Trayvon Martin

As I wrote here, the shooting death of an unarmed 17-year-old Florida boy mistakenly thought to be a criminal haunted me from the beginning. This is any mother's worse nightmare, but as a mother of an African American child, it is the possibility you desperately want to keep at bay, I said in this KING 5 television interview.

By the next day when I did this CNN interview, I was writing the The Talk: An Ugly Rite of Passage.

While other parents have the luxury of confining The Talk to the birds and the bees, African American families view it as a moment to talk with their children are race, racism and the way the world views young people of color, particularly black youths.

On the Ross & Burbank Show on KIRO 97.3 FM, I talked about finding the words to bridge the gap between my son's academic knowledge of racism and the reality of it as experienced by Trayvon Martin. All the while I must balance what I know with a mother's desire not to burden his tiny shoulders too much.