Quinn Hunter
  Layout editor

I am black and proud. There, I said it. I have confessed. I am not ashamed of my skin or heritage, and I will wear my natural hair proudly.

But I don’t want kids, and it isn’t because I don’t like them. I love children — I have a seven-year-old cousin that I adore.

I cannot have children, though, because my children will be black. There is not a damn thing wrong with being black, but this world is not ready for them.

This world is unfit for their beauty and innocence. It is unfit for their grace and charm, and I am unfit for their love and affection.

This world isn’t one to raise children of color in — so many are lost everyday.

I cannot bare to loose mine, and because I cannot bare to loose them, I will not have them.

I suppose that it is selfish of me to make such a decision for them, but I am their mother, and I know what is best for my never-to-be-born children.

My daughter will never endure what my mother, my grandmother and I did.

She will never know what it means to hate the skin you’re in. She will not fall to the ideals of white beauty and covet lighter skin or blonde hair.

She will not revolt the kink in her hair. She will forever in my mind love her curls and complexion. She won’t be bound by or weighed down by the color of her skin. I will carry that weight for her.

My son will never be one in three. He will not know what incarceration means or see the inside of a cop’s car. He will not fall into the path that the judicial system has set for him.

He will forever in my mind be the apple of his father’s eye. He will soar higher than me or anyone else could ever dream for him. He will overcome all, and make  his mother proud.

And neither of them will know how much I love them, and how much I cannot stand to let this place hurt them in the way that it has hurt so many before. How it has hurt me.  This is my way of protecting them.

They say if you love something enough you’ll let it go. So, I have let them go.

I am not strong enough for them. I cannot be the strong icon for my daughter to look to because she deserves better.

I cannot be the independent women my son strives to find because I am weak. I am weak, and I am strong enough to admit that I am too weak to be what they need.

I don’t want to explain what racism is to them the way that my mother had to for me — the way she sat me down and told me that the world wasn’t built for color, all of the question she could not answer because she didn’t know.

And I cannot explain why the world hates them, because I do not know.

But I know why the caged Negro sings:

“It’s been a long, long time coming/But I know change gonna come.”

It’s just not here yet

I want children. But I cannot have them.