like his mother, I feel her pain as a mother. That could be my son.  When is this going to end?  How many young men have to die because of the color of their skin before we as a nation say it’s time to stop?  I think it is time for the parents of this country, no matter what skin color, to stand up and say enough is enough.  No more. As parents, these are all our kids.  Until then, I hug my boys tighter and explain to them things that I wish I didn’t have to about the world. But I still do in order to hopefully keep them safe.