Black Boys Deserve Protection, Too

We've spent so long praising Black boys for how much they can endure that we forgot to offer them safety.

In this heavy but necessary episode of The Clarity Pivot, we're going deeper into what it actually means to protect Black boys — not just in principle, but when it costs something. Drawing from personal experience and research on Adverse Childhood Experiences, we examine the thin line between survival and actual safety, the impact of spiritual abuse, and why adultification bias strips Black boys of the protection they deserve.

This episode says plainly: protection is not a gift. It's the baseline. Whether you're a parent, an educator, or someone still carrying what happened to you as a child, this one is for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the Clarity Pivot. I'm your grateful host, Tamars. Now, even though I've been away for a little while, I'm really really excited to be back with you all here again. This episode that I'm doing today really means a lot to me, and it took some time for me to really, really sit with it because y'all, it's a personal, personal story. And I truly appreciate your presence as we share it together. So, what I'm about to share, I don't really talk about that much, but for this episode, I think it's time. I'm still processing some of it myself, but I'd rather give you the unfinished version than to say nothing at all. So let's go. I want to start this episode a little differently because this topic is really personal to me. It's about my own journey from being a black boy in South Carolina to becoming the man that is sitting before you today speaking. Before we dive in, I want to acknowledge and forewarn you that this might stir up some pain or heavy memories for some of you. And if that happens, please know this. You're not alone, you're not out of place, and you're not wrong for feeling the things that come up when you feel. Today's clarity is heavy. This episode is about what it actually means to protect black boys, not just in theory or statistics, but when it costs you something in real time. We're going to talk about why safety has to come before reputation and what the damage looks like when adults choose power over protection. Here's a number that should not exist. Black children make up 33% of abuse victims in this country, while being a much smaller share of the population. Now let that sit for a second. You see, today we're going to talk about protection. And we're going to leave here with one thing settled. Black boys deserve protection, and they deserve to know that they need it. Let's pivot. Something that felt familiar. I recently saw something that really shook me. And it wasn't just upsetting because it was that, but somewhere in it was an eerie sense of familiarity that really took me by surprise. I watched a young black boy being publicly pressured on a social media platform to protect a grown man's reputation. And I saw this grown man reveling in embarrassing and shaming this child into a hurt and a pain that could only be seen through that child's glossed-over eyes. Now, some of you may be familiar with what I'm talking about, but for the sake of this episode, I'm not here to rehash the stories and name names because that isn't the point. I want to use what I saw in that particular moment to show and talk about what it revealed to me and the clarity that I want to share with you all. You see, I witnessed humiliation being labeled as correction. I saw spiritual language being used to corner a child into submission. I saw a kid burdened with the enormous ego of an adult and being gas lit with love bombs and reminders of all the things that had been done to him and for him by this grown man. Upon witnessing that, something in me tensed, because these are not abstract to me. You know, I have my own story. From the ages of four to twelve, I endured sexual abuse from two men who were supposed to protect me. I know for sure that this time period of pain affected me. You see, when those who are meant to keep you safe become the source of harm, your body starts developing coping mechanisms before you even have the words to explain what's happening to you. From my experience, you become adept at reading your environment, mastering the art of just being agreeable, and watching closely for every tone and posture just to avoid danger. To put it simply, you learn how to survive. But surviving doesn't necessarily mean that you feel safe. Whenever I see an adult publicly cornering a black child, specifically a black boy, I don't see it as discipline. To me, it looks more like a power play. It looks like the adult is more worried about what others think of them than actually protecting the child. And honestly, what I see is a lot of emotional weight being put on someone whose shoulders are still growing and have yet to be able to bear that weight. See what I know is protection is about safety. It isn't about gifts, access, or generosity. It means a child can speak up honestly without fear or without being ashamed. It means adults should be able to manage conflicts privately and responsibly. It means adults should be willing to absorb judgment so that the child can be protected from that judgment, not exposed to it. What the numbers don't tell you. There's a clinical term for this. It's called adverse childhood experiences, otherwise known as ACES. What it really means is that what happens to you when you were small doesn't stay small. It follows you, sometimes into adulthood. It literally changes how your brain identifies and manages stress and how your body reacts to threats, even years later. It teaches you how to always be looking over your shoulder. It teaches you how to keep your mouth shut, and it admonishes you to do just what you're told. But let's be abundantly clear. Just because a child is behaving doesn't mean that child is healing. All it means is that that child is just surviving. Now layer race on top of that. There's this thing called adultrification bias. That's the word for it. It's when people look at black boys and they see men. They assign a toughness to them that they haven't even earned yet. It really makes them wrong in every case, no matter how much they need to be protected. This strips them of innocence before it's even fully formed in them. It's kind of why we as black men get less grace now. People have been trained to think that we're responsible for our own harm from a child. It shifts the empathy away from us instead of to us. So when a black boy is publicly shamed, it's designed that people don't see a child. They see someone that they think should be tough enough to take it and wrong enough to feel it. But that's not the reality. The reality is that's a child. Public humiliation does not build men. All it does, it build all it does is build guarded, defensive boys who become guarded and defensive and angry men. Before we continue, let's take a quick breath. I know this is heavy, but I need you all to stay with me. We'll be right back. If you want to stay connected to everything I'm creating, follow me on Substack, TikTok, Instagram, and threads at Tavars Teaches. My digital business card is in the description. Alright, family, let's continue. Because there is another layer here that we have to name, but we gotta do it carefully. When faith is used as leverage. Let me name something that people don't always want to name in faith communities, but we must name these things in order for us to even think about resolving them. And because I am who I am, I'm gonna name it. Spiritual abuse. You see, spiritual abuse happens when someone uses God or religious authority to control or shame you. And when it's used on a child, it doesn't just wound on the surface, it destroys safety at the root. Truth doesn't need to humiliate you in order to be true. If something is real, it should be able to handle questions. It doesn't need a kid to perform loyalty for an audience. Even if a child is not being completely honest about something, the answer isn't to make a spectacle of them or that moment. You don't live stream discipline. You don't surround a teenager with a circle of authority figures and call that healing. Adults are supposed to protect. You see, what bothered me the most about the live stream wasn't just the act of embarrassing the young boy, it was the subsequent applause from the people in the comments. People were giving this man props for holding this kid accountable and not even seeing and recognizing the clear and visible pain of embarrassment on that child's face. And the reality is, folks, we gotta sit with that and we gotta ask ourselves, how did we get here? The culture of hardness. You know, in our communities and a lot of our neighborhoods, um, we got a lot of things mixed up. And one of the things that I recognize that we got mixed up was this delineation between strength and hardness and how we somehow made those two things the same. And that confusion has cost us more than we want to admit. You know, we take kids, we humiliate them, we tell ourselves that we're building character. We we convince ourselves that we're preparing those children for a world that hates them through this hardness. We call it correction. And we've even convinced ourselves that this is love. And we say that for young boys specifically, that this is gonna make him a man. You know, in my own story, what I actually remember aren't the lessons because there was nothing to learn positively from a violation like that. All I remembered was the confusion and the emotional chaos that ensued afterwards and still lingered as I became a grown man. That feeling in my gut that something was wrong long before I had language for it. And here's what I've come to understand when I reflect back. What I was being handed was not tools that would benefit my life for the better. With each emotional and physical scar, I was being forced to learn survival strategies. And what I know for sure is that survival is not the same thing as protection. Not even close. So, with that, if we're serious about changing anything for the next generation, we have gotta be willing to say that out loud and mean it and then want to change it. We cannot keep raising black boys who get praise for how much pain they can absorb, but never get handed a place to put it down when they need it the most. Protection means believing them enough to listen. It means investigating without bias and recognizing that power dynamics between adults and children are real. It means being clear that an adult's need to clear their name cannot come before a child's need to feel safe. You know, I get it. And this is something I gotta recognize. Our egos can be loud. Loud enough to drown a child out standing right in front of us, trying to tell us something's wrong. That's something I've been sitting with myself. And here's the thing just because something was common doesn't mean it was healthy. And normal is not the same thing as being safe. And let's be real, hardness, no matter how long we've dressed it up, has never, ever actually been strength. How I'm hoping that this hits home for you. Listen, I recognize and I can even say for myself that sometimes we hear things that causes us to not want to acknowledge or deal with the pain that that thing causes to rise up in us. And if that's happening for you, I understand. But if I said something today in this episode that hit differently for you, if your chest got tight or an old memory showed up, I need you to know something. You don't owe anyone your silence. Just because you've had to be strong for so long doesn't mean that endurance is all you're meant for. You deserve to be heard, and you don't have to carry this by yourself anymore. If you or someone you know is experiencing physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, please say something. Please tell someone safe. And if you're not sure who that is, there are people whose whole job it is to help you figure out what to do next. You don't have to have it figured out before you call. In the United States, you can call or text the Child Help National Child Abuse Outline at 1-800-4ACHILD. That is 1-800-422-4453. They're available 24 hours a day. You can also chat live through their website if speaking verbally feels difficult. Listen, you do not have to navigate this alone. Protection is not only about preventing harm, it is also about responding appropriately when harm has already happened. The baseline. And I became someone who was not afraid to ask the hard questions or to confront the toxic and harmful behavior that we all once believed at some point in our lives. And further I got away from that little boy, the more I understood what he actually needed but didn't have. And those things I want corrected now. I want safety for the next generation. I want them to feel dignity and pride in their vulnerability. I want black boys who won't have to spend decades untangling things that should never happen to them in the first place. Protecting black boys is not optional. It isn't political and it's not a trend, not something that we do because it's convenient or that because we know better now. It is and will always be the baseline. Before we end this episode, I want to hear from the community. How did this episode make you feel? And what are you now prepared to do with those feelings? Share your thoughts with me on Threads at Tavaris Teaches or anywhere you follow me online. This space grows together because we grow together. Thank you for listening. Move with intention, love with boundaries, and as always, choose peace like your spirit and your life depends on it. Until we meet again, next time, and declaring.