In the small city of Graham, North Carolina, population 15,000, there’s an idyllic town center built around the beautiful old courthouse. Like many towns in the south, a confederate statue stands out front despite ongoing protests about its removal with our current racial reckoning. It’s a town where Faith Cook and Angela Corpenzano could let their 12-year-old daughters walk to the store weekly to grab a snack.
Letting their daughters, Aisha and Gianna, walk to the store always felt safe until a few days ago.
The girls were coming out of the store, laughing as girls do, when a 52-year-old woman from her car says, “What are you looking at black whore?” The girls were confused and nervous but kept on their journey home only to see the woman driving the same direction. The woman stops and backs up, jumps a curb and tries to hit them. Thankfully, they were able to run out of the way and see a police officer watching it all unfold.
The woman, Sandrea Warren, was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. However, this isn’t enough to make everyone feel safe. The moms want to ensure the girls are protected from retaliation from both Warren and the counter-protestors often seen threatening and harassing the Black Lives Matter crowd in the center of town. Warren lives just down the road from them is already out on bail, yet their request for a restraining order was denied.
Shortly after getting Aisha home that day, Faith Cook did a live video sharing her raw emotions. You can hear the familiar correlations in her story reminding you that black kids can’t simply walk to the store and get a snack. Treyvon Martin couldn’t. Elijah McClain couldn’t. Who knows how many other teens didn’t make it home from the store either?
While Faith was grateful her daughter didn’t become a statistic, she’s still in disbelief that anyone would try to kill them because of the color of their skin. Moms of black children, as I shared in a recent article, whisper a silent prayer of “just get home” every time our kids walk out that door.
We know our kids can be killed for walking to the store, going on a run, listening to music too loudly, trying to be a good citizen and breaking up a fight, and sometimes, even home isn’t safe because they can be killed sleeping in their own bed.
In Faith’s live video, she tries to give the police officer who witnessed the attempted murder of her daughter, the benefit of the doubt when the officer ASKS IF SHE WANTS TO PRESS CHARGES. When Faith says she does, the police officer incredulously replies, “You’ll have to go to court and miss work.” Really? Someone just tried to murder her child and the officer thinks she should let it go so she doesn’t miss work?
While Faith will give the benefit of the doubt, I’m not willing to do so. And while this officer may be one of the “good ones” because they stopped and checked on the girls and called in the plates so an arrest could be made, this officer was not adequately trained on racism.
Imagine if you will for a moment if a black woman had tried to run down two white girls, can you even fathom how that would have gone? If that were the case, the driver would have been lucky to be heading to the police station versus the hospital or morgue. And since when do police officers witness “assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill” and ask the victim if they want to press charges? This isn’t even a micro-aggression, it’s a mega one.
Then, imagine your own mama being asked with the tone of “Are you sure?” “You’ll have to come to court and miss work?” Someone just tried to murder their children—nothing is too inconvenient for a mama bear. Police need to be reminded to have a little bit of empathy in these situations and imagine if it were their loved one. The way they handled this family is a major reason that even “good police” need better training and reformation.
I heard this story when my friend Angela, started a GoFundMe to cover some legal counsel, some trauma therapy and those missed wages the officer was so worried about. As soon as I saw the video, it made my blood boil, it made me cry because although we work hard not to worry unnecessarily, every mom of non-white kids know it could easily happen to our family.
Then, I wondered about Sandrea Warren’s friends, and the parents of the children she cares for as a childcare worker. I wonder who didn’t speak up when they should have, and therefore, normalized the racism in Warren’s heart.
Being a white mom of black kids gives me a unique perspective at times. I see my white friends, who I know support Black Lives Matter be too uncomfortable to speak up in the spaces they’ve been given or when others in their circle do harm. This is a sacred responsibility we’ve been entrusted with, white friends, a responsibility to call out even the smallest acts of racism in those who aren’t yet doing the work of being anti-racist.
Thoughts have actions, and one begets others; whether it’s telling a racist joke, locking your car door when you see a black person, yelling a racial slur at someone, or in a moment of losing your damn mind, you try to physically harm others simply because you don’t like the color of their skin.
Aisha and Gianna’s story needs to be heard BECAUSE they lived to tell about it, and they give voice to the ones who didn’t make it home from getting a snack. They are the voices for Treyvon, Elijah and Tamir who were all just doing what kids do– things white kids can safely do every day. Their lived experience should matter to all of us.
Despite it all, Faith told me they were coping okay in the aftermath. When I asked her what she would like people to know, with amazing compassion and grace her reply was, “We are here to love and spread love. Having a type of hate in your heart, because of someone’s race, is just wrong.”
Spreading love is not kindly keeping your mouth closed so you don’t hurt someone’s feelings. Spreading love when calling out hate SHOULD hurt someone’s feelings, it’s only through them realizing the harm they’ve done, they can change their own heart.
Let’s be like Faith and Aisha, keep spreading the love.
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