In today’s NY Times, there is a video featuring how parents struggle with talking to their Black sons about racial profiling. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/opinion/a-conversation-with-my-black-son.html?_r=0

Our son is three.  He’s also Biracial.  And, as I watched this video, all I could think was “How and why is my beautiful little boy going to be the subject of such fear and hate?”

Then I remembered the history of his and my wife’s people, African Americans, and I remembered the history of our family’s people, the Jewish people, and I realized that the fear and hate of others directed at us are regrettably and tragically my son’s inheritance.  Slavery and the Holocaust are over, but the consequences of both linger on in the form of racism and anti-semitism.

So, what conversation do I have with my son?  How do I tell this beautiful little boy that there are many who are going to hate him simply for what he is, and that he has to learn to cope with that?  It makes me angry just to think that.  Why should he have to change? Why should he have to cope?  Why shouldn’t “they” change? Why shouldn’t “they” cope?

I don’t have an answer.  All I can tell him is to be the best, most respectful (of others and of himself) person he can be, and to understand always that it is the burden of the “bests” of this world to answer to a higher authority.  To be better than hate.  To be better than ignorance. To rise above mistrust.  To be honest in the face of dishonesty.  To be fair in the face of unfairness.  And, to stay calm in the storm.

That, and I have his back no matter what, no matter when, no matter where, no matter why, and no matter how.