Raising Children in a World of Police Terror

Featuring Eisa Nefertari Ulen – We live at a time when as a society, thanks to the Black Lives Matter movement, we are finally accepting that police violence disproportionately impacts African Americans. But black folk have known this forever. And black parents in particular have known it and feared for their children. It is part of “the talk” that black parents all over the US have with their children – how to interact with police if they have the misfortune to be stopped by law enforcement. How not to act “suspicious,” how to move without eliciting violent reactions, how not to reach for your wallet. In other words, how to survive a police encounter. It is a horrifying thing to have to live with as parents, knowing that the forces meant to protect and serve your family, may well simply kill you for no reason at all.

Read Ulen’s essay in Bitch magazine ‘If We Must Wear Ourselves Out, Let It Be Because We Build,’ bitchmedia.org/article/if-we-must-wear-ourselves-out-let-it-be-because-we-build.

Black Parenting Matters: Raising Children in a World of Police Terror,
On Rising Up with Sonali, July 13, 2016.