My mother is a good person. Anyone who has met her will tell you so. She is kind and will go out of her way to help anyone. We all know this, so remember when I tell this story that I love her.

I love her but she is still a slightly-middle-age white woman who struggles with and often denies white privilege. Yes she knows it’s a thing that exists to some extent but discussing her existence within that context is like setting off a bomb and it hurts.

Cecil the Lion was killed earlier this week. My heart went out to him. Like many people I was enraged. I still am and I can’t shake the feeling that no matter what happens to that dentist, it will never actually feel like justice has been served. Later I saw some posts related to the murder that really spoke to me. These posts merely highlighted the fact that more people care about this one lion’s death than the lives of People of Colour.

I’m going to keep it 100 (and tell you how I feel). If you didn’t read about Sandra, if you didn’t spread the word, or publicly demand justice then you just didn’t care enough. Saying you ‘try to avoid negativity in the news’ is no longer an excuse. People are dying because they look like me and you would call yourself my friend. There, I said it and not half as eloquently as others).

So, I brought up the lion with my mom.

“I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t” was her response when I asked if she had heard about him.

Maybe I should have left it at that but I figured since my intention was to bring up the #SandraBland posts it would be okay to continue. In fact I needed to talk about it. I didn’t want to just post the same comments hundreds of others had. I just wanted to express my own pain.

My mom had never even heard of her.

I briefly explained what I knew of Bland and how I had found out. My mom doesn’t use social media and so I understood why she hadn’t heard of #WhatHappenedToSandra but the fact that she hadn’t only further proved my point. We aren’t talking enough about Sandra Bland (and people who don’t care are already tired of the subject).

“I only know about the lion because it was on the news” she interrupted.

That is part of the problem. Sandra Bland’s story should be on the news, the radio, and everywhere else. The lion’s story spread so fast. The shooter is already being held accountable for his actions (at least by the public). When a Black person dies, those responsible get a paid vacation while the victims’ names are dragged through the mud.

There was silence for about a minute and then my mother was upset.

“You asked me to speak about the lion and I sit here and get yelled at”. Her words stung me.

In no way had I yelled at her. I was extra careful not to use any tones of judgment or accusations mostly because of previous conversations we’d had about race that had gone wrong. I spoke with passion and I refused to back down from that passion but I made sure I didn’t refer to her in my avowal.

Sure, I shouldn’t hold back while discussing white privilege. When I say ‘white people do __blank___ and that’s racist’, I shouldn’t have to add appeasing comments for the white people around me. If you are white and you don’t do whatever micro-aggression I’m complaining about, you shouldn’t need me to clarify that I am not talking about you as an individual. That’s generally how I feel but she is my mother and so I avoid things that might hurt her feelings as much as possible. That being said, following her response I lost my temper.

“Oh My God. That’s what you’re taking out of this conversation? I didn’t yell at you. This isn’t about you.” She tried to interrupt again with how it’s not her fault she didn’t know anything about it but I wasn’t looking for blame or guilt, I was only looking to talk.

Like many people do, she got defensive. I was challenging and therefore threatening the privilege she has been accustom to living with. It was in no way personal but she cannot separate my comments on white privilege and her place within it. If she was younger and had twitter she would have been hashtagging #AllLivesMatter and #NotAllWhitePeople.

I asked her to stop. This is where “I can’t” because it hurts to talk about it but she didn’t or wouldn’t hear me. She was still feeling defensive and so she went on. I couldn’t tell you what she said. I checked out.

“Please” I said, “I really need you to stop”. Tears were pouring down my face. I was sobbing. “Can we just not talk? Can I have a moment to myself?” It really hurts. If she can’t hold off on her defensive stance over white guilt long enough to see just how much these events hurt her own daughter, how would she ever understand where I was coming from?

Again I want to remind you (and it seems silly to have to do this) that I love my mom but she may never understand how I feel about race. Despite having raised a black child in this society herself, she’ll probably never fully know what it’s like to have a black kid. Or what I go through being mixed.

I guess I’m writing this event down because it shows me how powerful white denial can be.