Dear Friends,
I hope this note finds you well and strong, full of trust and hope. And if not, I wish it for you and for those who need it most.
This post is about protection. It is just one glimpse of what protection looks like in real life. It is not a lecture or slide presentation, and it is not a treatise or dissertation covering the entire scope of what protection can mean and how it can manifest. Instead, this is an invitation to consider ways you protect yourself and your loved ones in your daily life.
Perhaps you practice yoga to help protect yourself from the negative effects of toxic stress. Or, maybe you pray the Lorica of St. Patrick or the Lord’s prayer to protect, guard, or strengthen yourself & your loved ones for the challenges of the day ahead. Beyond yoga and prayer, we study, teach, learn, and practice other types of protection, as well, such as creating strong passwords for our digital lives, locking our car doors before heading into the store, washing our hands before eating, even tossing on a coat and popping open an umbrella to shield the rain.
We all have practices of protection. Depending on our race, sexuality, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, religion, culture, identity (or identities) those practices can look, feel, and function differently.
I am learning about ways protection for Black families is different from the forms of protection I am familiar with as a white person. And I’m offering this post as a way for you to learn along with me.
I’d like to speak specifically to my white friends and readers now. I invite you to think of any time you have taught a young person how to stay safe out in the world. Maybe you are in the midst of child rearing right now. Perhaps you have raised many children and the memories are flooding back to you. Maybe you have cared for your nieces or nephews, your neighbors’ children or your friends’. And if you’re a teacher, a coach, an art or music instructor, or are in service to children and teenagers in any way, most likely you have shared advice or teachings with your youth that would serve them in their lives, not just in the activity and training you provide.
I invite you now, my white friends and readers, to please listen to this story. Please do not read it, but click on the play button so that you can hear the voice. This is a story from our current time. It is not fiction. It is not magical realism. It is not memoir. It is not historical fiction. It is real, lived experience, and it is fact.
How a Mother Protects Her Black Teenage Son from the World.
Thank you for taking the time to follow the link above.
May you be blessed with the strength to bear your blessings,
Amy
The Catholic Yogi
Generous Wisdom | Spacious Heart 