Mothering While Black

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Dawn Marie Dow. Mothering While Black

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Mothering While Black

BOUNDARIES AND BURDENS OF MIDDLE-CLASS PARENTHOOD

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It is important to note that the interviews for this research took place in the aftermath of Oscar Grant’s fatal shooting in Oakland, California. Grant, an unarmed African American man, was shot in the back by Johanness Mehserle, a white Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer. Grant was lying face down on a BART train platform and was being subdued by several other officers when Mehserle shot him. On July 8, 2010, Mehserle was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter—not the higher charges of second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter.24 The incident was dramatically depicted in the full-length movie Fruitvale Station.25

For many of the mothers I interviewed, Grant’s death served as another reminder of the distinct experiences that their sons, brothers, nephews, and husbands would have as African American boys, teenagers, and men when interacting with law enforcement and other members of the general public. It also underscored that they would have to teach their sons how to interact with law enforcement and, importantly, how to navigate those interactions so that they would be left unscathed. These mothers questioned whether their sons would be received by law enforcement as good kids from middle-class families or as threats to public safety.

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