The Letter: One Year Later

"Let's make sure we have someone escort Britney into the newsroom the next couple of mornings.."

That's an excerpt from an e-mail one of our station managers sent out one year ago, that followed my decision to "go public" about a deeply hurtful viewer letter I received.

I knew sharing it could go three very different ways:
1) No one would care
2) People would care
3) People would disagree with me and be angry

If there were ever any threats, I didn't see or hear them.

But some nasty comments did follow.

It had also only been a few months since I met with the Lake Charles Police Department after my vehicle had been egged, over who knows what.

I didn't know if I could expect something like that again or worse.

But you know what, I truly didn't care.

Someone had crossed the line with indefensible words about my son, words that still create a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"Give back the little black boy while you have a chance."

I felt anger. 

Hurt.

Sadness.

This "concerned viewer" had sent a card to the station to encourage me to "give back the little black boy," my one-year-old son, while I still had a chance.

The handwritten card went on to detail the concerns, such as him being a "breed" because of his skin color - and ultimately that in keeping him, my white daughters would be at risk of being raped by him one day.

Even all these months later, it's hard to type out those words.

I let them sink in for a couple of days.

I let them bother me - and honestly, I felt them start to sour me.

There were insecurities I had buried that suddenly rose to the surface about whether or not Matt and I truly were the best parents James could have.

What many people might not know is that we were still in a "placement period" with James. We were three months away from his adoption through foster care being finalized and there was a chance he could be removed from our home - or we could tell our caseworkers that he would thrive more with someone else.

Would he be better in a home with parents and siblings of the same race? 

Is he going to have an invisible target on his back in today's society because of our family dynamics?

Are we enough for him?

As a therapy of sorts, I sat at this very keyboard and started typing...

When I typed out this post last year, I didn't really think anyone would take the time to read it.

Still, it was healing to me to put my words out there in the universe, to shine light in the dark shadows of the painful words that had been sent my way.

Then, something happened, yall...

Something big and incredible - and I can't think about it without my eyes filling with tears.

People cared.

They reached out.

They sent kind cards.

Entire schools wrote notes and even drew pictures of my family.

They talked down racism and talked up acceptance, diversity, and love.

They did this by the thousands.

Within just a couple of days of publishing my blog post last year, it was read, shared, or clicked on over one million times.

The attention one little piece of my heart garnered was overwhelming, but it was the outpouring of support that taught me so much - and ultimately changed my life:

We are more similar than we are different.

Our backgrounds might be different.

Our skin color might be different.

Our interests probably span around this globe and back again.

But our similarities win.

We are human.

We have feelings.

We love fiercely.

We ultimately want to leave our world a better place.

We need each other.

There are things I cannot offer my son, that other people can.

One example: I am still learning how to style James's beautiful, tight curls.

The first time I showed up at an African-American barbershop, I stepped into a world I couldn't believe I was just experiencing for the first time!

It was a party! There was a table with older men playing card games. There was food for the taking. Football was on the TV.

And, the barber said something that made me feel so encouraged about James's experiences in the years to come:

"I want this young man to learn to play spades here with us," he told me.

I want that, too.

I want men of color to be willing to invest their lives in my son, because it will make him better. 

And I want women of color who will love on my white daughters as I love on their kids, too.

We need to live out the fact that racism is not natural. It is learned. We must stop it.

We can share so much across racial lines if we just take a moment to give a bit of ourselves to others.

We must talk about improving race relations.

The Letter  opened up the door for dialogue with strangers that I now call friends.

It brought hugs in grocery store aisles and unexpected tears from people who have lived out a similar scenario.

I even got a second letter that I can only guess was from the original sender. It was short, but the words "I'm sorry" were part of it.

I imagine the sender was an older woman - someone who grew up in a very different time and with very different values.

Maybe she is someone's grandma.

Nothing makes my heart soar more these days than images like this: seeing my grandma embrace her great-grandson who became part of our family in such an unexpected way.

Every time she holds him, she rubs his arms and says, "Your skin is just so beautiful."

It is - and so is the picture of love across generations.

Still, this year has also caused me to look at our world a little differently.

I realize just how "white" our family experiences can be at times.

Sometimes it's not until I look back through photos that I realize James is the only black child at a big event.

Or we're tearing up the dance floor at one of our favorite restaurants and I notice he's the only black person in the entire building.

At two years old, he is too young to notice something like that now.

My family will have to be more intentional about diversifying where we eat, where we shop, and the events we attend.

We need to make sure that we are supporting places that will welcome a 22-year-old James today just as they would welcome a two-year-old James.

My hope is that one day soon, we have a better reflection of  community.  That it is a true place of fellowship and connection - where our lives are richer because of the differences we can celebrate - and the commonalities that weave us together.

I love this quote from author, L.R. Knost:

"It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless."

That's a task we are committed to seeing through.

-Britney