Video: Mom Forcefully Stops Son From Rioting In Baltimore #baltimore

[My Looh]

i applaud the mother....parents need to step up n show their children just how involved they r in their lives....that is a mother...she saw thru his masked face, the hoodie drawn down, the all neutral black garb BUT SHE KNEW HER CHILD...and she went for him....as to humiliating him in public, armed as he was with a rock he was already humiliating himself....after all they were burning their own ,sub-standard n sub-serviced neightbouthood...so what was that achieving...marching in protest is one thing, arming urself with a rock is a whole other , not to mention the measures he went to to disguise himself...if u that invested u don't have to disguise..u willing fi go jail if it is deemed an illegal demonstration..but wat was going on n what she saw had more to do with dangerous activity n she went for her child....BRAVO..she didn't call him up and tell him to mek sure him get a big screen as i know some parents do, she went for HER CHILD N TOLD HIM IN STRONG TERMS he was not doing right by HIMSELF....B R A V O....

Great post Evan!

This lady is being a PARENT to her son, not a FRIEND like so many parents try to be today. She was teaching him a life lesson and she reminded me a lot of my mother. Yes, she slapped him and publicly humiliated him but she may have saved his life or saved him form a life behind bars if he should decide to act that way again in the future.

[j-kid]

Disagree. The boy had no respect for himself, his mother, or their community.

I thought the mother has no respect for her child nor for his manhood.. Had he boxed her down she would have deserved it.

[j-kid]

As oppose to saying what, "that Blacks kids are out of control, dat why dem ah get shot". Mi hear it all di time, from som ah dem same people. The mumma did wha shi felt shi had fi duh fi save him life.

White people are just using the clip for their entertainment and as fodder for their tropes about black parenting.

[blugiant]

What do you think of this mother? Is this abuse or disciple? I know a good "beaten" did not kill me back in the day.

honor yuh maddar ann faddar ar parent nuh bring yuh yuths to rawth?

anybadee woo even tried fe bax mi like oww dat yuth got slap inn head wood end up pon da ground.

respekk due

[blugiant]

She has gone onto TV and she has publicly identified him as taking part in a action against the police....

I was thinking on this for a moment and there is a possibility....

The justice system can prosecute him and she will have to be the main witness against him... They will be able to back track him and see if he threw one stone... and then it is a slam dunk procecution....It can be a charge of riot.... not a disturbance and i expect the justice system to do that!

That is definition of stupidity!

First do no harm, she has potentially done him as much harm as the jusctive system can do to him....


http://cbsn.ws/1zo2ope

dumb mother

[blugiant]

Are you serious?
She already tried to speak to him at home and he did not listen.
She did what she had to do.
She spoke forcefully to his manhood in a language that he understood.

wat yuh reallee seying

dat shi emasculate imm manhood by using force

dat mussi y she iss a single mother with six children cah nuh real man nah putt upp widd ooman who use force fe get her way

[evanovitch]

Baltimore justice system not really focused on whether nor young man might have or might not have thrown a rock...even if he had one in hand n him modda seh him might have thrown it...dem have more on dem plate than drawing more bad press by taking on that mother...cause dat is wat it would come down to...

[Diplomat]

Mom did what she had to do. Nothing abusive about that at all. I would much rather she gives him a public beat down than for the thugs in uniform to pile on, hogtie, abuse, and probably kill him for having a rock in his hand.

[Tropicana]

Mom did what she had to do. Nothing abusive about that at all. I would much rather she gives him a public beat down than for the thugs in uniform to pile on, hogtie, abuse, and probably kill him for having a rock in his hand.

People molly coddle their kids too much today.

[Peasie]

Comments from a Facebook page about the photo of "Baltimore mom", son, and Anderson Cooper.

F*c* this photograph! I HATE this photograph! So many things about it are so deeply disturbing to me.

Look at young Michael's expression and his body language. Does he look like he is a willing participant in this national media foolywang?

Look at him closely. Most of his face is a darkened shadow. No anger in his squinting eyes. Everybody is smiling warmly but him. His shoulders are tensed and squared away from the others, hands on full display down and pressed against his thighs like a good non-threatening boy. See, America, no rocks in these hands. One leg is perched forward to give him an island of comfort steadying himself for the pose so America can continue to celebrate this faux redemptive racial moment. So white America can enjoy its stereotype and black Americans can use it to say, "See, not all black mamas are seeds of deviant criminal offspring. Black mamas discipline their kids and teach them respect for authority."

Look at Cooper, looking like a scrubbed-faced racial tourist, dressed in all black everything to accentuate his gleaming whiteness. Under the guise of journalism he gets to have an Out of Africa moment in one of America's most blighted citadels of white supremacy. Under any other circumstance do you believe Cooper would walk down the street and get this close to a black juvenile from the 'hood who is taller than he? Michael's body and face give us the answer.


That sloping right shoulder of his asks: "Why is this white dude touching me? This dude's hand can go right ahead and slide all the way off me. The only time white men in Baltimore touch black kids like me is when they are stopping us in our own neighborhoods, when they push us against dirty walls, throw us down on pissy sidewalks, when they search our pockets, lift our shirts, grab our testicles when they frisk us, beat us, handcuff us, throw us in jail, kill us, conduct our autopsies sometimes more than once and zip us up and send our corpses back to our mamas."Look at Michael. The whole world already witnessed him getting assaulted. Then the news media pimped him out for back-to-back TV interviews where he had to talk about how wrong he was and how he understands that his mama swung on him because she loves him and wants to keep him safe. Ask yourself, what child wants to become a celebrity because he got repeatedly knocked upside his head and cussed out by his mama? And then have to pose for the camera so everybody can see what a child looks like post-whooping?

And look at his mama, pretty and smiling. One side of her face is shaded by a flowing weave, the sunlight hitting the other side just the right way to give her the appearance of a warm and loving mama clutching her youngest babe. Anderson's body is placed between her and Michael. She welcomes Cooper as he leans in close to her, like a mammy, giving him the hug she should have given her son. We still haven't seen a picture of her hugging Michael yet, have we? And yet she is the bridge between white America's interests and her "thug" son who had stepped out of line. I imagine that she probably said, "Smile Michael."

White conservatives and black people who believed that black kids need "a good whooping" can look at this photograph and say, "Aw now look at that. All is restored. This mom helped take back our streets. Her son is alive today because she put him in check. That's a good responsible black mother. We need more like her!"

Meanwhile young Michael and nameless faceless legions more like him will continue to bear the brunt of the mean-spiritedness of mainstream life in America. White and black people can look at this photo and use it to promote their commitment to physical discipline of children and continue to believe the mythology that black children's behavior is the true enemy of peace, not racism or the white aggression that fuels their parent's fear which makes it necessary to beat them so they can live.

F*c* this picture!

[Peasie]

Baltimore. This ain't no Ferguson, hon.

[blugiant]

Why is Amerikkka celebrating the beating of a black child?

A mom's violence won't keep her son safe.


Why is America celebrating the beating of a black child?
A mom's violence won't keep her son safe.
By Stacey Patton April 29 Follow DrStaceyPatton
Stacey Patton is a senior enterprise reporter for the Chronicle of Higher Education, an adjunct professor of American history at American University, and the author of "That Mean Old Yesterday."

It’s not surprising that a black mother in Baltimore who chased down, cursed and beat her 16-year-old son in the middle of a riot has been called a hero. In this country, when black mothers fulfill stereotypes of mammies, angry and thwarting resistance to a system designed to kill their children, they get praised.

“He gave me eye contact,” Toya Graham told CBS News. “And at that point, you know, not even thinking about cameras or anything like that — that’s my only son and at the end of the day, I don’t want him to be a Freddie Gray. Is he the perfect boy? No he’s not, but he’s mine.”

In other words, Graham’s message to America is: I will teach my black son not to resist white supremacy so he can live.

[In America, black children don’t get to be children]

The kind of violent discipline Graham unleashed on her son did not originate with her, or with my adoptive mother who publicly beat me when I was a child, or with the legions of black parents who equate pain with protection and love. The beatings originated with white supremacy, a history of cultural and physical violence that devalues black life at every turn. From slavery through Jim Crow, from the school-to-prison pipeline, the innocence and protection of black children has always been a dream deferred.

The problem is that Graham’s actions do not assure that her son, and legions like him, will survive childhood. Recall the uncle who in 2011 posted a video recording of himself beating his teenage nephew for posting gang messages on Facebook. Acting out of love and fear for his life, he whipped the teen, but months later he was found dead anyway.

Praising Graham distracts from a hard truth: It doesn’t matter how black children behave – whether they throw rocks at the police, burn a CVS, join gangs, walk home from the store with candy in their pocket, listen to rap music in a car with friends, play with a toy gun in a park, or simply make eye contact with a police officer – they risk being killed and blamed for their own deaths because black youths are rarely viewed as innocent or worthy of protection.

[Freddie Gray’s life a study in the sad effects of lead paint on poor blacks]

If there were an easy way to keep black children safe from police, out of prisons, morgues and graves, we would not have spent the past three years in an almost endless cycle of grieving the loss of young black people: Trayvon Martin, Renisha McBride, Rekia Boyd, Jordan Davis, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray and . . . and . . . and . . . The list is too long to fit into my word count.

This celebration of Graham reflects a belief that black youths are inherently problematic, criminal and out of control. The video also supports the idea that black fathers are absent, suggesting that all we need is an angry black mom to beat the “thug” out of an angry young man – and everything will be fine.

What is so disturbing is that white supremacy is let off the hook. A militarized and racist police force is not the problem. Systemic racism — from the War on Drugs to racial profiling, from hyper segregation to community divestment — is not the issue. The message becomes: Black children’s behavior is the true enemy of peace.

This distracting conversation turns the spotlight back to black youth. If only Freddie hadn’t run; if only his parents had beaten him; if only he was perfect, maybe he would still be with us. And the praise of Graham reflects a belief shared across race lines that beating black children is the only way to keep them safe from the dangers of a racist society, or from stepping out of line. Rather than embracing her son Michael, rather than hearing and seeing his pain and assuring him that she’s got his back, Graham beat and shamed him in front of the world.

The public shaming and devaluing of black children has a long heritage. On Nov. 8, 1893, the Anderson Intelligencer, a South Carolina newspaper, reported that a black boy was caught stealing a lunch that had been left inside of a horse buggy. The locals tied the boy up in a stall and called his mother. Upon her arrival, the 200-pound mom was told of the trouble her son made. She then exclaimed, “Dar now, told you so, tank de good Lord I dun got you dis time. I bin trying to git hold of you for six munts and you git away from me ebery time. Bit I got you now, tank de Lord.”

The mother asked for a whip or cowhide, but was given a buggy trace. She stripped her son’s pants, bent him over a cross bar and beat him. The reporter noted, “Those licks and those yells were awful to hear and awfuller to behold.” And then the mother “lynched him while other humane gentlemen looked on and approved. That darkey will never steal another lunch from that stable nor any other stable.”

While Graham did not literally lynch her son Michael, she metaphorically strung him up for the world to see — in hopes of keeping him alive. We can all appreciate the pain and fear in her cry that “I don’t want my son to be a Freddie Gray.” This is every black mother’s cry heard over hundreds of years in America. From the plantation moms who whipped their kids so white masters and overseers wouldn’t more harshly do the same, to the parents during Jim Crow who beat their children to keep them safe from the Klan and lynch mobs, these beatings are the acts of a people so desperate and helpless, so terrorized and enraged, that heaping pain upon their children actually seems like a sane and viable act of parental protection.

The intensity of this fear is integral to the history of black Americans. Just as black parents have “the talk” with their children, listing survival tips for when they are confronted by white authority, black corporal punishment has been encouraged as the only way to make black children acceptable to society.

The recent killings of unarmed black people, including children, has elevated black parents’ fears and questions about how to protect their kids, and intensified debates over corporal punishment. All of this happens against the backdrop of American hypocrisy: a culture that routinely cites Martin Luther King Jr.’s embrace of nonviolence yet celebrates militarized police, corporal punishment, and the daily violence directed at black children; a culture that disempowers black parents, that criminalizes them, and blames them for everything from low graduation rates to poverty. Only hip-hop is a bigger problem if you believe people like CNN’s Don Lemon.

At the same time, American society has empowered principals who suspend and use corporal punishment, and police who wield their batons and guns to control black children.

Beatings are not transformative. They don’t empower. They simply punish the victims and accelerate the trauma, bringing the pain from the streets into the home. This form of “discipline” makes children only more vulnerable to violent behavior, and increases the risk of the very behaviors that will get them in trouble at school and in the streets — the behaviors that parents think beatings will prevent.

Where is celebration of moms whose children have been at the forefront of peaceful protests? Where is the celebration of black mothers and fathers who have been organizing against police violence, against food injustice, and against the violence and looting in Baltimore and beyond? The history of the civil rights movement is one of parents and children joining together on the front lines of the struggle for justice, not one of black parents beating their children. Yet this is the image captivating the nation.

What’s most tragic is that Graham said that she unleashed on her son after making eye contact with him on the street. Tragically, Freddie Gray’s offense that led to his killing was that he made eye contact with police. A look from and the mere presence of black bodies leads to violence and death, and that is the real crime, which no amount of shaming or corporal punishment will fix.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/29/why-is-america-celebrating-the-beating-of-a-black-child/

[blugiant]

The hideous white hypocrisy behind the Baltimore “Hero Mom” hype: How clueless media applause excuses police brutality..

Praising a mom for beating her son suggests only violence can discipline black kids. And she doesn't feel heroic


Baltimore’s “Hero Mom” has a name. It’s Toya Graham.

And the woman lionized nationwide for beating her 16-year-old son on camera, and dragging him away from Monday night’s riots, doesn’t feel at all like a hero.

“I don’t. I don’t,” Graham told CBS “This Morning” on Wednesday. “My intention was just to get my son and have him be safe.” Later in the interview, Graham confesses, “I just lost it.” (Watch the whole thing at the end of this post.)

Her moment of losing it made her a hero to much of white America – and not just to the right. Coast to coast, the media is hyping Graham as “Hero Mom” and her on-camera beating as “Tough Love.” It’s not just Fox News or the “New York Post,” whose tabloid “Send in the Moms” front page this time reflects rather than rebukes the mainstream media. And that’s heartbreaking.

The debate over the moment Graham says she “lost it” is complex. There’s a parallel black debate going on that, as always when it comes to racial issues, is richer and more nuanced. But anyone white who’s applauding Graham’s moment of desperation, along with the white media figures who are hyping her “heroism,” is essentially justifying police brutality, and saying the only way to control black kids is to beat the **** out of them.

I’m aware that a lot of African Americans are lauding Graham, too. This piece isn’t directed at them. Whether they applaud or critique Graham’s corporal punishment, most black people debating the issue acknowledge that the desperate public beating came from centuries of black parents knowing they have to discipline their children harshly, or else white society will do it for them – and they may not survive it.

The hypocrisy of the white mainstream applauding Graham is sickening. Let’s be honest: many white folks are reflexive critics of the greater frequency of corporal punishment in the black community. Witness the media horror at Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson beating his young son. If Graham beat her child like that in the aisles of CVS, you can be sure somebody would call CPS.

“What’s remarkable for me,” says the clueless Charlie Rose, speaking for white America, “is he clearly had the respect — and fear — of you.” Why is that remarkable, that this young black man respects his mother? Rose then chuckles at “that right hook you have.”

For the most part, the CBS team ignored the big social issues behind Graham’s confrontation with her son. Graham didn’t. Like other Baltimore teens, Graham told the table, “he doesn’t have the perfect relationship with the police officers in Baltimore city…But two wrongs don’t make a right.” Nobody followed up on the young man’s “relationship” with police.

Graham also shared that she recently lost her job. Nobody asked about that. When the church-going single mother of six confessed that the first thing she thought, when she saw herself on television, was “Oh my God, my pastor is gonna have a fit,” Norah O’Donnell reassured her: “The police commissioner of Baltimore said “We need more moms like you.”

In the interview’s closing moments, Gayle King (who is African American) did bring the conversation around to the “relationship between the community and the police,” and the killing of Freddie Gray. Graham was eloquent.

We haven’t received any information about what happened to this young guy. It seemed like he was harmed…We can’t talk to the police. The news keeps showing how he was dragged to the paddywagon…as a mother, that was just devastating to see.

It sure was.

I don’t fault CBS for interviewing Graham. She’s a “newsmaker,” and I’d talk to her in a heartbeat. But the way the network hyped its “get” falls into the category of white media applauding a black woman for beating up her son. As though that’s the only way to discipline a black child.

These weren’t segments exploring the heartbreaking desperation of black inner city mothers, faced with an eternal “Sophie’s Choice” when it comes to their kids. They weren’t looking at the lack of options for teens in Sandtown-Winchester, or the history of Baltimore cops acting “in loco parentis” and beating the **** out of young black men, sometimes just for sport.

Not a word of this is intended to criticize Toya Graham. I cannot say to her, “Ma’am, I have a better way to keep your son safe.” But when I watch that video, I don’t merely see a loving mother disciplining her son. I see a desperate mother being forced to wield the club of white violence, “in loco” white cops. As a mother, the footage of cops dragging an agonized Freddie Gray into custody was indeed “devastating to see.” So was the footage of Graham beating her son, with the approving gaze of white media.

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/29/the_hideous_white_hypocrisy_behind_the_baltimore_%E2%80%9Chero_mom%E2%80%9D_hype_how_clueless_media_applause_excuses_police_brutality/

[blugiant]

i applaud the mother....parents need to step up n show their children just how involved they r in their lives....that is a mother...she saw thru his masked face, the hoodie drawn down, the all neutral black garb BUT SHE KNEW HER CHILD...and she went for him....as to humiliating him in public, armed as he was with a rock he was already humiliating himself....after all they were burning their own ,sub-standard n sub-serviced neightbouthood...so what was that achieving...marching in protest is one thing, arming urself with a rock is a whole other , not to mention the measures he went to to disguise himself...if u that invested u don't have to disguise..u willing fi go jail if it is deemed an illegal demonstration..but wat was going on n what she saw had more to do with dangerous activity n she went for her child....BRAVO..she didn't call him up and tell him to mek sure him get a big screen as i know some parents do, she went for HER CHILD N TOLD HIM IN STRONG TERMS he was not doing right by HIMSELF....B R A V O....

so evan yuh cumplain bout police killing ann brutalizing blakk yuths but yuh nuh see a ting wrang widd wan blakk ooman losing itt and brutalizing a blakk yuth. guess men who luv dem oomen and beat iss bout showing luv

ignore da numerous studee dat parents brutalizinn yuths create violent yuths ann dat lead to more violence.

[evanovitch]

so evan yuh cumplain bout police killing ann brutalizing blakk yuths but yuh nuh see a ting wrang widd wan blakk ooman losing itt and brutalizing a blakk yuth. guess men who luv dem oomen and beat iss bout showing luv

ignore da numerous studee dat parents brutalizinn yuths create violent yuths ann dat lead to more violence.

if only ur definition of 'brutality' as opined was , was really a couple missed slaps...she slapped him n as he ran off she moved after him....had that been the police as u say, that slap would have been with the butt of a gun n the next step as he ran would be to shoot to stop...n frankly, in a culture that jokes about having lived thru being beaten by their mothers with extension cords n how it made them listen, it is disingenuous for those who want their 15 minutes to look past the fact that a PARENT FINALLY showed up to disengage her child ....a do believe the term ' a box behind the ears' is what that mother did as i saw it....as to the latter part of ur spiel, if u can't differentiate between a mother's action as shown n men beating women, wat can i say...maybe ur attention should would have been better served in asking why the men r there wen dem beating the women but never when the child they share needs direction n sometimes rescue