There is an elephant in the room at our house and that is not a self-deprecating fat joke.
The elephant is race, and I find myself thinking a great deal these days about its connotations and its future effects on my daughters. In a month where Donald Sterling became just the latest, outed, vitriolic and bigoted Fred Phelps, my mind is painting vivid impressions of the future my daughters will occupy and wondering whether their ethnicity, perceived or actual, will be irrelevant, or uplift them to ceilingless heights of self worth and achievement, or beat them into the earth all together.
It is Mother’s Day and like usual I am NOT writing that cathartic be-all/end-all prose piece about my relationship with mine, (or lack thereof). I’ve just put J to bed. Prior to that I supervised her bath time, shampooed her hair, and sat with her on her bedroom floor kneading Mixed Chicks® into the uncooperative knots of her otherwise soft and sweeping curls.
See, I am mixed, and I don’t love that moniker but use it sometimes for it’s succinctness. In circles I’ve frequented throughout my life it has meant, merely, my African American/Irish American ethnicity. Today there are a bevy of terms for the myriad multi-ethnic makeups. Mixed, bi-racial, interracial, half and half, what have you. I can’t keep up with what is or isn’t PC at any given moment, nor do I care to. Regardless, I spent the greater part of my youth in an ethnicity conundrum.
I cut my identity-teeth growing up in a Northern Virginia suburb. A part of the Commonwealth kissed by urban sprawl from the neighboring Nation’s Capital, but still, regularly, bitten in the ass by a southern segregationist and racist past.
I was told that I am too black, not black enough, and that, “In America, you will never be anything but black,” by friends and family, alike. Conversely, I was told that I am too white, not white enough, and incapable of being anything but white. You get the frustrated, fractured and fragmented, picture.
See a third grade me, sprinting home from the bus stop at which I was dropped off, daily, by the wards of an out of town, bullshit, school for the “gifted.” When my sprinting proved insufficient, see me clawing my way up through a dog-pile of neighborhood bullies, dodging fisticuffs and epithets. (To this day, I don’t know if the racism was overt, or more of a convenience for mean kids, but it taught me to hold my own, physically and verbally, early and often, and for that I am thankful.)
Fortunately, by high school, I learned to embrace my inner melting pot. I championed my unique cultural constitution, often to the point of buffoonary, taking the stage at parties to rap as M.C. Oreo, an oft-used, disparaging slur, the Uncle Tom denotations of which were lost on me, in favor of some core need for popular attention that it fed, readily.
By senior year I was a scholar of my heritage, likening myself to the noble and rebellious peoples of the Ashanti Empire on Africa’s Gold Coast, or Ireland’s plentiful heroes and saints. I’d like to think I gave ethnicity a slightly better-educated treatment in lyrics that I wrote in those days, including these rap lyrics as I performed them, ironically enough, during my school’s Black History Month Assembly.
“Whether white, Puerto Rican, Filipino or Jew/ you’re not black, you’re another, but I call the others brothers too/
And like the Digables I stick to my task/ and stay peace like that…’cause I’m mixed like that/
Half black, half white, the interracial kid/ and I’m not still mad a what my mother’s father did…”
I digress, but I will say that in various educational institutions, and throughout my community, I can vividly recall being used by both “sides” as a pawn, in actions that I didn’t quite find affirmative.
So in a one bedroom apartment a few miles south of the house that we live in now, my Italian-American wife and I effed around and created a veritable United Colors Of Benetton, when our daughters were born. This post was supposed to be about them. Sorry for the lengthy back story.
While I was on J’s floor, doing her hair before bedtime, she says to me, “Dada, remember that Dada and his daughter brushing their teeth?!” I know immediately that she means this giant image plastered onto a Walgreens window, downtown.
I tell her that I do, in fact, remember, and that’s when she says, “Dada, that Dada and his daughter look JUST. LIKE. US!” A curious thing for a loose-curled toddler with a complexion the color of December’s last remembrance of a summer tan to say about herself and her olive-skinned old man. A poignant example of the pristine spirit of an untainted mind that doesn’t see, or sees through, skin color? I can’t say for certain. More likely than not it was an innocent expression of her memories of countless times like these:
Either way, it makes me wonder what the world will make of them, in time. They are fortunate, in many ways, to be growing up, here, in the San Francisco Bay Area, a region that supports diversity and champions tolerance. I forget which author said something to the effect of,
“I was surprised to discover, upon leaving San Francisco, that the rest of the world was not like this.”
What will they make of a world where racism flourishes, both institutionalized and overt, yet that world is growing more heterogeneous by the day, as attitudes and latitudes change and the Fred Phelps’ leave it to face their makers and the Donald Sterlings get caught red-tongued and, gradually, fade away? How will they identify themselves in a world that seemingly demands that one picks teams and befouls demographics surveys with a category called “other”.
Dear J and N,
You are NOT “Other.” You are J and N. You are American, until, when, and if, you choose otherwise. Your rich and diverse cultural heritage makes you no better and no worse than anyone else who gets to grace this ever-shrinking globe for a while. Your one true measure will be your actions, and how they affect the people that cross your path. You do NOT belong to a group called “other.” You belong to a group called “humanity.” If anything, you are, “All”. Just like your Dada.
Love,
Dada
(Mike)
At what age did your children become aware of true or perceived ethnic differences? If you have “mixed” kids, how do they identify themselves? It’d be an honor to hear your comments. Please, subscribe and contribute to the conversation. Feel free to link other relevant reads in the comments below.
Ciao for now,
Dada Mike
Loved this. You already know some of my thoughts by reading my post about this, but I just shared this on my Facebook wall so hopefully that will bring some more reaction.
Thank you and thank you. Feel free to link your page here.
One of the saddest conversations of my life came when my daughter told me that someone shot MLK because he was Black. She just couldn’t figure out how or why. It was painful trying to explain that some people judge others on race/religion etc.
Yeh, these are the inevitable conversations that will be coming our way, I’m sure. Important but, *shakes fist at a cruel cruel world*
What a great post! I ran across the box te other day when I was filling something out that asked me what race i was. I told my wife I wanted to mark “none of your f’n business” I know that most use these as a way to garner statistics, but I still feel that it shouldn’t matter for the most part. I tweeted a link to your page, and put it on my blog’s Facebook page.
Our daughter is biracial, latino and white, and my wife and I haven’t really had to deal with it yet (she’s only 7MO). But one thing I know we will try hard to instill is that she isn’t one or the other, she is both. We know she will be pressured to pick at points in her life, and hopefully we will have equipped her well enough to work through it.
Yep. Good luck, Seth and keep me posted. Sounds like she’ll be a ok with you two guiding her.
Your story of the father/daughter tooth brushing ad reminded me of a sweet innocent incident with my daughter at about five years old. We were walking through the mall and we passed a large black man with long dreadlocks. My daughter, with all the subtlety of a five-year-old, turned and stared at him and watched him walk by. Then she tugged on my hand and said “Mommy, did you see that man?” Of course I thought OK, here we go…I said yes, what about him? And she said….”He’s left handed like me and Daddy!” I asked her how in the world she knew that, and she said “His watch was on his right arm.”
Ha. It’s in the genes. So far our oldest is candid but kind of accidentally tactful. Her comments are asides. She is amazed by accents, which is great for conversations and a worldly approach to understanding people, but her public imitation of them can be dicey.
This is a great article and I love your perspective. While I am Caucasian, my family is mixed, and by mixed, I mean the melting pot of society. I am pretty much a Euro-mutt, heavily dominated by German Jews, my mom and step dad adopted a Mexican/Indian girl at 3 days old, and incorporated an African American lady into our family when she was 25 (nothing legal, but try and tell me she isn’t family), that was 30 years ago. That sister has one biological “mixed” kid, but has adopted 5 others. Two of them are polar opposites – midnight black with curly hair, the other blonde haired, blue eyed, and dang near vampire white. Again, try and tell us we aren’t a family.
I dated a man for 6 years. His son was 6 months old when we met. He grew up with me and his son is super smart. He said to me “Jen I’m so happy your apart of my family” on our way to dinner. We go inside have a seat next to a huge party…his son shouts “Guys!! Those people are brown!” He’s about 5 years old and I didn’t know what to say but “I’m brown too!” We spent dinner trying to convince him i’m “brown.” My skin is very light. His dad and I tried to convince him we’re “black” but, that was even harder. He never agreed and he never cared!
Story 2. I watched a friend’s daughter Faith for years. They came to my house. Mom opened the door. Faith says to her mom “Mom Jen’s mom is black!” I’d never heard mom laugh so hard.
I love our rainbow family. I’m not mixed by definition. I am just an American. I get annoyed being asked my ethnicity or nationality at least once a week. Now I ask why?
I love the letters. I miss the video’s “daily dada’s.” Those angels are very lucky to have you and vice versa. Very special <3
Mike have you seen this book?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1553377362?qid=1400151878&sr=1-1&vs=1
If not, check it out. I think you and your kids alike will enjoy it…
I haven’t. That’s awesome. Will definitely check it out. Thanks, Jeff.
To me race isn’t even a thing, we are all Humans. Being Australian I am a large mix of many different european nationalities and my wife is the same with a more recent infusion of pure italian through her grandfather. I couldn’t count the number of different nationalities that have gone into the make up of my little boy. I think tolerance for those who are different to you is one of the most important things to teach our kids. In the end it matters not where you come from or who you are it is how you treat others. I don’t care what race, religion or sexuality people are as long as they are good and decent people.