Black Stories Matter: Young Mother Gets Real About Raising a Black Son in a Racist Country

Tanysha Washington was nine years old the first time someone called her the “n-word.”

Tanysha as a child.

She was at a sleepover. Her friend’s teenage sister made a comment.

“She asked me to take a picture with her so I took a picture with her and she goes ‘Oh you’re my niggah,’” Tanysha says.

More than a decade later — she still remembers how that word made her feel.

“When she said that word it made me feel low. It made me feel different,” Tanysha says.

Tanysha says, being only a child at the time, she didn’t know how she was supposed to perceive the situation.

Looking back, Tanysha says, “For one, why are you talking to a nine-year-old like that? And two, why are you talking to a Black nine-year-old like that? You don’t say that. So I took it as, okay she doesn’t like me because I’m Black.”

Tanysha (left) with her grandmother, Gladyce, and her mother, Phyllis.

Now, as a young adult, Tanysha says she can feel when someone stereotypes her because of her skin color.

Tanysha says,

“I’ll go into a store and I feel like I have to buy something because they’re staring at me like ‘If she walks out with nothing she took something.’”

Tanysha says she gets nervous when she sees the police, even when she’s done nothing wrong.

“Every time I see a cop I clench up. It just happens. I get this pit in my stomach and I get scared,” Tanysha says.

Although cops make her nervous — she says she doesn’t agree with people generalizing them.

“I hate when people say it’s all cops. It’s not. It’s really not because not all cops witness this. Not all cops know. Not all cops see,” Tanysha says.

Tanysha, a resident of Bristol, Conn., praises the city’s police force, saying Bristol Police Officer Peter Sassu has actually had a positive influence on her life.

“He’s had to arrest me. He’s had to arrest me but he’s always told me ‘I’m doing this because it’s my job.’ He said, ‘I love you. I’m not doing this because I don’t love you. I’m doing this because it’s my job and you need to get your act together.’ And that helped me get to where I am today,” Tanysha says.

Without her son and those experiences, Tanysha says, “I don’t know where I would be right now.”

Speaking of her son, Naisaiah, Tanysha already feels the pressure of needing to protect him from racial injustice and prejudice.

Tanysha with her son, Naisaiah.

“It scares me for when he gets older because he’s going to be a big dude. His dad’s 6’3. I’m 5’7. He’s already up to my hip. He’s going to be a big dark dude. And that scares me for him because they take that as a threat.”

She’s worried about his future and the things out of her control.

“I can teach him how to be a gentleman. I can teach him how to treat a lady. I can teach him how to be nice to people but I physically cannot teach him how to be a man because I am not a man,” Tanysha says.

At three years old, she says he’s too young to understand racial prejudice, adding that he has a love for everybody — even strangers he meets at the store.

“Our neighbor downstairs has a four-year-old son and they’re white. They’re a white family. Her four-year-old son goes and tells people that Naisaiah’s his twin brother,” Tanysha says.

Naisaiah with his neighbor (consent to share photo granted by both mothers).

This friendship has proved to Tanysha that racism and prejudice aren’t something people are born with — it’s learned.

Someday, though, when Naisaiah is old enough to comprehend, Tanysha will have to give him the unfortunate conversation many Black parents have with their children.

“I’m definitely going to have to give him that talk of ‘When you’re outside you need to make sure that your hood is off. You need to make sure if you have headphones in you have one in, one out. You need to make sure you’re always watching your surroundings,’” Tanysha says.

Tanysha holding a sign at a local protest.

Tanysha has been active at local protests. She’s fighting not only for herself — but for her son, her friends, and her family.

When I asked Tanysha what she hoped for — it all boiled down to one thing: communication.

She hopes people will communicate better and understand the importance of getting involved. She hopes to see more people at town hall meetings to address what’s improving and what still needs work. She hopes police communicate better with people they are arresting, so as to prevent unnecessary deaths or injuries.

She hopes for a better world for her son.