Baltimore Mom Beats Son, Speaks Out

“There’s some days that I’ll shield him in the house just so he won’t go outside and I know that I can’t do that for the rest of my life,” Toya Graham, the woman has been been dubbed “mom of the year” after video surfaced of her slapping up her son, who was out in the Baltimore riots. Graham spotted her son in a crowd and stopped him from throwing rocks at Baltimore police.

“I’m a no-tolerant mother. Everybody that knows me, know I don’t play that.” And she didn’t! We all cringed as Toya pulled at her son’s clothing, slapping him in the face, warning him about his actions.

She’s a single mother of six. “He’s my only son and at the end of the day, I don’t want him to be a Freddie Gray.”

Toya’s only son says he knew he was in trouble when he saw his mom coming, and he knew he’d be in even bigger trouble if he tried to run away from her.

“They’re going to make their own decisions, we as parents, we have to just follow through and make sure that’s where they’re supposed to be at. Is he the perfect boy? No he is not, but he is mine.” “I hope he understands the seriousness of what was going on last night,” Toya told CBS.

We’re still applauding Toya Graham because as a single mother, she has a responsibility to raise up a Black man and it’s obvious that she’s taking it seriously. The protesters aren’t without merit, but she still doesn’t want her son to perpetuate a negative stereotype.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said Tuesday that he had seen the video. “I wish I had more parents who took charge of their kids tonight,” he said

Up Next: Nightly News Has The Realest Baltimore Panel Discussion Ever

“You think Black people can only be heard if they burn stuff?” Nightly News host Larry Wilmore asks starting the Baltimore riots “Keep It 100″ segment. Alongside comedian/actors Kerry Coddett, Seaton Smith and leader of the Dream Defenders, Phillip Agnew, Wilmore tackled the sensitive topic, examining the root causes of the anti-police riots in Baltimore and the media’s tendency to ignore peaceful protests.

This is a must-watch!

Up Next: Baltimore Is NOT A Riot, It’s An Uprising

During CNN’s live coverage of the devastation in Baltimore, CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill used his voice to get people to change their minds about what’s happening. Instead of calling it a riot, Hill urges viewers to change their language and use: “uprising.” Hill passionately stated, “We have to be careful about the language we use to talk about this. I’m not calling these people rioters, I’m calling these uprising and that’s an important distinction to make.”

Hill is hurt, like many of us because the powers that be are more upset about property damage than they are about the desecration of Black people. “There shouldn’t be calm tonight” in Baltimore since there’s been “Black people…dying in the streets for months, years, decades, centuries” and endorsed the need for “resistance to oppression and when resistance occurs, you can’t circumscribe resistance,” Marc said.

He continued on the segment, rivaling Jesse Williams’ position as our BAE and bodied the convo:

“We do have to understand that resistance looks different ways to different people and part of what it means to say Black lives matter, is to assert our right to have rage – righteous rage, righteous indignation in the face of state violence and extrajudicial killing. Freddie Gray is dead. That’s why the city is burning and let’s make that clear. It’s not burning because of these protesters. The city is burning because the police killed Freddie Gray and that’s a distinction we have to make.”

“Marc, I got to tell you this. I understand – yes, we should be outraged and we get that, we understand that and we devote so much coverage, not only this network, but other networks that I’ve seen, to talk about all of those issues that we’ve seen. We’ve exhausted many times the viewer with that, and we should continue to, but we’re trying to figure out exactly what is leading to what we’re seeing tonight and I agree with Van Jones, we cannot give credence to people who want to go out and burn down buildings and to hurt people.”

What do you think–is Baltimore burning because of the protestors or because police continue to kill us? Also–we challenge you to use “uprising” instead of “riot.” Let’s shape the story positively with language that properly reflects what’s happening here.

Up Next: Baltimore City Councilman Says, “Just Call Them Niggers!”

It’s no secret.

The word “thug” in the media has long been a euphemism for Black people, often used by those who fail to consider the marginalization and disenfranchisement of Black communities in the face of unrest, as seen in Baltimore as of late.

So when CNN host Erin Burnett tried to justify the use of the word to describe young teenagers who clashed with Baltimore police Monday, Baltimore City Councilman Carl Stokes kept it 100 percent real.

“Just call them n*ggers,” he said, obviously exasperated by Burnett’s insistence that this was the right term for 13-18 year-old kids.

Burnett, citing both Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and President Obama’s use of the term as justification, tried, unsuccessfully, to appeal to Stokes that it was appropriate, no matter the age of the children.

“Of course it’s not the right word to call our children thugs. These are children who have been set aside, marginalized who have not been engaged by us,” Stokes said.

“But how does that justify what they did?,” Burnett interrupted.  That’s a sense of right and wrong. They know it’s wrong to steal and burn down a CVS and an old person’s home. I mean, come on.”

That’s when Stokes hit Burnett with a bombshell, implying the use of the term was a racial code for something more sinister.

“Come on? So calling them thugs? Just call them niggers. Just call them n*ggers,” Stokes replies. “No. We don’t have to call them by names such as that. We don’t have to do that.”

Surprisingly, the racial epithet didn’t deter Burnett, who said she “would hope” to call her son a thug “if he ever did such a thing.”

We bet. Can you hear our sarcasm?

Rawlings-Blake has since apologized for her “thug” comments. But it looks like the flood gates have already opened. What do you think of the use of “thugs” to describe Baltimore youth? Sound off below…

For more information on the Freddie Gray protests and uprisings in Baltimore, visit NewsOne’s hub, here.