#FreedomNow with my four-year-old niece
by Danielle Morgan Feris
To introduce myself: Sachi Feris of Raising Race Conscious Children is my sister. I love her children, my four-year-old niece and ten-month-old nephew, more than anything. I am grateful that I get to help raise my niece and nephew to be a part of racial justice movements.
July 21st 2016 was a day of action called: #FreedomNow called for by #BlackLivesMatter and the Movement for Black Lives.
It was also a windy day in the middle of vacation with my family-of-origin, and I was hanging out with my niece at the beach. We dug a moat around a never-quite-constructed castle. She built a “doorway,” and then started building a wall.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s a wall, so that people can sneak in.”
“Oh, that’s good.”
“But then they’re gonna get locked up!” my niece added.
“Oh, I don’t think they should be locked up,” I said, “I don’t think anyone should be locked up.” (My effort to impart prison/PIC abolition values.)
My niece responded with something like, “OK, they won’t be locked up.” But it was a non-event. She busily moved on to packing sand into a pail in our endeavor to flip it over and leave the mold perfectly intact.
I’m learning to take my niece’s lead in interactions like this one. As Sachi writes about on this blog, raising conscious children isn’t just about one conversation, but about many conversations over time.
A few days earlier, I had reported to Sachi on another interaction with my niece that I felt had been unsuccessful. I had asked my niece if she knew what a protest was and she said she didn’t.
“Maybe she didn’t know the word in English,” Sachi responded. My niece is bilingual, and even though the words for protest are basically the same in both languages, Spanish is her stronger language. “Did you explain that it’s when something is unfair, etc…?”
I had indeed explained it by saying something to that effect, and went on to propose to my niece that we could together make a protest sign in support of Black Lives Matter (which Sachi and my niece have talked about before).
“OK, well, what did she say once you explained it?” Sachi asked.
I recalled that my niece had responded with a brief ‘OK’ and had then moved on.
“Well, that’s it,” Sachi smiled. “You did it.”
Sachi’s response to what I thought had been a failure, made me realize that I may be getting better at talking about racial justice with my niece.
To explain where I’m coming from, I have been community organizing as a part of racial justice movements since 1999. I am trained in a tradition of organizing that aims to reach out broadly to invite people into campaigns and movements. We aim to meet people where they’re at and use as little jargon as possible. Still, in prior attempts to translate a complex, intersectional political analysis into something understandable to a small child—I had failed dismally, using too many big words and abstract concepts.
My new work seems to be about adjusting my expectations. Sometimes, with a four-year-old, it’s just about saying/doing something to counteract all the messages she’s getting about race and racism from mainstream media, etc. My niece won’t always respond and have a conversation like an adult might, but she is listening and will circle back with questions in her own time.
In this historical moment, the excruciating truth about the (de facto condoned) mass murder of Black people by police is becoming more and more visible in the media. And thanks to Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, and thousands of other organizers and movement leaders (a lot of whom are young people and Queers), many of us are now asking: ‘What can we do?’
As a White person, I have personally committed to talking with other White people about #BlackLivesMatter whenever possible. So, in preparation for spending time with my White family, I had planned a #BlackLivesMatter activity to do with my niece.
On July 19th, my niece and I sat on the porch of our vacation rental with a strip of fabric and markers. We sounded out B-L-A-C-K and I wrote big block letters. Earlier we had talked about what colors we would use. Sachi had noted that most #BlackLivesMatter signs were in black and white ink. My niece expressed a preference for rainbow colors. I reflected, “Maybe by having a rainbow, our sign can specially highlight that Queer Black Lives Matter.” (My niece had recently learned about the rainbow flag after the shooting in Orlando).
After we finished coloring in the word B-L-A-C-K, we moved on to L-I-V-E-S.
“Do you know what ‘lives’ means?” I asked.
“No.”
“Well, you know how you’re alive and I’m alive? So we both have lives?”
She nodded her head in affirmation. “Well, in this world the lives of Black people aren’t shown value as much as they should be. So, this banner is saying that we think Black lives should be valued, cared for, and respected. How does that sound?”
“Good.”
That was that. We moved on and my niece drew the letter L ‘all by herself’ (with some help)!
Back to July 21st.
10 AM: We were out to breakfast, and I shared:
“Today is a big day of action. There are over 80 marches and rallies happening in support of #BlackLivesMatter. I was thinking we could do a mini-march with our banner, and I can teach you a song we can sing. What do you think?”
“March?” my niece responded, and then began singing: “The ants go marching two by two hoorah, hoorah, the ants go marching two by two hoorah, hoorah…”
Sachi picked up the baton and affirmed: “The ants are marching in that song! Great idea! Maybe we can make up a song about Black Lives Matter to that tune?” We went on to develop lyrics as my niece sung along,
“The people go marching two by two, hoorah, hoorah
The people go marching two by two, hoorah, hoorah
The people go marching two by two,
Black Lives Matter, that is true!
And we all go marching down to the streets,
No Justice. No Peace.”
12 PM: We painted seashells. Given a few options, my niece asked for “Black Lives Matter” to be written on each of hers. We talked about who we could give the shells to as gifts who might display the shells in their homes where other people could see them who might not see that message otherwise.
6 PM: With our Black Lives Matter banner tied to our stroller, Sachi, my niece, and I “marched” down the boardwalk and sang our song, as my nephew clapped along. (Mid-way through, my niece told us to stop singing so she could go back to the original lyrics about the ants!)
8 PM: I asked my niece if I should hang the banner on the porch when she was sleeping or if I should wait so we could do it together. She said I should wait.
The next day, on July 22nd, we hung our banner on the porch where all passer-byers can see it. I attempted to engage my niece in more conversation about Black Lives Matter, but she was very focused on her accomplishment of swimming without floaties, and was not all that receptive.
“She’s four-years-old,” I need to remind myself, and I’ll have a lot more opportunities to practice ahead.
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Danielle Feris has been a community organizer since 1999, including work with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, MoveOn.org, Democracy Now!, and campaigns for workers rights, affordable housing, immigrant justice, healthcare reform, and Palestine justice. From 2010-2015, Danielle served as the founding Director of Hand in Hand: The Domestic Employers Network working in partnership with the National Domestic Workers Alliance. Danielle is currently the Development Director at generative somatics (gs) and has been a gs student since 2012.
Danielle is a born-and-raised New Yorker who lives in Oakland; she is White, Queer, and Jewish, and has Russian, Polish, Lebanese, Syrian, and Cuban ancestry; was raised with upper-middle class privilege; and has recently begun to engage with her identity as a person with mental illness and chronic fatigue. Danielle finds resilience in the sand at the beach, singing, and time with kiddos who call her “tio/uncle;” she writes poetry and fiction, and lives in regular connection with Jewish ritual, text, and tradition.