00:00One of the things that the family said this morning that should really hit everybody's
00:07ears the same way was, you know, we grew up teaching this boy, and even as a man, comply,
00:14comply, comply. We were worried about this. He was worried about this. He had said, maybe I
00:19shouldn't be carrying this gun, even though I have it legally, because maybe they'll shoot me first
00:23and ask questions later. I hear that from parents, rich, poor, urban, rural, all over this country.
00:32Your own kids, you're blessed with beautiful children. Is that something that even D.L.
00:36Hughley has to deal with his kids with, about boy and girl, you have to treat the cops a certain way?
00:44Every parent that I know, every black or brown parent I know, has a conversation with their
00:50children when they tell them exactly how to act around the police. That is abhorrent. That is
00:55immoral. Every parent I know. My biggest fear, my son, who's a millennial, and, you know, they don't
01:00have jobs, so they obviously have to live with me, but I don't even go to sleep until my children
01:06come home at night. My grown children come home at night. I keep my clothes on, and my wife will tell
01:10you, I keep my clothes on in case my children need me in the middle of the day or in the middle of the
01:17night. And I just do not understand. We love our children. We love our parents, our mothers,
01:22our fathers. They are brutalized, and nobody says anything. It's too much. It's too much.
01:33You're watching Essence Live. I'm your host, Dana Blair. That was D.L. Hughley speaking with CNN
01:37about the precautions he takes as a parent in light of the epidemic of police shootings. Joining me now
01:41on the couch are parents of sons and daughters. Essence Entertainment Editor, Corey Murray.
01:47Essence Deputy Editor, Yolanda Sanguini. And Essence Digital Beauty and Style Director,
01:51Julie Wilson. Ladies, welcome. It's always nice to have you, but I'm sorry that I have you here
01:55under these terms. We're going to go ahead and jump right into it. You're all parents,
01:59as we mentioned in the intro, of sons and daughters. How do you have this conversation?
02:04It's like, it's no longer, you know, fire safety. It's everything safety now. How do you have those
02:11talks? Well, it's interesting. My daughter, who's six and a half, is here, and during the video of
02:17Diamond Reynolds, as she recorded with this brilliant, sad, but brilliant, and very smart of her,
02:24I walked out with her because, you know, my daughter's just now learning about death and
02:27whatever. But Julie and I were talking, and I'm like, well, maybe I do need to escalate this
02:31conversation about what it means when your life is taking at an unfair time. I have started where
02:39if she's ever lost or anything to go to a police officer, but if she feels unsafe with the police
02:45officer, then she needs to come and tell me or find someone. So that's a weird conversation.
02:50Right, because you're like, wait, are they good or bad? Yeah, but I do have to figure out that
02:55conversation. Yeah. Yolanda? I think for me, I'm from South Africa, and I grew up in an apartheid state,
03:03so my kids, I teach them about racism all the time. But we know to love people. Like, we don't,
03:11we don't, we're not racists, but we are aware of what the world perceives them to be as young black
03:19boys. I make them very aware of that. They, we listen to political black talk radio all the time,
03:27so that I want them to be culturally conditioned to, first of all, value our blackness, number one,
03:32but also to value human beings and also to be aware, like I said, of what people's perceptions
03:37are of them. And in regards to police officers in particular, I think we teach them to be very
03:44respectful of police officers, but also to be, you know, mindful of what could happen. And
03:50unfortunately, all the imagery that they're seeing now, we do have to kind of balance it because they
03:54are seeing a lot of images of black men being sort of demonized by a police officer. So we are having
04:01to like balance it out that not every police officer is bad, but also you do have to be careful.
04:07You have to be aware. Yeah. Julie?
04:09My son is two years old, so I haven't had to have that conversation with him, but my heart is heavy.
04:14seeing these, these tapes, knowing that at some point I'm going to have to talk to him about it
04:20and let him know that he's not free. Like he can't be, just be. Um, and that hurts me because I just
04:29see such an amazing little boy and I, I see his light and I just know that I'm going to have to tell
04:37him that he has to dim his light at some times, you know, and like how do others are comfortable.
04:42Right. So others are comfortable. How do I raise a black man to know that he can do whatever he
04:48wants and that he can, you know, pursue his dreams, but don't be as bold and black as I want you to be
04:54at times because it makes people uncomfortable. That hurts me and that his life can be taken.
04:59There was something here. I wanted, that's the only reason I brought my phone in.
05:01Someone posted on Instagram and it's, you know, it's an illustration, but it says like, uh, just put your hands
05:07in the air. No, this isn't right, but we don't have the luxury of being right. We just want you to come
05:12home alive. And it's, that's the same thing. I just want him to live. I just want him to live.
05:15I just want him to come home alive. And you know, and I was thinking about Philando Castile and the
05:19four-year-old little girl who's sitting in the back seat. I mean, you know, having,
05:23you can't explain that. No. You can't explain what this child, this young lady just went through.
05:28And there was another post I went through when you talk about social activism and where it does,
05:32because this does make me have another thought. And Joan Morgan, you know, brilliant writer,
05:36she posted, you know, when a four-year-old child stops being a child, when she senses that she is
05:40likely to glue holding her mama together after they've both watched a cop murder their loved one.
05:46Yes. When she says, when she says, it's going to be okay. Yeah. How does this change the course
05:51of her life? We were just talking about this in the back. Like, yeah, we just saw the, we just
05:54showed the footage in our, earlier on in the show. It's like, will she be traumatized for the
06:00rest of her life? Will she be able to live her best, most beautiful, boldest life now that she's
06:07seen that? Do you feel like the conversation's different between raising young black men and
06:10young black women? Or is it now everybody has to have the same talk? I think everybody has the
06:15same talk. Because the brutality shown towards black girls is just as hectic as it is towards
06:20black boys. Especially in schools where black girls are suspended more than any other group
06:27in schools. And so there's like this animosity towards black womanhood from a child. So I think
06:33you do have to have those conversations with the little girl too. And I was just going to say that
06:38we're focusing on black men and I think the black man is a big target right now. But I was also saying
06:44like, as a black woman, like I'm not prepared to even like raise and like talk to my black
06:51son. Like, you know, I'm supposed to say like us black women, we need to like, we're not prepared
06:56for stuff like this. So that's part of it. You know, if you have a daughter, one day Jilly
07:02might have to raise a black man and let him out into the world. And so it's a community thing.
07:07We all have to deal with this.
07:08And that's important that you said that. I want to talk about building community to have
07:13your wits about you to say something just happened. I'm going to put Facebook live.
07:18I'm going to stay calm. Not only am I going to record this, I'm going to repeat verbally
07:23fact by fact each and everything that happens so the world knows what just happened, you know,
07:27and I'm going to continue. I'm going to be an advocate. Now I'm going to rise up and fight
07:31in this moment. That's community. That's a hero right there. That's brilliant. That's bravery.
07:38But it's something that I'm sure she's been taught in the last six to 12 months to do.
07:43To do. How do we, hopefully, we're never, none of us are put in that position. We don't
07:49know anyone put in that position. But how do we build community now, starting with our
07:52children?
07:53Wow.
07:53I think we, you continue to have the conversation. I'll admit, I forgot now which shooting
08:00it was, but I did take Jillian to a march. She was curious why we were doing this. And
08:04I was explaining to her, like, sometimes you have to kind of gather and march with people
08:08to show. I mean, we didn't stay long because she was tired. But still, I realized, me personally,
08:13I need to do more stuff like that. I have to be more engaging, just like what Yolanda's
08:16doing with her sons. I need to, you know, make her an adult a little earlier, you know,
08:23with that respect. Like, make her more aware.
08:26Understood. Understood. We have some social media happening right now.
08:29Um, Awesomely Lovey tweeted, hey, Silicon Valley, you're about solving problems through
08:33tech. Can you create an app that helps us stay alive while black in front of cops?
08:38Wow.
08:38This next one is from Gabrielle Union. She tweeted, people have the ability to be outraged about
08:43failing to see the humanity of a gorilla, but magically don't have the ability to see
08:47our worth.
08:48And let's take a look at one more. Oh, no, she twittent, tweeted, imagine if powerful
08:53white men were as vocally outraged about an innocent black person being shot as they
08:58are about improper use of email.
09:00Oh, wow. Wow.
09:01Wow.
09:01Wow.
09:02Wow.
09:03Wow.
09:04Wow.
09:06Wow.
09:08Wow.
09:10Wow.
09:12Wow.
09:14Wow.
09:16Wow.
09:18Wow.
09:20Wow.
09:22Wow.
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