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Wednesday, Apr 29, 2015 9:29 PM UTC
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 VIDEO
Topics: Video, Toya Graham, freddie gray, Baltimore police, Police brutality, police misconduct, Baltimore riots, Baltimore uprising, Race, Parenting, Adrian Peterson, Media News, Life News, News, Politics News
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 shit 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.
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