Stacey Pierre-Louis posted a video of her son shooting hoops in their driveway over the weekend. The video shows her son, who is black, hide behind a Jeep in the driveway as a police cruiser passes.
According to the post, she asked her son why he did that and he told her, “Because they killed George Floyd.”
It left her wondering what to say to her son to make him feel better.
A post with the video was Tweeted out by LeBron James and was retweeted 72,000 times.
She wrote:
Debated with myself for a few days before deciding to post this. I was at work watching my son shoot hoops in the driveway when I caught this. It floored me… I’ll save the dramatics, but growing up black or brown most of the time means fearing the police vs looking up to them. I live in an affluent neighborhood in Trumbull with a really good school system. This kid has all the opportunity to do/be whatever he wants unlike many kids who look like him because resources aren’t made available. Why does he feel like he has to hide when he isn’t doing anything wrong?
I asked him why he did that when he got home. He replied; “because they killed George Floyd”. Stunned, I replied;ok kiddo. I didn’t know what and still don’t know what to say to him to make it better. A manager at my job told me to tell him that doing what he did is ridiculous and that I should teach him not to be fearful of police. Deep down I don’t know if it’s true, maybe staying out of the way is best.
He didn’t learn this behavior at home. We stream movies so he doesn’t see the news and we don’t talk negatively about police.
No need to reply in the comments, but think to yourself.. What would you say?
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