On Daunte Wright.

It’s been a tumultuous 24 hours. I drove the baby through the north side to his god mother’s after school and work today. I could sit here and pen yet again how all the scenarios have played out for the Black men and boys in our family. How I didn’t flinch when I found out about the stop being about an air freshener dangling in the front mirror of Daunte Wright’s car. And how much that dissociation, that exhaustive trauma, that incredibly bleak depression of reality for us as mothers of Black boys, just is.

Multiple stops in one week. Arrests based on expired plates and assumptions of a car stolen because it’s too nice for a Black man to be driving. Chases on foot that start after the last day of school and end with a herd of Black boys tearing off t shirts and tossing them into trash bins as they sprint frantically down sidewalks, knowing full well they are guilty because they fit the description. Black male. White tee. Breathing.

But I am so tired.

I am tired.

I bumped Joey Badass “For My People.” Midway through the song, my beautiful baby boy piped up, legs swinging, propped up in his big kid car seat. “Is he singin about me Mom?”

Look up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane

No, it’s the young black god livin’ out his dreams

What you mean? I been up on an ultralight beam

They don’t wanna see you fly, they just gonna shoot your wings