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172 The Million Mom March The Perils of Color-Blind Maternalism —deborah gray white On the first Mother’s Day of the new millennium, a Connecticut mother told hundreds of thousands gathered for the Million Mom March the story of her son. He had survived a head shot by a gunman who took a .380 semiautomatic Beretta handgun to the top of the Empire State Building and opened fire. “I received a phone call that changed my life forever,” she recalled. Another mother, a Californian, told a similar story with a familiar refrain: “I received the phone call that every parent dreads,” she began. Her daughter, a camp counselor at a California community center, had survived a shooting that sent five-year-olds running for their lives. Other women spoke of loss, not survivors. A mother from Washington, D.C., described her son and daughter, who had been murdered as children, before they could go to their proms or high school graduations. “I will live with a broken heart for the rest of my life,” pined a New Orleans woman whose child also fell victim to gun violence. A mother from Michigan said that she daily mourned her six-year-old: “There is not a day that goes by that I do not cry as I go on with my life without my daughter. A part of my heart went with her. It is so hard for me to think that I will never see her smile, laugh or play again. I can never hold her and kiss her again. Or see her grow up, get married, and have a happy life.”1 The mass of mothers gathered on the National Mall in Washington that May 14 looked for peace and healing, but also for action. Those who knew the gut-wrenching pain of losing a child to gun violence came to share their pain with strangers. “There’s strength . . . when you realize that there are lots of other people suffering,” said a California grandmother who attended a similar gathering to commemorate the murder of her twenty-one-year-old granddaughter. At the Washington march, some, like a Brooklyn shooting victim’s mother, found strength through song and prayer: “Father God, we’re asking for joy where there is sadness. . . . We are The Perils of Color-Blind Maternalism 173 asking for your healing power for those who have lost loved ones to this disease, gun violence. . . . We are also asking for your protection over those who have not lost a loved one to this disease . . . that you cover them and their loved ones from the heartache and pain.” Others came to give support and to make a stand against senseless loss. A teacher at Columbine (Colorado) High School came with her husband, son, and two daughters. “Enough is enough!” she cried. “The safety of our students, our children must come first.” In addition to hearing and participating in prayer, witness , testimony, song, and poetry, everyone who attended expressed a desire for action. “The mothers of the world are angry,” said the mother of a Columbine victim, “and you never never tick off a Mother! Politicians take heed, we are watching you. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. We are united and we are here to protect our children.”2 Motherhood and activism have been wedded ever since mid-nineteenth -century women organized against slavery, alcohol, and prostitution on the grounds that such social evils made America an unhealthy place for their children. Throughout the twentieth century, mothers mobilized for peace to safeguard their children’s futures. While some women transformed motherhood into a weapon against environmental pollution so that their children could have clean air and water, others have fought for racial purity and heterosexual norms. The Million Mom March, hardly the first effort by cradle-rocking hands to change the world, was a first in other ways.3 For the first time, American mothers took aim at gun violence and gun control. In 2000, the United States had the highest rate of gun violence in the developed world, and in 1998 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that ten children and adolescents every day were killed by firearms. Though down from a high of sixteen deaths per day in 1994, it was, for those concerned, ten too many.4 In calling for gun licensing and registration, child safety locks, and waiting periods, the million moms hoped to begin decreasing the number of...

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