(**Comment originally posted on Love, Joy, Feminism:**)

Full disclosure: I’m an African-American man.

When I was growing up, “spankings” weren’t called that.  They were called “whoopin’s” (“whippings”) and if you can’t see the direct link to slavery you’re being willfully ignorant.

Here’s the speech I wish Toya Graham had given her son instead:

“Son, even though we live in the twenty-first century, there are people and institutions in this world that feel entitled to your deference at the cost of your black body.  I fear for you and I love you knowing that others simply fear you.  I want you safe, whole, and prosperous in a world that thinks little of your pain, dignity, and respect.  I wish I could protect you from the hatred and indifference that will be directed at you, but I can’t.  My most earnest plea is that you learn to corral and utilize your justifiable anger to anticipate and sidestep the implicit threat not to speak so loudly, not to rage so excusably, not to identify hypocrisy so honestly lest your truth be used as a weapon against you.

It breaks my heart to have to tell you this.”