My Children Are Not a Statistic: Abby Johnson Needs To Take Two Seats!

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By Marlena Ryan

As a mom of five biracial children, my attention is often drawn to stories about biracial families. This year has in some ways, amplified many of the concerns that I have already carried regarding my children. But what came to my attention recently, was a news article about a YouTube video made by Abby Johnson. While this video was made back in June and has since been deleted, she spent about 15 minutes discussing why “probable discrimination of her black son” by police is acceptable. As a mother of four biracial sons, and one biracial daughter, I find this idea and the statements made in her video deeply offensive.

Abby Johnson is a woman who worked at Planned Parenthood for about eight years before becoming an anti-abortion activist. In 2009 she quit her job with Planned Parenthood, and a year later, the book “Unplanned” was released. It details her time at Planned Parenthood and the event that led to her leaving and becoming an anti-abortion activist. A movie version of the book was released in theaters in 2019. Abby Johnson and her husband Doug Johnson are the parents of eight children. One of their children is a black boy whom they adopted at birth. While the YouTube video Abby Johnson made has been deleted, the transcript of what she said in the video is still available on the internet. And I find it troubling for any woman, but especially the woman of a black child to say that it would be “smart for police and others to discriminate against him”. About her boys, she said this: “Right now, Jude is an adorable, perpetually tan-looking little brown boy. But one day, he’s going to grow up, and he’s going to be a tall, probably sort of large, intimidating-looking-maybe brown man. And my other boys are probably gonna look like nerdy white guys.”

Who uses stereotypes to talk about their children this way? I do not want my sons with brown skin, to fear that they will grow up to look so intimidating to a police officer or to anyone that the color of their skin alone would make it alright for someone to discriminate against them. Skin color does not determine anyone’s character. Additionally, such stereotypes do not only lead to discrimination, but can also lead to death as we have seen with police brutality that is very real towards the black community and has even led to the deaths of black men and women.

Can this woman not see that this type of logic is pitting her children against one another even while they are young? Her logic shows that she already has a prejudice by believing that her white sons should be presumed innocent while her black son should not get the same treatment. And by calling her white sons, “nerdy, white boys”, she assumes they will be smarter than her black son. It is unfathomable for a mother to think this way about her children and their future.

In her video, Abby Johnson also discussed statistics, claiming that our prison populations have a “disproportionately high number of African American males for particularly violent crimes.” She adds, “when a police officer sees a brown man like my Jude walking down the road – because of stats he knows in his head they’re going to know statistically my brown son is more likely to commit a violent offense over my white sons.” This rationale is completely unjust and wrong. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, a survey conducted in 2016 of roughly 8,000 police officers found that “black officers were twice as likely as white officers (57% vs 27%) to say that high-profile deaths of black people during encounters with police were signs of a broader problem, not isolated incidents.” And, 69% of black officers compared to 27% of white officers believed that the protests seen after many of these high profile incidents are the result of a real desire to hold police accountable for their actions and not due to a bias against police officers.

Furthermore, according to the FBI crime statistics for 2018, the number of murder victims in the US was approximately 16,214 victims, with the numbers between black and white offenders committing this crime against victims of their own race being quite similar. But the number of hate crimes committed in 2018 was over 8,000 with the number one motivating factor being race or ethnicity. The race that was most victimized was the black race. Certainly, having white skin does not make a person less likely to be violent or to commit a violent crime. What kind of a mother thinks one child should be treated worse than her other children because of a statistic?

When I look at my children, one thing I know is that the love they have for each other is proof that hatred and bias as it relates to one’s race or skin color is taught. It is learned behavior that is either overtly taught by racist parents or it is covertly taught by stereotypes perpetuated by people like Abby Johnson. Part of my job as a mother is to empower my children. They should feel like they can become adults who do great things. I do not want to extinguish the drive that already exists within them by believing that my sons will be viewed as unintelligent and crime driven because they have brown skin. My boys are not a statistic.

What Abby Johnson fails to understand is that the bias that she carries towards black people, and towards her black son especially, can lead to injury, trauma, and even death if police officers are allowed to use it as the standard for how they treat people in our communities. All my children are a blend of both myself and their white father. They see and treat each other as equals because that is what they are. Abby Johnson should teach her children that they are equals. Her children, like my children, should not only respect police officers, but should be able to expect police officers to treat them with respect as well, regardless of skin color or faulty statistics.

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