Amid Baltimore's Chaos, a Model Mother

A lock for Mother of the Year, Graham had no desire to see her son get swept up in the bedlam where roving gangs looted stores, set fires and attacked police officers. What began as a protest over the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, whose spinal cord was nearly severed while in the care of the Baltimore Police Department, became about destroying as much as possible.

If the critics are wrong, they'll lose the argument. But if Graham is wrong, she could lose her son to the streets.

Haters gonna hate. Give some people a silver lining, and they'll find a cloud. Everything is a call to negativity and criticism. Some of it is motivated by jealousy. These days, if someone gets 15 minutes of fame, she can also count on at least two weeks of sniping.

While many Americans are applauding Graham for taking responsibility for her child -- something that a lot of parents won't do these days -- others want to throw cold water on the narrative and attack the mother.

As to how we got so far off course, it doesn't help that Americans have a habit of taking any story and shoehorning it to advance their own agenda. Now some are trying to co-opt the tale of the Hero Mom. A story that is about good parenting has become about spanking, public shaming, single mothers, absent fathers, the welfare state and -- in one of the more far-fetched assertions -- the claim by some African-Americans that white people enjoy seeing young black men "emasculated" in public.

The last item is troubling. If Michael was "emasculated" when his mother demanded that he behave better, does it follow that the "masculine" thing is to hide behind a mask and hurl bricks at police? If so, we're in trouble.

"What he was doing, it was just unacceptable," Graham told the hosts of "CBS This Morning."

What about the parents of other rioters? Do they think what their kids were doing -- the violence and looting -- was acceptable? Hero Mom shouldn't be criticized. She should be honored and emulated.

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Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com.