The Superstrong Black Mother

Baltimore mother Toya Graham became a viral video sensation after being filmed yelling at and hitting her teen son. Graham, who is Black, was trying to stop her son from joining the protests following Freddie Gray's death in police custody in Baltimore in April 2015. Dubbed "mother of the year," news outlets applauded Graham for her fierce determination to keep her son out of harm's way by any means necessary. The media and ensuing public response to the video are illuminating for what they say about cultural notions of Black motherhood: the good Black mom should be superstrong to protect her children, but she is also responsible for controlling her children and preventing them from getting into trouble. In celebrating Graham, the media was implicitly condemning all the other mothers whose children participated in the protests-that is, the mothers who did not prevent their children from "senseless" rioting against institutional racism in policing.