Some Things are Just Too Horrible to Fathom.
When the Bough Breaks: A Mother Killing
by Stephane Dunn
Some things are just too horrific to think about or hold to a discussion over the daily take of national news. Such is the case of the second South Carolina woman to kill her small children and try to cover it up with a clumsy lie.
In 1994, Susan Smith, a poor white woman, wasn't so clumsy; she was astute enough to blame it on a black man and have the police trolling for some fictional black guy. It worked for a minute because the racial mythologies about black male criminality and white female victimization at the hands of the imagined black brute are so deeply rooted in the nation's consciousness.
This time the mother is black.
According to breaking news reports, Shaquan Duley admitted to suffocating her two young boys by covering their mouths with her hands. She reportedly put the bodies in her car and rolled it into the Edisto River to make it look like a terrible accident. Even writing the bare details makes my hands shake.
I think about the innocent children and their terror and pain and don't want to imagine the last seconds of their lives. I think about their little boy laughs and those grins they all seem to come equipped with and I mourn their present and their future.
But I think about Shaquan too. Disgust, anger, rage - they're the easiest emotions to reach for when we think of what is probably considered to be the most terrible crime against nature or act of violence anyone can commit. Some laws appear irrevocable; mothers love their children above else and sacrifice their own lives to protect them. Real mothers, our laws of nature say, do not hurt or kill their children. Period.
When the Bough Breaks: A Mother Killing
by Stephane Dunn
Some things are just too horrific to think about or hold to a discussion over the daily take of national news. Such is the case of the second South Carolina woman to kill her small children and try to cover it up with a clumsy lie.
In 1994, Susan Smith, a poor white woman, wasn't so clumsy; she was astute enough to blame it on a black man and have the police trolling for some fictional black guy. It worked for a minute because the racial mythologies about black male criminality and white female victimization at the hands of the imagined black brute are so deeply rooted in the nation's consciousness.
This time the mother is black.
According to breaking news reports, Shaquan Duley admitted to suffocating her two young boys by covering their mouths with her hands. She reportedly put the bodies in her car and rolled it into the Edisto River to make it look like a terrible accident. Even writing the bare details makes my hands shake.
I think about the innocent children and their terror and pain and don't want to imagine the last seconds of their lives. I think about their little boy laughs and those grins they all seem to come equipped with and I mourn their present and their future.
But I think about Shaquan too. Disgust, anger, rage - they're the easiest emotions to reach for when we think of what is probably considered to be the most terrible crime against nature or act of violence anyone can commit. Some laws appear irrevocable; mothers love their children above else and sacrifice their own lives to protect them. Real mothers, our laws of nature say, do not hurt or kill their children. Period.
Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21.com
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Stephane Dunn, Ph.D., a writer and assistant professor at Morehouse College, specializes in film, popular culture, and African American Studies, and creative writing. She is the author of Baad Bitches and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films (University of Illinois Press 2008) and her work has appeared in such publications as Ms., TheRoot, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Best African American Essays. She can be reached at stephane@theloop21.com
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