What Every Black Parent Needs to Know About Saving Our Sons: Institutionalized Racism, Society, and Raising Black Children (Black Parenting Book, Problems Black Kids Face)

by Marita Golden

Overview

Empower Your Sons Against Institutionalized Racism

“One of the most important pieces of literature for Black parents.”—MJ Fievre, author of Raising Confident Black Kids

A powerful guide to navigate the challenges of raising families in turbulent times. In What Every Black Parent Needs to Know about Saving Our Sons, gain profound advice on how to protect and nurture Black teen boys.

Essential knowledge, practical guidance. With intimate storytelling of her own son’s story and in-depth research against the chilling backdrop of racially motivated brutality, acclaimed author Marita Golden reveals alarming statistics and systemic issues affecting children of color—and remedies.

A powerful and timely resource, What Every Black Parent Needs to Know about Saving Our Sons addresses pressing issues of today with new material and updated resources. Wisdom from psychologists, writers, and young Black men initiates meaningful discussions and delves into the complexities of Black parenting. Tackle topics such as generational trauma, being Black in white spaces, institutionalized racism, gun violence and how to not get shot, supporting mental health for black men, and other problems Black kids face. Embark on a transformative journey towards raising confident, successful, and resilient kids.

Inside, find:

• Realities faced by Black families and the importance of teaching kids about racism
• Guidance to navigate, discuss, and explore the impact of fearing the black body
• Conversations and strategies to keep our kids safe and growing up great

If you liked The Light We Carry, Decoding Boys, Three Mothers, or American Carnage, you’ll love What Every Black Parent Needs to Know about Saving Our Sons.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684814145
Publisher:	Mango Media
Publication date:	10/10/2023
Pages:	222
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Marita Golden is an accomplished author of dozens of critically acclaimed novels and nonfiction works, including The Strong Black Woman. She is also the co-founder of The Hurston/Wright Foundation, an American literary nonprofit organization that provides workshops, classes, support, and community for talented and successful Black writers. During her teaching career, she has taught creative writing at numerous colleges and universities, including Johns Hopkins Universityand Virginia Commonwealth University. 

Marita is the recipient of many esteemed writing and literary activism awards, such as the International Literary Hall of Fame of Writers of African Descent Inductee (Gwendolyn Brooks Center at Chicago State University), the Barnes and Noble Writers for Writers Award (Poets and Writers), and the Distinguished Service Award (Authors Guild). 

Currently, as a masterful creative writing coach and literary consultant, Marita spends her time coaching burgeoning and seasoned authors through the necessary stages of fear and anxiety in the creative process.

Read an Excerpt

“This is the story of how I loved and raised my Black son, tried to make him strong and sensitive, and keep him safe. I fell down. Often. But I got up. We fell down. Often. But we got up. This is not a how-to book, rather it is a “How I did one of the hardest things you can ever try to do, and with faith in yourself and the support of family and community and luck, do it well” book. Jesse Jackson urged us to keep hope alive. Every parent who loves their child or children knows those words as prayer and mantra and instruction. You cannot raise a Black child in America and not be an optimist, no matter what.

“We have to save our sons and daughters at a time when old-school systemic racism is now shaped and enhanced by climate change, artificial intelligence, social media turbulence, and the relentless replay of ‘black death at the hands of cops’ videos, along with a new outburst of White backlash. In 1969, Gil Scott Heron sang that while people had no food to eat on earth in ‘Whiteys on the Moon.’ Now the destination is Mars. Still. And yet. We have to raise sons and daughters who will not be the meek inheriting the earth. We will fight for them all. We will raise them to fight for their place in the sun. They are our wealth. They are our future. We have always known our Black children’s lives mattered.”

Excerpt from the introduction.

“At a corner table in an upscale restaurant heavy on redwood paneling, scented candles, and a retro sixties atmosphere, Elaine Ellis Comegys and I sat talking about sons. I was a visiting writer in residence at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where Elaine is an associate dean of students. At noon we had set out, walking leisurely from the nearby campus to this restaurant located in ‘downtown,’ an area that is really no more than a five-block strip of retailers, which include a gourmet carryout, a health food store, an art supply shop, a children’s bookstore, and the town’s only theater. Yellow Springs possesses a vaguely aging counterculture feel and the town invoked in me fond memories of a time when my Afro hair was several inches thicker than the close, conservative natural I wore that day.

“Ebullient and warm, Elaine had given me a capsule history of Yellow Springs, population 4,000, including its status as a stop on the Underground Railroad. In May 1993 the town was bucolic, lovely, and so safe that unlocked doors along the wide tree-lined, shaded streets were common. The most serious recent crime wave anyone could remember was one spawned by a serial bicycle thief.

“Psychologically, I was a long way from Washington, DC, where I returned each Thursday evening to spend the weekend with my family. I would be spending a month at Antioch, teaching a workshop on autobiographical writing, and so during lunch that day I gently grilled Elaine, in a sister-to-sister-on-a-white-campus way, to tell me everything she knew that I should know too. Over Elaine’s pasta and my fish, we dredged up academic anecdotes. We had both spent much of our professional lives on historically white campuses and so the revelations and headshaking lasted awhile. But by the time we ordered dessert, we were talking about sons, ours and everyone else’s.

“Elaine and I landed on the gritty shore of this topic, any resistance to it capsized by its inescapable pull on our emotions. For at that moment it was the fate and the crisis of our sons that obsessed and engaged us. Whether we were talking about the schools, a drive-by shooting, the economy, rap music, or the Knicks versus the Bullets, we were really talking about our sons. We talked about them because if we had not yet lost them, we feared we would. And looking into each other’s eyes, hearing the confusion in our own voices, we wondered who could tell us how to get them back.”

Excerpt from ‘Part I: Calling My Name.’

Table of Contents

Author’s Preface
Acknowledgements

Calling My Name
Trouble the Waters
An Acquaintance with Grief
Soon One Morning

Epilogue
The Dead Call Us to Remember
About the Author

Editorial Reviews

Marita Golden’s Saving Our Sons was revelatory when first published and remains so today. Saving Our Sons is a superb mother’s, artist’s, teacher’s, and community activist’s love story of her son and by extension, all Black sons. This is a book that provides life lessons for our daughters too. Saving Our Sons is critical as a guide, motivator, love-note, and an avenue into lifesaving discussions of the heart for all Black children.”—Haki R. Madhubuti, founder of Third World Press and author of Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous (1991) and Taught By Women: Poems As Resistance Language New and Selected (2020)

“It is always heartening to see women step up to the writer's table. When the results are as adroit and affecting as Marita Golden's work, it is more than satisfying; it is a cause for celebration.”—Toni Morrison, Nobel Laureate

“Marita Golden has captured the special pain that shadows the joy of Black parenthood in these turbulent times. Elegantly written, this book is a breakthrough.”—Chicago Tribune

“A wonderful storyteller, an uncompromising mind, Marita Golden explores the African-American experience in a completely original way.”—Newsweek

“In this book, Marita reminds us why every black parent should be vigilant and intentional in considering how to steer young black boys—and girls as well—through the precarious passage to adulthood. Saving Our Sons is disturbingly relevant in this, the twenty-first century. It’s a compelling read.”—Nathan McCall, author of Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America

"One of the most important pieces of literature for Black parents."—MJ Fievre, author of Raising Confident Black Kids

From the Publisher