Charles Sykes/BravoThe Real Housewives of Potomac star Monique Samuels is opening up about the "stress and worry" of being a Black parent.
In a heartfelt post to Instagram, Samuels shared a video of her seven-year-old son, Christopher, who explained why he was wearing a cardboard bulletproof vest.
"This is my bulletproof vest that I made," her son explained before discussing the death of George Floyd.
"I made it because on the news, when the people killed the guy, when they put his leg up to his head," he said, referencing the video of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pinning George Floyd to the ground. Chauvin, who prosecutors say kneeled on Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes, has been charged with second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He has not yet entered a plea and is being held on $1.25 million bail.
Christopher continued to express his confusion with the images of police in riot gear on television and said that his vest read "POLICE" because he was dressing up as a "good" officer. But the seven-year-old still vocalized his dismay with the police brutality against Floyd.
"They just killed him for nothing," he said. "We don't know why they killed him, either."
His mother then asked, "How does that make you feel?"
"That makes me feel sad," Christopher said. "They just killed an innocent person."
In the Instagram caption, Monique gave insight into the video.
"I wish I would have documented the entire process of my 7 year old from the moment he started making his bulletproof vest," she wrote. "I didn't even realize he was paying attention to the news. Instead of discouraging him from creating this 'work of art,' I decided to have a talk with him and try turn a negative into a positive. His final touch was to add 'Police' to the front of it so he can show the bad cops how to be good."
The mother-of-three then discussed the difficulties of being a Black mother in America.
"It's important for me as a parent to investigate how everything going on in the world is affecting the little minds of my babies," she said. "They feel our stress and worry. I hate how this is affecting our children."
She continued: "I've always worried from the moment I gave birth to my now 7 year old son. How do I make him feel safe? How do I raise him to be aware but not afraid? Being a parent is not easy. Being a black parent with black children is even harder. I pray that change happens swiftly and maybe one day the worry I've always had as a black mom will not be the worry my children have when they become parents."