By Jordan Sapir
The other day, I woke up to the sadness of a nation. My home country is in shambles, once again. The tragedy of the day: the senseless killing of a black man by a white police officer in broad daylight, filmed by a teenage boy, circulating through social media like wildfire.
Raise your hand if, at any point during this quarantine, you cynically said, “It can’t get any worse than this!” I, for one, have made several New Yorker, fight-tears-with-laughter jokes. Unfortunately, none of us could have predicted what would happen next.
I remember asking my mother when I was growing up where she was during important events in history. “And Woodstock, when Kennedy was shot, Martin Luther King, Elvis?!” I’d excitedly ask her for an “it was a dark and stormy night” rendition. She’d usually give me some lackluster details and carry on with her work. The minute details of her personal history weren’t at the center of her focus. I, however, wanted to hear my mother’s and my aunts’ stories because I wanted to hear what women were doing during those times. I’d only heard about men in my history books.
Well, there was Rosie the Riveter, and, of course, Rosa Parks. But where were all the others? I knew none by name. After a challenging talk with my eldest aunt, I quickly came to realize that women at that time, and black women in particular, had had to make a lot of difficult choices. One in particular was whether they wanted to be a part of the women’s rights movement of the 1960s or part of the civil rights movement: being a part of both wasn’t an option. Women found themselves divided: Black women were excluded from the women’s rights movement, and white women who fought for women’s rights were rarely part of the civil rights movement. Part of the reason for the divide today is that from the beginning, we have never stood together.
You see, for centuries men have claimed the accolades for positive change, without recognizing that they are often the reason change is needed. The real driving force behind positive change? Women, working together.
So, here we are again, our board of highly intelligent, influential, beautiful leading ladies (in my unbiased opinion), faced with the challenge of how to carry out our program during an incredibly tough, saddening, and heartbreaking moment in history– a moment created by men.
There aren’t many things that we debate (you thought I’d say agree on), other than comma placement, proper push-up form, social media analytics, and the odd refreshment, of course. This time was no different.
The question on the table was whether we would participate in Blackout Tuesday. In the face of yet another tragedy, it seemed like the right thing to do. But is it? Should the people who have a platform to share resources and knowledge silence themselves in the face of adversity? It was an easy answer for us Über Moms. All in favor: NO!
So, although we would have loved to continue our program for this year, we’ve decided for the second time in 2020 to suspend (read: revise) our topic of the month in the face of tragedy. It was an easy decision. A lot easier than some of our Oxford comma conversations.
This is no laughing matter. Although I haven’t lost my sense of wit, I am gutted and in shambles about the state of the world.
We, as an organization, feel that we should take a pause from our regularly scheduled topic to discuss the topic of racial equality.
Following George Floyd’s tragic death, and the accompanying protests and political unrest in America, we unanimously agreed that we needed to continue our mission to encourage mothers to live a healthy and active lifestyle for their families and themselves, this time by focusing on world affairs.
Once again, mental health is just as important as physical. Being an expat, living far from loved ones, and having to raise a family in the midst of a pandemic and racial uproar in America, is a lot for moms to handle.
We got you, moms! We’ll provide fact-based resources, perspectives and support for mothers in need for the foreseeable future.
Excuse us while we fight inequality, together, as women do. If this isn’t an issue for you, but us speaking up about it is… Check your privilege, be quiet, and listen.
Über Moms are taking a kurze Pause: a Pause for a Cause!
Jordan Sapir
Jordan Sapir, mother of two glitter-laden girls, 2 and 5, studied Journalism and International Political Science in NYC, a place she once called home. She can slaughter five languages fluently. She has worked in a newsroom or two, walked a catwalk or three, and is all for an impromptu adventure. Having traded in her Prada for pretzels, the founder of Über Moms lives in Munich, where she is a stay at home mom and studying to become a certified nutritionist. She is a mommy on a mission and wants to help fellow mothers raise healthy happy families, and beat a PR here and there.