She Asked Me Not To Have Black Children….

I just read the headline for this post here called “What If My Son Were Ahmaud?” On an earlier post by the same Author, Kaya, a woman commented that she hopes I don’t bring Black children into this world, because of how hard it is for her as a mother of Black children of her own.

She explained that she has great fears around what they will have to go through, the experiences they will have purely because of the color of her skin. She had no way of knowing that I’d had a miscarriage many years ago.

It got me thinking though…that I could have had a son, or a daughter, and they most certainly would have had colored skin, probably somewhat lighter than my own, maybe with blue or green eyes like their father’s had been….either way…the point is I could have had a child, and that child could have ended up like Ahmaud if things had turned out differently.

And it makes me wonder, would it have been as hard for my child as it was for me?

Would my child have been the one chosen by the Gods and Elders and Ancients and Destiny or whoever, to suffer at the hands of white men with guns or worse?

I won’t know the answer, but that woman keeps nagging at me, “And so I beg of you, don’t be stupid like I was. Don’t bring anymore Black children into this world, only to suffer due to something that is not even their fault. Whites are insane; that should be clearly understood since it is not our fault that we are even here in Amerikkka to begin with.”

On initial glance, it’s a fucking terrible thing to say, but I understand her fear. I understand her terror.

My child was killed by an abusive boyfriend who happened to be white. So maybe I do understand, better than I thought, even though I didn’t know I was pregnant until it was too late, the loss of my child is directly the result of a white man’s behavior.

How many more mothers need to lose their children to the hands of white men before we start to realize that nothing has changed since the days of Slavery?

I had to pause the answer the door as I was reading this, and I saw something that shook me to my core.

I remember distinctly, the moment I realized I’d just had a miscarriage, and my boyfriend’s reaction to me telling him so. He didn’t take me to the hospital, he didn’t stress out or call 911, he didn’t offer to get me help.

Instead he wrapped his arms and legs around me and refused to let me move until I fell into something that could laughingly be called sleep. When I woke up the next morning, he and his stuff was gone.

I can’t say what happened was intentional, but it’s hard for me to believe otherwise, because I saw him once after that, we talked about talking about getting back together, but the moment we decided to do that we started fighting again. He left and I haven’t seen him since.

I heard that he’d been busted robbing taxi cabs, I’d read about it in the newspaper and all I could think was, “we shared a child, for the briefest moment in time.”

I am so not ashamed to say that there is a part of me that thanks the God’s that I am not raising that child today. With where I am mentally I know that I am completely unstable, that a child raised by me wouldn’t be in a good place where I am at this moment in time.

But saying that, here comes the shame, because I know that things would probably be vastly different if I’d been given a chance to learn that I was pregnant, if I’d recognized the signs earlier, than my life would have taken a completely different trajectory, but I wasn’t given the chance.

Part of me will always wonder if Jax knew that I was pregnant, and part of me will always hate him for thinking that he did know…I can’t change that, because I lost a child and when I woke up to realize that the next morning, he’d left me completely alone to deal with it.

It was the most abusive thing anyone had ever put me through, he threw me down the stairs, he tripped me, he hit me, he always ended it with how it was my fault, or he was just kidding around and didn’t mean to. He never got angry, but that doesn’t change that the abuse was very real.

And when people asked knowingly what was going on, he told them I liked rough sex. That was his response any time anyone asked and I was too young and naive to know how to argue.

I wasn’t expecting to share that, to share that here of all places, but often as is with this website, I share that which I mean to hold closest to my heart.

Because a woman asked me not to have children, because she begged me not to bring more Black children into this world.

I can’t tell you the shame I hold inside over the loss of a child I didn’t know I was carrying. I can’t begin to tell you the dread that comes with the thought of letting myself get pregnant in the future.

It’s precisely why I have told everyone who cares about me that I want to adopt, it’s not that I want to save some forgotten unloved child, although that’s certainly part of it, it’s because I am terrified of the idea of getting pregnant and the risk that as I get older, that comes with it.

There is a much higher risk of miscarriage when you are older, a much higher risk that things can go wrong, and so that fear is keeping me from doing a lot of things that would propel me forward in my life journey. I recognize that, because a woman begged me not to have Black children.

I understand her fears for me, because I understand them for myself too. I am terrified that my children will be bullied because they are beautiful, because my children will be beautiful…I’ve seen my future husband and he has the best ass in the world.

I am terrified they will be told that they are adopted, or sexually abused because of their looks, because pedophiles like younger beautiful children with dark skin. I am terrified they won’t look like me at all because I am light, and my person is also light skinned.

I am terrified that they will be accused of all sorts of things, because lots of people like to play “Blame the Black person,”, it’s just something we learn to grow up with.

I understand her fear, but her fear has brought up a lot of feelings of guilt and shame in me that i don’t deserve to carry but don’t know how to get rid of. It’s called a Trigger.

I don’t know how I’ll feel in the coming days, but I am in this place where I keep re-reading that comment in it’s entirety over and over again in complete shock. I just don’t know what to say to her.

I didn’t get the chance to keep my child…I didn’t even get a chance to meet them…him or her, he or she, or them or they…and I’ll have to hold onto that for the rest of my life.

You have your children….so count your blessings and hug them tight.

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall