Grandmama’s love and lessons in liberation

It’s very possible that I learned “mama” and “grandma” simultaneously. Or perhaps at one point they were interchangeable, both eliciting the same feeling of safety. Eventually, I would learn the difference. But I would also come to understand that grandmamas are often the closest thing many of us get to a mother.

Both my maternal and paternal grandmother raised their grandchildren. Many of my great-aunts were mothers to their blood-children and children in the community who needed mothering. I came up in a world where Black women were community mothers, care-givers, disciplinarians. They, often without much choice in the matter, held entire communities on their backs.

So, why not put Black mothers and grandmothers in charge of the police departments? Better yet, remove the police departments altogether and allow them to create something more lush and beautiful and free?

This is what Junauda Petrus asks us to imagine in her children’s book, Can We Please Give the Police Department to the Grandmothers? The question she poses is one rooted in abolition and community care, while centering elders and children.

This story began as a sort of eulogy poem for Michael Brown, an 18-year-old boy who was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo. But he was not just killed, he was crucified by the police, even in death, as somehow deserving of his fate.

So, why not put Black mothers and grandmothers in charge of the police departments? Better yet, remove the police departments altogether and allow them to create something more lush and beautiful and free?

—  Danielle Buckingham

Petrus was thinking about Black children, and teens like Brown, when re-envisioning the poem as a children’s story. She was thinking about how these Black kids, who police often only see as monsters, are held with a certain tenderness by Black elders in the community. She was especially thinking about the grandmothers and the larger roles they often serve.

“Grandmothers have been that safety net in our society because there’s so many gaps to fall into in our communities. . . and so often it’s these women who have to be parents again to the children of their children [and] who have to take in family members. . .”

I know that story well. And yet, I was still curious about the notion of giving them the police departments. What would that even look like? And, why grandmothers? Junauda explains her intention during our conversation:

“I really wanted to expand this idea of grandma and think about it as sort of a solidified [version] of [an] abolitionist. I came up with the acronym Giving Radical Abolition Now, Dreams Magically Awaken. Like that’s what a GRANDMA is. And we all can be grandmas.”

While Black women usually have to carry a disproportionate amount of the labor in their families and communities, Petrus wanted to be clear that this book is not about that. Rather, it’s about looking to these matriarchs as a beacon for how to live in the world, how to take care of and listen to and love each other — and especially our children — better.

Black children deserve to exist

One of the notable aspects of Petrus’s book are the beautiful illustrations, courtesy of artist Kristen Uroda. The images, both colorful and vibrant, frequently depict Black children outside interacting with the natural world.

Petrus shares the intention behind that imagery:

“I want kids to feel like the world is so big and juicy in ways that they should explore and feel safe to do [and] that there’s nothing that requires them to be policed. . .maybe they need healing, maybe they need holding, maybe they need seeing, I feel like so much of the book is seeing black kids, like just seeing them.”

What does it mean to see, really see, Black children?

During our discussion, Petrus references 16-year-old Ralph Yarl who was shot in Kansas City, Mo. for ringing the doorbell of a residence he had mistaken for the home of someone caring for his younger siblings. This is one of many examples of Black children not being seen as worthy of grace or protection. And really an example of them not being seen period.

“I think so much of what black kids absorb from our society is that they’re not good enough [or] special enough [or] smart. . .I wanna give them a magical reminder like, oh my God, you’re so divine and so worthy of being curious about, and so worthy of being safe and free.”

What does it mean for Black children to be free? How do we create a world that allows them the safety that’s needed to be free?

I want kids to feel like the world is so big and juicy in ways that they should explore and feel safe to do [and] that there’s nothing that requires them to be policed. . .maybe they need healing, maybe they need holding, maybe they need seeing. I feel like so much of the book is seeing black kids, like just seeing them.

—  Junauda Petrus

Can We Please Give the Police Departments to the Grandmothers? feels like a call to action for us all. Think of all the maternal figures in your life who fed you, hugged you, made sure you had a place to lay your head. Consider the grandmamas and aunties in your community. The ones who have dozens of children by choice, rather than by blood. Petrus asks us to look to them for what it means to show up and listen and love and protect a community.

Grandmamas are a master class in what abolition should look and feel like.