Habari gani? Ujima!

I am mother. This is now the core of my identity. Everything else I am is secondary. I remember, a decade and a half ago, in a discussion around identity politics, one person was very adamant that she was a physicist before she was a woman. I didn't understand at the time how an acquired role could become more essential than one she had worn since childhood. I understand now.

Before I was a mother, I was more involved in my communities. Volunteering was an important part of my life, supporting or belonging to various groups was a priority. Since I've had a child, particular one who is rather…active, I haven't been volunteering or investing my time in the groups who are doing good work in the community. I feel the pendulum about to swing back.

I am raising male child. As much as I don't want sex/gender to matter, as much as I joked about only revealing Booba's sex to those who changed diapers, as much as I find it ODD that so much emphasis and expectation are placed on the genitalia a person a person has, I am very aware that my child is a Black male in this society. Before I was a mother, the murder of Trayvon Martin may have made sparked righteous indignation. As the parent of a spirited, amazing, beautiful Black manchild, I still felt the injustice pulling at my bones, but the sense of loss, of mourning, of powerlessness felt so much more intense. As a mother, I feel a heightened sense of responsibility for my brothers and their safety as they navigate a society that views them as a threat.

Every time a police officer acknowledges my two year old, I feel the most striking sense of cognitive dissonance. When they wave and smile as I tow him in the bike trailer, when they offer him stickers, I want to ask--to demand--that that remember this when he is 16. That the same spirit whose beauty they appreciated then, now walks in a bigger body. When they're deciding to investigate what he and his friends are doing, I want it remembered that our young men *are* part of the community that the police are charged with protecting.

As I reflect upon the principle of ujima during this Kwanzaa, I am very aware that my brothers' problems are my sisters' problems are my problems and I commit myself to joint work to solve them.

Connections

After more than two years of ignoring the fireplace, suddenly Booba has been getting soot on socks, toys, fingers, cheeks and everything else. It has been extremely frustrating and just was not making any sense to me. Until yesterday. Booba told me that presents come from the fireplace—ah, the light bulb above my head was bright.

I have never talked to Booba about Santa Claus. I didn’t grow up believing in Santa—I was very aware that presents did not come out of a magical void, that there was definitely a cost associated with them. Especially since I don’t celebrate Christmas, there seemed no need to seed an impressionable mind with what I consider nonsense. So, if we lived in a bubble, Booba would never believe that getting dirty in the fireplace will result in presents. We do not live in a bubble. I have a job and while I am at said job, Booba goes to a daycare where they apparently discuss magic elves delivering gifts through chimneys.

Finally understanding just why soot is suddenly an issue in my house, I yearned for the bubble—that safe place where I wouldn’t have to worry about outside influences teaching my child questionable things. I could postpone all those philosophical discussions I’m certainly not trying to have with a two year old.

One day’s frustration aside, I really don’t want that bubble. I appreciate the women at the daycare, who love my child and take care of Booba when I’m working. They teach him about shapes, skipping, and sharing. He gets to practice having friends, including apologizing when he hurts his friends. I appreciate my relatives whose houses don’t have the same rules as mine, who care for my child, even when they don’t do things the same way I would.

I realize that who I am, who Booba is, who we are as a family, only exist in the context of our extended family, our community, our city, our peoples, our nation, our world, our universe. I give thanks for the connections that bind us, uphold us, and lift us, despite my smaller moments when I just want that bubble. I set my intention to live more in the us, and less in the me.

Habari gani? Umoja! Today, my spirit celebrates unity.