Mothers On The Frontline

In this episode, the founders of Mothers on the Frontline discuss grief, racial privilege, policing, and the performativity of emotion. Families and communities are grieving right now. We are grieving the deaths of over 100,000 Americans to Covid-19, which has disproportionately affected Black and Brown communities. We are grieving ongoing and countless losses of African-American Women, Men, and non-binary folk, children to elders, to institutional racism, particularly by the very structures that should be protecting them, including the police. Many parents are grieving the loss of the veneer of safety they once felt for themselves and their black and brown children in the community and in their very homes. Many white allies see the collective grief in the Black community and the pain in the eyes of their Black friends. They want to be helpful, but often fail to recognize their own emotional privilege. We examine how the centering and privileging of white emotion can result in dysfunctional empathy, as