“My Mother’s Dreams for Her Son, and All Black Children” by Hilton Als recounts his childhood and growing up as an African American boy in a systemically racist American society.  

The first quote I examined was: “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.” 

 In this quote, Als is discussing his reaction and curiosity towards the tragic shooting of a young 14-year-old black kid named Richard Ross. Ross was shot by a Black detective named John Rattley, and it left Als wondering why the world was “burning”, or in other words being destroyed around him. Unlike Als, his mother had learned that asking questions was a risk that she was not willing to take as a Black person. Her only focus was to make sure that her kids succeeded and were not bound by the obstacles that many refugee kids faced while being a member of an underprivileged community. She taight him that if he were ever face to face with a similar conflict, to have peaceful approach, similar to the likes of Martin Luther King. In short, her philosophy was to respond to racism and these hateful acts with silence and turning the other cheek which Als described as an issue in the Black community.  

In relation to the first quote, the second quote I chose had a similar message of Als’ and many other black mens’ experiences with having to choose silence and passivity in response to racism. Als said: “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”. 

 In this quote, Als discussed the issue of not being able to protect not only himself as a Black man, but the people he loved as well. The silence that his mother and society had ingrained in him could only go so far, and it was through seeing actions like looting and protests where he realized the damaging, but understandable weight this silence could bring when provoked.  

A segment of the essay that I found extremely captivating was when Als said: “At present, I live in a predominantly white neighborhood in Manhattan. For a number of reasons, I was stuck at home when the demonstrations started downtown last month. Panic set in when I heard the helicopters flying low and the police sirens going. I was convinced that the cops would run across my roof and, on seeing my black ass sitting in an apartment in a neighborhood where I had no business being, would shoot me dead. I asked a white male friend to come and be with me”. This part stood out to me because it was something that I could relate to on a personal level. The fact that Als panicked because he knew how the risks due to the political situation (police killings), and living in a predominantly White neighbored had on him reminded me of various situations that happened to me in my previous college, but on a smaller scale. 

 I previously attended another university in a predominantly White town, and as most college students do, I did a lot of shopping. More times than I can count on my finger, I experienced SWB, or “shopping while black”. After many fatiguing instances, I started going shopping with my White friends, and I noticed that store clerks’ eyes didn’t follow me anymore the minute I walked into the store. The subtle microaggressions and uneducated assumptions from store employees about myself due to the color of my skin diminished in the presence of my friends to almost nothing. I think Als said it best: Every act of racism is a deeply personal act with an end result: the unmooring diminishment of the person who is its target.