The Summoning
The Summoning
“All mothers were summoned when he called out for his MAMA.”
Grief. That was the primary emotion I felt upon watching the video of George Floyd. That was the first and last I watched it. It was heartbreaking. Taking his last breath, he invoked “Momma!” as a prayer, a sacred incantation, to release him from the hurt, the inevitable.
I may not be a mother yet, but after working more than a decade as a teacher in the field of Early Childhood Education, I feel that every child who has graced my class with his/her presence, has given me an understanding of the humbling and noble profession of motherhood. All those children I have taught, I may not remember some of their names, but their faces and the memories we shared will forever be etched in my heart. The desire to love, care, and nurture them – is at the core of motherhood.
When Mr. Floyd called out “Momma!”, it tore deep into my soul; I’m sure most of you have called out that very same name when things get rough, and all you needed was that comforting presence of your mother. I know how it feels when a student calls out my name when they are hurt — in the classroom, teachers automatically become a stand-in for their mommies and daddies, and whatever is hurting them, hurts us, too; when they cry and they reach out for us, crumpling into our arms as they beg us to take away the pain and make everything right again. We do our best to soothe and calm them, making sure that we are always there to take care of them 1,000%.
Mr. Floyd didn’t have that chance. Nobody was there to make everything right for him again. So, he died.
#BlackLivesMatter.
Why do I care? I’m a Filipino. I don’t even live in the U.S.A. I have my own problems - I should be more concerned about how our own country is going downhill with a president who punctuates his sentences with every colorful Tagalog phrase he knows. But let me save that story for another time.
You see, this is the very reason why I strongly call to fight for #BlackLivesMatter. I have been living and working abroad for more than a decade, and I have been racially profiled and discriminated. And, it feels horrible.
1. I am a Filipino, so therefore, I must be very poor and uneducated.
2. According to some people, I have no right WHATSOEVER to teach in English because being Filipino, my English must be ghastly
3. My university degree which I have worked hard on for four years (I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing) does not have any bearing because, god forbid, the quality of education we must have received in the Philippines is incomparable with other western countries.
4. All Filipinos abroad must be cleaners
Then this happened to Mr. Floyd, and what I have experienced does not even skim the surface of what he and our black friends have experienced. I thought “Hey, it’s 2020! The lessons of humanity’s history have served us well.” No. WRONG. We have not learned anything from it. We are brought back to a time where people were segregated like laundry. “White here, black here”.
Countless articles are present on the web, of stories from our black friends. One said, growing up black, his mother taught him “Don’t stay out too late, ALWAYS bring an ID with you just in case”; numerous other stories of people being approached by cops, interrogating them aggressively just because they happened to be black, fearing that it might be their time to die.
This is why BLACK LIVES MATTER. Their lives are constantly in peril. They have been fighting for equality for their rights and for their freedom, since time immemorial. No one should grow up in this kind of environment. No one should experience this.
You might say, “I’m not an American”. That is not the elephant in the room here. The main focal point is this is a crime against humanity. We need to stand together with them. We need to fight together with them. We need to end this together.
Let us not let his death - and countless more deaths of our black friends (like Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor) be in vain. Mr. Floyd called out to his Mama - he calls out to all of us. It is our responsibility to teach our children the importance of why “Black Lives Matter”. It is our responsibility to keep them safe against the repugnance of the world. Let us teach them how life should revolve around kindness and love— and how it always TRUMPS hate and evil.
Pun intended.
Photo by: www.democraticunderground.com
