October 14, 2025 • 35 mins
A high school football game ended with an injury—and a prayer. What came next exposed something bigger than sports: the way covert racism hides behind “safety,” outrage, and the performance of white motherhood. When my short clip of my son praying went viral, the internet rushed to judge a 14-year-old Black boy as a criminal, calling for prison instead of proportionate accountability. We walk through what actually happened on the field, how the refs missed it, and how a missed flag turned into death threats, doxxing attempts, and a media circus that prized punishment over truth.
I share the uncomfortable pattern I’ve seen my whole life—raised by a white mother in Northern institutions where racism rarely shouts but always signals. We unpack why so many of the most aggressive comments came from white women, how “protect the children” becomes a permission slip for control, and why the carceral reflex lands hardest on Black kids. This isn’t abstract: the comments moved from moral judgment to targeted harm, and we had to draw firm boundaries to protect our family and the students at the center of the story. Along the way, there were bright spots. My son’s calm, thoughtful response reached even farther than the prayer clip, and families began reaching out to make peace beyond the glare of virality.
Together, we separate accountability from vengeance, context from panic, and safety from supremacy. We talk practical steps for navigating online harassment, centering kids’ dignity, and refusing unpaid “prove it” labor when the receipts are already public. Most of all, we wrestle with the power of narrative: who gets to be seen as a child, who is cast as a threat, and how those stories shape schools, policing, and the daily lives of Black families. If this resonates, subscribe, share with a friend who cares about racial justice and youth sports, and leave a review to keep these conversations visible. Your voice helps push back against the noise and keeps the focus where it belongs—on humanity, truth, and protecting our kids.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
I don't know about y'all, but I'm so tired of the
subtle racism of white folks,and I got a story to tell y'all
today because I went throughsome crazy mess on the past
couple weeks with national news.
I was gonna be on InsideEdition.
I actually interviewed with theproducer, it never aired.
Me and my son's social mediablow up for something crazy.
(00:20):
So I want to tell y'all a littlebit about it.
But I really don't want to focuson the event as much as I want
to focus on what happened in theaftermath and the subtle and
ignorant racism of white folksand how much that can have an
impact on us as black women.
But before we get into that, letme introduce myself.
My name is Grace Sandra, andwelcome back to the Out Here
(00:41):
Trying to Survive podcast,episode 31.
If you are not, could you pleasego on ahead and subscribe, hit
the like button, and share thison your Facebook page.
Share it because that letsYouTube know that you care.
And if you're on Apple Podcasts,please leave me a review, boo.
Even if you're new, just belike, hey, I'm new.
But she got a good vibe, and Ican tell.
And as always, I thank y'all forbeing here because I know you
(01:01):
could be anywhere else on theseinternets.
And so if you're here with me,I'm grateful.
So, yeah, y'all, let me justtell y'all what happened in the
last couple weeks.
It's been so crazy.
So something happened at myson's school because this is
very well documented on myTikTok.
If you're very interested in theschool, what happened, why it
(01:23):
made national and eveninternational news, because yes,
me and my son were mentioned,tagged, and posted in the daily
mail, which is crazy to me.
Crazy to me.
It's all on my TikTok at OutHere Trying to Survive if you
really want to know the details.
So, yeah, y'all, I've just beenthinking a lot about what's
happening in our country and thekind of racism we're
(01:43):
experiencing is so it's so over.
It's so almost even over thetop.
Even with the laws being passednow, the ICE and other law
enforcement can arrest peoplejust based on the color of their
skin and how they per areperceived in the world, what
race and ethnicity they areperceived to be.
It's such a sad, sad, sad thingto have happen, right?
(02:04):
But there's still so much covertracism.
And I think what I wanted to getat and I wanted to show y'all
was how much some white womenhave still not evolved from the
kind of white women who would dowhat that white woman did to
Emmett Till.
And that is what I've beenexperiencing lately that has
really sobered me in a way aboutthe state of the country and the
(02:24):
racism still present in thecountry, which is not a surprise
to anyone.
But it is still good to talkabout it that we are
experiencing this enormousamount of cognitive dissonance
around how we're being treatedand people living in denial of
that.
But first, let me tell y'all astory.
So, y'all, it's been crazy.
About three weeks ago, somethinghappened at my son's school.
And again, I'm not gonna say thenames of the players or my son
(02:48):
or his school.
If you want to look that up, youcan go on my TikTok at Out Here
Trying to Survive.
I did pin the two very viralposts that I had as a result of
that and other media coverage.
It kicked off into this nationaland even international media
circus that had my son and I onthe Daily Mail online in the UK,
and I was getting hate from theUK.
(03:09):
I mean, I was catching straysfrom UK white people, y'all.
It was insane.
Anyway, let me tell y'all whathappened.
If you want more information,you can look it up there.
But I'm just gonna leave offnames and identifying details
from here because really that'snot the point of this story, but
I do want to tell y'all whathappened.
The gist is that my son'sschool, who is a predominantly
(03:29):
black school with predominantlyblack football players, entire
chiliing team is black, coachesis black, okay, played a
predominantly white school.
And during the game, one of theblack players pancaked one of
the white players.
He was down, and then while hewas down, he jumped up and
pancaked him again.
And as a result, the kid got twospinal fractures.
Now, at the time, we didn't knowthat.
(03:51):
I won't go into all of thedetails, but basically nobody
saw it because there was atwo-point conversion going on at
the other end.
It was kind of like just off tothe side.
Like I think if the two-pointconversion was happening maybe
like the 10-yard line, this washappening at like the 30 or the
40 or something like that.
And I don't even really know theyard lines that well, but I know
it's split up into 100, right?
So like it was some distance inbetween them.
So everybody was looking at thescoring, cheering for the
(04:12):
scoring.
The refs didn't see it becausethere was no flag calling.
It was clearly an egregious, uh,an egregious move that it was
flagrant.
It was unnecessary roughness,right?
Isn't that what they would callit nowadays?
I think that's what they wouldcall it.
Whatever the case may be, he gotreally injured.
But I was sitting there and Idid not notice.
I knew that everybody went downum and that what there was quite
a long time before he got up.
But he did get up and he, withhelp, he was he was assisted, he
(04:34):
got up and he walked off, andthen his parents took him to um
the hospital right away.
And then I learned the next daythat he had his back broken in
two places.
But when they left the game, myson told me, because the game
was kind of cut short.
You know, they usually pause theclock for timeouts and all these
kind of things.
They didn't.
My older son was like, Why didthe game end so quickly?
Like that game was over quick,and my son said, Oh, yeah, the
(04:56):
other team said they didn't feelsafe and they just wanted to get
it over with.
And so I was like, Not feelsafe?
Why?
And he was like, Oh, becausethis one kid, and he told me and
my older son who were sitting onthe sidelines watching, because
we didn't see it.
Anyway, I'm telling you thesedetails because this is really
important.
Some of these details is whatballooned into downright
unbelievable violence,unbelievable verbal violence
online.
I didn't know that.
(05:16):
I was like, Oh, that's terrible.
And he was like, Yeah, he left,you know, um, he did not leave
in an ambulance, his family tookhim, but none of us on my son's
side knew what was going on atall.
He said, Yeah, he might beparalyzed.
And I was like, Well, no, hecan't be paralyzed because I saw
him walk off the field.
So he's not paralyzed, like Isaw his legs moving, and he was
like, Oh, there some some peoplewere saying that.
Now, apparently, the kid on myson's team didn't get pulled off
(05:39):
the field because number one,the coaches and the refs and
nobody saw it.
But number two, the mom who sawit, who filmed it, uh showed the
refs, but the refs wouldn't letmy son's coaches see it.
So they still didn't have avisual of like what actually
happened at all, have any ideawhat happened.
The coaches were in the dark.
Everyone that I know of, I didnot poll everyone because it
(06:00):
seemed to be a big deal online.
But everyone who were in my DMs,like, why didn't you guys pull
your sons out of the game?
You know, once you knew thatthis kind of flagrant violence
happened, and I think it wouldbe good just to reiterate, I
didn't know that kind offlagrant violence happened
because I didn't see it andthere was no flag and there was
no whistle and there was nonothing.
Anyway, during the game, I sawmy son kneel down to pray.
(06:22):
And I said to my other son who Iwas sitting with, like, Oh, I
wonder what he's praying for.
And I just took a quick littlevideo in part because I do share
a little bit here and there onmy TikTok and on my Instagram
and my Facebook of my family.
I'm not like a family vlogger.
I don't typically routinelyshare my kids like in a vlog
style, but like if if they'redoing something cute, I'll get a
little video.
I'm like, oh, I want to eitherkeep that or share it.
(06:43):
And once I saw him praying, Iwas just like, oh, you know, let
me get a little video.
I didn't actually think I wasgoing to share it.
I was just thinking, oh, he'spraying.
And I saw that there's threeother players praying.
So I took the video the nextday.
That was on a Thursday.
The next day, when my son camehome from school, I found out
that the kid had his back brokenin two places, and then my son
was like, Yeah, that's why I waspraying.
(07:04):
So, or maybe I asked him, like,hey, is that why you were
praying?
And he was like, Yeah.
So I was like, Hey, do you mindif I share this of you praying?
And he was like, What yeah,whatever.
So I shared it on my TikTok andI noticed it was going pretty
viral pretty quickly.
Viral for me, I will say.
Like within I think like anhour, and I shared it on a
Friday night, which is nottypically a videos go viral kind
of night for me on in any on anynight, really.
(07:27):
But it had like 20,000 views inan hour or so.
And so over the next few days,the video just ballooned up to I
think like half a million viewsor so.
Like right now, it's at 1.2million, which is viral for me.
Again, I know that's not viralfor some people on TikTok, but
for me, the highest video that Ihad ever had at that point was
like 375,000 or something likethat, and it was already at half
(07:49):
a million.
It was like Monday by Monday.
Thousands of comments coming in.
The number of comments on thatpost right now is a thousand
eighty-eight, and I probablyhave blocked probably a good
500.
I mean, I'm serious, I've spenttime.
I have spent time blockingbecause they were so vile.
But I noticed right away withina couple hours of me posting
(08:10):
that that there were hundredsand hundreds and hundreds of
comments that were sayinghorrible things about my son and
about my son's teammate andabout me.
I was just like, what what'd Ido, boo?
Like, what did I do?
But I realized right away thatthere were a lot, and I mean a
lot of white women in my DM.
(08:31):
Or no, sorry, not in my DMs yet.
Not in my DMs yet, but on thecomment saying that kid should
go to jail, that kid is amonster, that kid is a beast,
that kid this, that kid that.
Not talking about my son,talking about my son's teammate.
The aggression with which thesewomen were speaking of my son's
teammate was insane.
(08:51):
It was really, really insane.
So the first thing I did was I Itook note, like this is very
subtle racism because here iswhat I know as a light-skinned
biracial woman who has a whiteparent, may she rest in peace.
My mom is no longer here, but mymom was Italian American, my
dad, may he rest in peace too.
He was black American.
Okay, so I had a white mom and ablack daddy.
(09:14):
I was raised around very covertand overt white racism growing
up with my mom.
My mama, may she rest in peace,but low-key, my mom was kind of
racist sometimes, y'all.
Like she was very, very covertlyracist, which, you know, if
you're from the north, I'm fromMichigan, okay?
I was born and raised inMichigan.
(09:34):
I still live here in Michigan.
Sometimes in the north,sometimes the racism can be a
little bit more, it's a littlebit more subtle.
It's the kind of like, oh,you're pretty for a black girl
kind of racism, where it's like,that's a very racist thing to
say, but you said it in a verycovert, dog whistly kind of way.
Let's say you're new to Earth,you might be like, wow, that hit
(09:55):
me some kind of way, but I don'treally know why it hit me like
that.
I just know it didn't feel good,you know, because you know if
somebody says you're pretty fora black girl, you know what that
means, right?
We all know what that means.
I don't have to explain that toanyone.
That's the kind of racism that Ifeel like I have grown up with.
Now it's interesting.
The reason I'm pointing that outis because I was just talking to
my man about this the other day.
(10:16):
My man is born and raised inTexas, been in Texas, lived in
Texas, he's still in Texas,okay?
I call my man Mr.
Texas because he's still inTexas.
But one day, one day we're gonnabe together.
But anyway, but we were talkingabout this the other day, and we
have realized like how much weboth hold really distinct
beliefs about what racism lookslike because he was born and
(10:39):
raised in Texas, and I was bornand raised in Michigan, and I'm
like, yeah, southern racism isjust different, like y'all
experiencing something reallydifferent down here.
And he was like, Yeah, up there,that's that's odd.
And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, butanyway, but my whole point in
saying that is that whereveryou're from, you might
experience American racismreally different.
But one thing I know from beingraised by a white woman with
(11:02):
white sisters, because my mom'sthree children from her first
marriage are all white, had awhite daddy.
I was her first and onlyminority child with my black ass
daddy, okay?
But my mom's mom, who I wasaround occasionally, and my
mom's siblings, um, she had fivesiblings, and then their my
aunties and uncles and theirkids, all of them had some sort
(11:24):
of subtle racism, and I got verygood at parsing out when it was
happening and when it wasn't.
It's almost a language in ofitself that I learned from a
very young age.
Also, also, my mama was sendingme to PWIs.
So, I mean, as young as four, Iwas in like a little Christian
private preschool down thestreet that was majority white,
(11:45):
and then she was sending me to aprivate Christian school that
was a Baptist denomination.
So we're talking about whitenorthern Baptist people, which
if you don't know, racist,through and motherfucking
through.
Okay, through and through, allthe way through.
I got a sense for the languageof how white people practiced
(12:06):
racism.
I was not down with it from areally young age, but anyway,
post start coming in.
I'm like, ain't this about abitch?
Because here's what I know fordamn sure, and you will never,
ever, ever, ever be able toconvince me otherwise.
The way that this story reallyblew up would have never
happened.
It would have never, ever, ever,ever happened if my son's
(12:28):
teammate had done that toanother black kid.
Nobody would have cared.
Nobody would have gave a damn.
One black kid hurt another blackkid.
They don't give a fuck.
They wouldn't have given a fuck.
They made it seem like all ofthese white people flooding in
my comments, flooding, floodingthese comments with hate.
Mostly women, by the way.
(12:50):
They made it seem like they werejust so concerned because my
son's teammate was so violent.
What a violent little boy.
This little boy needs to go toprison.
Throw the prison at him, throwthe prison at him, lose the key.
This and that and horriblethings that I'm not even
explicitly saying.
Also on my Facebook, too.
Some of these white folks foundmy Facebook and then proceeded
(13:11):
to harass me there as well.
But then they went further toattack me and my son as well,
which really my son didn't haveanything to do with it other
than he just stopped to pray forthe kid and and asked two other
teammates to pray with him.
That was the extent of hisinvolvement in this at all.
Literally was that he prayed andthen I posted him.
Somehow he was catching straystoo from white people who were
(13:33):
saying, like, oh, and your son,your son, he should have, and
then, you know, going on thiswhole violent what my son should
have done while he's justplaying football with his team.
What I realized is that theirfocus so much on the character
of my son's teammate.
If it had happened to a blackboy, I knew that this was a case
of like this is mirrorsliterally what happened to
(13:55):
Charlie Kirk.
A lot of white people wentreally, really, really crazy
because Charlie Kirk, a whiteman, someone who they think is
the epitome of the gospel ofJesus Christ, which is like I
said in my last episode.
If you missed it, gone and checkthat out because that was some
bullshit.
But anyway, those same people,those same white people, which
was a good fair amount of thisgodforsaken horrible country you
(14:19):
live in, a good amount of themhad nothing to say when the two
black boys within like I thinktwo days, three days, were
unalived by getting hung ontrees.
Which is, for those of you whodon't know or can't put this
together, extremely violent andtriggering, particularly for a
people group who sufferedthousands and thousands and
(14:41):
thousands of violent lynchings,who have grandparents that still
remember that time or livedduring that time or died like
that.
For example, my dad was born in1932.
Okay, lynchings were happeningin the 20s.
People think we're so far fromit.
White people always want topivot to that.
It's like this is this kind oftrauma is still very recent.
(15:02):
Like, I'm literally thegrandchild of the generation
that was living through that.
These white people have nothingto say about that.
Nothing, nothing to say, didn'teven make a blip in their radar.
But because Charlie's life as awhite man seems so much more
valuable, and I think in thisinstance, it was very clear to
me like, oh, okay, I get it.
This little boy's life, youthink his life is more valuable
(15:22):
because he's a little white boy.
And so your rage has beenignited.
So once those comments startedpouring in, I think once my
son's video got up to like 200,300, 300,000 views on TikTok, I
started getting pissed.
So I started making crash-outvideos on TikTok.
Now I have since made themprivate because I did realize
(15:43):
I'm saying the truth.
There's nothing I said on themcrash out videos.
I just re-watched them because Imade them private.
I didn't delete them.
I just re-watched them before Igot started.
I'm like, there's nothing I saidthat's not true.
But I recognized at the timethat tensions were running too
high.
I ended up privating thembecause I realized that nobody
could hear what I was sayingbecause I was crashing out and
all they could focus was on anangry black woman.
(16:03):
And then the comments came inlike, oh, did you see what she
said in her next video that shesaid this and she said this?
And I realized they're justtaking out of context.
They're not really listening towhat I'm saying.
Yes, my cat's face is in thecamera, but I'm gonna just keep
talking because Lord bless him.
Okay, he's leaving.
He's leaving, y'all.
So I decided to make themprivate because I was like, you
know what, this is not helpful.
(16:23):
I'm not, I'm not in any sort ofmood to be making a video about
this right now, about my anger,about how these white women are
responding.
But I was taking it to myInstagram stories and I asked
people on my Instagram stories,why do you think that so many of
these comments, not even somany, I would say 99%, y'all.
99% of all of the comments thatwere coming in that were either
(16:47):
racist in nature, veryaggressive, very dare I say
verbally abusive kind ofcomments, things that were are
cheap shots.
For example, there was a womanwho said, and I did not
screenshot this one because assoon as I read it, I was like,
oh my god, that's so violent.
And I just like blocked her anddeleted it.
And I really wish I hadscreenshot it so I had at least
(17:08):
her name, so I could at leastexpose her on this.
I wish I could.
But she basically said, There'sno way your new relationship is
going to last.
He's going to abuse you justlike everyone else did.
And I hope in six months I see apodcast episode of you talking
about how you were abused.
And I was just like, What in theactual fuck?
Bro, like what the hell?
(17:31):
What the hell?
Who who says stuff like that?
And why?
In this scenario, did I do todeserve you wishing abuse on me?
I just found it to be such aviolent thing to say.
Of all the things that weresaid, that was the one that like
kind of immediately jarred me,and my I could feel like my eyes
(17:52):
filling up with tears, and I'mlike, girl.
So I blocked her and I deletedit like instantly, but it it
shook me.
That was such a cheap shot.
Like, damn.
That was the day that the DailyMail, the UK Daily Mail, had
posted something about it.
I saw a comment from a whitedude on the Daily Mail that
said, it featured my son.
(18:14):
Oh, I skipped a step.
I'll go back, but I'll justfinish the story since I'm
listened.
But it featured my son'sfollow-up response video.
By that time, Reese had done afollow-up response video, and
that one was picking up tractionfast, actually faster than the
first one, than the prayingvideo.
And so the Daily Mail featuredit and it tagged my TikTok.
And then someone in the commentssaid, This white guy said, You
(18:35):
should go check out his mom,Grace Sandra.
Look at her TikTok.
She is divisive, she doesn'tsupport the Trump
administration.
She's crying and whining aboutracial issues and just random
stuff like that.
But like it had like thousandsof likes.
And I realized later a bunch ofpeople came to my Facebook and
started just saying horriblestuff on the reel that I also
(18:56):
posted on Facebook.
Because you know you can doublepost things here or there and
everywhere.
It was very jarring.
So after that, after I saw thatwoman who said that, and then
there was this other woman whowas just going nuts on me, like
literally just going crazy.
Um, I was just like, Well, Ineed to take a step back.
My son had posted a responsevideo, and in that response
(19:18):
video, he tried to address someof this.
Like, hey, as a result of thisincident blowing up, not just on
my social media, it was likeeveryone who talked about it, it
was blowing up.
But my son was like, as a resultof that, my school's getting
death threats.
People are calling the school,saying the n-word and hanging
up, saying we're gonna unaliveyou n-words and hanging up.
(19:39):
Social media harassment of themy son's teammate and my son and
me was increasing.
And so I got contacted by thelocal news about the death
threats because my number, Ididn't know, apparently is easy
to find.
Maybe I shouldn't have saidthat.
But anyway, people were findingit and sending me texts, and I
was starting to feel a littleunnerved, you know, because I've
(20:02):
never been in the middle of amedia circus.
It didn't make sense to me assomeone who only allowed my son
to post and didn't have reallyanything to do with the story.
I really still felt like y'allare so mad at me only because I
have a voice and a brain toaddress the racism that's
happening.
(20:22):
So I went on the local news andthey asked us, like, what is the
biggest issue?
And both my son and I focused onthe big issue is that these kids
are getting death threats, thatpeople are calling my phone and
hanging up, that I'm gettingweird texts.
I feel afraid for my life and myson's life.
And there's children who feelthis way, and there's a kid
who's only 14 years old who isseeing himself being called
(20:43):
horrible names on social media.
So we tried to focus on that,but they kept coming in.
And I asked my social media onInstagram, y'all, why do you
think it's white women?
Why are white women doing this?
And I want to read to y'all whatanother white woman who is an
ally that I know of said to me.
Let me get my reading glasses onbecause y'all know I'm going
blind.
Y'all know can't see nothing nomore.
(21:06):
Nothing up close, no more atall.
Hada hada hada hada hada hada hada hada ha da let me find it.
Okay, so I said several times,y'all, what is going on?
White women are going nuts,they're literally losing their
mind.
And I was pontificating aboutthis on my Instagram story, and
(21:27):
I'm like, why aren't the thewhite dads doing it?
Because it feels like if this isa white people thing, it would
be men and women equally, but itwas so much like literally 99%
white women going fucking nutsin these comments.
You can go to my TikTok rightnow at Owl Here Trying to
Survive and look at the twopinned videos.
Both of them have almost one hasa million and a half views and
(21:48):
one has 1.2 million views, andlook at these comments, and I
have deleted thousands ofcomments from both of these.
Some of them I just left up.
I'm like, you know what?
Just let people see.
They're 99% white women,middle-aged white women with
kids.
What's going on?
Somebody, white people help meunderstand.
Here's what one of my whitewomen friends said.
She said, it's the look of it.
If a white man says it aboutyoung black men, it's more
(22:10):
obvious.
It's more obviously racist.
But if it's a mother, a whitemother, you get to do all kinds
of racist stuff becausemotherhood is sacred in the
performance of whiteness.
Just white motherhood, ofcourse.
But the politics of it can becouched in a way that racism
can't if the men do it.
And I was like, girl, that is itright there.
And she was like, Yeah, the KKKhad a women's league and no one
(22:30):
likes to talk about that.
But letting white women cry andbe scared for safety and for
children while calling blackboys scary men does so much for
the cause of bigotry and racism.
And then she goes on tellinglike a personal story of like
what happened at her own kids'schools.
I realized that dynamic washappening.
And so I made another crash onvideo.
(22:51):
That one is also now privatebecause I just felt like I could
not contain the amount of angerthat I was feeling at the kind
of attacks we were getting.
And sometimes I would say, Thisis racist.
This is clearly racist, thestuff you're saying.
And it would be too much of abombardment of a bunch of more
now more racist white peoplepouring on.
(23:12):
She's just pulling the blackcard and she's just like, oh,
how convenient you're pullingthe black card.
And it just can get really superannoying.
It wasn't even like a, you knowhow sometimes like if you say
something and too many peoplepush back and you're like, oh,
maybe I was wrong, or let merethink that.
It's more of just like sometimesracist white people, there's so
many of y'all that it can getactually overwhelming to even
(23:33):
try to fight.
Y'all can say the silliest,stupidest shit, and then one
black person will say, That wassome silly, stupid shit.
And then you'll get like 50racist white people who will be
like, No, it wasn't.
You're just a black personplaying the the race card.
It's just exhausting.
This is gonna be a never-endingthing until this news story dies
down.
I should just kind of stoptrying to point out the very
(23:56):
obvious covert racism going onhere and how dangerous it is,
and just delete the commentsbecause I realized there were a
lot of students at my son'sschool reading these comments,
and some of them were trying todefend themselves.
And these white women beingviolent as hell, not knowing,
like these are kids that you'retalking to saying the most
(24:18):
horrible things.
I literally couldn't believe thetype of violence that these
people had to say about someonewho is 14 years old playing a
football game.
And I said something in one ofmy TikToks.
I said something like, Aren'ty'all tired?
Like, aren't y'all tired of thiswhole like angry mob to throw
black boys in prison?
(24:39):
Like, aren't y'all tired ofthat?
The number of white women whosaid to throw him in prison
without even thinking for onesecond, like really considering
what that means to request a14-year-old child go to prison
who did not commit a crime andwho was playing a football game,
doing something that footballplayers do in games.
(25:01):
Players are sustaining injurieslike football players sustain
injuries in games.
As my son so wisely pointed outin his viral video, anything off
the field in football is assaultoff the field.
Bottom line.
But when you play in the gameand the whistle hasn't blown and
the flag hasn't been called,from what I understand, it's a
(25:22):
violent sport, y'all.
People doing violent shit toeach other.
So I'm not saying this to excusethe egregious nature of what my
son's teammate did, but to pointout the hypocrisy of people
calling for the kind of violencethat going to prison does to
someone who did not commit awillful, violent crime.
(25:44):
That is crazy work to me andbroke my heart a little bit.
Broke my heart a little bit anewfor the kind of women that are
walking around every day who weare interacting with every day.
Because I blocked probably inthese last two, three weeks
since this happened.
I probably have blocked like 400or 500 white women.
(26:05):
My age, women between like 35and 50 who have kids in school,
school age kids, married,single, whatever.
Women who I might meet and befriends with and not even know
that they're the kind of whitewomen who would throw a nigga in
jail for no damn fucking reason.
It was kind of insane.
Now I will say this just as anaside, after my son's video went
viral, because my son went viralbecause he's so well spoken and
(26:30):
so articulate, and he wascalling for such a reasoned
response.
And the video of my son callingfor peace, essentially, between
people went more viral than thevideo of him praying.
And I thought to myself, firstof all, what an exceptional
young man, and I'm so proud ofhim.
So so proud of my baby.
And I think a lot of thepositive comments really
(26:50):
reflected that.
Like, hey, you should be soproud of your son, and I was
completely proud of him.
It was really beautiful to seethat.
But I think the reason why hisresponse video went more viral
is because there was a beautifulside to it.
My son's teammate, the one whoillegally pancaked, his stepmom
and his mom reached out to meafter his video went viral and
(27:10):
were like, hey, thanks for whatyour son said.
I'd love to talk, make peace,etc.
Um, we never really talked,texted a tiny bit, but that some
of that stuff was happeningbehind the scenes.
Um and then oh, about the insideedition thing, they did reach
out and was like, hey, we'd loveto do a video with you and Reese
and just talk about his prayerand his response video because
we think he's a really cool, areally cool kid.
And I was like, Yeah, that wouldbe dope.
(27:32):
Now my son didn't want the mediaattention and he was like, No, I
don't want to do it, so can youjust do it?
So I just did it, and then lateron he changed his mind.
He was like, No, actually, Ithink I would like to do it.
So they scrapped my video, butthen they never we never
refilmed it.
So that's what happened withthat, which is fine because I
actually after that whole DailyMail thing happened, I was like,
oh my god, I'm so glad that theinside edition never aired with
(27:52):
just the interview of me becausethey would have lit my ass up.
And so I'm actually kind of gladin hindsight that that did not
make it to air.
Whoo! So, child, yeah, that wasmy last three weeks.
I've been basically in some waysconsumed with all of this.
It has caused an enormous amountof stress.
And I I realized after a coupleweeks, like I just couldn't take
(28:13):
it anymore.
I was like, I just can't look atcomments anymore.
I feel really discombobulated.
My boyfriend has been so, sosupportive and so amazing um
throughout this whole thing.
I mean, one of the positives forme is that it helped me and my
man get so much closer becauseum he's a community activist
organizer, is actually anaward-winning community
(28:35):
organizer, and he just knows theins and outs of racial dynamics
and how to deal with this stuff.
And he was able to really guideme about how to even think about
this stuff, how to respond tothis stuff, what to listen to.
And he was really, really had avery hard line of don't look at
them comments, don't look atthem damn comments.
And I really, really, really,really appreciated his support.
(28:57):
I mean, his support during thiswas just unmatched.
I feel like the racist whitepeople would be mad that it
helped black love survive, butit did, it really helped us
survive and thrive for sure, forsure, for sure.
So that is one beautiful thingthat I can say came out of this
for us at least.
But also just such a assurancethat I'm in the right place
(29:20):
doing what I'm supposed to do,and my son is as well.
And it made me really feel goodabout all of the time I've spent
as a parent who is co-parentingwith a white man because my
son's dad is white, and we haveboth of us tried really hard to
teach both of our sons whatsocial and racial justice looks
(29:41):
like, what racism is and what itisn't, how to identify it, how
to respond to it, how not toignore it.
What I saw in Reese and how heresponded just warmed my heart
so much.
It made me feel like his dad andI did such a good job, both of
us, at educating him on the insand outs of.
What it looks like to be aperson of color in this country.
(30:03):
And I'm just so proud of him.
I'm so so proud of him.
As a final thought for all mysisters out there, I just want
to remind y'all, it's not ourjob, it's not ever our job to
educate white folks on theirracism, how they're being
racist, or how they can fix it.
If you feel called to do that, Ibless you to do that.
I spent many, many years tryingto educate white people on their
(30:24):
racism and how to get them tocome to some a different
conclusion.
Now I have firmly come tobelieve that it is not black
people's responsibility to dofree labor for white people.
And this is exactly why Imentioned in my last post, and
I'm getting lit up in thecomments on my last podcast
episode about Charlie Kirk aboutpeople saying that I didn't
provide proof and receipts ofthe things Charlie said because
(30:46):
I don't have it.
And he never said those things.
And it's like, no, no, I didn'tprovide it because I'm not doing
free labor for you, bitch.
I'm not your slave, and it's not1798.
In lieu of that, do your ownlabor.
You can find it.
It's enough footage of CharlieKirk out there if you want to
see the horrible, racist,hateful, bigoted, xenophobic,
homophobic, transphobic misogynythat he said there's plenty.
(31:11):
There's plenty out there.
I'm not gonna find it for you.
And I found myself in that samebattle yet again with racist
white folks on these postsdemanding free labor of me.
And I just want to remind you ifyou are a black woman, listen to
this, it's not your job to dofree labor for white people.
If they demand you prove to themthat racism exists, that is not
your job.
There is Google is free numberone, but there is more than
(31:32):
enough, more than enough outthere for white people to find
and understand what the hell isgoing on in America in 2025.
We are in the middle of afucking crisis, a crisis.
And I think that this story, I'mbecause I'm still trying to
figure out why did it blow upthe way it did.
I think that it's indicative ofthe state of our country right
(31:55):
now, which is to punish brownand black people at all costs
for harming white lives, foreven being a taint on a white
life.
And I think this little boy'slife represented something to a
lot of white women that they'reafraid could happen to their
son, which is that the rhetoricthat black and brown people are
just more violent somehow isthat they will, if they are not
(32:18):
imprisoned, harm a preciouswhite little son of theirs, and
they are able to use their whitewomanness and white motherhood
and the performative act ofwhiteness to like fear monger.
And it was really, really sad tosee.
I mean, damn, I've experienced alot over the years of racism.
For having a white mom, forgrowing up in a black
(32:40):
neighborhood, going to whiteschools and white churches,
being involved in a Christianministry for a while, marrying a
white man.
I mean, I was married to a whiteman for 15 years, y'all.
You would think that in someways, with all of that proximity
to whiteness, that I would besomehow exempt from experiencing
so much racism, but nope, noteven a little bit, not even a
little bit, not even a littlebit.
(33:02):
And this story was a greatexample of that.
Again, I just thank God becauseI am experiencing, well, you
know, I guess I can just say it.
Like, I'm in the middle offalling in love right now, and I
forgot.
This is such an abrupttransition, but like I forgot
how falling in love isessentially it's just dopamine
(33:22):
after dopamine after dopamine.
It's like a dopamine addiction.
Like you're just walking aroundlike what I imagine, because
I've never had crack before orany hard drug for that matter.
But like it feels like I'mwalking around like a
functioning crack addict.
It's what it feels like.
Like I'm on crack.
I forgot.
It's been so long, y'all, sinceI have genuinely fallen in love.
I forgot what it feels like.
(33:43):
And your girl is out heregenuinely in love, like coming
to America, like I'm in love.
I'm in love.
So that's a good feeling.
In the midst of all thiscraziness, that has been really
nice.
Shout out to Mr.
Texas.
Shout out to Mr.
Texas.
So, anyway, y'all, thank you somuch for being here.
Again, if you haven't, pleasesubscribe, please like, please
(34:05):
uh share this video.
And if you haven't yet, got myget my book, Grace actually
memoirs of love, faith, loss,and black womanhood.
I'm a storyteller and this is abook of stories.
It's it's memoir-ish of some ofmy best blog posts and things
I've written in the last likefive to seven-ish years on Love,
Faith, Loss, and BlackWomanhood.
And it's highly reviewed, andthe people who have read it have
(34:27):
really, really liked it.
So go ahead and get you onebefore I take it down because I
realize I think I'm gonna takeit down soon because I feel like
it doesn't completely accuratelyrepresent me in how I see myself
now.
So yeah.
And finally, I am gonna becreating a resource soon.
I'm a digital product creatorand I'm gonna be creating a
(34:47):
resource for how to get throughliving through this nightmare
that we are in with the orangedemon and his ilk and a fascist
takeover in the middle of ahostile government takeover.
So sign up for my newsletter,which is on Substack, and I have
not updated it in a long time.
So trust me, you are not gonnaget spammed because your girl
has ADHD.
And I don't I struggle to doanything consistently, okay?
(35:08):
Everything I do consistently isa struggle.
So um, you're not gonna getscammed, but when scammed, I
mean spammed, but when somethinggood comes out, I am gonna talk
about it on a newsletter.
So sign it up.
But anyway, thank you so muchfor joining me.
All of you wonderful, beautifulsouls.
Remember that you're strong,resilient, and very capable of
(35:29):
creating the life that youdeserve.
And that's what I'm trying todo.
So until then, stay safe outhere in E Street, y'all.
I love y'all.
Bye.
I don't know about y'all, but I'm so tired of the
subtle racism of white folks,and I got a story to tell y'all
today because I went throughsome crazy mess on the past
couple weeks with national news.
I was gonna be on InsideEdition.
I actually interviewed with theproducer, it never aired.
Me and my son's social mediablow up for something crazy.
(00:20):
So I want to tell y'all a littlebit about it.
But I really don't want to focuson the event as much as I want
to focus on what happened in theaftermath and the subtle and
ignorant racism of white folksand how much that can have an
impact on us as black women.
But before we get into that, letme introduce myself.
My name is Grace Sandra, andwelcome back to the Out Here
(00:41):
Trying to Survive podcast,episode 31.
If you are not, could you pleasego on ahead and subscribe, hit
the like button, and share thison your Facebook page.
Share it because that letsYouTube know that you care.
And if you're on Apple Podcasts,please leave me a review, boo.
Even if you're new, just belike, hey, I'm new.
But she got a good vibe, and Ican tell.
And as always, I thank y'all forbeing here because I know you
(01:01):
could be anywhere else on theseinternets.
And so if you're here with me,I'm grateful.
So, yeah, y'all, let me justtell y'all what happened in the
last couple weeks.
It's been so crazy.
So something happened at myson's school because this is
very well documented on myTikTok.
If you're very interested in theschool, what happened, why it
(01:23):
made national and eveninternational news, because yes,
me and my son were mentioned,tagged, and posted in the daily
mail, which is crazy to me.
Crazy to me.
It's all on my TikTok at OutHere Trying to Survive if you
really want to know the details.
So, yeah, y'all, I've just beenthinking a lot about what's
happening in our country and thekind of racism we're
(01:43):
experiencing is so it's so over.
It's so almost even over thetop.
Even with the laws being passednow, the ICE and other law
enforcement can arrest peoplejust based on the color of their
skin and how they per areperceived in the world, what
race and ethnicity they areperceived to be.
It's such a sad, sad, sad thingto have happen, right?
(02:04):
But there's still so much covertracism.
And I think what I wanted to getat and I wanted to show y'all
was how much some white womenhave still not evolved from the
kind of white women who would dowhat that white woman did to
Emmett Till.
And that is what I've beenexperiencing lately that has
really sobered me in a way aboutthe state of the country and the
(02:24):
racism still present in thecountry, which is not a surprise
to anyone.
But it is still good to talkabout it that we are
experiencing this enormousamount of cognitive dissonance
around how we're being treatedand people living in denial of
that.
But first, let me tell y'all astory.
So, y'all, it's been crazy.
About three weeks ago, somethinghappened at my son's school.
And again, I'm not gonna say thenames of the players or my son
(02:48):
or his school.
If you want to look that up, youcan go on my TikTok at Out Here
Trying to Survive.
I did pin the two very viralposts that I had as a result of
that and other media coverage.
It kicked off into this nationaland even international media
circus that had my son and I onthe Daily Mail online in the UK,
and I was getting hate from theUK.
(03:09):
I mean, I was catching straysfrom UK white people, y'all.
It was insane.
Anyway, let me tell y'all whathappened.
If you want more information,you can look it up there.
But I'm just gonna leave offnames and identifying details
from here because really that'snot the point of this story, but
I do want to tell y'all whathappened.
The gist is that my son'sschool, who is a predominantly
(03:29):
black school with predominantlyblack football players, entire
chiliing team is black, coachesis black, okay, played a
predominantly white school.
And during the game, one of theblack players pancaked one of
the white players.
He was down, and then while hewas down, he jumped up and
pancaked him again.
And as a result, the kid got twospinal fractures.
Now, at the time, we didn't knowthat.
(03:51):
I won't go into all of thedetails, but basically nobody
saw it because there was atwo-point conversion going on at
the other end.
It was kind of like just off tothe side.
Like I think if the two-pointconversion was happening maybe
like the 10-yard line, this washappening at like the 30 or the
40 or something like that.
And I don't even really know theyard lines that well, but I know
it's split up into 100, right?
So like it was some distance inbetween them.
So everybody was looking at thescoring, cheering for the
(04:12):
scoring.
The refs didn't see it becausethere was no flag calling.
It was clearly an egregious, uh,an egregious move that it was
flagrant.
It was unnecessary roughness,right?
Isn't that what they would callit nowadays?
I think that's what they wouldcall it.
Whatever the case may be, he gotreally injured.
But I was sitting there and Idid not notice.
I knew that everybody went downum and that what there was quite
a long time before he got up.
But he did get up and he, withhelp, he was he was assisted, he
(04:34):
got up and he walked off, andthen his parents took him to um
the hospital right away.
And then I learned the next daythat he had his back broken in
two places.
But when they left the game, myson told me, because the game
was kind of cut short.
You know, they usually pause theclock for timeouts and all these
kind of things.
They didn't.
My older son was like, Why didthe game end so quickly?
Like that game was over quick,and my son said, Oh, yeah, the
(04:56):
other team said they didn't feelsafe and they just wanted to get
it over with.
And so I was like, Not feelsafe?
Why?
And he was like, Oh, becausethis one kid, and he told me and
my older son who were sitting onthe sidelines watching, because
we didn't see it.
Anyway, I'm telling you thesedetails because this is really
important.
Some of these details is whatballooned into downright
unbelievable violence,unbelievable verbal violence
online.
I didn't know that.
(05:16):
I was like, Oh, that's terrible.
And he was like, Yeah, he left,you know, um, he did not leave
in an ambulance, his family tookhim, but none of us on my son's
side knew what was going on atall.
He said, Yeah, he might beparalyzed.
And I was like, Well, no, hecan't be paralyzed because I saw
him walk off the field.
So he's not paralyzed, like Isaw his legs moving, and he was
like, Oh, there some some peoplewere saying that.
Now, apparently, the kid on myson's team didn't get pulled off
(05:39):
the field because number one,the coaches and the refs and
nobody saw it.
But number two, the mom who sawit, who filmed it, uh showed the
refs, but the refs wouldn't letmy son's coaches see it.
So they still didn't have avisual of like what actually
happened at all, have any ideawhat happened.
The coaches were in the dark.
Everyone that I know of, I didnot poll everyone because it
(06:00):
seemed to be a big deal online.
But everyone who were in my DMs,like, why didn't you guys pull
your sons out of the game?
You know, once you knew thatthis kind of flagrant violence
happened, and I think it wouldbe good just to reiterate, I
didn't know that kind offlagrant violence happened
because I didn't see it andthere was no flag and there was
no whistle and there was nonothing.
Anyway, during the game, I sawmy son kneel down to pray.
(06:22):
And I said to my other son who Iwas sitting with, like, Oh, I
wonder what he's praying for.
And I just took a quick littlevideo in part because I do share
a little bit here and there onmy TikTok and on my Instagram
and my Facebook of my family.
I'm not like a family vlogger.
I don't typically routinelyshare my kids like in a vlog
style, but like if if they'redoing something cute, I'll get a
little video.
I'm like, oh, I want to eitherkeep that or share it.
(06:43):
And once I saw him praying, Iwas just like, oh, you know, let
me get a little video.
I didn't actually think I wasgoing to share it.
I was just thinking, oh, he'spraying.
And I saw that there's threeother players praying.
So I took the video the nextday.
That was on a Thursday.
The next day, when my son camehome from school, I found out
that the kid had his back brokenin two places, and then my son
was like, Yeah, that's why I waspraying.
(07:04):
So, or maybe I asked him, like,hey, is that why you were
praying?
And he was like, Yeah.
So I was like, Hey, do you mindif I share this of you praying?
And he was like, What yeah,whatever.
So I shared it on my TikTok andI noticed it was going pretty
viral pretty quickly.
Viral for me, I will say.
Like within I think like anhour, and I shared it on a
Friday night, which is nottypically a videos go viral kind
of night for me on in any on anynight, really.
(07:27):
But it had like 20,000 views inan hour or so.
And so over the next few days,the video just ballooned up to I
think like half a million viewsor so.
Like right now, it's at 1.2million, which is viral for me.
Again, I know that's not viralfor some people on TikTok, but
for me, the highest video that Ihad ever had at that point was
like 375,000 or something likethat, and it was already at half
(07:49):
a million.
It was like Monday by Monday.
Thousands of comments coming in.
The number of comments on thatpost right now is a thousand
eighty-eight, and I probablyhave blocked probably a good
500.
I mean, I'm serious, I've spenttime.
I have spent time blockingbecause they were so vile.
But I noticed right away withina couple hours of me posting
(08:10):
that that there were hundredsand hundreds and hundreds of
comments that were sayinghorrible things about my son and
about my son's teammate andabout me.
I was just like, what what'd Ido, boo?
Like, what did I do?
But I realized right away thatthere were a lot, and I mean a
lot of white women in my DM.
(08:31):
Or no, sorry, not in my DMs yet.
Not in my DMs yet, but on thecomment saying that kid should
go to jail, that kid is amonster, that kid is a beast,
that kid this, that kid that.
Not talking about my son,talking about my son's teammate.
The aggression with which thesewomen were speaking of my son's
teammate was insane.
(08:51):
It was really, really insane.
So the first thing I did was I Itook note, like this is very
subtle racism because here iswhat I know as a light-skinned
biracial woman who has a whiteparent, may she rest in peace.
My mom is no longer here, but mymom was Italian American, my
dad, may he rest in peace too.
He was black American.
Okay, so I had a white mom and ablack daddy.
(09:14):
I was raised around very covertand overt white racism growing
up with my mom.
My mama, may she rest in peace,but low-key, my mom was kind of
racist sometimes, y'all.
Like she was very, very covertlyracist, which, you know, if
you're from the north, I'm fromMichigan, okay?
I was born and raised inMichigan.
(09:34):
I still live here in Michigan.
Sometimes in the north,sometimes the racism can be a
little bit more, it's a littlebit more subtle.
It's the kind of like, oh,you're pretty for a black girl
kind of racism, where it's like,that's a very racist thing to
say, but you said it in a verycovert, dog whistly kind of way.
Let's say you're new to Earth,you might be like, wow, that hit
(09:55):
me some kind of way, but I don'treally know why it hit me like
that.
I just know it didn't feel good,you know, because you know if
somebody says you're pretty fora black girl, you know what that
means, right?
We all know what that means.
I don't have to explain that toanyone.
That's the kind of racism that Ifeel like I have grown up with.
Now it's interesting.
The reason I'm pointing that outis because I was just talking to
my man about this the other day.
(10:16):
My man is born and raised inTexas, been in Texas, lived in
Texas, he's still in Texas,okay?
I call my man Mr.
Texas because he's still inTexas.
But one day, one day we're gonnabe together.
But anyway, but we were talkingabout this the other day, and we
have realized like how much weboth hold really distinct
beliefs about what racism lookslike because he was born and
(10:39):
raised in Texas, and I was bornand raised in Michigan, and I'm
like, yeah, southern racism isjust different, like y'all
experiencing something reallydifferent down here.
And he was like, Yeah, up there,that's that's odd.
And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, butanyway, but my whole point in
saying that is that whereveryou're from, you might
experience American racismreally different.
But one thing I know from beingraised by a white woman with
(11:02):
white sisters, because my mom'sthree children from her first
marriage are all white, had awhite daddy.
I was her first and onlyminority child with my black ass
daddy, okay?
But my mom's mom, who I wasaround occasionally, and my
mom's siblings, um, she had fivesiblings, and then their my
aunties and uncles and theirkids, all of them had some sort
(11:24):
of subtle racism, and I got verygood at parsing out when it was
happening and when it wasn't.
It's almost a language in ofitself that I learned from a
very young age.
Also, also, my mama was sendingme to PWIs.
So, I mean, as young as four, Iwas in like a little Christian
private preschool down thestreet that was majority white,
(11:45):
and then she was sending me to aprivate Christian school that
was a Baptist denomination.
So we're talking about whitenorthern Baptist people, which
if you don't know, racist,through and motherfucking
through.
Okay, through and through, allthe way through.
I got a sense for the languageof how white people practiced
(12:06):
racism.
I was not down with it from areally young age, but anyway,
post start coming in.
I'm like, ain't this about abitch?
Because here's what I know fordamn sure, and you will never,
ever, ever, ever be able toconvince me otherwise.
The way that this story reallyblew up would have never
happened.
It would have never, ever, ever,ever happened if my son's
(12:28):
teammate had done that toanother black kid.
Nobody would have cared.
Nobody would have gave a damn.
One black kid hurt another blackkid.
They don't give a fuck.
They wouldn't have given a fuck.
They made it seem like all ofthese white people flooding in
my comments, flooding, floodingthese comments with hate.
Mostly women, by the way.
(12:50):
They made it seem like they werejust so concerned because my
son's teammate was so violent.
What a violent little boy.
This little boy needs to go toprison.
Throw the prison at him, throwthe prison at him, lose the key.
This and that and horriblethings that I'm not even
explicitly saying.
Also on my Facebook, too.
Some of these white folks foundmy Facebook and then proceeded
(13:11):
to harass me there as well.
But then they went further toattack me and my son as well,
which really my son didn't haveanything to do with it other
than he just stopped to pray forthe kid and and asked two other
teammates to pray with him.
That was the extent of hisinvolvement in this at all.
Literally was that he prayed andthen I posted him.
Somehow he was catching straystoo from white people who were
(13:33):
saying, like, oh, and your son,your son, he should have, and
then, you know, going on thiswhole violent what my son should
have done while he's justplaying football with his team.
What I realized is that theirfocus so much on the character
of my son's teammate.
If it had happened to a blackboy, I knew that this was a case
of like this is mirrorsliterally what happened to
(13:55):
Charlie Kirk.
A lot of white people wentreally, really, really crazy
because Charlie Kirk, a whiteman, someone who they think is
the epitome of the gospel ofJesus Christ, which is like I
said in my last episode.
If you missed it, gone and checkthat out because that was some
bullshit.
But anyway, those same people,those same white people, which
was a good fair amount of thisgodforsaken horrible country you
(14:19):
live in, a good amount of themhad nothing to say when the two
black boys within like I thinktwo days, three days, were
unalived by getting hung ontrees.
Which is, for those of you whodon't know or can't put this
together, extremely violent andtriggering, particularly for a
people group who sufferedthousands and thousands and
(14:41):
thousands of violent lynchings,who have grandparents that still
remember that time or livedduring that time or died like
that.
For example, my dad was born in1932.
Okay, lynchings were happeningin the 20s.
People think we're so far fromit.
White people always want topivot to that.
It's like this is this kind oftrauma is still very recent.
(15:02):
Like, I'm literally thegrandchild of the generation
that was living through that.
These white people have nothingto say about that.
Nothing, nothing to say, didn'teven make a blip in their radar.
But because Charlie's life as awhite man seems so much more
valuable, and I think in thisinstance, it was very clear to
me like, oh, okay, I get it.
This little boy's life, youthink his life is more valuable
(15:22):
because he's a little white boy.
And so your rage has beenignited.
So once those comments startedpouring in, I think once my
son's video got up to like 200,300, 300,000 views on TikTok, I
started getting pissed.
So I started making crash-outvideos on TikTok.
Now I have since made themprivate because I did realize
(15:43):
I'm saying the truth.
There's nothing I said on themcrash out videos.
I just re-watched them because Imade them private.
I didn't delete them.
I just re-watched them before Igot started.
I'm like, there's nothing I saidthat's not true.
But I recognized at the timethat tensions were running too
high.
I ended up privating thembecause I realized that nobody
could hear what I was sayingbecause I was crashing out and
all they could focus was on anangry black woman.
(16:03):
And then the comments came inlike, oh, did you see what she
said in her next video that shesaid this and she said this?
And I realized they're justtaking out of context.
They're not really listening towhat I'm saying.
Yes, my cat's face is in thecamera, but I'm gonna just keep
talking because Lord bless him.
Okay, he's leaving.
He's leaving, y'all.
So I decided to make themprivate because I was like, you
know what, this is not helpful.
(16:23):
I'm not, I'm not in any sort ofmood to be making a video about
this right now, about my anger,about how these white women are
responding.
But I was taking it to myInstagram stories and I asked
people on my Instagram stories,why do you think that so many of
these comments, not even somany, I would say 99%, y'all.
99% of all of the comments thatwere coming in that were either
(16:47):
racist in nature, veryaggressive, very dare I say
verbally abusive kind ofcomments, things that were are
cheap shots.
For example, there was a womanwho said, and I did not
screenshot this one because assoon as I read it, I was like,
oh my god, that's so violent.
And I just like blocked her anddeleted it.
And I really wish I hadscreenshot it so I had at least
(17:08):
her name, so I could at leastexpose her on this.
I wish I could.
But she basically said, There'sno way your new relationship is
going to last.
He's going to abuse you justlike everyone else did.
And I hope in six months I see apodcast episode of you talking
about how you were abused.
And I was just like, What in theactual fuck?
Bro, like what the hell?
(17:31):
What the hell?
Who who says stuff like that?
And why?
In this scenario, did I do todeserve you wishing abuse on me?
I just found it to be such aviolent thing to say.
Of all the things that weresaid, that was the one that like
kind of immediately jarred me,and my I could feel like my eyes
(17:52):
filling up with tears, and I'mlike, girl.
So I blocked her and I deletedit like instantly, but it it
shook me.
That was such a cheap shot.
Like, damn.
That was the day that the DailyMail, the UK Daily Mail, had
posted something about it.
I saw a comment from a whitedude on the Daily Mail that
said, it featured my son.
(18:14):
Oh, I skipped a step.
I'll go back, but I'll justfinish the story since I'm
listened.
But it featured my son'sfollow-up response video.
By that time, Reese had done afollow-up response video, and
that one was picking up tractionfast, actually faster than the
first one, than the prayingvideo.
And so the Daily Mail featuredit and it tagged my TikTok.
And then someone in the commentssaid, This white guy said, You
(18:35):
should go check out his mom,Grace Sandra.
Look at her TikTok.
She is divisive, she doesn'tsupport the Trump
administration.
She's crying and whining aboutracial issues and just random
stuff like that.
But like it had like thousandsof likes.
And I realized later a bunch ofpeople came to my Facebook and
started just saying horriblestuff on the reel that I also
(18:56):
posted on Facebook.
Because you know you can doublepost things here or there and
everywhere.
It was very jarring.
So after that, after I saw thatwoman who said that, and then
there was this other woman whowas just going nuts on me, like
literally just going crazy.
Um, I was just like, Well, Ineed to take a step back.
My son had posted a responsevideo, and in that response
(19:18):
video, he tried to address someof this.
Like, hey, as a result of thisincident blowing up, not just on
my social media, it was likeeveryone who talked about it, it
was blowing up.
But my son was like, as a resultof that, my school's getting
death threats.
People are calling the school,saying the n-word and hanging
up, saying we're gonna unaliveyou n-words and hanging up.
(19:39):
Social media harassment of themy son's teammate and my son and
me was increasing.
And so I got contacted by thelocal news about the death
threats because my number, Ididn't know, apparently is easy
to find.
Maybe I shouldn't have saidthat.
But anyway, people were findingit and sending me texts, and I
was starting to feel a littleunnerved, you know, because I've
(20:02):
never been in the middle of amedia circus.
It didn't make sense to me assomeone who only allowed my son
to post and didn't have reallyanything to do with the story.
I really still felt like y'allare so mad at me only because I
have a voice and a brain toaddress the racism that's
happening.
(20:22):
So I went on the local news andthey asked us, like, what is the
biggest issue?
And both my son and I focused onthe big issue is that these kids
are getting death threats, thatpeople are calling my phone and
hanging up, that I'm gettingweird texts.
I feel afraid for my life and myson's life.
And there's children who feelthis way, and there's a kid
who's only 14 years old who isseeing himself being called
(20:43):
horrible names on social media.
So we tried to focus on that,but they kept coming in.
And I asked my social media onInstagram, y'all, why do you
think it's white women?
Why are white women doing this?
And I want to read to y'all whatanother white woman who is an
ally that I know of said to me.
Let me get my reading glasses onbecause y'all know I'm going
blind.
Y'all know can't see nothing nomore.
(21:06):
Nothing up close, no more atall.
Hada hada hada hada hada hada hada hada ha da let me find it.
Okay, so I said several times,y'all, what is going on?
White women are going nuts,they're literally losing their
mind.
And I was pontificating aboutthis on my Instagram story, and
(21:27):
I'm like, why aren't the thewhite dads doing it?
Because it feels like if this isa white people thing, it would
be men and women equally, but itwas so much like literally 99%
white women going fucking nutsin these comments.
You can go to my TikTok rightnow at Owl Here Trying to
Survive and look at the twopinned videos.
Both of them have almost one hasa million and a half views and
(21:48):
one has 1.2 million views, andlook at these comments, and I
have deleted thousands ofcomments from both of these.
Some of them I just left up.
I'm like, you know what?
Just let people see.
They're 99% white women,middle-aged white women with
kids.
What's going on?
Somebody, white people help meunderstand.
Here's what one of my whitewomen friends said.
She said, it's the look of it.
If a white man says it aboutyoung black men, it's more
(22:10):
obvious.
It's more obviously racist.
But if it's a mother, a whitemother, you get to do all kinds
of racist stuff becausemotherhood is sacred in the
performance of whiteness.
Just white motherhood, ofcourse.
But the politics of it can becouched in a way that racism
can't if the men do it.
And I was like, girl, that is itright there.
And she was like, Yeah, the KKKhad a women's league and no one
(22:30):
likes to talk about that.
But letting white women cry andbe scared for safety and for
children while calling blackboys scary men does so much for
the cause of bigotry and racism.
And then she goes on tellinglike a personal story of like
what happened at her own kids'schools.
I realized that dynamic washappening.
And so I made another crash onvideo.
(22:51):
That one is also now privatebecause I just felt like I could
not contain the amount of angerthat I was feeling at the kind
of attacks we were getting.
And sometimes I would say, Thisis racist.
This is clearly racist, thestuff you're saying.
And it would be too much of abombardment of a bunch of more
now more racist white peoplepouring on.
(23:12):
She's just pulling the blackcard and she's just like, oh,
how convenient you're pullingthe black card.
And it just can get really superannoying.
It wasn't even like a, you knowhow sometimes like if you say
something and too many peoplepush back and you're like, oh,
maybe I was wrong, or let merethink that.
It's more of just like sometimesracist white people, there's so
many of y'all that it can getactually overwhelming to even
(23:33):
try to fight.
Y'all can say the silliest,stupidest shit, and then one
black person will say, That wassome silly, stupid shit.
And then you'll get like 50racist white people who will be
like, No, it wasn't.
You're just a black personplaying the the race card.
It's just exhausting.
This is gonna be a never-endingthing until this news story dies
down.
I should just kind of stoptrying to point out the very
(23:56):
obvious covert racism going onhere and how dangerous it is,
and just delete the commentsbecause I realized there were a
lot of students at my son'sschool reading these comments,
and some of them were trying todefend themselves.
And these white women beingviolent as hell, not knowing,
like these are kids that you'retalking to saying the most
(24:18):
horrible things.
I literally couldn't believe thetype of violence that these
people had to say about someonewho is 14 years old playing a
football game.
And I said something in one ofmy TikToks.
I said something like, Aren'ty'all tired?
Like, aren't y'all tired of thiswhole like angry mob to throw
black boys in prison?
(24:39):
Like, aren't y'all tired ofthat?
The number of white women whosaid to throw him in prison
without even thinking for onesecond, like really considering
what that means to request a14-year-old child go to prison
who did not commit a crime andwho was playing a football game,
doing something that footballplayers do in games.
(25:01):
Players are sustaining injurieslike football players sustain
injuries in games.
As my son so wisely pointed outin his viral video, anything off
the field in football is assaultoff the field.
Bottom line.
But when you play in the gameand the whistle hasn't blown and
the flag hasn't been called,from what I understand, it's a
(25:22):
violent sport, y'all.
People doing violent shit toeach other.
So I'm not saying this to excusethe egregious nature of what my
son's teammate did, but to pointout the hypocrisy of people
calling for the kind of violencethat going to prison does to
someone who did not commit awillful, violent crime.
(25:44):
That is crazy work to me andbroke my heart a little bit.
Broke my heart a little bit anewfor the kind of women that are
walking around every day who weare interacting with every day.
Because I blocked probably inthese last two, three weeks
since this happened.
I probably have blocked like 400or 500 white women.
(26:05):
My age, women between like 35and 50 who have kids in school,
school age kids, married,single, whatever.
Women who I might meet and befriends with and not even know
that they're the kind of whitewomen who would throw a nigga in
jail for no damn fucking reason.
It was kind of insane.
Now I will say this just as anaside, after my son's video went
viral, because my son went viralbecause he's so well spoken and
(26:30):
so articulate, and he wascalling for such a reasoned
response.
And the video of my son callingfor peace, essentially, between
people went more viral than thevideo of him praying.
And I thought to myself, firstof all, what an exceptional
young man, and I'm so proud ofhim.
So so proud of my baby.
And I think a lot of thepositive comments really
(26:50):
reflected that.
Like, hey, you should be soproud of your son, and I was
completely proud of him.
It was really beautiful to seethat.
But I think the reason why hisresponse video went more viral
is because there was a beautifulside to it.
My son's teammate, the one whoillegally pancaked, his stepmom
and his mom reached out to meafter his video went viral and
(27:10):
were like, hey, thanks for whatyour son said.
I'd love to talk, make peace,etc.
Um, we never really talked,texted a tiny bit, but that some
of that stuff was happeningbehind the scenes.
Um and then oh, about the insideedition thing, they did reach
out and was like, hey, we'd loveto do a video with you and Reese
and just talk about his prayerand his response video because
we think he's a really cool, areally cool kid.
And I was like, Yeah, that wouldbe dope.
(27:32):
Now my son didn't want the mediaattention and he was like, No, I
don't want to do it, so can youjust do it?
So I just did it, and then lateron he changed his mind.
He was like, No, actually, Ithink I would like to do it.
So they scrapped my video, butthen they never we never
refilmed it.
So that's what happened withthat, which is fine because I
actually after that whole DailyMail thing happened, I was like,
oh my god, I'm so glad that theinside edition never aired with
(27:52):
just the interview of me becausethey would have lit my ass up.
And so I'm actually kind of gladin hindsight that that did not
make it to air.
Whoo! So, child, yeah, that wasmy last three weeks.
I've been basically in some waysconsumed with all of this.
It has caused an enormous amountof stress.
And I I realized after a coupleweeks, like I just couldn't take
(28:13):
it anymore.
I was like, I just can't look atcomments anymore.
I feel really discombobulated.
My boyfriend has been so, sosupportive and so amazing um
throughout this whole thing.
I mean, one of the positives forme is that it helped me and my
man get so much closer becauseum he's a community activist
organizer, is actually anaward-winning community
(28:35):
organizer, and he just knows theins and outs of racial dynamics
and how to deal with this stuff.
And he was able to really guideme about how to even think about
this stuff, how to respond tothis stuff, what to listen to.
And he was really, really had avery hard line of don't look at
them comments, don't look atthem damn comments.
And I really, really, really,really appreciated his support.
(28:57):
I mean, his support during thiswas just unmatched.
I feel like the racist whitepeople would be mad that it
helped black love survive, butit did, it really helped us
survive and thrive for sure, forsure, for sure.
So that is one beautiful thingthat I can say came out of this
for us at least.
But also just such a assurancethat I'm in the right place
(29:20):
doing what I'm supposed to do,and my son is as well.
And it made me really feel goodabout all of the time I've spent
as a parent who is co-parentingwith a white man because my
son's dad is white, and we haveboth of us tried really hard to
teach both of our sons whatsocial and racial justice looks
(29:41):
like, what racism is and what itisn't, how to identify it, how
to respond to it, how not toignore it.
What I saw in Reese and how heresponded just warmed my heart
so much.
It made me feel like his dad andI did such a good job, both of
us, at educating him on the insand outs of.
What it looks like to be aperson of color in this country.
(30:03):
And I'm just so proud of him.
I'm so so proud of him.
As a final thought for all mysisters out there, I just want
to remind y'all, it's not ourjob, it's not ever our job to
educate white folks on theirracism, how they're being
racist, or how they can fix it.
If you feel called to do that, Ibless you to do that.
I spent many, many years tryingto educate white people on their
(30:24):
racism and how to get them tocome to some a different
conclusion.
Now I have firmly come tobelieve that it is not black
people's responsibility to dofree labor for white people.
And this is exactly why Imentioned in my last post, and
I'm getting lit up in thecomments on my last podcast
episode about Charlie Kirk aboutpeople saying that I didn't
provide proof and receipts ofthe things Charlie said because
(30:46):
I don't have it.
And he never said those things.
And it's like, no, no, I didn'tprovide it because I'm not doing
free labor for you, bitch.
I'm not your slave, and it's not1798.
In lieu of that, do your ownlabor.
You can find it.
It's enough footage of CharlieKirk out there if you want to
see the horrible, racist,hateful, bigoted, xenophobic,
homophobic, transphobic misogynythat he said there's plenty.
(31:11):
There's plenty out there.
I'm not gonna find it for you.
And I found myself in that samebattle yet again with racist
white folks on these postsdemanding free labor of me.
And I just want to remind you ifyou are a black woman, listen to
this, it's not your job to dofree labor for white people.
If they demand you prove to themthat racism exists, that is not
your job.
There is Google is free numberone, but there is more than
(31:32):
enough, more than enough outthere for white people to find
and understand what the hell isgoing on in America in 2025.
We are in the middle of afucking crisis, a crisis.
And I think that this story, I'mbecause I'm still trying to
figure out why did it blow upthe way it did.
I think that it's indicative ofthe state of our country right
(31:55):
now, which is to punish brownand black people at all costs
for harming white lives, foreven being a taint on a white
life.
And I think this little boy'slife represented something to a
lot of white women that they'reafraid could happen to their
son, which is that the rhetoricthat black and brown people are
just more violent somehow isthat they will, if they are not
(32:18):
imprisoned, harm a preciouswhite little son of theirs, and
they are able to use their whitewomanness and white motherhood
and the performative act ofwhiteness to like fear monger.
And it was really, really sad tosee.
I mean, damn, I've experienced alot over the years of racism.
For having a white mom, forgrowing up in a black
(32:40):
neighborhood, going to whiteschools and white churches,
being involved in a Christianministry for a while, marrying a
white man.
I mean, I was married to a whiteman for 15 years, y'all.
You would think that in someways, with all of that proximity
to whiteness, that I would besomehow exempt from experiencing
so much racism, but nope, noteven a little bit, not even a
little bit, not even a littlebit.
(33:02):
And this story was a greatexample of that.
Again, I just thank God becauseI am experiencing, well, you
know, I guess I can just say it.
Like, I'm in the middle offalling in love right now, and I
forgot.
This is such an abrupttransition, but like I forgot
how falling in love isessentially it's just dopamine
(33:22):
after dopamine after dopamine.
It's like a dopamine addiction.
Like you're just walking aroundlike what I imagine, because
I've never had crack before orany hard drug for that matter.
But like it feels like I'mwalking around like a
functioning crack addict.
It's what it feels like.
Like I'm on crack.
I forgot.
It's been so long, y'all, sinceI have genuinely fallen in love.
I forgot what it feels like.
(33:43):
And your girl is out heregenuinely in love, like coming
to America, like I'm in love.
I'm in love.
So that's a good feeling.
In the midst of all thiscraziness, that has been really
nice.
Shout out to Mr.
Texas.
Shout out to Mr.
Texas.
So, anyway, y'all, thank you somuch for being here.
Again, if you haven't, pleasesubscribe, please like, please
(34:05):
uh share this video.
And if you haven't yet, got myget my book, Grace actually
memoirs of love, faith, loss,and black womanhood.
I'm a storyteller and this is abook of stories.
It's it's memoir-ish of some ofmy best blog posts and things
I've written in the last likefive to seven-ish years on Love,
Faith, Loss, and BlackWomanhood.
And it's highly reviewed, andthe people who have read it have
(34:27):
really, really liked it.
So go ahead and get you onebefore I take it down because I
realize I think I'm gonna takeit down soon because I feel like
it doesn't completely accuratelyrepresent me in how I see myself
now.
So yeah.
And finally, I am gonna becreating a resource soon.
I'm a digital product creatorand I'm gonna be creating a
(34:47):
resource for how to get throughliving through this nightmare
that we are in with the orangedemon and his ilk and a fascist
takeover in the middle of ahostile government takeover.
So sign up for my newsletter,which is on Substack, and I have
not updated it in a long time.
So trust me, you are not gonnaget spammed because your girl
has ADHD.
And I don't I struggle to doanything consistently, okay?
(35:08):
Everything I do consistently isa struggle.
So um, you're not gonna getscammed, but when scammed, I
mean spammed, but when somethinggood comes out, I am gonna talk
about it on a newsletter.
So sign it up.
But anyway, thank you so muchfor joining me.
All of you wonderful, beautifulsouls.
Remember that you're strong,resilient, and very capable of
(35:29):
creating the life that youdeserve.
And that's what I'm trying todo.
So until then, stay safe outhere in E Street, y'all.
I love y'all.
Bye.
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