Hilton Als’s essay “My Mother’s Dream for Her Son, and All Black Children” primarily discusses racism against Black people in America, and he does this by sharing his personal experience with racism as an African American male. Als opens the essay by describing the transition from living in an apartment to a house—where his mother felt a sense of community— with his mother, siblings, aunt, and cousins. The author then goes on to detail police brutality against young black men and how it had threatened his life as fellow black boy. “Standing by my mothers 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,” mentions Als, while they were hiding in their house with all the lights turned off during a violent protest outside their home. The line “Boy, be quiet so you can survive” indicates that as a member of the black community, Als was also at risk of easily being killed or arrested like Richard Ross, one of the many black youths who fell victim to police brutality. Als’s silence also stresses that for the sake of remaining alive, African Americans have to live in fear without speaking or acting against the prejudice and hatred projected towards them. Of course, the writer’s mother only wanted him to be quiet as it was her way of protecting him from abuse of authority. The idea of silence progresses later in the essay when Als claims that “like any number of black boys in those neighborhoods, I grew up in a matrilineal society, where I and been taught the power—the necessity—of silence.” Silence is “power”, a “necessity” to Als and every other African American man who wanted to survive, as the black community is instead only protected by silence and not the law especially during this era of Als’s experience. To speak against racism and the atrocities they encountered meant imprisonment and death. Therefore, silence was the only way for a black boy to escape the cruelty of white officers.

Although each of the writer’s points were essential, the following was a segment of the text that particularly stood out to me: “No place was safe, because wherever we congregated was unsafe. The laws of real estate, economics, and racism made us unsafe.” This line was interesting because it highlights that wherever Blacks chose to live, they are targeted, instead of being protected. A change of location could not save them from racism and discrimination. This is genuinely distressing because the very country that was supposed to care for and protect it’s people also persecutes them.