Why We Took Our Kid to a BLM Rally

There’s a number of ways my children’s world experience in their short lives eclipsed my own when I was their age.

They have ridden airplanes; my first flight was at 20. They are more technologically savvy; when I was their age I could barely work a cassette tape. And at 8 and 5, my kids are far more socially conscious and intuitive about the world around them.

A young protester’s homemade sign at a Black Lives Matter march in Helena.

It took me a few days to figure out how to explain the brutal and unjust way George Floyd died to my children. We kept the lessons light for my 5-year-old daughter and allowed her to be guided by easy-to-understand concepts and curiosity.

My son is in that sweet, innocent age where his heart bursts with patriotic pride every time he sees the American flag. I don’t want to steal that from him, but I know that in order to tell him the true story of America, I can’t amend history to exclude the ugly parts.

So I tell him Columbus didn’t discover America — there were already people who lived here and we stole their land. I tell him about colonization and that it only helped white people and harmed Native Americans. I tell him about slavery and that even when slavery ended, America still didn’t treat black people as equals.

I can tell he is absorbing these lessons, but the look on his face isn’t hopeful.

A Black Lives Matter banner hangs on the Higgins Street bridge Sunday as Noel Lindquist snaps a photo of her son, Kendrick.

But this is where I get to reignite that love for America like lighting a sparkler on the Fourth of July.

“America is an experiment. The people who created it wanted it to be by the people, for the people. They gave us the ability to change things we don’t like,” I say, glad my journalism professors required us to memorize the First Amendment. “If we don’t like the way black people are treated, we can ‘petition the government for a redress of grievances’ and things will change.”

I want him to see that we aren’t helpless; there are things we can do when the world is unjust.

I also want him to see that change requires action: sacrificing time and comfort in order to physically ask for what you want.

Sunday my husband and son joined the hundreds of other Missoulians in Cara’s Park for the 8:46 rally (8 minutes and 46 seconds is how long Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck, killing him). They participated in chants. They held signs. And most importantly, they listened to people of color explain the ways the world perceives their dark skin differently than my son’s white skin.

I don’t know what lessons will appear in my children’s history books as they move through primary and secondary school. But I do know I will continue to give my family the opportunity to live freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, and we will continue to make changes until every child in America is treated equally.

David Stalling and his son Cory, 19, protesting together in Missoula.