“My Mother’s Dreams for Her Son, and All Black Children” is a powerful passage by Hilton Als about being an African American and his experiences with racism. He writes about the deaths and arrests of black boys and how much it had endangered his life: “Standing by my mother’s living-room window, I tried, tentatively, to ask her why our world was burning, burning. She gave me a forbidding look: Boy, be quiet so you can survive, her eyes seemed to say.” This was such an important line to this section of the passage since it had emphasized what life in fear was like through the eyes of a little boy. He genuinely believed that he was going to become another Richard Ross if he didn’t obey silence. This connects to the later quote, “Like any number of black boys in those neighborhoods, I grew up in a matrilineal society, where I had been taught the power—the necessity—of silence.” The only form of protection they had was to simply do nothing. If they fought back, verbally or physically to injustices, they would be killed. That was how little power yet big influence they had. The image that society painted them to be was a group of dangerous yet inferior individuals. Yet in reality, these were kids who wanted nothing more than to live like anyone else.

While reading this piece, I found many points that Als made to be so critical in talking about racism against the African American/black community. Personally, I felt that the quote that most influenced me was, “Are we a strange crop, constantly provoking strange responses—which are now out in the open, because, truth to tell, black people are also an important revenue stream, and Hulu wants to show us that, by streaming the “black stories” in its archives?” Connecting one of the most iconic poems in black history to the “black stories” in big media made this so much more powerful when you realize that industries are subconsciously trying to replicate it. It’s the idea of trying to show solidarity with a cause ONLY when it’s trending. A good example of this is huge companies putting out LGBTQ+ merchandise during pride month, yet supporting people who were anti-LGBTQ+.