If the title, We Live for the We:The Political Power of Black Motherhood, isn’t thought provoking enough, Dani McClain’s page-turning narrative reveals the fear, joy and hope associated with raising a black child in a world designed to strip away at their very humanity by painting a picture of them as dangerous, aggressive and criminal in need of being controlled and tamed.
In the book, McClain explores the complex layers of black motherhood where part of your duty is to prepare children for a world that robs them of their childhood, denying to them the lightness of abandoned play and carefree existence. Black motherhood entails unavoidably and directly tackling issues at the intersection of race, gender, class, privilege, politics and power. How do you prepare and protect children to live in such a world?
Dani McClain is a journalist and writer who reports on race, reproductive health, reproductive justice, activism and community mobilization. She acknowledges a fairly privileged upbringing in an Ohio suburb surrounded by an extended network of family. We Live for the We is her first book, and she describes it as her “quest as a new mother to help my daughter understand as early as possible who she is and what she came to do on this beleaguered planet.” To help her navigate her journey through motherhood, McClain talked to other mothers, grandmothers and those engaged in mothering.
The book’s title is taken from the words of Cat Brooks, a community activist and one-time mayoral candidate from Oakland California. In explaining to her twelve-year-old daughter why individual desires had to yield to a larger community need, Brooks says:
Our job as black mothers is to keep pushing the liberation ball down the court. Our obligation is to leave the world better for them and to ensure that they are equipped with the tools that they need to fight. We don’t have the luxury of living normal lives. I tell my daughter all the time—and it’s harsh—but we don’t live for the I. We live for the we.”
The explanation provides a window into the reality of black motherhood and the added emotional weight and toil that comes with raising a black child. By talking to a diverse group of other black mothers, McClain reveals that, while all are faced with similar hopes, fears and angst about creating controlled spaces that allow their children to thrive and at the same time equipping them with tools that will serve to protect them on the outside, there is no one way to raise a black child.
The nine chapters in the book are organized along the three child developmental stages—early years, where their world consist of parents, home and family; the middle years, where the focus is on socialization and education, and the early teens to adulthood, where their values are being shaped for expression into the world. McClain sets out to address the relevant questions, concerns and topics that mothers normally have but, as a black mother, she knows she must contend with questions about race, protection and power.
Early in the book she uses a simple example to highlight the nuance between white and black parenting. While white parents may not feel compelled to have the ‘race talk’ with their children and, if they do, the message is usually that race doesn’t matter and everyone is equal. For black parents, having a deliberate ‘race talk’ is an imperative, to allay their fears and to ensure their children are schooled on how best to protect their black bodies. McClain points to the added anxiety and responsibility that comes with needing to infuse very early on in her daughter’s life, a strong sense of self with the hope it will insulate and protect her from a lifetime of messages that tries to devalue her worth.
“I’ve been reminded of how much is asked of black parents and how politically powerful black parenting can be. The mothers of those killed by police or vigilante violence embody every black mother’s deepest fears: that we will not be able to adequately protect our children from or prepare them for a world that has to be convinced of their worth. Many parents speak of feeling more fear and anxiety once they take responsibility for keeping another human alive and well. But black women especially know fear – how to live despite it and how to metabolize it for our children so they’re not consumed by it.”
The accounts from interviewees throughout the book are quite powerful but the first and last chapters serve as the perfect bookends to the central theme of the book…political activism is embedded as part of the black motherhood experience.
The first chapter is called Birth and touches on anxiety, fears and things McClain concedes she knew, and didn’t know, leading up to the birth of her daughter.
Black women are four times more likely to die from pregnancy complications than white women, for example, and black babies are twice as likely to die before their first birthday. McClain points to research that suggests these birth outcome disparities have more to do with stress caused by a lifetime of structural racial discrimination rather than individual circumstances and choices. In other words, a black mother’s position, class, privilege or education does not shift birth outcomes in significant ways.
In the last chapter Power, McClain drives home the point that black motherhood cannot be disentangled from discussions or our understanding of power, politics and activism. Black mothers, who are leading the charge in public and high-profile ways, talk about the high personal cost of their political and community mobilization work. They grapple with questions about how, if and when to engage their children in their work. They acknowledge that their work comes at a cost of sacrificing time with their children and families. They don’t deny it’s a conflict that eats away at them, but they are also calledto do this work and hope that their children will in time come to understand and forgive them for the stolen time activism demands.
Dani McClain
We Live for the We is focused on black motherhood, but there is a familiarity with the situations and experiences described in it because the book’s release coincides with a period of unrelenting and heightened vitriolic language, attitudes and attacks on those deemed as “others.”
It comes at a time of significant community mobilization and push-back against those who feel their positions of power, real or perceived, gives them the right to normalize and perpetuate patriarchy, misogyny and hatred. It is a time of assault on the progressive policies aimed at fundamentally improving the lives of marginalized populations.
This book, then, is also for the “others” – parents, politicians, lawmakers and community activists—with the courage and drive to imagine, and fight for, a different type of world.
Nicole Salmon is the founder of Boundless Philanthropy, a fundraising consultancy specializing in providing support to charitable organizations.
