One of the more encouraging stories to come out of the riots in Baltimore was the footage of a mother publicly, physically, and unashamedly reprimanding her teenage rock-throwing child for his role as a player within the chaos. CBS News located this mom, who is now known to be Toya Graham, a mother of six. Numerous outlets have picked up on the interview.
The takeaway that some of these outlets grabbed for their headlines is the quote of Graham saying, “I don’t want him [my son] to be another Freddie Gray.”
People could interpret that Graham simply meant that she stopped him so that the racist police won’t kill him like they killed Freddie Gray. But there’s more to what she meant than that, and it had little to do with race. Graham wants her son to stay out of trouble. She doesn’t want her son taking up a life of crime like Freddie Gray did. She doesn’t want her son to give the police a reason to want or need to use any sort of force against him if his path ever crosses theirs.
The link to the CBS story that some outlets are using has video of the initial interview that Toya Graham gave in Baltimore. The video below is a lengthier in-depth interview with Graham at the CBS This Morning studio. It’s clear that this woman loves her son and wants the best for him. She understands that in order for parents to glimpse a glimmer of hope for their children’s futures, they cannot take a passive role in their children’s lives.
That is where hope begins–at home. No politician, no community activist, no school teacher, no government should replace the authority that only a mother and father can command. It is the responsibility of parents to teach their children how to act. It is the parents’ responsibility to teach their children to treat others and their property with respect. It’s their responsibility to teach their kids how to have a voice without resorting to overt aggression and violence.
Certain people tell us that speaking about the riots and the violence is distracting us from what really matters–the use of force by police officers. Not true. There is cause, and there is effect. It is the lawlessness that begets the actions of officers having to use force…force that at times will end a person’s life. Cops across America have millions of encounters a year that don’t end in death, that don’t end in violence. We don’t hear about those millions of encounters that end peacefully. We only hear about the worst incidents for those involved.
Law enforcement officers are regular witnesses to the lowest that society has to offer, day in and day out. It is their job to run toward the possibility of danger in order to keep us from having to face the danger ourselves. They are required to be skeptical when they respond to calls for help, when they arrive on scenes of disorder, when their purpose is to protect other people’s lives and businesses.
Yet these men and women are still men and women. They are human. Some will make mistakes. Some will be corrupt. No one is free from error, nor can any type of people completely reject their sinful natures. However, the actions of a handful who may or may not be justified in their use of excessive force should not overshadow the demanding work that over 600,000 law enforcement officers perform 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. They do this work knowing that they are under constant scrutiny and criticism. It is quite often a thankless job. But a civil society cannot exist without them.
I can’t pretend to know what it’s like to deal with police in the inner cities. But I know enough to realize that the odds of you going home at the end of the day vastly improve when you don’t give law enforcement the opportunity to wonder if they too will make it home at the end of the day.
Parents, take a cue from Toya Graham. Don’t let your children end up like Freddie Gray. Don’t be afraid of them. Get your children under your control. It won’t be easy. Being a parent is never easy. It’s not supposed to be. So do what you have to do. Set your children on the right path so that they may have a brighter, and yes, freer future ahead of them. Civilization will be grateful for your efforts.
