The Respect Life focus for August is on racism. Help us to break down the barriers in our community, enable us to see the reality of racism and bias in ourselves, and free us to challenge and uproot it from ourselves, our society and our world.

WHAT IS THE RACIAL WEALTH GAP, AND WHY DOES IT EXIST?

The Respect Life Committee at St. Peter asked if Fonda Fantroy Richards and Joshua Fantroy (mother and son), would be willing to share some of their experiences dealing with race and unconscious bias.  As we prayed for them, about these deeply personal experiences, it was decided that an open-letter/first-person narrative format would be most powerful.  We are sharing these open letters throughout the month of August. Below is the first of 5 open letters, from Fonda and Josh, to our Parish. 

Fonda Fantroy Richards
Let me introduce myself. I am a 65-year-old widower. Still hard to say. Both 65 and widower.  I attended St. Peter, Ursuline Academy and St. Louis University. I worked over 32 years in the non-profit arena. I have 5 girls and 5 boys. All are adopted except the one you will be hearing about below.  I also have been blessed with 19 grandchildren. My family comprises Caucasians, Hispanic, Vietnamese, Bi-racial, American Indian, and me: the Black. I am a 4th generation Kirkwoodian; I raised the 5th generation here; and now I have 2 of my 19 bundles of joy living with me, making it 6 generations of Kirkwoodians.

So, let’s talk racism. Where to start?  Do I go back to my very first memory of racism? (I was 6 and at St. Peter.) Or do I put to paper the one that affected me the most? (I was 31.) How do you talk/remember/feel about not being invited to birthday parties or the look on your friends’ faces when they tell you that their parents told them that they couldn’t invite you? How do you talk about being followed in a store because they were worried that “you might” steal something? (Turns out I knew the person working security. They became concerned because I was black, taking a long time in the store and carrying a large bag. I was shopping for my mother for Christmas and was having a hard time choosing what to get.) How do you talk about the Kirkwood Police stopping my father and me while he was teaching me to drive? (They received a call that, “black people keep driving around the block.” Mind you, it was our block.)  How do you talk about the FIRST time you are called a “spook” and you didn’t even know that it was wrong until your crying mother explained it to you? How many of you are going to look up the word spook? There are so many times that I was faced with the harsh realities of being me, but the one that was hardest was after the birth of my son Joshua.   What a joy he brought to my life! (Still does. Just don’t tell him.) At the time, I lived in the city and brought him every day to my parents in Kirkwood to watch while I was at work. Every evening, I would drive back out and get him. One Friday evening, I was driving back home with the windows down and Joshua in the baby seat in the back. I noticed that everyone was wearing red and heading into the city for the Cardinals game. A car pulled up beside me on the highway with a carload of young adults in red gear. They began yelling the n-word over and over again at me. Immediately, anger, hurt and, yes, shame washed over me. Now Joshua was only a few months old, and I already had lost that excited feeling of bringing him into this world. The reality for me in that moment was that he be would be judged by the color of his skin, and he would be faced with people following him or not being included. What had I done? How can I raise him knowing that he is going to be hurt just because he was born Black? Next week: Raising the United Nations.

Joshua Carl Fantroy
As we indicated, the Respect Life Committee suggested that we write some of our thoughts and feelings around racism. This request came in response to my reaction to a video that was posted by someone on the parish community Facebook page in June 2020, which was extremely offensive to my family and me. This video was of a Catholic priest’s homily in which he derided the movement for racial equality. It was full of hate, race baiting and so many other things. It tried to make the argument that because I support Black Lives Matter that I am somehow not Catholic and not a good Christian. My first thought was, “How could a priest in the Catholic Church even say the things he is saying?” My second thought was, “How could someone then post the video supporting this message?” My third thought was, “How could there be other people in our Parish supporting this message?” 

Some of you know that I am a third-generation parishioner at St. Peter. I have two daughters: Hailey, 3 years old, and Jocelyn, 1 year old. At the time of the post, I had begun the process of scheduling their baptisms at St. Peter, but it was on hold due to COVID-19. I also plan on enrolling them in St. Peter school, making them the 3rd generation to attend St. Peter. I would be lying if I said this video did not cause me to pause and wonder if I am in the right Parish to raise them. As I was processing all of these thoughts, I kept remembering these few stories:

First, I should mention for those that don’t know me, I am bi-racial. My mother is African American and my father is white. Now, I happen to look more like my father (unless I grow out my hair. Right, mom?… I digress), but I was raised solely by my mother.

As you read above, she was also a parishioner and former student at St. Peter during the era shortly after St. Peter integrated and during the civil rights era (not to age her at all). Discussions around race and community are very common in African American families. Our experiences stay with us and get shared generation to generation. As a result, I was very aware of my mother’s stories and experiences. One of those stories was about school pictures. As every parent is painfully aware, they come around every year and parents are hoping and praying their kids’ pictures turn out well. I don’t know if my mom ever knew, but every year talking about my school pictures prompted her remembering aloud that as a child at St. Peter, one of her classmates told her that her parents wouldn’t buy the class picture because she was in it. So, every year she always would buy the class photo because of that incident.

As I said, I was raised by my single working mother and my grandparents, her biggest support who were also parishioners at St. Peter. When I attended St. Peter, my grandfather would always pick me up from school. On our way home one day, we were stopped by the Kirkwood Police. The reason for being stopped was that someone from St. Peter called the police stating that he, a black man, kidnapped a white kid. So I had to be questioned by police as to my relationship with my own grandfather. Now, my grandfather was a retired police officer in St. Louis City himself and my uncle had briefly been an officer with the Kirkwood Police Department. How many people can say they have had the cops called alleging they had been kidnapped simply because they got into the car with their own grandfather? And that the police were called by someone they go to school with? All because of race. I wish I could say this was the only time this has happened to me in my life, but it’s not.

So you may be asking, “How do these stories relate to the Facebook video?” These are just two events among many that have occurred across two generations in our Parish. I now have daughters. I have to decide where is the best place for me to raise them and what values I want them to have. We want to think our world is a better place than it was 20-50 years ago. It may be better in some regards, but it definitely is not in others. I, like any parent, want what is best for my children and want them to grow and live in an area where they are accepted for who they are, not what they look like. My girls have my skin color. My black mother will have to get them from school for me. Will they have to suffer through a police call for kidnapping simply because she picked them up from school? This is a real fear of mine. Seeing this video posted and then seeing that it was supported by members of this Parish brought up these thoughts and really made me sit down and re-evaluate, “Do my morals and self-worth match up with that of this Parish?”

Then something happened. Other members of the community spoke out against the post. They reminded me that I’m not alone. Then, the Parish reached out to me, and discussions with Monsignor Jack and the Respect for Life Committee took off from there.

Thank you for sticking around to read all of this. I felt it was important to understand some context to everything. I promise to keep the future stories much shorter, but do come back and read more stories. They are a little bit more comical but sadly true experiences. Next time, find out what led my mother to say, “Bring me a white one (kid), wait where did you steal all these black kids from?”