I wanted to take time to think about how to respond to this and decided I am unattached to our children meeting in the future over the ashes of the oppressor's dream.

Writing about Black personhood means cultivating a disciplined disinterest in the inner lives of white people. My practice gives focus to my writing projects. To Black personhood, the only thing that matters about white people is what they do and how their actions hurt us; through that, we may better avoid and heal.

To spend time wondering about white and Black children in the future de-emphasizes what my son is going through now, and furnishing the stories he'll need to keep his chin up. That future you dream of is up to white people, not us. I find it better to spend my creative energies to write and protect the stories my son will need to survive and one day be free, regardless of the presence of whiteness.