Editor's note: On Friday, officers in Tulsa, OK, fatally shot 40-year-old Terence Crutcher afterhe had put his hands in the air. Crutcher's death comes at the end of a summer dominated by news of police killings of Black men , as well as the shootings of five Dallas police officers in response. These incidents have put the question of how we interact with race in our daily lives at the front of our minds.They are also raising questions for two moms: Ebonye, a Black mom with a 3-year-old daughter, Autumn; and Vanessa, a white mom with a 5-year-old daughter, Grace. We decided to publish a conversation between the two mothers in which they would ask each other hard questions. They hope that this public dialogue will encourage other moms from diverse backgrounds to speak plainly, without fear of judgment or criticism, and that together, we can learn how to better navigate this crazy, impossible time for our kids.I was born and raised in Queens, NY, in the 1990s. I grew up in a neighborhood that seemed to have roughly equal numbers of African-Americans and Afro-Caribbean people. I experienced a lot more ethnic and cultural diversity when I went to high school. I became so used to it that it was only when I attended college at a predominately white institution that I realized that not everyone had the same idea of what racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity meant.When I moved to California, a series of incidents really challenged what I understood about my identity. It was there that I became a mother, and it helped shape the narrative of what motherhood was going to mean for me. I grew determined to give my child a blueprint outlining the kinds of racial prejudices, assumptions based on ethnicity, and difficult conversations that she will be faced with all of her life — and help her navigate these with her value and self-esteem intact.