Dad Opens Up About The Tough Conversation Sparked By Water Guns

"For parents who are raising children of color, there’s an added dynamic."

When Lester Davis’ kids asked to take water guns to camp, he shut down the idea. Then, he realized the ugly truth he would have to share with his children.

In a video from The Washington Post, Davis discussed how that simple request from his kids turned into a more serious conversation about race. To preface his parenting story, he noted that being responsible for a kid can be a “terrifying thing,” especially for parents of children of color.

The video comes on the heels of the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, two black men shot and killed in separate incidents by police officers. The events have left parents struggling with how to have the conversation about race and racism with their kids, which is something Davis can identify with.

“I think for parents who are raising children of color, there’s an added dynamic because of the data and statistics which are just so clear in every facet of our lives that a lot of society that will interact with your children are going to already have formed opinions and thoughts on them,” Davis said.

Davis kept this in mind when his 6-year-old twin boys and 4-year-old daughter mentioned bringing water guns to camp, which brought to mind incidents of police shooting black children like 12-year-old Tamir Rice after mistaking toy guns for lethal weapons.

“I immediately just dismissed it and told them no, absolutely not,” he said. “They would not be bringing water guns to [camp].”

A study published in the journal Psychological Science in February backed up Davis’ hesitation to allow his kids to play with toys that could be viewed as weapons. According to the study, white people may hold negative bias or feel threatened by black kids as young as 5 years old.

The Daily Beast’s editor-at-large Goldie Taylor also echoed Davis’ fears, specifically when it comes to young black men, with her piece titled “Why Can’t My Black Son Have A Toy Gun?”

“What is abundantly clear is that young black men and boys are, all too often, viewed as an inherent risk,” she wrote. “They wake up as suspects, in the minds of some police officers, by virtue of the very skin that they were born in.”

For now, Davis said he thinks society still views his kids as “innocent little children,” though he knows at some point when they grow older that notion will change.

“We know the data is clear that there’s a point in time for young kids of color [when] that switch flips and they are viewed by society in a different light,” he said.

Davis and his wife eventually allowed their kids to take water guns to camp after the father of three attempted to explain the reasoning behind his initial decision. As he talked about the water guns and explained to his kids that he didn’t want anyone to think they’d want to hurt anyone, he realized the experience was something many kids typically get to experience without fear or consequence.

“I could see on their faces they were getting a moment, a childhood moment, that a lot of kids ― non-kids of color ― just get to have just as a rite of passage,” he said.

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