- I told my son, I'm like,
when you get in trouble for not picking up your toys,
do you want me to kill you?
And he completely understood what I meant by
we shouldn't just shoot people
because we think they've done something bad.
- Shannon is the world, the stars, the moon, the galaxies.
- My son is the reason why I'm breathing.
He reminds me to breathe, actually.
He tells me to take deep breaths.
- And I love every moment with him.
- The idea that she could be taken from me.
The only reaction I have is to fight that.
Like why would somebody take her from me?
- What makes me hesitant or uncomfortable
about raising another black child in American society
is that by sheer virtue of my child having brown skin
or black skin, they'll be seen as a threat.
- In our own space, at home, there's peace, there's love.
But in terms of the outside that space,
and we live in a system of white supremacy,
so it's definitely uncomfortable.
- It's not just police brutality I'm worried about.
I'm worried about the system and the practices
and policies that put black children
at a disadvantage from an early age.
- Our life doesn't matter.
White people are more important.
I'm not pretty, I'm not valuable.
I was trying to talk to a bunch of mothers and fathers
at once, just brothers and sisters,
and I was trying to get them to say I have value.
And they couldn't even say it.
Some couldn't even write it down.
- My heart breaks for like Tamir Rice.
A child was murdered in cold blood
in broad daylight at a park.
I saw my son in him.
- I read that the four year old daughter
of the man that was killed had to console the mother.
- My son's two, is about to be three.
I can't imagine him witnessing my own death.
- I think there are a lot of messages
that parents are taking from this.
You have some that feel, oh,
if I just make sure my child is educated.
Oh, if I just make sure my black child
lives in a better neighborhood.
Oh, as long as I make sure, you know,
my child knows what it is to completely comply.
I mean, they might as well just say "yes, master" to me.
- You do have this list of things
that they tell black people to do,
like, you know, always be respectful.
Yes, sir, put your hands up.
Don't do this, don't do that.
But we know that's a lie.
They kill you for no reason, literally.
Just because they may, oh, I feared him.
- Well, I know for the parents around myself,
we are being activated into organizing
and bringing our children with us.
- And let her know to take pride, take pride in her skin,
take pride in her hair, take pride in all that she is.
- I don't have an answer.
- I'm instilling in her
what she needs to know to protect her,
to reaffirm that she is mighty.
So in the event that she becomes, you know, 12, 16, 17,
she's walking out in the street and someone guns her down,
I know that that was beyond my control.
- My son can die at the hands of the police.
I can die at the hands of the police.
Just for being black.
That's a reality that I have to live with.
- My five year old, he understands.
He asked me, "Mommy, are you gonna get shot by the police?"
And he was playing with his white friend around the same age
and the white friend, you know, pulls up his hand
and is like, "Oh, I got a shot by the doctor."
And you can just see the disparity
of the lives that they're living.
- You don't think, oh, my child can't walk to the store.
And he's gonna die on the way back.
You try not to.
You want them to have the best quality of life
and the best quality of life isn't
being like nobody can't go outside.
- We don't have time to be
engaged in intellectual masturbating.
- Dealing with this system in terms of police brutality,
we need a standard, at the federal level,
some type of standard protocol
in which every police department has to abide by.
- I can't imagine the system that we have right now
for my son to grow up safely.
- I'm gonna try my best to share with my son
the realities of his life, and hopefully,
he'll be able to navigate it with wisdom and in love.
- If we just internalize and became so aware of black power,
one, we wouldn't be sitting here trying to convince people
who we are and that we have value.
We'd like, okay, you know what?
You come see me when you're ready to make some changes.