The recent grand jury decisions that did not indict white police officers Darren Wilson and Daniel Pantaleo for their roles in killing unarmed Black men led to protests in cities across the nation.
The Yale College Black Men’s Union chose to make their voices heard through their tumblr page entitled “To My Unborn Son”. The male students at this prestigious Ivy League school demonstrated that although they may walk across the elite New Haven campus and fraternize with the children of the nation’s rich and powerful, they still easily identify with the plight of Black men in other, less prestigious, communities.
The simple, yet powerful blog post begins with a letter addressed to the parents of Michael Brown Jr.
They offered their sympathies to Brown’s parents and said how much their strength meant to them. They expressed what it meant to them to be Black men in America.
“We realize that we are all Michael,” they wrote. “We are all sons, and although our stories may differ, we know the fate of your son could also be the fate of any of us.”
The end of the letter reiterated their sorrow for the loss of Brown, but they offered their messages to their unborn sons in hopes to give them some kind of comfort.
Underneath the letter is a vertical series of pictures with 51 BMU members holding up messages to their unborn sons on a sign shot in black and white.
One sign reads, “To My Unborn Son, you will be born with two strikes already.”
Another says, “To My Unborn Son, Don’t let them DEFINE you!”
A third sign reads, “To My Unborn Son, your skin is not a death sentence.”
The final message reads, “To My Unborn Son, I Love You.”
Forty-seven more messages from the students go on to leave words of encouragement, caution and hope to their unborn sons.
