Diary of a Black and White Family

Unlike the Others... Interracial Families and Holiday Gatherings

2010-12-20T07:27:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, my black and white family attended a lovely holiday party thrown by my brother and his wife at their home. There were probably 50 people there: her sisters and their families, my brother and my other siblings and their kids. It was a great time with plenty of food, music, football and good cheer.

My husband was the only white person in the room.

At this time of the year-- and certainly any time our families gather-- one of us is that awkward position. As an "in-law" every spouse has those awkward moments of feeling like an outsider-- especially when dealing with family one doesn't know well or sees rarely. But race certainly adds a level of complication to the matter.

Kevin handles it well-- as do I, I think. We both are outgoing enough to start conversations, tactful enough not bring up topics that are likely to make people uncomfortable and pretty good at being charming (LOL!). But I know from time to time around his extended family when I'm the only black person around, I've felt a bit uncomfortable and in spite of his gregariousness most of the evening, on the way home, I asked him whether he felt the same as the only white one.

"Yeah, a little bit," he confessed. "I mean, I knew I was the only one. It didn't really matter-- people are people-- but when you don't know a lot of the people, there's this moment where you really become self-conscious."

Then we talked about the various experiences of the evening, through the lens of his experience as the only white guy in the room.

I know that many of you in interracial couples and families know exactly what I'm talking about. It's just a feeling you get when you suddenly notice that there's no one else around who looks like you. Not "hostility"-- I've never felt anything like that from anyone in Kevin's family and I know he's never felt that from mine-- but more like the little jingle from Sesame Street "One of these things is not like the others..."

You just feel...a little weird. The closest thing I can compare it to is walking into a room full of complete strangers who don't appear to speak your language. If anyone has a better analogy, I'd love to hear it.

Being good at being the "only one" or the person who is "not like the others" is a skill that requires confidence and practice. I think many minority people become used to it: often in our academic or professional lives, we've been the only ones before. While there's always a consciousness of it, with time and practice the feeling is minimized. But as members of the majority, most white people don't have as much practice with the experience.

Those of us in interracial relationships are exceptions: we get plenty of practice as we blend and bend cultural lines between our families and friends. All of us, regardless of cultural orientation or racial background learn through to find common ground with others through these opportunities. We learn that like many things between extended families, "racial" awkwardness fades with time and experiences. The better we know our spouses' family, friends and extended networks-- and the better those folks get to know us-- the more comfortable we al become. I see Kevin's siblings often enough that there's absolutely no awkwardness at all; I love them like my own sisters and brothers. Similarly, Kevin sees my siblings often too-- he calls my youngest sister is "girlfriend"-- they're that close.

But for those big, once-a-year gatherings with far-flung relations, the best medicine for being the only one is a generous dose of goodwill toward mankind-- followed by a shot of solidarity between the members of the interracial union. Being positive, friendly and up-beat can certainly serve to neutralize any discomfort. And so can knowing that, during the evening and at the end of it, your spouse will listen to your take on the experience and offer his or her support.

Happy Holidays to you all!

A Future in Music Video Production?

2010-11-21T05:38:00.000-08:00

This is what Sisi and her friends do in their spare time. It was so creative, I had to share it. Now if only I could get her to spend as much energy and thought on her school work!

#!/video/video.php?v=176082685736952&comments

Being "Different" and Fighting Bullies

2010-11-10T07:01:00.000-08:00

In the wake of several high profile cases, there's a great deal of emphasis placed on bullying. Bullying-- for all kinds of reasons, most of which amount to being perceived as different in some way-- has been going on forever. My mother told me stories of being picked on by the other black girls back in the days of segregation for having long hair (a girl even dipped one of her braids into a burning candle at a Christmas pageant, setting her hair on fire!) I remember being called names at my predominantly white schools for being one of the few black students. These days, students who identify themselves as gay are often the victims of bullying-- but certainly they aren't the only ones. Bullying is probably as old as human beings. Difference is the issue; it almost doesn't matter what the difference is.

Several recent stories seem to have brought bullying to national attention. They center on the suicides of young people who were "outed" or tormented on the basis of their difference. One strikes particularly close to home for this family: a Virginia teen whose military family had recently been stationed in the area, hanged himself after suffering daily abuse. His crime? Being an "Emo" kid in a more rural and conservative part of the state. Here's a link to the sad story.

I know the "Emo" scene well. Sisi is a proud "Emo". I guess Emo is to this generation what "goth" and "punk" once were to earlier ones: a sort of widely-known fringe element. Unlike Goth, Emos like colors: they sport pink, purple and blue hair. Like punk, the hair should be as spikey as possible. The looks is androgynous-- girls and guys go for the same basic style, and many emos claim to be bi-sexual. Skateboarding-- or at least the look of a skateboarder: beanies, hoodies, Converse sneakers-- are required. It's also good to have a few band T-shirts: Blood on the Dance Floor is the favorite around here. You buy the whole look at Hot Topic, Sisi's absolute favorite store. In fact, the last time she was in there, the manager said she'd give her a job there. Why?

"You've totally got the look!" she enthused.

Fortunately, there are a community of like-minded kids here. Sure, the look raises eyebrows, but there are a least a few kids who share my daughter's interests. They stick together--and form a community that offers some shelter from the other groups and cliques of high school.

In other communities, Sisi's chosen identity might cause her problems-- especially if she were the only one. That was the case with this poor Emo kid in Virginia.

In some communities, simply being a bi-racial child can put a kid in an isolated, "only one" position. Being "different" in that way can be enough to bring a bully into the life of a bi-racial child. It's critical to teach children not to suffer in silence. Fortunately, parents now have a great deal more help with these issues.

A whole new wave of public service announcements and programs are placing new scrutiny on bullying-- and encouraging students to speak up, to tell adults, to confront bullies in safe ways. These messages are aimed not only at kids who are being bullied, but also at the kids who witness the bullying of others. I love the "It Gets Better Campaign" that many celebrities-- and even President Obama-- have now joined, reminding kids that as adults, they soon will be able to create a life that frees them from the forced peer relationships of a school setting. Middle school or high school might feel like the entire universe to a child-- but we know better. It really DOES get better: and this is a critical message. Even TV shows are getting into the "re-education" act. Last night's Glee tackled the issue with a fresh and surprising twist.

The ideal, of course, is to place our bi-racial kids in situations where they aren't so different, where there is a community of similarly-situated children for them to bond with. But in the absence of that community, our kids must learn the tools for confronting bullies and for identifying trustworthy adults from whom they can obtain assistance and intervention when necessary.

Always, always, always, though, it comes back to communication. Listening to our kids--straight or gay, bi-racial, outgoing or shy, whatever-- and being willing to step into their worlds and intervene when our guts tell us we should (sometimes, even when our kids say we shouldn't). And, as their parents, we owe it to them to affirm their difference, to celebrate it and encourage them to embrace it... whether that difference is in the race of their parents, their sexual preference or even the blue streaks in their hair.

Spying on Your Teen: Privacy and Parenting

2010-10-27T04:57:00.000-07:00

Okay.

I always said I'd do it, if I felt it was necessary. In fact, when Sisi leaves the house, I sometimes say: "Act like I'm right there with you, because you never know when I'm going to show up." But I'd never done it... until yesterday.

Lately, Sisi, my high school freshman, has been calling me right after school saying "I'm going to stay after in the library... with my friends." At first, I thought "Great, she's going to get some studying in or work on that English paper." No problem.

Except the English grade was in the toilet-- "D" in an Honors class!-- and most of the other grades weren't all that exciting either. The low grades suggested one of two things: (1) she wasn't actually spending her afternoons in the library; or (2) there was more "hanging with my friends" than school work going on-- which means there needs to be an adjustment in the study routine.

How to determine what is really going on? Nothing like a "drop-in," right?

Or wrong?

The question of teen privacy is one that is much debated. There are parents who firmly believe that searching a teen's room, checking their text messages and showing up uninvited when they go out is the height of infringement. How can a young adult develop, learn to trust their own judgment and have confidence in their own decision with the fear of a parent helicoptering into their lives all the time? What does that say about the level of trust between parent and child? This view is teen-centered and puts the child's need to develop independence above the parent's need for information.

And of course, in the other camp are those parents who argue that, much as teen children might think they have the capacity to make adult decisions, they are, indeed, still children. And since they are children, parents have an obligation and a duty to monitor their conduct for safety and security reasons and to maintain awareness about what's happening in their lives. This puts the parents' need for information about the child's need for independence.

To be honest, I have always thought of myself as a parent in the second camp-- especially for a young teen, like my daughter. Fourteen is still quite young, and I have always said that the need to protect children outweighs all other considerations. Of course, that was before I had a teenaged daughter.

I see it differently now... or rather, I'm less certain and more conflicted about it.

I see, for instance, how much confidence young people get from opportunities to experience themselves without a hovering parent. I see leaps in maturity and decision-making. I see a young woman learning how to handle herself-to trust her instincts-- in an uncertain world.

But I also see the immaturity of those decisions from time to time. I see the misplaced priorities of using freedom to "have fun" at the expense of obligations like choir rehearsals, homework, studying for tests and honoring curfews. I see the temptations of peer pressure.

Just two weeks ago, on Ssturday afternoon, I gave Sisi permission to visit the county library with friends--with strict instructions for her to come home at a certain time because we had evening plans as a family. Not only did she miss the curfew, but her friends had talked her into leaving the library and going to fast-food restaurant a few blocks away to hang out. I might not have known about it except that her attendance at this family outing was expected, and since she had missed her curfew we now needed to pick her up on the way to the event. She had to confess that she wasn't at the Library anymore.

That mistake cost her a week of freedom.

It's also the reason I decided I needed to follow up on my threat to "show up" unexpectedly today when she used the "library card"-- pun intended.

And there she was, sitting quietly at a table with her books out, head down, working. Her friends were nowhere in sight. My daughter was quietly doing her homework, just like she said she was.

I tiptoed out before she ever saw me, feeling both proud of her and a little ashamed of myself. Maybe, a little more trust and a little less "helicoptering" is in order here. I found myself reviewing the whole library/fastfood curfew decision. Had I over-reacted? Or was my child sitting quietly in the library as explained right now because of getting caught somewhere else last time?

None of this is as easy or as clear as I once would have thought.

It does seem clear to me now, however, that I want to avoid extremes on either side of the parenting/privacy fence... which leaves me with a sort of Reagan-era policy of "trust but verify" double-speak. What does that mean exactly? I didn't know in the Reagan-era... and I don't know now.

I had intended to keep my little spying mission a secret, but my 5 year old (who was with me on the excursion) outed me at the dinner table. "We went to the library and saw Sisi!" she told Daddy proudly.

Sisi wasn't mad. "I felt like I was being watched!" she said, laughing. "You were there?"

I confessed. I told why and what I saw and why I left.

"I was finishing a make-up paper for English," she said. "The teacher said if I did a good job, I could bring my grade up." She gave me a searching look. "You really came to the library?"

I nodded.

"Wow." Then she just stared at me for a really long time.

Like I said, I feel conflicted...but it's done now. Operation "Trust But Verify" is underway, for good or ill... just in time for this weekend's Halloween festivities.

Seeing Color through a Generation Gap

2010-10-17T11:22:00.000-07:00

Me and Lil Bit at the Nommo Akili Bookclub meeting 10/16/10

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting with the Nommo Akili book club at the Barnes and Noble in Ellicott City, Maryland. The group, which has a couple of dozen members, has been meeting and reading together since 1989. I was thrilled that they had selected "Don't Bring Home A White Boy-- and Other Notions that Keep Black Women from Dating Out" as their bi-monthly selection.

In several of the recent speaking engagements I've done lately, there has been a great deal of interest in the more personal aspects of being in an interracial relationship and of being in a multicultural family. And always, we come back to the children and the questions of identity.

Whether these women-- and these groups have been almost exclusively women--are interracial relationships or not, they face some of the same issues in raising children to be culturally aware in a diverse world that my own family does.

"I know my son will marry a white girl," one woman shared. "And I confess I have mixed feelings about that. I've always put him in mixed race environments and taught him that everyone's the same. But when I'm confronted with his dating choices, I still have feelings. I really want him to bring home a girl who looks like me."

Another said she struggled to make sure her son appreciated what it meant to be a black American, while wondering if her definition really applied to him a rapidly changing world. "To all his friends, race is a big whatever. He has friends from all backgrounds. I keep thinking there's some racist moment out there for him-- subtle or overt-- but it really hasn't happened yet. It makes me wonder if I'm teaching him the right thing. Maybe what it meant for me to be a black American-- a person who was born in the 1960s-- is completely different for someone who was born in the 1990s."

"My daughter thinks I'm racist when I say things like 'look at that cute little white girl'," another woman said. "She's says: 'Mom, can't you just say, isn't that little girl with green dress cute?' Why is everything about color to you?"

I share my own stories-- stories you all have read already-- about the blue contacts and about Sisi's discomfort with the term "African American" cin the context of her friends whose parents are recent immigrants from that continent.

Although we started with the book, our discussion had taken an interesting turn: into a generation gap over black identity, over the definitions of "racist" versus "description" and over the questions of group identification.

We realized sitting there that we had indeed reached a generation gap wtih our children over their perceptions of race, over their definition of black identity, and over their expectations of how it would impact their futures.

As with many shifts of great significance, this gap arises over small matters: descriptions and the use of words, in conflicts over our children's choices of friends, and of course, blue contact lens. But those small things are are actually symbols for a larger shift taking place between those of us who are children of the Civil Rights Era and of the progessive initiatives of integration-- and our children, who consider all of that as ancient history.

This is not to say that they are ignorant of it, or that they are unaware of the tensions that still exist in the world. In fact, they are very aware. They just see different tensions as primary. One woman recounted a recent conversation with her nine year old who identified someone was "gay".

"You mean like 'happy', right?" this mother said, certain that was the only definition of the word in the little girl's universe. "Happy and gay, right?"

"No, I mean like the other way," the little girl said in the most calm and worldly of ways. "The kind that can't get married. Why not, Mom?"

They are very aware. They just see the black and whiteness of it all differently than we do-- and most of that is our own doing, as their parents. Perhaps they have that luxury because they are the children of educated black parents, living in the comfortable (and comparatively wealthy) suburbs of the Nation's Capital? Geography and the opportunities offered by comparative affluence do a lot for one's view of oneself.

And in addition to painting the world according to its possibilities rather than it's limitations, we've done a good job of teaching them that it's character, not color, that defines a person. Can we be upset that they've learned well?

And yet, it sometimes feels like something has been lost. Some idea of community, some group identity that, at least in memory, seems comfortable, nuturing and welcoming. Of course, further examination of that "glowing past" reveals it to be as complex and fraught with discension as any other time, but the idea of "belonging" to a supportive group is a powerful one.

Ultimately, we all create our communities based on the people we are exposed to and the similarities of interest and belief that those people project. In homogenous communities-- whether they be black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Muslim or Christian, gay or straight, those communities are limited and the people may look the same, but they still divide according to their personalities and affinities.

In diverse communities, of course, the groups look different, but the affinities and personalities that attract are the same. Our children celebrate diversity, and in doing so, see the world-- their community-- less in terms of color than we, their parents who lived through very different times, will ever be able to do.

Love Hurts, High School Style

2010-10-09T19:45:00.000-07:00

Most of last week, I was in Las Vegas on a project, but every time I spoke to Sisi by phone, I got an earful about "The Boy I Like"-- hereinafter referred to "B" for "boy"--to protect his privacy. Of course, there's no way in hell any of Sisi's friends would EVER do something as lame as read her mother's blog, but it is the Internet and I guess you never know. I wouldn't want to ruin my daughter's social life by revealing too much...

(Can you tell by the emphasis in the last two sentences who I've been talking to about this? Oh, the limits of the black and white thinking of as teenager! Pun intended!)

Just before I left town last week, Sisi was trying to decide if she was going to Homecoming. Tickets were on sale, and most of her friends weren't going. They are, after all, lowly freshmen and not as fully invested in the school as the upperclassmen.

On Friday afternoon, when I had a break from my work, I called home and was greeted with an enthusiastic: "I've been waiting all day to tell someone this news!" I wish Sisi got excited about getting an "A" on a project, but I knew better. This had to be about "the boy she likes."

"B asked me to Homecoming!" she gushed. "So I'll need a dress, and shoes, and a hairdo and..."

"Slow your roll," I said. "You're not Homecoming Queen. Take it easy here."

Let the negotiations begin!

We decided she'd get a new dress, borrow a pair of my fancy heels, style her hair herself and buy some inexpensive jewelry or a sparkly barrette or other hair ornament. Budget $100.

Because I was away, Kevin got the dress-selecting job. It's one of those things that if you'd told him six or seven years ago that he'd be doing on a Sunday afternoon, he'd have laughed, but there he was patiently sifting through cocktail dresses in the Juniors department of Macy's, doing his best to keep his step-daughter classy and not trashy-- with some brief guidelines from me. No strapless, not more than two inches above the knee, please. They found an adorable dress on-budget and sent me a picture.

Good. Sisi was bubbling with excitement. Her first Homecoming--- and her first real date!

I got home on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, our house was full of the usual cadre of girls. "This is my dress," I heard her telling them as passed by her room. "With these shoes... and I'm thinking of twisting my hair like this..."

But by Thursday the picture had changed.

"He dumped me," she said when I met her after school. Her eyes filled with tears. "He said he didn't think it would work out and he'd rather be 'just friends'. He's taking someone else."

Of course, she was hurt. But we had a good talk. About how there are plenty of fish in the sea. About how "B" may have done her favor by breaking it off. About why it would be stupid to try to chase after him-- and smarter to act like you just don't care.

"You've got a beautiful dress. You could go anyway with a group of friends," I suggested.

"But none of my friends were going," she told me. "I don't want to go if I don't have anyone to hang out with."

I started looking for the receipt for the dress.

So, here we are. Homecoming was tonight...but Sisi didn't go. We returned the dress this afternoon, and instead, she and her friends held an "anti-Homecoming" party, playing board games and eating pizza. They had a blast. If she's thought about "B" at all, I can't tell. She's seems perfectly content with her friends, her games, her music and her pizza.

Heartache healed...for now. This one was easy: she liked this boy, but it wasn't "love," thank goodness.

First love, however, is coming. My next door neighbor's son just graduated from the same high school... and is marrying his girlfriend next month before joining the Air Force. "They've been dating since freshman year," she told me. "She's his first real girlfriend. He's always made good decisions and never given us a minute's worry..." she sighed. "But they're both so young. This wasn't in my plan for him. None of it."

Or Sisi's friend who breaks up with her 15-year-old boyfriend once a week... and threatens to kill herself every time. She doesn't; it's mostly drama. But it's still scary to hear and has caused Sisi and the girl's family considerable distress.

Not in the plan, either.

Love is coming...and heartbreak is coming, too, the kind pizza and Wii don't cure. I hate the thought of it, but there's nothing I can do. It comes to us all, it some point. It's one of the experiences that leads us into maturity.

I can only hope Sisi shows the same resilience and flexibility she has over this incident when love and heartbreak come. I can hope... but love, like so many things, has it own plans.

An Ugly Encounter

2010-10-02T06:57:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've been lucky enough to pick up quite a few ghost writing projects workng with various celebrities (no, I can't tell you who!). The work is interesting and a completely new venue for me, but it has required quite a bit of travel. Kevin has been doing a fabulous job as "Mr. Mom" (with help from Grammie and from our friends and neighbors) over the past several months. This weekend, he'll get to take Lil Bit to gymnastics and Sisi shopping for a dress for Homecoming at her high school while I'm in Las Vegas (yes, I know... poor me!)

Since he's "Dad on duty" he won't get much peace until I get back late next week. So you can hardly blame the guy for taking his lunch break yesterday from work to run a few personal errands and have a long, leisurely, solo lunch.

Kevin's lunch at a Chinese restaurant not far from our house was solo--and eventful.

The restaurant does a healthy carry-out business, but is often nearly empty inside. That was the case during his lunch. Only one other table was occupied--by two other white guys who seemed determined to use every racial slur against Asian women possible before leaving.

"Hey China doll!" One of these men shouted at the waitress. "Come over here!"

"YOu got to watch out for the slanty eyed ones!" This guy was on a roll.

On and on, it went from this dude, while Kevin listened in amazement. He couldn't help but listen-- the guy was shouting his ignorance through the restaurant. Apparently, he thought he was funny.

He kept looking at Kevin, trying to guage if Kevin was on board with what he was saying. Kev gave him the stink eye-- which probably kept him from saying more.

Chivalrous Kevin-- ready for action!

As he was paying his bill, this dude, who unfortunately embodies the beer-bellied redneck stereotype physically as well as in his conduct, followed the young waitress behind the counter and stood behind her, breathing down her neck while she opened the cash register, effectively blocking her ability to get away from him. My chivalarous husband was ready: the guy was big and sloppy, but Kevin is strong. My money is on Kevin in most circumstances because I've seen him action on a boxing bag--but it didn't come to that. The guy made a few more racist, sexist comments and left, laughing with his buddy because he's just so damned funny.

"That guy was a jerk," Kevin told the waitress when she came over to check on him.

She nodded, sadly. "The restaurant's owner threw him out once-- and told him not to come back. But he comes anyway. Not often, but every now and then. I guess I could call the police but..." she shrugged. "Really all he does is talk."

Kevin pointed out that he followed her behind the counter-- as sure an attempt at physical intimidation as any-- but she seemed to think the guy was loud and offensive, but basically harmless.

"I was just disgusted," he told me on the phone later. "I like to think of our community as multicultural and tolerant, but clearly we've got our share of bigots, too. I mean, it's 2010! What rock has this asshole been under?"

I don't know, but the assholes are indeed among us. Every day and everywhere, they move through the world, spewing ugly stereotypes and perpetuating their particular kinds of ignorance and "humor." Some are beer bellied guys in restaurants-- but others are clean cut and innocuous looking, whispering in office cubicles and checkout lines. Some are preaching in churches and teaching in schools. Still others have their own TV shows, using a much more stuble language of divisiveness--but it's there all the same.

Like Kevin, we all need to give these folks the "stink eye". We need to let them know we don't agree-- and when necessary, we need to be vocal and even aggressive about it. Like the saying goes, "All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." I'm proud of Kevin for treating words with a proper expression of disagreement and disapproval-- and for being willing to intervene upon the suggestion of something more sinister. I'm also proud of him for letting the young woman know that one individual's bad behavoir isn't the standard by which all should be judged.

It sometimes seems that racism is too large and amorphous for us to fight. But it really isn't. It's through our smallest acts, we fight these attitudes: by turning away, by repudiating, by refusing to purchase or participate, by turning off our TVs. Small actions, yes... but ones with big consequences when we do them consciously and with the courage of our convictions.

No Wedding, No Womb...

2010-09-22T08:24:00.000-07:00

My daughter and I disagree on many things: how she should dress, how she should spend her time, the way she wears her hair. But one thing we agree on is simply this:

She won’t be having a baby.

Now if you’re thinking that means that I think she’s also too young to have sex, you’re right. I do feel that way. But I’m also realistic. Sex may happen. Pregnancy won’t.

That’s because we have already discussed what will happen when she meets her first serious boyfriend: she and I will go to the doctor together and get what we have to get and do what we have to do.
I’m not sure some of her friends will make the same choice. Three of her very best black girlfriends live with their single, never-married mothers. One of their mother’s lives with a “boyfriend.” She works… and he doesn’t do anything from what I’ve seen unfortunately. This girl’s baby brother is a child of that union: her own father is not in the picture. The other girls are sisters: their mother has three other children from different relationships that never ended in marriage. Their father isn’t in their lives either.

These are not urban, low income families. These are suburban, middle class folks.

All three of these girls visit our house so frequently Kevin often says we’re running a “Home for Girls.” They call me “Mom” and watch how I interact with Kevin with fascination. Okay, that’s partly because we’re a black and white family, but I think there’s more to the interest than just that. One of them asks all the time if we can “adopt” her. We can’t: but the vibe that I got from her mother’s boyfriend made me tell her she was welcome and safe at our house—and that she could come anytime, night or day.

While I believe their mother’s are doing the best they can for these girls, their choices puzzle me. For some reason, there is an attitude in the black community that makes it perfectly acceptable to have a baby without a husband, or without the support of even a committed partner. I once had a conversation with a young lady who accepted this as “the way it is” without question. “I didn’t have any problem with it,” she said about being pregnant by a man who she acknowledge wasn’t interested in marriage and in fact had relationships with several other women. She even spoke of her child as “my daughter” –absolving the child’s father of any ownership, possession or role in the child’s life. Another went on and on about the coming day when she would have “her baby”— with same tone that once upon a time, girls spoke about meeting their “Prince Charming.”

As the mother of daughters, I’m worried about the role model set for our girls. I’m worried about the perception of child-rearing as the sole responsibility of the woman—and our acceptance of that notion. I’m worried about the perception of black men as sperm donors—not fathers, looked to for love, guidance and support. I’m worried about the erosion of marriage as an institution in the black community, when marriage is linked to everything from family income, educational success of children, the likelihood those children will use drugs and commit crimes. Even when the parents divorce the kids do better than children whose parents were never married. There’s something about the commitment of marriage—legally, emotionally, psychologically—that provides kids with a stronger connection to both their parents, even when they no longer live together.

I’m worried about the idea that some young black men and women have espoused that “Marriage is for White People.”

If it is, then we are in serious trouble as a community.
Of course, a single woman is completely capable of raising a child—and raising a child well. That isn’t the point. After Sisi’s Dad and I divorced, I was a single parent for five years. It was often very difficult, and on occasion I had to make tough choices about how my time would be spent. I think she’s turned out well in spite of—or perhaps sometimes because of—those choices. And I don’t regret my divorce.
The point is not against single mothers. The point is single motherhood shouldn’t be the default position. It shouldn’t be what we expect to become or accept as the norm. The point is, from the child’s point of view, there is and always will be something missing.

With 70% of black children born out of wedlock, I’d say that not only are there a lot of young people walking around with something missing—with a hole in their foundation—but that it’s a crisis. And it’s a crisis that is solved not by government interaction, or reparations or a rebuke to white racism. It’s solved by individual choices.

Just yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend a few hours of the Congressional Black Caucus here in Washington, DC. Somehow, I ended up in a discussion with a gentleman—a state legislator from Texas—on the black family. He trotted out the tired old chestnut about how welfare separated black men from families.

“You couldn’t have a man in the house and get the money!” he said, working himself up about how white racism is responsible for our current dilemma.
“And that’s because of the expectation of manhood,” I replied. “To hustle and provide for the family. As I understand the policy beneath that, the idea is that if you have a two-parent household, you have two potential wage-earners. The expectation is still that men will make money—more money than women.”

He blinked at me like he hadn’t thought manhood had any expectations.
“But there aren’t opportunities for black men. Racism keeps black men from jobs.”

“You seem to be doing pretty well.”

He blinked at me again. I could see in his face, he wanted to argue that he was the exception to some “rule” but we both knew he wasn’t. The room was full of men like him. In fact the nation is full of men like him. Yes, poverty disproportionately affects black Americans, and yes, black men do face racism in employment contexts. But so do black women—as well as gender discrimination--and we’re not absolved of any responsibilities for the next generation. And while an alarmingly high 25% of African Americans live below the poverty, line 75% do not. To say that the spike in out of wedlock births is an issue of poverty or welfare is inaccurate. The numbers just don’t add up.

“It’s a choice,” I said simply. “It’s still a choice. Maybe I’m too bourgie to get it, but I wouldn’t break up my family for any amount of government money. Just wouldn’t do it. And neither would you.”
I reminded him of our grandparents, who lived in oppressive segregation—but got married and raised their families as a unit. They were poor because of laws that kept them that way much of the time. But they both worked, and worked together for their families’ sakes.

“If they did it under Jim Crow, what’s our excuse?”

Excuses. That’s exactly what they usually are. By choosing not to be proactive, we let “accidents happen.” By choosing not to model two-parent homes for our children, we send a message that further destabilizes our communities—and ultimately the nation. By choosing to accept the role as sole parent, black women undermine their children’s success and their own viability in the dating world. It’s a vicious cycle with far ranging repercussions.

Not for my daughters…and if our example provides anything they can use, maybe not their friends, either. I want my daughters—by birth and by “adoption”—to choose long-term, committed relationships. I want them to choose marriage before having children and, of course, to throw wide open the doors of possibility to include men of any ethnicity. I want them to be proactive about their own sexual behaviors… and if Kevin and I have to help them make good choices for themselves, I know we will use what resources we have to do so—whether they are daughters by birth or by virtue of circumstance. A ride to the clinic? Done. Some help with paying for prophylactics? Done. Talking, talking and talking about men, expectations, and responsibilities? Already done, done, done.

We owe it to our daughters to model a family unit that provides the optimal support for them and their children. Through individual choices, we can reverse the attitude of “I don’t see anything wrong with having a Baby’s father relationship.” to “Not for me. No wedding, no womb.”

The Big M...

2010-09-17T07:36:00.000-07:00

A couple of nights ago, I got a call from my doctor. I was expecting it... but still, when it came I felt a little sad.

"Well, Karyn," she said. "I got your blood work back and the levels confirm it. You're definitely at the beginning of the end."

Not the beginning of the end of my life (I hope) but the beginning of the end of my childbearing years. Yes, it's the beginning of what my mother's generation called "the change." Menopause, or more accurately perimenopause, the stretch of time between the symptoms of menopause and it's actual arrival.

You have to love my doctor's phrasing. "The beginning of the end" sounds so dire, but in a way, those are exactly my feelings about this stage of my life. Don't get me wrong, I don't want any more children. But it's more than that: in the back of my mind I'm realizing this is the beginning of the end of my youth. It's the beginning of my life as an "old lady."

And while it's something that happens to every woman if she's lucky enough to keep breathing long enough, it's somehow something I didn't really think would ever happen to me.

There has no mistaking the changes in my moods and in my body over the past year or so. Suddenly, I had a mustache and I was always warm even in the dead of winter. My once-curvy body had gotten round as an apple, with a nasty little pouch up front that never went away no matter what I did. My patience was hair-trigger sensitive. And then, for the first time in my life, I skipped a period... and I wasn't pregnant.

The beginning of the end.

I wish I could say I am immediately embracing this change for the new possibilities it offers. In time, of course, I will. But for right now, it makes me feel sad. I look back on my youth and I regret things I didn't do, things I was too scared to try. I regret that I didn't know how cute I was-- and that I didn't believe that the day would come when "matronly" would be an accurate description of my figure. That "hot" would be an adjective for "flash" and not for me.

I look at Sisi and I feel a little jealous. Does she know what she has right now? Does she know that one day, she will be me? Probably not. It seems unbelievable when you're young, that you will one day be... not.
Sometimes I think the heart of the mother-daughter conflict is simply that while the daughter's hormones are soaring, the mother's are declining. It's just biology and little more. We're a couple of moody bitches who don't really know what the hell is wrong with us. Enter fighting.

Poor Kevin. :-)

One of my favorite sayings is "This too shall pass" because it captures the transience of our experiences so perfectly. I know that twenty or thirty years from now, I'll look back and wish for some the blessings I have now: flexibility, mobility, my kids at home, otherwise perfect health. I'll wish for these days--hot flashes in all. Knowing that helps me to find acceptance for this moment. There's good in this, I know there is. Of course there is. It's just going to take me a minute or two to find it.

It's the beginning of the end, but it's also the end of the beginning. And experience and wisdom are wonderful things to say that I have gained a bit of at this point in my life. It's celebration and grief. It's joy and pain, it's endings and beginnings. A perfect circle of womanhood and a perfect circle of life.

Is College Overrated for Some (Most) Kids?

2010-09-10T06:52:00.000-07:00

There's an intrigue piece in today's Washington Post with the seductive title "Is College Overrated?" To check it out, click here. I read it with great interest, because, around here with Sisi already a freshman in high school this Fall, the topic of college is becoming more and more relevant.

Given that I'm fairly (over)educated myself, it may surprise you to know that, not only do I fully agree with the article, but we have pretty much already decided: Sisi will not jump directly to college from high school. It's not that she's not smart, nor do we believe college is unnecessary. It's a question of focus and maturity.

Rare is the high school senior who knows exactly what she wants to do with the rest of her life from the moment she crosses the graduation stage. I'll never forget in my own freshman year of college, my English teacher (who bore the ominous nickname 'Bloody Mary') told us our first day point-blank: "Most of you don't belong here. You're just not ready for serious study." Of course, she was right: most of the class was more interested in pledging a sorority or fraternity and exploring their newfound independence than writing analyses of the works of Dead American Poets. And while there's nothing wrong with sororities and fraternities and nothing wrong with exploring newfound independence, I'm sure their parents didn't appreciate paying what would amount to $15,000 to $50,000 a year for that privilege.

I know I don't want to pay that. Exporation and independence, life experience and focus can be had for a whole lot less than tens of thousands of dollars. In fact, kids and earn money while acquiring it.

Obviously, for some (few) kids, college is the next best step. But we've already discussed what will happen when Sisi graduates. She'll have an allotment of money to spend on travel, or on a car, or, if she's got a plan, a business idea. If she chooses the car, she'll take a few classes at the local junior college and get a job. She'll pay rent if she decides to live here with us (nothing major, more on principle) and be allowed to explore her independence while earning money, sticking a toe in the academic waters and figuring out what her passions in life are.

She's mentioned getting work on a cruise ship and I think that would be a tremendous life experience and opportunity. Later, if she really liked it, a degree in business, management, or hospitality would make sense. A three-month contract on a cruise ship would be enough to figure out if the industry was something she really wanted to pursue... and she'll get to travel as well as make some money.

She's mentioned veterinary medicine. Why not work with a volunteer shelter organization for six months or a year? Do you still like animals? If so, let's go to school, knowing what your career will really look like.

She made the prestigious Treble Choir at her high school. Want to try the music industry? Use your money to live on and get an internship with a record label. Find out what it's like. Want to sing? Use your money to form a band, tour and produce music. When you realize you need more education, go get it.

Experience is the best teacher here and it seems some of us might be doing this backwards by sending kids to college straight out of high school, enabling them to prolong the realizations about their true interests at our expense. We're going to try to do it the other way: experiences first, education after.

Perhaps because of my own (dubious) experiences with higher education, I've long believed that a little time off is helpful for kids. Sisi knows she has that time to explore. Then, and only then, will we make a plan for her higher education-- in the hopes that when she goes to college, she won't be just another unfocused student on the parentally-subsidized party train.

What are your thoughts? Is college overrated? Love to hear from you.

Disaster Planning (Just in Case)

2010-09-01T06:28:00.000-07:00

By now, regular readers of this blog are familiar with my own particular neuroses about the unexpected. I do tend a bit toward the "worst case scenario." Call me superstitious, but I happen to believe in the notion that if you're ready for it, it won't happen. And so, as the weather forecasters in my part of the world go back and forth about the weekend track of Hurricane Earl, I'm turning my attention to our family's disaster plan.

No one is predicting that Hurricane Earl will actually make landfall here in the Metro DC area. But in 2003 Hurriance Isabel just grazed our region... and our power was out for a week. Since 2010 has already been our "Year of Weather Nightmares" (60 inches of snow over the winter in three separate blizzards, a summer of record-breakingly hot temperatures, several lightning storms that closed roads and took down trees, and let's not forget, the EARTHQUAKE with an epicenter of a few hundred yards from our house!) it seems smart to replenish the supply closet, just in case.

In addition to checking the flashlights, buying more batteries and a few jugs of bottled water, this time, too, I decided to double-check myself against the County's emergency preparedness recommendations. It turned out to be a good idea: both girls have changed schools since I last thought about rendez-vous spots in the event something happened and we're in different locations. And though I've taught Lil Bit "911" and her address, it's time to start drilling her on other emergency names and phone numbers. She's going to be 5 in a couple of weeks: she can learn them competently now with a little work on my part. And of course, the County's plan gives a good checklist for a disaster supply kit.

I once had a fully stocked "disaster kit": a bin full of things that would needed in the event of an emergency. In the days after 9/11/01 when everyone was in a panic about security, I put together our own survival supplies in a large storage bin; it held blankets, a first aid kit, extra flashlights and batteries, canned foods, etc. Over the years, however, the bin's has emptied as our perception of the imminence of any threat has diminished. The blankets are on beds and in closets. The flashlights got taken to camp and are now scattered around the house. I realized out was out of one thing or another needed for a recipe and raided the canned goods as a backup (not the intended emergency, I know, but an appreciated alternative!). The first aid kit was opened for extra bandaids inside. It looks almost bare to me right now. Even the candles have been moved and used.

In the event of a real disaster, we wouldn't have tiime to run around the house gathering up these things-- and that's exactly why it's important to set them aside in advance of an actual emergency. It's time to replenish these supplies and seal up my bin again. True, over time they will be used for other purposes and dispersed... but that's the good news. It means we've been lucky and blessed and haven't had any actual emergencies.

Paranoid? Maybe. But one of my favorite saying is that we should pray like God exists and work like He doesn't...and emergency preparedness is just another place where fortune favors the prepared. Even if you and yours aren't in the path of Hurricane Earl (or any other warning, for that matter) it's not a bad idea to check your readiness every so often. As my mother likes to say "better safe, than sorry."

Feeding Frenzy: Sisi goes Vegan, no, Vegetarian, well Pescatarian...or something

2010-08-30T07:37:00.000-07:00

My daughter Sisi is without a doubt the star of this blog... and it's time for an update into her latest foray into defining herself. We've already explored hair, makeup, contact lenses and wardrobe. What else could there be?

Diet, of course. Food, marvelous food.

Saturday morning, Sisi announced, "I've decided to become a vegan" and waited expectantly for a reaction. I've learned from hard experience that, when a reaction is "expected," it's best not to react at all. So I turned a page of the newspaper I was reading and simply said, "Okay."

"It's because I watched a video on YouTube. About animal cruelty in slaughterhouses. You want to see it?"

I already know all about it. Not so much because of YouTube, but because of Michael Pollan's excellent books, In Defense of Food, and The Onmivore's Delimma.

Pollan's eater's manifesto is simply this: "Eat food (not processed stuff), not too much, mostly plants."

Concerns about where food comes from is not new in this household. We've had a garden, frequent farmer's markets and try to buy both locally and organically raised meats. While the treatment of the animals is important, my concern has always been about the multitude of contamination streams that come with Big Food. If you've read either of Pollan's books, you know what I mean. If you haven't, you should.

My efforts at buying, cooking and serving "clean" food are the reasons that every chance she gets, Sisi begs for fast food: she's usually the first one in the household to complain about our healthy foods. I have to nag her to eat fruit. She complains that my chicken isn't "real chicken": the stuff they serve at McDonald's is "real chicken." And vegetables? Please.

I opted not to watch the YouTube video, and instead, answered her question with a question of my own:

"You do know that vegans eat mostly vegetables, right? They don't even eat eggs, or milk-- or anything that is made with them, which includes a lot of baked stuff."

Sisi frowned. "Well, you can take me to the store, and we can by some stuff especially for vegans. You know, like the mock chicken, and vegan breads and cookies and other stuff I could eat."

I tossed her a fresh peach, picked from a local farm only the day before. "That could get kind of expensive and some of those products aren't that good for you either. We'll see. For right now, here's something you can eat."

I don't know why, but she didn't seem so happy with that. But she took the peach and went back to her room. She came back an hour later with a new announcement.

"I don't think I'm going to go vegan after all," she said heading for the kitchen cabinet for a box of Ritz crackers. "I'll just be a vegetarian. That means I can eat stuff that has eggs and milk, right?"

"I guess," I replied. "But you're the vegetarian, right? You should know what you eat and what you don't."

She stuffed her mouth with crackers and left again. When we ordered Chinese food for dinner that evening, she ordered a tofu dish... and ended up eating most of my crisy eggplant instead. "The tofu tastes funny," she said. Not a good start for a growing vegetarian who will need protein, but tofu can be an acquired taste.

By Sunday morning, my vegetarian had become a pescatarian. "I eat mostly vegetables, but fish, too. We're having swordfish for dinner, right?" Sisi likes fish. So do I.

Still, I give my "pescatarian" a week (or less, depending on how soon she gets the opportunity to go to Chik Fil A). Regardless of how long this interest in food lasts, I'm pleased that she's ready to pay more attention to what she eats, where it came from and what benefits it offers nutritionally. Asking questions about food sources, learning out to prepare it in ways that are both tasty and healthy and understanding how our consumption of it impacts the environment are all worthwhile and important activities. Today's experiment might ultimately become tomorrow's lifestyle.

Until, further notice, Sisi's a pescatarian, and tonight's paella will respect the choice and feature shrimp. She may have to pick out the turkey chorizo...or not. That's up to her. I won't say a word, either way.

Black Men, High School and the new book The Other Wes Moore

2010-08-26T09:27:00.000-07:00

The Schott Foundation for Public Education recently released some very disturbing information on the high school graduation rates for young African American men. In a sentence, the headline was that less than 50% of young black men graduate from high school setting off a fresh round of questions about race, opportunity, school performance, economics and individual responsibility. While all of these are areas that deserve discussion and the finger of blame can fairly be pointed in many directions, I recently read a book which, I think contributes much to the discussion. The book is the The Other Wes Moore: One Name Two Fates and it tells the story of two young African American men who lived briefly in the same neighborhood in Baltimore-- but grew up to live vastly different lives.

You might have seen Wes Moore the author on Oprah talking about his experiences as a Rhodes Scholar, decorated Afghanistan veteran and White House fellow. The man who shares his name is serving a life sentence for his role in the murder of a Baltimore police officer. Both men had their share of troubles as boys--and both had scrapes with the law. Both were largely unmotivated in school, and both were raised by their mothers. But it is there that the similarities end, because although both grew up without fathers the reasons behind their fathers absences were very different.

One Wes Moore's parents were married; his father died when he was very small. When the difficulty of raising her family alone became too much, one Wes Moore's mother moved the family to New York City and into the home of her parents, who offered the boy additional family support and stability while she worked several jobs to send him to private school. Even more, when it became clear that "street life" might engulf young Wes, his grandparents mortgaged their home to help his mother send him to a military high school. He graduated.

Meanwhile, the other Wes Moore's mother and father never married. The boy met his father only a couple of times: both times the man was violent and drunk. His mother had little to no family support--she had fled her own abusive family situation at a young age. His mother had little education and often worked multiple jobs just to pay the rent, but she did her best to remove Wes from an environment where she knew his options would be limited. Still Wes sold drugs, became a father himself at 16 and struggled to break free of the lure of the street. He dropped out of high school.

It's easy to determine which Wes Moore is which. The differences of family support and financial resources-- and the options they provide--make it easy enough to predict which Wes Moore becomes a Rhodes scholar and which ends up in jail. But Wes the felon offered an important distinction on the fatherlessness of the two boys and the impact it had on his life. He said to Wes the author during a prison interview: "Your father wasn't there because he couldn't be. Mine wasn't there because he didn't want to be."

In addition to economics, environment and a system that seems to prefer incarceration over education, there is something to be said for the link between family composition and school performance. Numerous studies have shown again and again that children do best with two parents--whether those parents are two mothers, two fathers or a mother and a father-- regardless of the race of the child. It also helps that the parents were married-- even if they don't stay that way. Once again, this is true regardless of the race of the child, or the parents. The commitment of marriage brings a benefit for children--not only in resources but in self-perception. Those findings have called into question not only families like Wes the felon's who are headed by a single female by default, but also those of single women who opt to get pregnant by sperm donor, too. A parent who is absent by choice tells kids something about their value that they take with them into other areas of their lives-- not the least of which is the classroom.

Family composition certainly isn't the only factor that contributes to the alarming drop out rate of African American young men-- but it is a factor. Family is the foundation of our lives. As we go about the process of trying to solve some of our culture's most complex problems, it makes makes sense that we spend at least a little inquiry on family structure, on the impact of out of wedlock births, and on the importance of fathers to their sons and daughters--before branching out to the responsibility of our culture at large.

There's a movement afoot to change the mindset about the acceptability of out of wedlock births called "No Wedding No Womb"... and I'll be talking more about it in the weeks to come. In the meantime, if you haven't already, pick up The Other Wes Moore. It's an interesting story with much to teach us.

2010-08-20T16:55:00.000-07:00

I'm glad the woman at the center of the Dr. Laura controversy, Nita Henson, has come forward. Her story further expounds on the difficulty that interracial families have in searching for resources and advice on the complexities of "blending" in a black and white society.

If you haven't heard her talk about the incident, here's her interview on The Larry King Show:

We'll leave Dr. Laura's assessment of herself as a victim whose First Amendment rights were violated in this experience for others to debate. This isn't a political blog: it's a family one. Interracial families may espouse many different political points of views-- and many different ideas about what is racist and what isn't.

And that's exactly the point that Halima Sal Anderson (who authors the popular blog, www.dateawhiteguy.blogspot.com-- as well as other publications about interracial and intercultural dating) and I were debating in the comments of my prior Dr. Laura blog. Halima points out that interracial couples have so many different ideologies, and deal with the perceptions of racial and gender inequality in so many different ways-- that it can be very difficult to construct a "clearinghouse" of how to handle race/gender issues like the one faced by Hanson and her hubby. Here's Halima's take:

I also have noted that when you bring interracial families together physically, some other dynamics can come into play, and you may find that one family or both have ideas and beliefs that are threatening and or are demeaning to those of the opposite combination.

One instance springs to mind and if you bring a bm-ww relationship together with a bw-wm in any sort of group interaction or purpose, you may fast discover (and I am going to give this example because I have come across it often) that because the bm-ww relationship was in some way precipitated because of racio-misogynic notions of the inferiority of bw and even the trashing of the white male identity, the interactions can be damaging to the black woman even the white man!

This is the problem I have observed when we 'bring' all interracial and intercultural groups together, you end up finding that many of the members are not as 'open minded' as an interracial relationship would suggest or has been made to indicate. How indeed can a black woman thrive under such conditions where she is reminded in a variety of ways that the reason for the founding of the other opposite relationship is because she is deemed inferior/less than.

In my view general mixed race relationship spaces [clearinghouses or communities like I suggested in my post] are not safe spaces for black women. As a bw i have come to notice this.

She's right, of course. I come from a very progressive point of view on relationships and tend to hang out with couples share that ideology. But I too have met couples whose relationships work on very different dynamics. I've met the BW-WM couple who seem to minimize blackness or femaleness. I've also met couples where the white male is the partner whose personhood is minimized. Halima's point speaks to a powerful reminder: just as there is no single definition of what it means to be a "black Person" or a "white person" there's no single way to be an interracial couple. Indeed, we can be as different as we are individually.

So, for Nita Henson, advice about how to address the frequency with which her husband's white friends brought up racial issues in her presence would differ depending on who in the community of interracial relationships was asked. Some might suggest getting angry, some might suggest, as Dr. Laura did, that Nita was being hypersensitive--and there might be hundreds of other suggestions in between.

Concerns about the "ideology behind the answer" is probably the reason that interracial couples maintain a certain level of silence about any problems in the relationship that have racial overtones. That's probably why the party line is "race doesn't matter". And from my own experiences I know it doesn't... until it does.

The truth is actually that most of us face issues-- and race plays its roles in how they appear. But revealling that fact puts interracial couples in an awkward position because fuels the arguments of those who believe that interracial relationships are a bad idea or that they can't work. Discuss such personal conflicts with the wrong advisor and you could get advice so bad that one begins to question one's own decisions and reactions. That's what Nita Henson seems to have felt after hanging up with Dr. Laura last week. Such harsh criticism makes keeping silent seem like a very good idea.

Still, if those outside the relationship can't be trusted to give good advice, at the very least, problems like the one that Nita Henson faced with her husband's friends should be discussed carefully and lovingly between the couple. If there is any universal advice to be offered it's simply this: "Have you told your husband how you feel about this? Has he offered to speak to his friends--or to help you respond to these comments and questions when they come up?" Because truly, progressive or conservative, interracial couples--like any married partners-- have to be able to communicate with each other-- and to count on each other for support.

What the "Dr. Laura" Incident Means to Me

2010-08-17T07:02:00.000-07:00

By now, just about everyone who has an Internet or television connection has heard about what radio talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger said to the interracially married black woman who called in for advice about what to do when her white husband's friend insist on talking "black" and black issues in her presence. Dr. Laura's N-word rant has provided plenty of blogosphere fodder from every point of view.

As an interracially married black woman, I see this whole issue slightly differently than most. From where I'm standing, Dr. Laura's use of the N-word is barely relevant. After all, she's a talk show host known for being-- and indeed, expected to be--incendiary. In the world of media advice, there are really only two possible responses: controversial and politically correct. Both are geared toward generating the approval of their listeners/viewers. Neither are really in the business of actually offering useful advice--especially not to interracial families. How can they? At bottom, Dr. Laura, Dr. Phil-- and any other radio or TV "dr" currently on air-- are entertainers.

My hope is that the African American woman who called Dr. Laura knew this: and wanted to see what kind of crazy, kooky response the host would give. If that is the case (and some believe that it is) then, Dr. Laura stepped into the trap laid for her, it's all very entertaining, illustrates nothing more than our usual two-faced, black-white dialogue and I really could care less.

But my greater concern is that the caller might have been looking for real advice... and that is where I see a real issue for black and white families-- and indeed interracial families of every mixture. The fact is that, for the woman caller-- and for other mixed families-- these questions, concerns and issues come up frequently. Where can we go for advice in tricky situations involving the comments of family members and friends? Where do we get insight--not from entertainers-- but from other spouses, parents and experts who really understand the special nuances of being in an interracial or intercultural relationships?

I know there are many websites and blogs discussing these issues in one way or the other. Many who follow this blog run those sites--and are doing that work. But even though interracial marriages are on the rise, even though there millions of us, in the mainstream of American culture, we have yet to successfully aggregate our resources in ways that make us fully able to help each other. We haven't found ways to maximize our power. Instead of being able to offer each other support and solutions on the trickier aspects of integrating two (or more cultures) we end up either trying to pretend those issues don't exist, or getting "Dr. Laura-ed" into racially divided camps.

Where do we go to talk to each other candidly and honestly about the problems that confront us within our families? How do we spread the word about the existence of those experts and resources that already exist? How do we organize and disseminate information that enables interracial couples and families to navigate the tricky waters of a society that either reduces racial issues to the "N-word" or would rather pretend that racial tensions don't exist at all?

In my own searches on these questions, it seems that interracial family magazines, blogs and programs often have a short shelf life (unless they are organized around a legal issue like multiracial classification, see www.projectRace.com-- or around dating and mating). I'm not sure why that is. Do we fail to support each other? Are we unaware of each other? Are we stingy with the resources of time and money that can make or break these crucial clearinghouses? Are there still "too few" of us to make it work? Or, on some level, are also a little afraid of a real dialogue on these issues?

Personally, I don't believe that any of the above are true. I think the time is now to explore race and racism WITHIN families, not simply in terms of the family against the wider world. I'm eager to know of other sources, and eager to be involved in ways that we can provide more support to interracial couples and families. I'm eager to contribute what I know-- and to learn from others' experiences. I'm eager to provide real knowledge to other couples and families on exactly what works when friends and family members bring racial tensions-- or when they happen within the home.

If not us--those of us who have been and are "in the trenches"-- who? No one deserves to be "Dr. Laura-ed"--and that's exactly what will continue to happen unless we can find a better platform to share our stories and strength with each other.

Happy Birthday, Sisi!

2010-08-11T05:30:00.000-07:00

Fourteen years ago today, after hours of unsuccessful labor and (at last) an emergency C-section, Sisi was born. I remember being elated (and exhausted) when I finally got to see her little face. She gave me a little smirk of a smile. The nurse said it was just gas, but even then, I knew better. Since then, I’ve seen that smirk too many times to be persuaded differently now. It’s the look that means “I hear you talking… but I have my own ideas, thank you very much!”

The "smirk"-14 years later.

Since then, Sisi and I have been inseparable. That first night, the nurse brought her to me apologetically when she wouldn’t stop screaming in the nursery. “We’ve tried everything,” she said settling my newborn daughter into my arms. “I think she just wants you.” And as if to prove her right, Sisi stopped crying almost instantly and drifted off to sleep. That started the trend of nursing and then sleeping in bed with me. It also started “thousand kisses”: a night time ritual of multiple kisses that ended, only reluctantly, a few years ago.
Things change, because they must, because it’s the nature of life. My marriage to Sisi’s dad didn’t last: but my bond with her remains unbroken. For four years, it was just the two of us and when Kevin entered the picture, I sought her permission to date him. I remember her eight- year-old response to the idea of Mommy “dating”: “I would rather you didn’t, but if you really want to, I guess it would be okay.”
Kevin was smart about her: he wooed her with presents (and still does). In the end, Sisi foresaw the conclusion between us long before either of us were ready to admit to it. We’d only been dating a few months when she asked him “Are you going to marry my mom?”
Adjusting to being an older sister was harder for someone who had been, up to that moment, the center of her own small Universe. Even now, there are tensions, but on the whole, she’s grown into the role. The bigger changes have been between us.
It started in fifth grade; she was ten and at the costume parade around the school—a tradition that took the place of Halloween parties—and instead of waving and announcing proudly “That’s my mom!” like she used to do, she barely acknowledged me. She was too busy talking to her friends and seemed embarrassed when I insisted on making my presence known. I was hurt: I’d rearranged my schedule just to be there. How could she act that way?

Little did I know how much more embarrassing I’d ultimately become. I’ve learn to use it to my advantage. It’s one of the few threats that still works.

Last year, was tough for both of us. Eighth grade brought out the “mean girl”—in Sisi and in her friends. Technology made it worse for everyone; parents and guidance counselors got involved. Sisi came home crying day after day, unable to see beyond the moment, unable to believe me when I told her “this too shall pass.” Some days, I didn't believe it myself. Some days, I cried, too.

It passed. Now, as high school looms, my fingers are crossed for a better year. But it’s going to be hard. I know it is. Boys haven't really entered the picture yet. When they do, everything will get much more complicated.

“It gets worse before it gets better,” our pediatrician told me. Friends and relatives who’d already survived the teen years agreed. “It gets worse… then it gets better.” The doctor said fifteen was the nadir: the crashing, developmental end of a cycle that began at ten. Friends give different numbers: seventeen, twenty, twenty-five.

I confess: I’m scared. Adolescence now is so much harder than it was thirty years ago when I was transitioning…and it was no picnic then. But just like that first night, when the nurse surrendered and brought her to me, I have hope that, as long as we’re together, somehow it’ll be okay. I have hope because we still talk: because, even when I don’t want to know—I know. I know about the fights with friends, I know about the frustrations about boys, the laziness about school, the desire for the fruits of being grown, the fear about the responsibilities. I know about Shane Dawson, the Teen Choice Awards, Oovo and Family Force Five. I know why her friends call her “Crouton” and which ones have already lost their virginity. I know she’s curious about alcohol and her own sexuality—but afraid of them, too. I know she’s desperate for independence… but still welcomes the opportunity to climb into Mom’s bed when the thunder is loud and the lightning is bright.

And she knows that, whatever the struggle, whatever the challenge, whatever happens, I’m not going anywhere. She knows she can count on me. She knows I’m proud of her. She knows I’m in for the long-haul. She knows I’m more faithful than any “friend” she will ever have. Of course I am. I’m her mother.

So, Happy Birthday, Crouton. You’ve blessed my life from the very first minute—and I’m deeply grateful for all the wonderful things you are! And thank you for sharing your challenges and explorations with us. My life (and this blog) wouldn’t be the same without you!

ps- The "single eye" picture is violet contacts, below. Yeah... I can't tell either. Betting this won't last two weeks.

Sisi and the Colored Contacts-- Part 2

2010-08-09T05:53:00.000-07:00

Regular readers recall that, about a month ago, Sisi asked for colored contacts lenses. My older daughter has two African American parents, perfect vision and beautiful deep brown eyes. I heard her request as an expression that brown eyes were less beautiful than blue ones-- and that African American features are less attractive than Caucasian ones-- and categorically refused.

At first.

Upon further reflection, however, I decided to treat the matter differently and allow her the same youthful experimentation that I have allowed her with her hair and her clothes. So we made an appointment with our family eye doctor (overdue anyway) and Si has been fitted with trial pairs of violet lenses.

Can you tell which of the two pictures above is with the contacts-- and which is without?

Good luck. I'll post an answer later in the week!

Burying the "strong black woman" stereotype

2010-08-03T17:57:00.000-07:00

As anyone who's read Don't Bring Home a White Boy knows, I really hate the strong black woman stereotype. In my opinion, this unrealistic image robs black women of their vulnerabilities. It steals from us the ability to ask for help or be cared for. It helps to burn us out and send us to earlier graves.

And so, while at the National Book Club Conference in Atlanta last weekend, I was pleased that so many women step outside of the stereotype and share their experiences, their hurts and their needs.

I know what you're thinking: things got that deep at a gathering of ladies book clubs? Sure why not! Especially when the discussion is led by several powerful women who, instead of turning the spotlight on their many accomplishments, chose to open up about their many struggles.

Terrie Williams and Ntozake Shange were among the speakers around the topic of "Black Pain"-- but in a roomful of black women talking frankly about their lives, it could have just as easily been a eulogy for "the strong black woman." For those who don't know, Terrie Williams runs the eponymous Terrie Williams Agency, one of the largest and most successful minority-owned public relations firms in the country. Her client list includes a raft of famous names in sports, media and corporate America (Eddie Murphy, Sean Combs, Janet Jackson, Coca-Cola and GE to name just a few) but over the weekend, she wore her author hat. Her latest book, Black Pain: It Only Looks Like We're not Hurting delves deep into a topic that most Americans find uncomfortable: depression and mental illness.

Ntozake Shange is the is the author of the 1973 stage play for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf. For Colored Girls is a series of monologues performed by seven different women, laying bear their most intimate pain. It won the playwright the Obie Award. She won it again in 1981 for Mother Courage and her Children. Carving out her identity as a black feminist at a time when doing so was contrary to the notions of black male and female solidarity, she also created her own name: Ntozake, which means “she who brings her own things” and Shange, which means “who walks with lions.” To list all of her awards would take more space than I have: but it’s sufficient to say that her talent has been recognized with nearly every major award available. Her first novel in 14 years will be released in September; it's called Some Sing, Some Cry.

Obviously, these two "Super Sisters" could have chosen to talk about their paths to success. Instead, however, they chose to talk about their struggles. Ms. Shange allowed her introduction to include a mention of her three attempts at suicide and her ongoing health challenges. Ms. Williams started the session by admitting that she felt overwhelmed and exhausted. "I feel like I might burst into tears at any moment," she confessed while the audience nodded supportively-- because we all knew the feeling.

I found it refreshing to see women of Ms. Williams and Ms. Shange's status opening up the doubts and dark corners of their lives, claiming their sorrow, claiming their vulnerability, claiming the right to cry in public and, yes, claiming weakness. Doing so may knock them off some people's "strong black woman" pedestal-- but I think it allows them to wear a much nobler crown:

That of simply being human.
Ntozake Shange and Terrie Williams, National Book Club Conference 2010. Photo by Sid Tutani/GoLiveFoto

Obviously, revealing our weaknesses isn't appropriate for every circumstance or gathering, but I sometimes think that many black women wear their shields to high, too much of the time. In an attempt to avoid pain, we attempt to seem impervious to it. Nothing gets to us. We are cool, unflappable. We are strong black women. It works: we seem capable, but others are often afraid of us. We don't get assistance-- even when we desperately need it-- because our mask of resilience suggests that this "strong black woman" has it under control. Instead of expressing sadness, fatigue or fear, we only release anger... and turn into SBW's evil younger sister, ABW--the angry black woman, and is used as yet another stereotype to dehumanize our feelings.

What women like Ms. Williams and Ms. Shange are doing in sessions like the one I attend this weekend is encouraging all of us to rip aside the masks and be willing to let our true feelings out. In doing so, they're leading the way toward some new definitions of black womanhood, definitions that allow us to be strong,weak and everything in between-- just like women of every other culture.

What “White Culture” means to black-white families

2010-07-31T05:57:00.001-07:00

If you have the right "friends," there's no place like Facebook for being exposed to new ideas, new blogs and new writers who have fresh and interesting takes on some of the concepts that we, here in the trenches of race relations, deal with on a daily basis. That was the case for me today, when I signed in to FB and saw a note from one of my cyber-friends in an interracial relationship, directing us all to a blog at Psychology Today.com. The post, by Mikhail Lyubanksy is entitled "Going Where Glenn Beck Wouldn't: Defining White Culture" and it makes an attempt to outline the basics of what it means to be a white American. I confess, I'm not well-versed in the whole Glenn Beck controversy over this issue since Beck seems to be to go out of his way to make inflammatory, baiting and controversial remarks. Beck strikes me as theater of the absurd; I just don't pay him much mind. But the blog did an excellent job of explaining the context in which the concerns about attacks "white culture" arose—and then defining it. Check out the full post here.

I had never read Lyubansky before, but I found his observations on whiteness to be honest and accurate. While acknowledging that "black culture"—like white culture, or any other culture for that matter-- can be as different as the individuals who belong to it, he rightly states that black culture, in many ways, has become (for good or ill) synonymous with hip-hop culture. And he points out that cultural assimilation seems to be accepted more readily by other non-black groups—even when there are non-white physical traits. "White culture", according to Lyubansky, means three fundamental things that reach across differences in traditions, country of origin or religion. I've set them out below with my embellishments in parentheses:

1. distinction from Black culture, (defining "others" is part and parcel of whiteness);

2. avoidance of self-racialization, (in other words, "he's black, she's Asian, and he's Latino—but I'm just a person") and

3. privilege (which I define simply as getting the benefit of the doubt, as opposed to having to prove oneself NOT to be a stereotype).

I think these are excellent starting points for multi-racial families to explore the realities of whiteness. For the white members of the household, acknowledging the existence of a "white culture"—and a white culture that defines who is not white, while accepting the benefits and privileges of not having to define itself-- it is an important tool in dismantling the kinds of closed-minded, blind and unrealistic racial expectations that some white people engage it. Discussing both "whiteness" and "blackness"—and their perceived advantages and disadvantages strikes me as useful enterprise for helping kids to find words and ways for reaching beyond race in their interactions in the wider world. It would also be a useful place for explaining some of the different reactions and experiences they might have as they leave the safety of their multi-cultural worlds and begin to relate to people who identify with a certain cultural set of beliefs.

In other words, I think it's just as important to have a vocabulary about what it means to be white, as it is to have a vocabulary about what it means to be black. To ignore whiteness—to fail to break it down to some common definition is to do exactly what Mikhail Lyubansky challenges in this piece: it would elevate whiteness as being something that needs no explanation. It makes whiteness the standard, and everything else "other".

We need to think as much about whiteness as blackness, to explain it and understand it. Talking about it minimizes it, takes away its power. In discussing white culture openly and honestly, I believe we can get closer to the place where neither black nor white are necessary concepts for identifying or explaining people.

If Anything Happens to Me...

2010-07-26T13:47:00.000-07:00

This week, I'm boarding a plane for Atlanta to speak at the National Book Club Conference. I'm leaving Thursday and I'll be gone for four days.

Travel is always a mixed bag experience for me. On the one hand, it's good to get out, to meet readers and fellow writers. After all, writing can be a very solitary occupation and it's nice to get out of the house. But as good as it is to interact with others, leaving town for a few day always raises the issue of my fear of flying... and of dying.

Perhaps "fear" is too strong a word. "Unease" might be more accurate, since unlike those who are desperately, pathologically afraid, I will actually get on airplanes. And while I'm in no rush to meet my Maker, I accept that day comes when it comes. Still any time I fly, I double check my final arrangements. Will? Power of attorney? Everything still in the safe? Check, check and check.

By now, my blended, multiracial should be used to the pre-flight rituals of my telling them repeatedly that I love them, reminding them where all to find my email aliases and passwords and other, few pitiful "secrets" I have. And then for Kevin and Sierra, there's the "if anything happens to me" conversation.

This is not just neurosis on my part: the issue is real. In Maryland, like most states, as a step-parent, Kevin has no right to maintain custody over Sisi if something were to happen to me. Instead, her biological father would be assumed to have custody over her in the event of my death. Although my will can state my wishes for who should raise Sisi, a court would not be bound by that stipulation. Instead, a determination would be made according to the "best interest of the child" standard. Because she's a teenager, in the event of a dispute for custody between Kevin and her biological dad, Sisi's preferences would be given a greater weight than a younger child's-- but even that might not win the day.

All of this assumes a controversy... and my hope is that everyone would agree that the best and least disruptive thing to do in the event of my unfortunate demise would be for Sisi to remain with Kevin and Lil Bit. They have been her family for the past five years. Before that, it was just the two of us for five years. She only lived with her Dad for a few years when she was very small and these days visits only once a year. Her friends, her school and her favorite activities are all here. Uprooting her to live with her father in Florida at this point in her life would probably not be the best of ideas. I know because she told me so. Much as she loves her dad, she does NOT want to move to Florida.

Her biological father agrees she belongs here, with me, her mother. But I can't help but wonder if his feelings would change if something were to happen to me. Unexpected changes in circumstances have been known to challenge our ideas about what is the right course of action. Might he feel differently if I were gone? Would it seem inappropriate then for the white guy I married to be raising his child?

As I began thinking about this trip, I asked Kevin once again what he'd do about Sisi if anything were to happen to me.

"She belongs here. She's a part of this family and I would fight for her if it comes to that," he said simply.

As much as I like to hear that, the truth is, if it came to a fight, Kevin would probably lose. Step-parents rarely win against biological parents, unless the biological parent is unfit. Usually, the child only gets to make the choice about with whom to live unless she's over 16. My lawyer friends tell me that the best shot a step-parent has to stay involved with a well-loved step-child is to set up a trust fund that the step-parent administers. That way, the step-parent can retain some contact on matters of the trust. We haven't done that and that's my next step-- just in case.

It's the "just in case" that's the point. Too many of us don't think about the unpleasant inevitability of our death. We'd rather not think through the "if anything happens to me" because it seems morbid or negative. We think if we don't talk about it, somehow that keeps it from happening.

But the "if anything happens to me" questions are important ones to answer-- not just for step-kids, but for all of our kids. And while, sometimes, expressing our final wishes won't guarantee the outcomes we'd like, it's usually a whole lot better to have something written down than nothing. Several of the legal websites like legalzoom.com can help the average person draft a simple will or power of attorney easily and at relatively low cost-- but even a letter, signed and witnessed, expressing who you believe would be the best guardian for your children will provide your survivors (and the court, if it comes to that) with guidance.

It's something to think about, if you haven't already. Airplane rides remind me of the fragility of life-- but the truth is none of us know our appointed hour. Providing for the custody and care of our children isn't morbid-- it's just another way of loving them.

And thanks for reading this blog. I want you to know I appreciate you-- just in case anything happens to me!

"You be the Slave": Explaining American Slavery to a Five Year Old

2010-07-23T09:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Lil' Bit had a playdate with her very best friend in pre-school. With the temperature soaring near 100 degrees, outside was out of the question, so instead, Lil Bit and her friend (we'll call her "Natasha"), the little girl's mother (let's call her "Nancy") and I met at an indoor playspace in our local mall. The girls had a blast, running and jumping and creating games the way that little kids do in a fun place with lots of activities. Nancy and I sat nearby, watching them, sipping iced coffees and chatting...the way mothers do.

We started chatting about vacations. I told Nancy about our recent trip to Portland, Oregon to visit family, where we spent the coldest 4th of July I think I've ever experienced. Then I asked about their holiday. Nancy sighed, then told me about their trip to Mount Vernon, in Alexandria, Virginia on the 4th of July to see the daytime fireworks.

Mt. Vernon was the home of George Washington and once was fully operational plantation, complete with five farms and 67 slaves. Today, it is a historical landmark. Many of the buildings have been completely restored and re-enactments and narratives of 18th Century life are a part of the program offered to its millions of visitors each year. Nancy and her husband took Natasha on the tour, which included a visit to the slave quarters. After listening to the presentation, Natasha turned to her mother and asked:

"What's a slave?"

Slave quarters, Mount Vernon Plantation

"I explained it as best as I could on the level that I thought she could understand. I said that people back then thought it was okay to own other people. That the slaves had to work for the people who owned them and they couldn't ever leave. That they could be sold and bought like cars. I told her slavery was very wrong and some people knew it even then, but it took a war for slavery to stop. I didn't explain that American slaves were all Africans. I just decided not to go there for now."

Of course, I asked "Why not?"

"Partly because we're Jewish and there is also slavery in our ancestry-- and partly because I know my child. I have an image of her walking up to some random African American person and blurting out 'Were you a slave?' or some equally potentially offensive thing. She won't mean any harm-- she's trying to understand-- but that's an embarrassment I don't need right now. I'll try to explain all that when she's older."

I know Natasha, too and her mother's assessment isn't wrong. I could clearly imagine the little girl causing a racial incident as she tested out her new vocabulary word in its racial context. Said to the wrong person on the wrong day and Nancy's "teachable moment" could have seriously negative consequences. Race is still a touchy subject for many Americans. Some would like to pretend that it no longer matters, or at least avoid discussing it. Others see the hands of racism and white supremacy in every shadow. Most are somewhere in between but, to paraphrase Forrest Gump, but bringing up race between acquaintances is like a box of chocolates-- you never know what you're gonna get.

Nancy continued: "I guess my explanation was seriously lacking because slavery is now a part of her play-talk. I've heard her in room with her dolls saying, 'Okay, so this one is the slave and this one is the owner.'" She shook her head. "Clearly, she doesn't understand that slavery was wrong or how awful it was to be a slave. Should I have just ignored her question? Said something else?"

It was an interesting delimma. For the record, if Lil Bit had asked me that question, I certainly would have given a similar explanation-- but mine would have included the role of race in American slavery, for two reasons. First, because Africa is a part of Lil Bit's legacy, and second because her personality is quite different from her friend's. Shy around people she doesn't know in any instance, Lil Bit's not likely to walk up to a brown-skinned stranger and ask "Were you a slave?"

But Natasha's situation is very different. Because she isn't African American, perhaps her mother did the right thing not to emphasize race. Perhaps in a little girl with white skin, adding race to the equation might have implanted a notion of superiority? I don't know. Instead, perhaps the appropriate understanding comes from putting slavery in the full global and historical context: that slavery is as old as human history and that no culture has been exempt from being subject to its confines, particularly as human beings have often been just another "spoil of war." Perhaps what Natasha needs to understand is that, as a Jew, slavery is a part of her legacy in the same way that it part of my Lil Bit's. Perhaps, too, the quick glimpse at slavery through the historical re-creation of Mount Vernon made it seem a little too benign to a small child.

In no way would I suggest that a five-year old of any ethnicity should be submerged in the horrors of the history of slavery. Later, when she can better comprehend the inhumanity of that system will be soon enough. And, as I said to Nancy, her fascination with her new vocabulary word will surely fade in time, too.

But in spite of how uncomfortable the explanations are, I think Natasha's "What is a slave?" question shouldn't be the end of the lesson but the beginning. On the level that they can understand, I think it's absolutely appropriate to teach our kids their history--and American slavery is as much a part of Natasha's history as it is Lil Bit's. Nancy and I made plans to be on the look out for age-appropriate opportunities for both of our girls to learn more about history-- and to commit to teaching them together to understand and appreciate the cultural foundations they are standing on. We live in an area rich with historical landmarks and cultural opportunities. Since we already get together to go the the playland, why not get together to visit the Frederick Douglass home, or to take in a children's play about Harriet Tubman? When they are older, why not go together to the Holocaust Museum or Gettysburg?

For her part, Nancy was all for it. "I think that's a great idea," she said, as the girls ran over to beg for ice cream. "The best way to teach about difference to give them the opportunity to see that there really isn't any. We're all One, right?"

Amen, sister-- I couldn't have said it better myself.

Adventures in Retail- The Delimma of the Black Mermaid

2010-07-20T11:51:00.000-07:00

In our shopping and travelling adventures, I've gotten so used to be asked: "Are you together?" that I hardly get aggravated by it anymore. We get asked by gate agents as we cluster together to get on airplanes during the family boarding calls. We get asked by the hostesses in restaurants. And of course, we get asked when we stand in line together to buy something in every kind of store imaginable. (I'll save the differences in how I'm treated and how Kev is treated in some stores for another blog-- for this one, I'll leave it at the ubiquitous "Are you together?" question). "Yes," we reply and the salesperson blinks, looks from face to face and moves on. That's pretty much the end of the encounter.

This weekend, however, while vacationing at the beach, we had an unusual experience that had us leaving the store, scratching our heads.

We went to one of those "Christmas all year" shops, looking for a unique souvenir. Something that, on a colder day as we put up our holiday tree, would remind us of 100 degree weather, white sand and waves at the shore. Lil Bit was enthralled by all the creative decorations, touching everything, imagining everything on our Christmas tree. We promised her she could choose one thing as her very own memento. Indeed, each of us picked one ornament: I got a little beach bag ornament engraved with the name of the beach we were visiting, Kev (in a Homer Simpson moment) chose an ornament that looked and--amazingly, felt-- like a donut, and Lil Bit...

Could NOT make up her mind. She liked the mermaid. She liked the crab. She liked the sand vials. She liked the seahorse. She liked the fish. She liked the mermaid...and the crab, and the seahorse and the fish. And the mermaid...

After a few rounds of this, we steered her toward the mermaid-- had we not done so, I'd be unable to write this post. We'd still be in the store, watching Lil Bit pick up every item, trying to decide. We narrowed her choices a bit by suggesting a mermaid. But there were still several. Brown hair? Blonde hair?

We dawdled and dawdled, then finally she grabbed the one that looked the most like Ariel from Disney's "Little Mermaid" and we hurried to the counter with it before she could change her mind.

I put our three ornaments on the counter. The saleslady's eyes swept over us: brown me, pink Kevin (hey, we were at the beach!) and beige Sommer.

"We have an African American mermaid too--at slightly higher cost," she said. "She's in the back."

I was curious. Kevin was curious. We looked at each other and at Lil Bit, who now that her choice was made was getting kind of restless. Lil Bit has dolls and toys of every skin shade and ethnicity--brown, black, tan, pink white. I notice no favoritism in her play: they all get played with in rotations based on her moods and her games. Until the late sixties, there were very few toys, art images or products that represented African Americans at all. But insisting on those images--especially for a mixed race child-- seems a particularly shallow way of reinforcing identity.

I saw no reason to relay all of this to the clerk and, at that moment, I couldn't think of a short and sweet way to ask the questions I wanted to ask. So I just said: "I think we're good. Since she's a bit of both white and black and she's had enough difficulty making her choice already so we'll go with this one."

As soon as we were outside, Kevin asked, "Why on earth is the African American mermaid in the back? How are they going to sell them back there?"

"Why does she cost more?" I asked.

"Do you think she would have asked me that if I'd been with Lil Bit by myself?" he asked.

"Is she suggesting some kind of 'one drop' rule? That Lil Bit is all black because she has one black parent?"

We went back and forth, analyzing it. I was most puzzled by why the African American mermaid wasn't on display at all-- leaving the clerk to "mention it" to customers on her own initiative. Kev was more fascinated by the price differential. Was the difference explained by supply and demand: that, because of less demand, fewer were available, meaning the black mermaid was available at a premium?

Of course, that wasn't the fate a black Barbie. A few months ago, the Internet was on fire with criticism because Walmart had offered a deep discount on black Barbie because she wasn't selling well. The implication was that in doing so, Walmart wasn't simply making a business decision-- they were devaluing blackness. Some saw in the discounting of black Barbie the famous studies from the 1960s in which even black children showed a preference for white dolls. Of course some progressive non-black parents do buy their children dolls of other ethnicities. And it's also true that many toys, like Barbie, are identified as white characters. A brown or black version may seem politically correct, but kids seem to appreciate the difference.

Our experience, however, takes a different flip on the story...but still left us uncomfortable. The African American doll costs more-- in all likelihood because of the same reason that Walmart's black Barbie's cost less: less demand. And while the beach town we visited wasn't crawling with African Americans, there were certainly a representative share (and a goodly number of black/white couples like ours, too). How on earth is this store going to ever sell their black Mermaids-- at any price-- if they aren't even on display? And is it discriminatory for the clerk to mention her existence to some customers and not to others?

In the end, while I seriously doubt failure to display black Ariel rises to the level of any actionable discrimination it was a confusing business decision at best, since it's in the store's interest to sell the merchandise that it already expended cash on acquiring. I wanted to go back and ask a million questions... but Lil Bit wanted ice cream. Besides--and here's the real dilemma in a society where race is still very touchy subject that can easily go from a simple comment to a massive argument-- how do you raise these questions with a stranger in ways that encourage understanding and sensitivity-- not defensiveness and distrust? Could I have asked "Why aren't the black ones on display?" or "Do you ask non-black customers if they'd like a black mermaid?" without sounding like I'm accusing someone of racism? Are those questions really accusations in disguise?

Probably. Even if that were not my intention, they would probably be heard that way. Kevin points out that most white Americans feel that racial conversations are a "lose-lose" proposition: anything they do and say will be wrong, so they approach all comments with wariness. Wariness doesn't usually lead to sensitivity and understanding.

Of course, for all our questions and reactions, there might have been an even simpler explanation: the African American mermaids were in the back because they'd just arrived and, on a busy weekend when the shop was filled with tourists, they hadn't yet had time to put them out.

Could it be that simple?

I'd like to believe that, but I don't. No matter how busy the store, when an item is in demand, it gets unpacked and put out. So that leads me back to the clerk "mentioning" the availability of the item to certain customers... and I'm still bothered.

I can't help but feel that I missed an opportunity here.

What would you have done, if you were me?

The World in My Eyes: Disagreeing On Racism in a White/Black Household

2010-07-15T15:56:00.000-07:00

Kevin is reading Rebecca Skloot's excellent book "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks"- a book I finished a few weeks back and recommended he (and you) read. It's the tale of how Johns Hopkins medical staff, in the effort to replicate cell growth outside of the human body, took some cancer cells from a dying African American woman in the late 1950s. They didn't ask for permission--in fact there was not then nor is there now a requirement for medical professionals to do so-- and neither she nor her family received any compensation for them. But it turned out that Henrietta Lacks' cancer cells did what no other cells had ever done: they thrived outside of her body and became an indispensible medical tool that has led to vaccines for diseases like polio, improvements in cancer treatments and a multitude of drugs that ease and cure all kinds of diseases. While the doctors who originally took the cell cultures didn't profit-- nor has Johns Hopkins Hospital--there are private labs that sell the ever-replicating "HeLa" cells and make millions each year. Meanwhile, the surviving Lacks' family have lived the last 5 decades in poverty in rural Virginia and Baltimore. Barely educated and beset with all the problems that characterize the poor, Lacks' children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren haven't benefited a penny from their mother's contribution to science.

It's a fascinating read, and I highly recommend it. It's a compelling look at the tensions between scientific advance and personal privacy. It's also a primer on institutional racism, second-class citizenship and the shadow that de jure segregation still casts on black Americans today.

Or at least, that's how I saw the book. I could draw a straight line between Jim Crow laws that limited black opportunities to the Baltimore ghetto where many of Lacks' descendants live today. It's a straight white line, since it's whole purpose was to maintain two Americas: a black one and a white one. For some of us, the line has faded. But for others, for Henrietta Lacks' descendents, even though we now live in a society that no longer can legally and openly discriminate on the basis of race, little has changed. Besides, we can and do still discriminate based on ignorance and poverty which the Lacks' descendents inherited directly from their forebears. Henrietta Lacks had a grade school education (more was rarely available to rural blacks in the '30s) and lived in an economy that penalized her and her family doubly for blackness: in leaving them the worst jobs for the least pay, and assuring that they got less for their money in higher costs of living.

Kevin saw it completely differently because, while racism plays its role in the Lacks' family saga, so do individual choices that speak not to the harshness of Jim Crow or its lingering after effects in our present society, but to the darkness of the human heart. Child abuse, murder, incest, spousal abuse and infidelity play their roles in this family's story. And while some can draw a direct line between this conduct and racism, I hesitate to do so. Racism and the sense of hopelessness to defeat it, can certainly rob people of their humanity. But it doesn't have to. There is a choice invovled. One of my favorite lines from another, very excellent book, Randall Kennedy's "Interracial Intimacies," is this one:

"The obscure man who is relatively powerless in may situations can, in a blink, reveal himself to be rather powerful in relation to others whom he is a position to hurt. For at least a moment, every rapist is powerful in relation to his victim. It is simply untenable to claim then that blacks and other discriminated-against people of color have no power. And because blacks, like all responsible individuals have some power, their moral hygiene, like everyone else's, warrants close, careful attention." (emphasis in original)

Kevin's argument weighed heavily on this moral underpinning. He argued that individual decisions count greatly for their present dilemma. Racism isn't as relevant as their individual choices. It's a choice to treat children cruelly-- racism didn't beat the Lacks' children until they were bloody. It's a choice to sexually abuse the young girls in the family. It's a choice to have children young and out of wedlock, with little means of supporting them. It's a choice to drop out of school-- and allow your children to do so. It's choice to behave in predatory ways to the people nearest you.

I agreed- but only up to a point. Cruelty and abuse, I find indefensible, period. But at what point do we separate people from their circumstances? In matters like education and out of wedlock children--are the choices the same when everyone you know lives the same way, behaves the same way, chooses the same way? Is it really a choice when your mind has never been opened to the possibilities of the wider world? Is it a choice if you don't know the choice exists and the expectations of everyone around are so low that no one else can shed any light on the options? Did this family have the same options as poor white family-- or were their options more limited from the beginning because of their color? Indeed, were the options limited because of their color, the color of the parents, the color of their grandparents?

I argued "yes". I argued that institutional racism is real, that "racism without racists" is an ongoing phenomenon that continues to make the road out of povery immensely more difficult for some. He argued "no": that racism has less to do with the story than decision after decision that closed down opportunities and narrowed the avialable options.

We went round and round... and in the end, called it a draw, without reaching any agreement. This is just one of those places where our experiences and the way we analyze them cause us to the world differently.

I'm often asked whether in marrying Kevin I've "given up" or suppressed some aspect of my black identity. I don't think so. Kevin knew I was black the day we met. He knew I saw the world through the lenses of an African American woman... and that I would continue to see the world that way. Similarly, he certainly isn't any "blacker" because of me. We conduct our relationship through the expecation of differences. We often say we're on a "long term cultural exchange program" because we are. And like a cultural exchange program, the goal isn't to change cultures. It's to get an idea of what life is like for the people who live on the other side. I think we succeed at that.

There may be interracial couples who refuse to discuss racially sensitive topics because they might lead to disagreements like ours the other night. Perhaps, in some interracial couples, racial issues are tiptoed around like sleeping children, out of fear of waking a slumbering nightmare. But because Kev and I like to read, like to talk, and enjoy each other's differing points of view, we often find ourselves in conversation that reveal a clash of ideals. Neither of us backs down from those discussions when they occur; rather, I would say that we both embrace what we can learn from and about the other in the dialogue. I don't necessarily expect that I will persuade him to my point of view-- any more than I will be swayed to his--but the sharpening of wits with an equal is something we both appreciate. There is only one rule to our discussions: mutual respect. We disagree, yes. We discuss, yes. Name-calling? No. Yelling? Never.

It probably helps that neither of us is an idealogue, pushing a specific agenda to the exclusion of all others. Both of us have a healthy appreciation for the many shades of gray in the world. We both see that the era in which one lives, the crush of forces beyond individual control, and the pervailing attitudes of the times play a part in how lives are lived. And we both understand that the choices of the individual, even under extreme pressure, speak powerfully about character and often separate those who change their world from those who don't. Our disagreements then, are often over degree: how much choice does an individual have in his or her context? When-- if ever-- does racism give one a "pass" on personal responsibility? What is the obligation of society toward it's least powerful members?

It strikes me that these are conversations that should be had around the dinner tables of all households-- regardless of the races of their occupants--and that discussions about books, about inequality, about personal and social responsibility between parents is the ultimate example to raising engaged, interested, thoughtful children.

It's always a pleasure to discuss books, current events and the world with my husband... even if he's usually wrong. Of course, he'd say the same about me...and declare my conclusions equally incorrect. Fortunately, we're able to love and respect each other anyway--probably because the common ground we share is the appreciation for reading a great book and then having someone who shares your enthusiasm to talk to about it.

Roses and Thorns: Step-parenting in Mixed Families

2010-07-10T07:58:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the Grim Brothers and their fairy tales, step-parents (step-mothers in particular) get a bum rap. I can't think of any stories right now where the step-parent stepped in and saved the day. Usually, in fiction at least, the step-parent is at best jealous of the prior relationship between the child and their new spouse. At the worse, well, we've all read Cinderella. And some of you have seen the horror movie, The Stepfather. In the lore of our culture, you're mostly like to see the word "step-parent" with the adjective "evil" in front of it.

As there is some truth in most of our stereotypes, I have to now allow for the fact that ARE some step-parents who seem unable to rise to the requirements of their role. I've known some men who were as remote to their step-children as the planet Uranus. I've known a few women who, when thrust into the role of step-mothering an adolescent girl found themselves reverting to the worst of their own high school behavior-- becoming competitive, back-biting, whining fifteen year olds all over again. As unattractive as either model might be, I can't entirely judge.

Step-parenting is very, very hard.

It's hard for reasons that sound ugly to admit, but are very true. Reasons like: it's difficult to love a child who is not your own, but who, because of the circumstances you're supposed to. Reasons like: the natural tendency to favor the children of your own relationships over the children of other relationships.

Children, I think, instinctively know this. They know on some level that no one will ever love them quite like their own parents. Hence they resist and reject perceived "interlopers"-- even when those "interlopers" meet them with an open mind and an open heart. The stepchild can't help being suspicious-- and the step-parent can't help feel frustrated.

I've been a step-parent. My first husband had three children under the age of 10 when we married. I did my best by those kids, but they didn't like me much. I had different ideas about child-rearing than their mother and while I would have happily deferred all matters regarding them to their father, he wasn't much interested in playing that role because he usually only saw them over the summers. When they were with us, he'd often disappear, leaving me to entertain them-- and to discipline them. It was a recipe for much resentment on all sides.

There was also a racial component in my efforts at step-parenting, since my first husband's ex-wife was part Phillipino. Her children had long straight black hair like hers that they were too little to care for and I had no experience with. My ex-husband's son's hair was a particular problem: he was about 8 years old and had a long wild afro that I really thought would have looked better trimmed a bit. His mother refused. My ex-husband refused. The little boy didn't like for me to brush his hair and his father didn't do it, so he wandered around looking like he'd been sleeping under a bridge. I sometimes felt the hair was a slap both racially and relationally. The hair said: "we're something you're not." The hair said: "you have no authority over me."

I may be over-sensitive, but I know that racial differences add a few more snakes to the alligator pit of step-parenthood. Kevin and Sisi have their moments when "You're not my father" is shorthand for "It's a black thing, you wouldn't understand." There are moments when I see the light in his eyes for Lil Bit-- his own daughter-- dim when Sisi comes close. As much as I ache for Sisi in these moments, I understand them. Kevin loves her, but Lil Bit is his own. He was there when she was born; he met Sisi when she was 8. It's different by definition. I know because I've felt that difference myself.

I don't know what the experts say about this, but in our family communication has helped everyone to manage their expectations about their roles and responsibilities. Only in the most extreme situations is Kevin responsible for disciplining Sierra. We decided early on that this should be my role exclusively. He backs me up, and when I'm traveling or otherwise unavailable, he enforces our family rules. But otherwise, it's all me. For us, this just makes sense: he IS the interloper; she was nine when we got married. For him to come down hard on discipline so late in her life is a recipe for resentment. We just don't do it.

When Sisi feels unfairly treated as the step-child, I do my best to assess whether her gripe is legitimate-- or jealous. I explain: what she sees in Kevin and Lil Bit is what her father feels for her. He doesn't live near us, so we call. She visits as often it can be arranged. Is this adequate? Probably not. It is, however, the best I can do.

But I know she feels the lack of her own dad's daily presence. I know that deep in there are the fairy stories, casting her as Cinderella. I know that encompassed in her feelings of being the family outcast are issues surrounding Lil Bit's pale skin, curly hair and green eyes. When she asks about blue contacts, she's scratching the surface of this thing. It pervades our culture-- but having "whiteness in the family" brings a black girl into greater intimacy with it.

That makes it even more critical for me, as the mother of BOTH these girls, to treat them as equally as possible. But is that possible? Is it possible when the needs of a 14 year old are radically different than a 5 year old-- even if they had the same father, which they don't? That the expectations placed on oldest children and youngest children are different? That parents and some children have just a natural connection-- a harmony of personality that enable them to understand each other easily. And some don't?

As parents, we strive to treat our children--step and natural-- "equally"... but in the reality is far more complicated. It's painful to admit, but true. Hard as we might try, we will probably not treat our children equally, just as we are not all treated equally in the wider world.

Perhaps the kindest thing we can do is acknowledge this fact? I don't know. But in a way, it seems more fair than candy-coating our reality. As a step-parent, I always tried to stay conscious of my prejudices and to realize that these were children-- who bore no responsibilities for the adult tensions surrounding them. As a parent, I try to love my girls for who they are and not to burden them with my feelings about their fathers for good or ill. I know that the frustrations that Kevin and Sisi have with each other are colored by the fact that they aren't related, but day by day I see him struggle to help her grow up to be the best woman she can be in spite of how hard that is, sometimes. I see him take her resentments, swallow down his own feeling and do his best to be, if not her father exactly, as close a representative as he can be.

And being a step-parent has it's "roses" as well as it's thorns. One of my ex's children-- now an adult, told me that she appreciated the rules and expectations I set for her while she was in our house as a kid. "You were the only person who ever gave us structure. I hated it then--I thought you were mean--but I appreciate it now," she said. A beautiful rose... a decade later and after plenty of harsh years... but still beautiful to hear.

I hope for that rose for Kevin some day... and for all the step-parents in blended families, interracial or not.

How Mixed Kids REALLY learn what it means to be Black

2010-07-02T07:26:00.001-07:00

We parents of mixed children spend a lot of time talking about how we hope to teach our children to value all of the cultures that make-up their identity. But the question of exactly how we accomplish this mission gets far less discussion. Usually I hear and read the same suggestions: making an active effort to teach children African American history, to develop good relationships with African American family members, to encourage kids to make friends with children who have two black parents, to join in activities with other similarly situated.

While I think all of these are good ideas, and all of them are a part of my own plan for Lil Bit, they leave out what to me is the larger question, and ultimately the most important one. It is simply this:

What does it mean to be a black American? Or stated another way, what will it mean to be a black American when our children are adults? And finally, one last formulation: what should it mean to be a black American when our little mixed ones are adults?

To some, these questions may seem to have obvious answers, but to me, defining black identity is the ultimate question. With a definition, we parents of bi-racial and multi-racial children can develop a real action plan for insuring that our kids have an appreciation of their black identity that is sincere, not surface.

It turns out, that in attempting to define black identity we often come face to face with our stereotypes, our limitations and our indoctrinations. If "blackness" is more than a genetic connection to an African phenotype, what are its indentity characteristics? Will it make our children more "black" if they:

Follow a certain religious tradition?

Speak a certain way?

Like certain foods?

Listen to certain music?

Move a certain way?

Of course not. These are all silly and superficial criteria—and yet it's amazing how many black Americans use them as markers for who is authentically black and who is not. Some of our kids will be challenged by black Americans because they don't seem "black enough" for those who define blackness according to speech patterns and music and such. This stuff to me isn't really a problem. It's uncomfortable sometimes, but it's also easy enough to imitate (and plenty of black folk "play" these roles in contexts where they seem required)—or ignore. One of the best responses I've heard to the comment that "black people don't _______" (fill in the blank with your favorite: like country/rock music, eat sushi, travel the world, play chess, whatever) was this:

"They do, because I'm doing it!"

If blackness is something different than adopting superficial behaviors and tastes, does a personal connection to our history make one a "real" African American?

While it's certainly true that a child who is part-black should have knowledge of the history and experiences of African Americans in this country, this is something that we should aspire to for all children. I'm sure we know plenty of children who have two black parents who don't know much black history. Similarly, I know people with two white parents who know plenty of it. That's because Black history is American history: it is as integrally a part of the fabric of this nation as the Pilgrims and Christopher Columbus, as the Native Americans and the waves of Chinese immigration in the late 19^th century. Appreciation and understanding of the contributions of people of all different backgrounds to the unique melting pot of American history is everyone's responsibility—and it's critical. It's one of the things that helps to build tolerance. It teaches that struggle and aspiration—as well as cruelty and greed— are part of the human condition, regardless of race of country of origin.

So, if not even history gives a person a black identity, what does creates black identity?

I've been giving this a lot of thought, and I think I've reached an uncomfortable answer, but one that I really believe is the hard truth.

What really solidifies the understanding and appreciation of a blackness for our mixed kids is…

Whiteness—and being treated and perceived as non-white.

Being perceived as black—treated as a black American-- is ultimately what creates a sense of black identity. It's the thing that makes mixed kids seek to learn more about their African American heritage. It's the experience that causes mixed kids to attempt to fit in to one racial group or the other. It's what makes them choose to embrace one identity and erase another.

Kids learn to be black the first time they are treated as "not white." Whether that experience is overtly racist (like being called the n-word, or being excluded from activities on the basis of skin color) or more subtly (in the daily striving to resist negative stereotypes, or feeling invisible) mixed kids "know" blackness in every occasion where they are not perceived as white.

As their parents, this is difficult. It is difficult because we struggle to create environments for them where they are embraced for their combination identities. It is difficult because it goes against our hopes that our culture is slowly evolving past these distinctions. But mostly it is difficult because racism hurts. When these experiences come, they are painful. As parents, we want to protect our children from pain—and we can't. It reminds us of our relative impotence against a world that still not only sees color, but makes harsh judgments according to it.

When racism slaps our mixed kids in the face is when all of our history lessons, all of our field trips, all of our cultural education and family support comes to bear. That is the time when both the white parent and the black parent need to be fully engaged in teaching, explaining and listening—because these are the experiences that teach black identity and link our kids to the black experience more than music, dialect or any superficial test ever could.

Location, Location, Location- Why some places are better than others for IR families

2010-06-27T15:18:00.001-07:00

Suddenly, it seems my life is filled with interracial couples and their mixed children.

Lil Bit and I go the pool almost daily, and she's become fast friends with two little girls around her age who look a lot like her- and both are biracial. They differ from our family slightly in composition (the mothers are white, the fathers are black) but this matters little to them or to me. As mothers of biracial daughters, their moms and I have enjoyed some interesting poolside conversations as the kids splash around. We talk about our husbands… and men are men. We talk about the local schools. We talk about our daughters and we talk about our experiences with the whole "black and white family" dynamic. We agree that, for the most part, race has a played a relatively small part in family lives.

My friend Susan's family is the most like mine. She too, was married before her current partner and has a now teen-aged daughter from that relationship who is white, not mixed and who lives with Susan and her current husband. Her current husband has a teenaged daughter from a prior relationship, too—she is black. And together they have Layanna, who is six. Over the summers, his daughter joins their family: black dad, white mom, white daughter, black daughter, mixed daughter. Instant mixed and blended family.

You might think that this would be a recipe for all kinds of conflict—and it sometimes is, but not in the way you might expect.

The conflicts, to the extent they exist, come as the teens struggle to accept the authority of step-parents-- and between the two teenagers who are not related by any blood tie-- than from any other issue.

In a way, I'm not surprised. Where we live—Montgomery County, Maryland— a suburb of Washington, D.C.--is one of the most diverse regions of the United States. Our town boasts a population that identifies itself as 43% white, 18% black, 21% Latino, 15% Asian and 3% of other racial/ethnic groups. When we go out as family here, we rarely feel anyone pays us any special notice. There are so many families of so many cultures and mixes of ethnicities that we merit barely more than a glance. Our family's racial composition may be a little unusual, but it's nothing folks around here haven't seen before. In fact, these days we're more likely to get special notice from a family that looks LIKE OURS, than one that doesn't.

Just last night, Kevin and I took the girls out for dinner and ran into a couple with their children. We didn't know them at all, but the mother said hello, and the father said hello and the kids said hello before we all headed in our separate directions. The reason for all these "hellos"? She was black, he was white, the kids looked like Lil Bit. Just one moment like that is a nice thing. But when we got the restaurant, we were seated near another black-white couple, who also gave us the smile and nod as we passed them.

In the 1990s, Montclair New Jersey was crowned as a mecca for interracial couples by Interrace Magazine, a publication aimed at interracial couples that I don't think is in existence any longer. Since the Interrace poll, I don't know of any more recent polls, but the recent Pew Research study found that other areas are catching up. Specifically, the study found that among all new marriages in 2008, 22% in the West were interracial, compared to only 13% in both the East and South and 11% in the Midwest. Since the same study also found that Americans are marrying interracially at the highest rates ever, I expect more and more communities to become so diverse that none of us pay much attention to the colors any more.

The sheer numbers of multi-racial and multi-ethnic couples in our community creates a feeling of solidarity that is particularly helpful for our children. That we ended up living where we do wasn't exactly planned— I grew up in neighborhood Fairfax County, Virginia, an equally diverse part of the world, and Kevin has made the Washington area his home for the past 30 years—but we stumbled into our community quite by chance. I didn't do a demographic search to test its diversity: we just bought the house we liked/could afford. We were lucky.

If for some reason, however, we decided to move, I'd definitely do my best to determine a community's diversity before settling there. Most communities have a website that includes at least some demographic information on its residents. While most won't break down the number of interracial families, a solid balance of ethnicities provides the raw material to do our own calculations. Since we're all marrying each other, and most of us have children… well, the math's not that hard.

Fortunately, that move is not in our future. Instead, Lil Bit will keep playing with her little biracial friends until they all go to school together in the fall. I'm certain she will meet all kinds of children whose parents look different on the outside at school—and there is strength, power and protection in those numbers and in the familiarity and ease they create for the community as a whole.

Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue... When Does Experimenting With One's Look Become Self-Hate?

2010-06-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

Having a teenaged daughter who has two black parents, a white step-father and bi-racial half sister is perfect fodder for anyone who wants to write a family blog on race, identity and family. Almost daily she says something that raises issues I think are appropriate for this blog, but not always does she give me her consent to talk about them. Yesterday, she told me something supremely interesting, but when I asked if I could blog about it, she said "No." I even offered to change it up some. She still said no. I think she's being slightly unreasonable-- after all, none of her friends would EVER do anything as boring as read her MOTHER's blog-- but I respect her and her privacy. You'll all just have to wait to find out what she revealed in one of our (ongoing) mother-daughter talks yesterday. She did, however, give me permission to recount today's story.

It begins in Walmart (like any good story) with a discussion over makeup. I had promised her she could start wearing it in high school and now Sisi wants a ton of it. Since she starts that institution of higher learning this Fall, she's lobbying hard to build her supply: eyeshadows, mascara, thick black eyeliner.

"No," I said. "First, it's still summer. You're not in high school yet. Second, until you're buying it yourself, I'm in control of how much makeup you can wear. And I think mascara and a little lip gloss is enough. Maybe a neutral shadow. We'll see."

She argued with me: I'll spare you a repeat of all that. But what she said when she finally gave up on eyeshadow and liquid eyeliner is where I once again confronted questions of race, identity and the double-standards of it all. Because after a long pause, she asked, "If I saved my money and bought them myself, could I have blue contact lenses?"

My daughter has perfect eyesight-- she only wears glasses in costumes or in the sun--so the purpose of these contact lenses would be cosmetic only.

Sisi in her doctor costume last Halloween. Very fake glasses.

But her suggestion triggered so much more in me. In the space of a blink, I thought of Toni Morrison's masterpiece, The Bluest Eye-- the story of a black girl who longs for white skin, blonde hair and blue eyes.
I thought of the story I read of the Caribbean woman who paid close to $8,000 for a surgical procedure to turn her dark brown eyes blue-- a procedure that failed-- and nearly went blind in the process. (Read about it here.) I think of James Brown singing "Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud." I think of chemical relaxers and hair weaves, of colorism, of just how hard it can be to affirm that "black is beautiful" in a culture that makes daily assaults on brown eyes, kinky hair and curvy figures.

My daughter, like most teens is a voracious consumer of this culture... and now she wants blue eyes.

"Absolutely not," I said before I had really thought about it. "You have beautiful brown eyes, why would you want to cover them up?"

"But you let me dye my hair," she reminded me.

True. I did. Not only did I let her dye her hair, I let her dye it purple, in the hope that being allowed to do it would get the desire for "crazy hair" out of her system once and for all. It worked.

"So what's the difference?" she demanded.

The difference of course, is everything that blue eyes suggests to African Americans about our "insufficiencies." And I was about to say something along that lines, but instead I thought of my other daughter, my Lil Bit, with her green eyes and fair skin. In my mind, I fast-forwarded a decade, and imagined her asking me the same question: "Mom, can I have blue contacts?"

My initial reaction was the same-- "Why would you want contacts if you don't need them to see?" but after that, I had no issue. There were no concerns of pride in racial identity, no worries about self hate, no need to defend the choice beyond reasons of finances or frivolity.

As soon as I realized that I was applying a double standard to my daughter's choices about how to experiment with the beauty God gave them, I knew I was probably being unfair to Sisi and loading her up with the same limited (and limiting) notions of black beauty that hamstring the choices of so many. I realized that because I'm sensitive what others have defined as "black beauty" (e.g.natural hair, brown or black eyes, a big butt, or whatever) my automatic refusal to even consider her request was, in fact, applying the same kind of double standard that black women are subjected to daily. If we choose to straighten our hair-- we're trying to be white. When white women straighten their hair, it's a choice. When we wear weaves or wigs, we're trying to be white. But when white women wear "extensions" they are enhancing their natural hair. When we change the color of our eyes, we're trying to be something we're not. When white women do it, they are experimenting with a fresh look. It's a double standard and it's silly and unfair. While the black community as a whole may continue to define "blackness" and black women according to narrow and specifically "authentic" images, it's not something that I want to perpetuate in my own family.

It is absolutely essential to me that BOTH my girls grow up to believe in their limitless potential. That potential is not simply in academic, career or professional opportunities: it also extends to much more mundane choices like how they wear their hair. And while I still think it's silly to wear contacts if you don't need them to see, if Sisi actually saves her money and insists on buying them, I'll do my best to see it like the purple hair-- as a mild and youthful exploration into counterculture. Blue contacts would also bring her some questions-- and perhaps even some disdain--from some who might feel that her choice abandons something fundamental about black identity. I know we'd have to have a lot of conversations about all of that. Still, I believe my daughters can have a strong black identity-- even with purple hair and blue eyes.

What I really don't want to see is any tattoos... but, for now at least, that's a worry for another day.

My Little Mixed Girl

2010-06-23T13:41:00.001-07:00

Lil Bit is nearly five, still in pre-school and for the most part, unaware that her family is any different from anyone else's in anyway. To her, Mom is just "mommy" and Dad is just "Daddy." To the extent race plays any significant role in her consciousness, it's on the level that experts say most young children appreciate it: strictly in terms of colors. "Mommy is brown," she might say. "Daddy is white. Sister is brown and I'm…"

Well.

Sometimes she says "white like Daddy." And sometimes, particularly after a long session in the sun, "brown like Mommy." Once she said, "I want to be as brown as sister." Another time she said, "I'm almost white like Daddy." And yet another: "I look almost as brown as Mommy."

The beginnings of her process of self identification—and the questions that will accompany it—are evident in what she says. So are some my own conflicts about it. I confess that it bugs me a bit when she says she's white. I don't know how Kevin feels about this, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it bothered him if she chose to identify as solely black. After all, she's a part of both us. Neither of us wants to be "erased."

A few months back, I was interviewed by Dr. Laura Berman on Oprah Radio regarding my book and other topics around interracial dating and relationships. A woman called in and shared that she (a black woman) and her husband (a white man) had recently had an argument because she'd said to their ambitious, mixed race, ten-year-old daughter "You can be the first black female President of the United States!"

"She's not black," her husband argued. "She's biracial. Why would you say that?"

The woman confessed to being genuinely surprised by how upset he was. "Our daughter looks like a black American—light skinned, but definitely not white. She's seen as black in our community and has even had some run-ins with white kids at school because of her color. I didn't think he'd react that way."

I didn't really have any advice for the woman—except that I think I understand how the husband felt. Unless you saw her with me, my Lil Bit would pass in the world as a white girl and saying that makes me, as a black woman uncomfortable in the same way that having his daughter perceived as solely black made that woman's white husband uncomfortable. I know a lot of black people don't like it, but Tiger Woods' identification as "Cablinasian" really was apt and sensitive in many ways. It recognized the different influences of ethnicity and culture that multi-racial children try to honor. For bi-racial and multi-racial children, single race identification quite literally erases people they love.

The real experts—the social psychologists and psychologists who work with mixed race children—say that racial identity is a constantly shifting thing for kids. In response to the question "What are you?" children can shift between being "black only" and "white only" to "both" then on to being simply "human." To be helpful a parent must put aside his or her own desires about how the child sees herself and provide as much support and information as possible. It's also helpful to realize that how the child sees herself and how the world sees her may not necessarily be the same. Knowing that there may be conflicts ahead, and training her to respond to them in ways that are self-affirming is just part of the uniqueness of being a mixed race person—and a part of the unique challenge of raising a mixed race child.

I'm all for supporting my daughter but the experts' advice leaves out the fact that parents have feelings too. It is my genuine hope to teach Lil Bit to value and claim all of her heritage proudly, erasing none of it. I know there might be heavy pressure from peers and others to fit her neatly into a single box—but I hope Kevin and I can support her in becoming the kind of young woman who can withstand it.

But I know that in the end, who she becomes is not my decision. It's hers.

Strange Conversations: Or Can A White Man Raise a Black Girl?

2010-06-21T18:59:00.000-07:00

Sisi is having a tough summer. Thanks to the video of the two "young ladies" in their "altercation" with a Seattle police officer over a jaywalking ticket, we had a long conversation about what to do if you're arrested (Ask one of your friends--there are always friends-- to tape the whole thing, don't fight it and let them take you in, honey. Your mom's a lawyer.)

We had a conversation about why it was a bad idea to station herself on the school grounds with a bunch of friends and why it's always going to be better to congregate in smaller groups at someone's house or doing a specific activity than just "hanging out."

And today, we had the conversation about why it's bad to walk home from the pool with just your bikini top and towel on (no cover up, no t-shirt)- no matter how comfortable it was or the fact that "everybody else" is doing it.

In each of these conversations, Kevin and I both talked with her about what we perceive as the nuances of each event. And in every case, he brought up the differences in how young black people are perceived than how young white ones are.

In the first incident, his comments were that while she might be stopped unfairly-- possibly for racial reasons-- escalating the encounter or getting angry would only make it much worse. Instead, he counselled-- and I completely agree--the smart thing is to respect the officer's authority (even if he or she is dead wrong) and fight through other channels.

As for hanging out at the school, Sisi and a cluster of her black friends--girls and boys-- had taken to doing this until I told her I didn't like it and that she wouldn't be allowed to go over to the school unless she had business inside it. When the "but Mom, why?" started, I explained that it didn't look good for a bunch kids to be loitering in front of the closed school building. "Someone's going to notice a bunch of black kids in front of the school, get nervous and call the cops," I told her. "I know you're not doing anything, but that's not how it's perceived. I know it's not fair, but it's true and I don't want you to get in any trouble. Your friends are welcome to come over here and hang out on the back deck," I concluded, trying not to be a complete kill-joy. After all, we live right behind the school and I'm usually here to chaperone-- oh, right. That's the problem--at least to her mind!

She might have concluded that I was over-sensitive, bougie and ridiculously over-protective. Perhaps she does think that. But if I'm over-sensitive, bougie and over-protective, there are two of us in this household who feel the same way.

Finally, I was livid when she walked in an hour late, wearing just her bikini top and a towel. The pool is half a mile a way, the neighborhood is pretty safe and it was still light out. Still, walking the streets that naked doesn't strike me as a good idea-- especially when I know how this society hyper-sexualizes the bodies of young black women. (If you need a primer on this, check out Erykah Badu's video here or the work of scholars Layli Phillips and DP Stevens paper "Freaks, Gold Diggers and Dykes" here

Kevin approached this one a little differently, but firmly. He told her: "I'm telling you, as a man, you do NOT want that kind of attention. There are men out there who dressing like that as an invitation. They are not good guys who stop when you tell them to or let you call your mother to come get you. Don't ever do that again."

I know Sisi find all of this terribly unfair-- because it is unfair. I wish we lived in a world where everyone was treated equally regardless of race or gender-- but we don't. You don't have to be black to know that doing certain activities with black skin creates a different perception than being white and doing the exact same thing. Fair? No. Reality, yes. You don't have to be female to know that being female carries with it concerns that males rarely think about. Fair? No. Reality, yes. And while I'd like to believe that the world can change, that someday there will be greater racial and gender equality I'm certain that I won't see it my life time. Sisi might not see it in hers, either.

One of the most common things I've heard in writing about interracial relationships is that the white parent can't possibly "teach a kid what it means to be black." I disagree. Being a partner to another culture means quickly learning a sensitivity to the differences--especially where the children are concerned. No one wants their kids to suffer, and certainly not from parental ignorance. We learn as parents and partners because it's essential to the success of our families and our relationships. It's like saying a father can't teach a girl how to be a woman, or a mother can't teach a boy to be a man. Not so, as many single parents have proven.

Race doesn't drive the quality of parenthood; commitment does. If race alone was the only factor that mattered, every same race family would have perfect kids. But of course the factors that create successful children are far more varied than simple skin shade. We are still very much a work in progress here, but so far, from the sensitivity he's shown I'd say the white guy I married could raise a black girl quite well. Still, it's a little strange to hear him say "You have to understand that because you're a black girl, you might be treated/perceived differently."

It's an acknowledgement that while our family might be "post racial" the rest of our society isn't.

Father's Day Reflections

2010-06-19T10:03:00.000-07:00

For the first time that I can remember since he died three years ago, I dreamed of my father last night. I know I've had dreams of his last moments, when the pain of cancer left him unable to walk or speak. But it's been forever since I dreamed of my father-- the man as he was before the diagnosis: upright, healthy and as sure of himself as any person alive... especially when it came to what his children should do. It never mattered that we were adults: he always thought he knew best. I guess your children are your children, it doesn't matter how old they get. It's an attitude that, the older my own girls get, I understand better.

In my dream, my father was walking through my house, giving me unsolicited advice, much as he would do when he was living. He suggested paint colors for the living room. He made pronouncements about the state of our finances (in the military he was finance officer, who managed large budgets for several of the Army's largest agencies) and, he gave me a lecture about my health... which is good, but I've been ignoring a few little things. In my dream, I was telling Dad about that and he didn't think that was such a good idea. I guess he would know. He ignored little things that, had they been investigated, might have alerted us to the cancer before it was too late.

It's weird that after years of silence, Dad should step into my dreams, now on the eve of Father's Day. While I know he loved me and I loved him, ours was a complicated relationship. We saw the world through very different lenses and valued very different currencies. Because of that, it was often difficult for us to communicate.

But neither of us ever stopped trying. He never turned his back on me, he or any of my three siblings. He supported me in the best ways he knew how, and though he might have been critical of some of my choices, he certainly wouldn't let any outsider make those same comments. He was my father and he understood that job meant protect, provide and guide. It's hard and often thankless job-- a lifetime sentence in some ways. He accepted it willingly, warts and all, just as he committed himself fully to his marriage to my mother. They were married for 46 years.

Contrast this with the 70% of African American children who are born out of wedlock. Many of these kids grow up without a father in the home, without a father in their lives. It's a void I cannot imagine.

It was my father who taught me to swim, who pushed me academically, who provided discipline, who modelled a work ethic. My father interviewed my dates and showed me how a real man treats his wife. My father insisted we clean our rooms, handed out chores, introduced the concept of financial stewardship. He modelled physical fitness and moderation in food and drink. The military gave him the chance to "see the world": he encouraged his children to see it. The military expanded his horizons beyond what he might have known if he'd lived his whole life in central Virginia where he was born. So from a young age, his children's horizons were expanded-- whether we wanted them to be or not. Going to symphonies, operas, taking piano lessons, playing sports-- these weren't options, they were orders.

Sometimes, my siblings and I groused... but now we're immensely grateful. Much of what I am now, I owe to him. My lawn looks good because he made us do yard work every Saturday and I learned how to cut grass, trim hedges and lay down mulch. Kevin says I can put together anything. Not true, but what I know about assembly I learned from Dad. When I hung the chandelier in our dining room and painted the kitchen, I was channelling lessons from Dad. Those were the things he loved. Even when he was sick, I could excite him with a conversation about laying tile, whitening grout, building a deck or constructing a swingset. That I know anything about those kinds of projects is a debt I owe to him.

None of us are perfect parents-- no more than any of us are perfect people. Fatherhood, like any job done well forces a man to confront not just his strengths, but also his limitations. The good ones hang in, even when the going gets tough. They say the unpopular things, do the dirty jobs, allow themselves to be hated and feared when that's the course that is required. They strive for an ideal of parenthood: for goodness and wisdom and fairness and steadfastness. Maybe they don't always succeed, but it's the trying that matters. The trying and the "teaching"-- not just how to hammer a nail or cast a line-- the teaching of what manhood means. It's an example all children need, regardless of gender.

Good fathers stand with their kids. They don't back away when the money gets tight, or when they don't know what to do-- and they certainly don't disappear because they'd rather be doing something else. Even when marriages or relationships between adults end, good fathers bend over backwards to remain engaged and involved in their childrens' lives--not just financially, but in every way.

Far too many black kids--far too kids, of all races-- don't know what it means to have a father stand with and for them every single day. It's an unimaginable loss... as great as the loss of good father, like mine. It explains too many things about what's wrong in our society. Rather than pointing fingers of blame, it really is time to as the saying goes "man up". Got kids? Parent them. No excuses. If you don't know how, find out. There are always resources available to those who seek them. Where there's a will, there's a way. I know that sounds like a platitude, but there's truth in it.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. I think that shade of blue would really pop in the living room, my roses do need a trellis and you're right, it's better to be safe than sorry. I'll make a doctor's appointment, thanks. And thanks for being a great Dad.

Not Black Enough... for Church?

2010-06-16T17:03:00.000-07:00

Several months back, I was contacted by a producer from Soledad O'Brien's "Black in America" series. While I was hoping that Soledad wanted to interview me, that wasn't the request. Instead, the producer was reaching out to those of us who write about interracial relationships to see if we could help with a story. They were looking for an engaged interracial couple looking to marry in a church in which they both felt comfortable.

While the request may sound a little contrived, it's clear the effort was reaching for the complex issues surrounding how segregated religion remains in America. Looking for an interracial couple would allow Soledad and her producers to explore that fact through the unique paradigm of a fast-growing segment of the marrying population.

I did my best to help with the project, but when I talked to the couples I knew, I discovered something interesting: none of them were religious enough to be planning a church wedding. And that becomes even more interesting when you consider the data on black Americans and religion.

In a study published last year, The Pew Research Foundation found that compared to other racial groups, African-Americans are among the most likely to report a formal religious affiliation, with fully 87% of African-Americans describing themselves as belonging to one religious group or another, according to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted in 2007 by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life. Fifty-nine percent of those who identified a denomination said that they belonged to "historically black Protestant churches."

For those of you who don't understand what this means, it means that eight out of ten black Americans are religious, and that of those, more than half belong to an all-black church.

When you think it about, these numbers explain why the "Black in America" producers were interested in finding an interracial couple for their program-- and why they had to put out the "all-alert" to find a couple that fit their parameters. It stands to reason that people who are deeply religious would choose to marry those who share their spiritual beliefs and belong to a similar (or the same) church. That bears true with the religious married interracial couples that I know: they either belonged to the same church when they met or very similar ones. These were mixed race churches where they both already felt welcome.

But the non-religious couples were what intrigued me. This is far from scientific, of course, since I only know a handful of engaged interracial couples, but each of them said they weren't religious AT ALL and no plans for church weddings. Actually, these black women and their white fiances mirrored my own situation: neither Kevin or I are particularly religious. We were married at the county courthouse--not in a church. And while we have attended both predominantly white and black churches together, it's our own choice, not the composition of the churches that has kept us from joining.

Being more agnostic in my spiritual beliefs puts me outside the norm for a black american woman, since the Pew study found that 84% of black women surveyed said that their religious beliefs were "very important" to them. And fully 91% of black women said that they were affiliated with some kind of organized religious institution. Only 9% of black women say they are unaffiliated-- compared to 16% of men.

These numbers remind me of some other statistics-- the statistics on black men (15%) and black women(6.5%) who are married interracially. Is there a link?

Deborrah Cooper, author of the blog surviving dating thinks so. In a recent post, entitled,The Black Church: How Black Churches Keep African American Women Single and Lonely she interpreted the Pew Study to suggest that traditional black churches are part of the problem for black women, who may follow teachings that discourage them from "going where the men are."

I don't know that I completely agree, but I did find it interesting that so many of the interracial engaged couples I spoke with in my efforts to help out this TV producers laughed at the idea of a church wedding and proclaimed themselves "not into that." These black women were, like me, in the minority co-hort of women of our race...both in our attitudes toward religion and our choice of partner.

I've been called "not black enough" for other reasons in my life (liking school, talking a certain way, marrying white etc.) but this is an interesting new divide. Deborrah Cooper's piece has a lot of people talking about race, religion and romance. I think that's a good thing. I often tell people that if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten. It's fine as long as you're happy with what's in your life. But if you're not, things may have to change... including, perhaps where you worship and with whom.

Black "SWANS"-Stong Women Achievers, No Spouse

2010-06-14T16:31:00.000-07:00

In my internet travels today, I came across an article by Dr. Linda Young on psychologytoday.com. Dr. Young is an attractive, successful black woman who writes a column called "Love in Limbo" for the magazine in which she analyzes dating and mating for those of us in the blogosphere with an armchair interest in psychology. Today's entry was entitled "High Achieving Black Women: Not Choosing or Not Chosen?" Of course, with a title like that, I knew it was something I had to read!

Using the phrase "SWANS"-- strong women achievers, no spouse--coined by Christine Whelan in her 2006 book Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women, Dr. Young analyzed the impact of education and income on black women's marital status. She reached a conclusion that surprises no one: there are more black women with advanced degrees, making incomes over $100,000 than there are black men. In fact, according to her data, there are 157 black women with college degrees for every 100 black men-- and 209 black women with masters or higher for every 100 black men. Compare that with 133 white women, 101 asian women, and 173 latina women to 100 of their men and you see what all the attention on this issue is about.

The link to Dr. Young's blog is here.

These numbers suggest that, across the board, American women are becoming better educated than American men... but nowhere is this more evident than in the black community. While the long term ramifications of this growing trend have yet to emerge, Dr. Young suggests that black SWANS who are ready to trade "no spouse" for coupledom throw out a wide net. She took her own advice: her husband is also a PhD and shares her values and interests. He happens to be white, too, but he can't help that, can he? (smiles-that's a little joke in our house!)

Regardless of education and income, however, my position is and always has been that character, common ground and common interests are the stuff of solid relationships. Looks are nice, but they can often change. While race may be largely immutable, so many of our other physical qualities will alter with age, with the state of our health, due to accident or other misfortune. Let's not forget: some diseases even alter skin shade.

Incomes can change, too-- and choices based solely on bank accounts often don't have what it takes to go the distance when the money runs out.

But the core of one's character is another matter. Let it be the guiding star in all your relationships-- romantic and otherwise-- and all else will follow.

Dr. Young seems to be on the same page. I'll be adding Love in Limbo to the blog roll and keeping up with her future posts.

Celebrating Loving Day Every Day

2010-06-12T06:43:00.000-07:00

Today is Loving Day-- the anniversary of the milestone court case Loving v. Virginia, in which the US Supreme Court struck down laws that prevented marriages between blacks and whites. Before 1967, more than 40 states had such laws-- anti-miscegenation laws- designed to reinforce the separation of the races that also existed in education, employment, housing and public accomodation.

Richard and Mildred Loving-- a white man and a black woman-- defied Virginia's version of that law by accident. Childhood sweethearts, they decided to marry in 1958. They knew there was a law against it, so they drove to Washington DC where they could marry legally. But when they returned home, they were arrested in the middle of the night and thrown in jail-- for the crime of being white and black married. Sentenced a year in jail, they were told they could avoid jail time if they left the state.

They left, but Mildred Loving wasn't happy about it. They and their small children couln't visit family in Virginia together-- a fact that was inconvenient and wrong. It was the 1960s all kinds of segregation laws were being challenged, all over the country. In 1964, Miildred wrote a letter to then Attorney General Robert Kennedy, telling him about their situation. The rest, as they say, is history.

Until her death in 2008, Mildred Loving downplayed her role in history, insisting that she was no pioneer, and that she simply wanted to live her life with the man she loved, raise their children together. Nothing more monumental than that was on her mind when she wrote her letter and changed history.

Fairy tale as it may sound, the Lovings' story ends sadly. Richard was killed in a car accident in 1973 and Mildred struggled to raise her family alone. She died in poverty.

Still, the Lovings left us a great legacy of love and justice. Because of their courage, my family enjoys the simplest of freedoms: we exist.

Hair-Raising Adventures-- Relaxers, Naturals and Transitioning

2010-06-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I took Sisi to the salon for a touch-up. We hadn't been in a while-- she gets a touch up maybe twice a year-- and she had quite a bit of new growth. I would have preferred to wait until the Fall since she'll spend the summer swimming and spelunking and generally do all kinds of things that make spending money on hair now silly. But this is impossible: the 8th grade prom is this weekend and there is no way my big girl is going to the prom "looking busted" as she put it.

My feelings about my own hair have changed. After nearly three decades of regular chemical relaxers, I'm seriously considering going natural.

Why? Several reasons, that, it turns out, are interconnected.

1. I workout every day. Most weeks, I run three times a week (3-4 miles each session) hit the boxing bag and jump rope twice a week, and do yoga to stretch everything out once or twice a week. Most summer days, the girls and I end up at the pool in the afternoon, swimming and splashing. Relaxed hair doesn't last under that punishment-- and to keep it up, my stylist and I have a long and intimate relationship that has made me one of her best clients.

But more and more, I realize the waste of all this. Financially, it's silly-- that money could be better spent. Even if I still choose to spend it on myself in some way, I can think of better ways. A dance class, for example. Or cuter workout clothes. I might even put the cash aside for my "plastic surgery fund." Joking, really. Just joking.

Of course, I could choose hair over exercise... but this seems a shallow trade, given what we know about how exercise helps your brain, your body and adds years to your life. I once took a Facebook poll asking ladies which we'd rather have: perfect hair or a perfect body. Forty friends answered-- and no one voted for hair. But many of us choose not to exercise if it only improves an imperfect body-- and then only on the inside. I don't have a perfect body, but I do have perfect blood work, no major health issues and can still wear some clothes from ten years ago (Some, however, seem to have gotten mysterious tight in the waist. Hmmmm...) The point is exercise, for all its internal benefits, doesn't always create a bikini body. And let's face it, it's hard work! By comparison, a banging hairdo seems like instant gratification, instant improvement.

I might be persuaded that hair is worth the expense--even if the effect is short-lived-- if it weren't for...

2. I'm not really a "hair" woman in the first place. I've worn my hair about the same way (or the same couple of ways) all my life. I've never had a weave, never had braids, never done twists, never really experimented with much beyond color-- and I've stopped doing that, too. And while occasionally I cut my hair or grow it long, even those changes are in the same basic style.

Being that I'm not a hair person, I have very little ego about it. I think I may soon be one of those middle aged black women who cut her hair down to a short 'fro-- and went about her business, without feeling like I left my femininity on the salon floor.

I'm helped in feeling feminine with flowing tresses by...

3. My husband doesn't care. Most men like long hair on women, if you ask them. They find it sexy and alluring. Much has been written about the preference some black men have for black women whose hair is "dyed, fried and laid to the side." I don't have to go there: my husband's white. But I do think men, regardless of their ethnicity, find long hair to be feminine and attractive.

I expected that answer from Kevin-- and if it had mattered to him, his feeling about it would have factored into my decision. But when I asked him about it, his response was practical. "I think you spend too much time and money on it," he said. "I think it's much more important that you keep yourself in shape-- do I have to remind you we have a five year old? Besides, you always look good to me, so why are you messing with yourself?"

I love him. Not only does he say the right thing, he means it. His reply connects to the last piece of my decision to grow the relaxer, which is my own growing sense of personal identity, separate and a part from the expectations of our culture, which leads to...

4. Hair politics. I've never really thought of hair as a political statement. Hair to me has been mainly an adornment but I do appreciate the arguments of those who feel that we should love it exactly as it comes out of our heads. To me, this is not simply a racial issue, but a gender one. Women of most cultures feel the pressure to "do" their hair, whether that means curling, straightening, growing, dyeing, etc. Men just wash it and occasionally cut it... and it costs them far less in time, money and aggravation.

I want that freedom.

So, I'm transitioning. Right now I've got about an inch of new growth and I need to cut about an inch off the ends. Here are the visuals:

Before:

Today right after my workout--most of the length is slicked back:

Meanwhile, Sisi got her hair straigtened-- and that's fine with me. Her journey with her hair is hers: it's not for me to impose my journey on her. For different seasons, different hairstyles and different hair-raising adventures.

I'll update you on my hair journey in the weeks and months ahead.

Gender Roles and Gender Realities

2010-06-08T17:24:00.000-07:00

I read an interesting book a couple of months (in case it isn't already obvious, I read a lot) called The Feminine Mistake.

The author posits that married women who choose the stay at home wife/Mom path do so at their financial peril. Given that 50% of marriages end in divorce, that single women with children make up a large component of the poor, that men die earlier than women, and that even when women work, they still make around 80 cents to every dollar men make. For many married women, a day comes when they will have to support themselves and their children alone. And once the children are out of the home, older women are still behind the financial eight ball. According to the Our Bodies, Ourselves Health Resource Center (www.ourbodiesourselves.com):

Women who are in the paid labor force earn less over our lifetime than do men. According to one estimate, the average 25-year-old working woman will lose about $455,000 to unequal pay during her lifetime, leaving her with less money to save, a smaller pension (if she has one at all), and lower Social Security benefits. After a lifetime of being unpaid, underpaid, or unemployed, it is no accident and no surprise that women 65 and over are almost twice as likely to live in poverty as older men.

A few weeks after I finished The Feminine Mistake, the findings of a recent Insight Committee for Community Economic Development study placed single black women at the bottom of the economic ladder with net worths that average $5, and for many amounts to a negative number-- meaning her debts eclipse any assets available she has. Marriage changes the equation, however. According to the Insight Center for Community Economic Development's "Lifting As We Climb: Women of Color, Wealth, and America's Future," study:

...while marriage appears to ameliorate some economic hardship for both men and women across races, the data indicate that the positive effect of marriage on net worth is particularly amplified for black and Hispanic women.

The Feminine Mistake and the Insight Committee report seemed to make complimentary suggestions for wealth building for black women: marry, but don't quit your day job, just in case it doesn't work out.

This information comes into my hand at a time when I'm once again re-thinking my own career path and my "worth" but economic and otherwise. I gave up the "traditional workforce" almost ten years ago, leaving a comfortable job at a legal publishing company to strike out on my own. Since then, I've written eight books, done countless freelance projects of every kind imagineable-- but I'd hardly call my career a financial success. Rather, it's allowed me to explore my interests and be available to raise our two daughters.My husband makes the lion's share of the money that supports this household-- and if something happened to him, dramatic changes would be necessary. I'm certain I'm employable--I still have that Havard Law degree and nothing erases it-- but like the women interviewed in the Feminine Mistake--I'd almost be starting over in both experience and salary.

Lately, as publishing becomes increasingly uncertain and an expanding content market makes the margins of really making a living as a writer harder I think about my traditional work experiences. Making one's own money feels good. Interacting with other professionals can (sometimes) be deeply rewarding. And building a nest egg agagainst disasters is a very good think. Being financially independent again definitely appeals to me for all of the reasons explained in The Feminine Mistake-- and for the kinds of reasons outlined in a recent webinar sponsored by the Insight Committee for Community Economic Development. Black women having assets that our own to use, being financial independent helps us to further create our identity in the world-- and to carve out places of safety for the next generation.

This coin, however, has a flip side. Being married to a man who is willing and able to provide for us enables me to offer my girls a different kind of security. If I were to write a rebuttal to The Feminine Mistake, it would simply be this: for as long as both partners analyze their resources in ways that allow it and are willing to take the gamble, having a parent in the home offers intangible benefits that are as fulfilling as the economic ones of a salary. There are incalcuable benefits to this family that reach beyond dollars. Being around to talk to a teenaged daughter about the pressures of school, to take Lil Bit to the playground and buy ice cream, to prepare home made dinners, and create an unhurried environment helps to make our home a calm and peaceful refuge for us all. I feel these are worthwhile sacrifices in the short term and for as long as they are economically viable. Indeed, I think many women seek a life like mine, in which there is a balance of intellectual and renumerative pursuits combined with nesting and nurturing-- so do more and more men, but that's a different post.

The point is that until women are earning at the same rate as men, that childcare is free and shared between genders, and workplaces are structured in ways that allow parents to balance professional opportunity with family responsibility, women are likely to come out on the shortest end of the stick-- and single women with children are likely to see their assets continue to dwindle. Marriage alone certainly is a solution, but for many black women being unmarried with children adds to the wealth drain.

And as for me...my dilemma is solved by writing a bestseller and getting on Oprah! LOL!

This is Our Family... High on Computers

2010-06-07T06:19:00.000-07:00

In today’s New York Times, there’s a multi-page article about how computers may be changing the way our brains work, affecting our attention and diminishing our—and our children’s—ability to interact with each other. Here’s the link:
Your Brain on Computers - Attached to Technology and Paying a Price - NYTimes.com
While I don’t think any members of my family have quite risen to the “Netaddiction” level of usage, the article brought to mind several anecdotes of the pervasiveness of technology in our modern lives.
The first comes from Lil Bit’s preschool days. When she was 3, we had a conference with her pre-school teacher. We were expecting to be told about her progress with numbers, colors and letters—and we were. But we were also given this feedback: “Lil Bit lags behind the other children in her facility with the computer systems. She needs more help getting into and using computer programs.”
This was presented as a difficulty, not as a virtue. It has since been corrected. Being able to use technology is an expectation—even for preschoolers—in the modern world. In a way, it makes sense: their reality will be dominated by it. To be computer illiterate would be a handicap for her. But I’m disappointed by what I’ve seen of the “learning games” for kids her age. I often think that Lil Bit would be reading more words by now if there was less computer time at pre-K and more time spent one on one with her teachers. But I’ve also noticed how bored she seems with the simple, old-fashioned reading methods we use at home. You know, old school, stationary stuff like flashcards and books. Lil Bit’s attitude seems to be “if doesn’t have sound and animation, color me uninterested.” It’s hard to teach a child whose used to higher levels of visual stimulation than static words on a page.
The second was a recent evening when the family was gathered around the television screen for family movie night. It was intended as a family bonding activity—but no one was watching the movie. No, that’s not right. It would be more accurate to say that no one was JUST watching the movie. Kevin was on his “crack Berry”, I was on my netbook, Sisi was on her laptop, and Sommer had her portable DVD player in her lap watching another show. We were each multi-tasking: watching the movie while conducting another activity. Sure, we were all sitting together, but each of us was in his/her own little world.
Such is the impact of technology on family time.
In moderation, computers, smartphones and players of all types don’t seem to do much harm—and I confess, I’m as guilty of using them as “babysitters” as the next parent. Just this weekend, I handed Lil Bit my smartphone to stop her from climbing over the empty seats in the restaurant. A game on it distracted her until the food arrived—and probably saved me some exacting embarrassing discipline. Wrong? I don’t know.
What I do know is that, on the evenings when the TV isn’t on, and the phones and computers are put away, we interact with each other differently. There’s less impatience, more talking, more listening. At the same time, what we talk about in those device-less minutes, is often information learned while our devices are on. Kevin might share a story from The Drudge Report or a comment he read on Essence.com (yes, he reads Essence.com—I’ll tell you about that in another blog!) I might update everyone on a Facebook post by a relative or family friend or an interesting tidbit from the Post or the Times. Sisi will share an invitation sent by a friend via IM. The wealth of information available to us about the world in which we live through our devices is astounding. I don’t know how I lived before I could Google any question that pops into my mind—and usually find a satisfactory answer. Not infrequently, Kevin or I will use a word Sisi doesn’t know at the dinner table. Instead of defining it for her, it’s pretty cool to be able to tell her to “look it up on her phone”—which she can do faster than I could find our hardbound dictionary—and keep talking without the interruption of leaving the table. For her the ultimate punishment is to lose her phone and computer. She feels genuinely sorry for the kids in her universe who don’t yet have phones of their own.
While Kevin and Lil Bit enjoy some their computer time, Sisi and I are the ones who really have to watch our screen consumption. Sisi can lose herself in games and Skype with her friends for hours at a time. Although I have a cupboard full of cookbooks, I cook with my Netbook on the kitchen counter, looking up and following recipes online. I barely leave home without a hook-up of some kind. And I’m the one who had to buy pricey Internet access on a family vacation in the Mediterranean. Being disconnected for 14 days was driving me crazy. I wish I could say that there was actually something important in my email those 14 days, but there wasn’t. I just needed my “fix:” the rush of dopamine that experts compare to addictions to food and sex. Apparently, I fit the profile for the Internet-obsessed: I’m in my mid-40s, well-educated and reasonable affluent. Great—one more thing to add to my plate of worries.
Obviously, technology is just one more thing families have to balance. More terrifying is the idea that technology may actually be making us more superficial, less knowledgeable, less empathetic people.

That’s the premise of Nicholas Carr’s new book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. Carr posits that the Internet is demolishing our—and our children’s-- capacity to concentrate. Because concentration is necessary for any serious endeavor-- creative or scientific and everything in between—loss of that ability will have far-reaching effects. I haven’t read the book yet, but it’s on my list—and it should probably be on every parents list.

I hope the book also addresses the technology gap. Poorer people, many of them of color, often have less access to the Internet. This is usually seen as a problem because of the immense amount of information that now often only available in digital form. But if these same access is also creating limits in our abilities to concentrate and create what does that portend for those with less access? Does it widen the gap between those who have and those who don't... or shrink it?

Technology makes for interesting questions. I just hope that when the time comes, Sisi and Lil bit will find me a fully-wired nursing home. I'll write a blog about it, I promise.

Bon Jovi Sums it Up

2010-06-06T05:56:00.001-07:00

When I started this blog, I knew that it would be a place where I could talk about race, interracial marriage, mixed and blended families and all of the issues that those subjects involved. But it was also going to be a place to share the myriad of other issues—issues that don't have anything to do with color—that all families deal with. These are the everyday joys and sorrows, hopes and dreams, plans and promises that Kevin and I made to each other and to our girls.

Last night brought disappointment: Sisi didn't make the cheering squad. And because we're a family, her disappointment was one we all shared, all of us—Kevin, Lil Bit, Si and me.

Sisi told me after tryouts that she wasn't sure she made it, but she hoped she would. She said she messed up the dance pretty seriously and that a few of her jumps hadn't turned out very well. She almost fell after her roundoff. But Si tends toward magnification of her failings. I knew the dance would be her weakness—the beat was fast and the choreography surprisingly difficult. In the end, I suspect that it alone was the problem: Sisi often needs a couple of weeks to learn new steps. Three days wasn't long enough.

Of course, when she learned she was cut, she cried.

"We're really proud of you for trying something new," I told her. "Just trying it was a victory. None of your friends even had the nerve to try!"

"And you've got real potential with this," Kevin reminded her. "It's just that you've never done anything like this. Some of these girls have been doing cheerleading clinics and camps since they were Lil Bit's age." He's right: Lil Bit is not quite five and it seems like every week we get a card in the mail about dance or cheering camp for girls her age. "If you're really serious about this, this Fall we'll see if we can afford something like that for you."

"And then you can tryout again next year—if you want to." I have to hold back a bit because I have real "stage mom" tendencies. I know that, in a heartbeat, I can push harder and faster than either of my girls is ready to go. Si may be a teenager, but she still wants to please me. I want her to do well, but not for that reason. I want her to do well because SHE wants to, not because of me.

"It's all right, Sisi," Lil Bit joins in the group hug. "Don't cry."

But of course, she does anyway, for a little while.

"I'm a loser. I'm not good at anything."

We go down the list—a list Si knows well but really needs to hear one more time. We remind her of her hip hop dance recital tomorrow, of the fact that she successfully auditioned into one of the high school's select choirs, that she's queen of several video games, a good swimmer and manages to be friends with everyone. That she had the nerve to tryout for a sport like cheering completely cold and without a support system of friends. She has "heart."

"Now, we're going to dinner," Kevin announces. "And after dinner, ice cream."

"I don't wanna go," Si says tearfully. "Can't I stay here?"

"Nope," I say, dragging her to the car. "Moping around the house alone is not an option."

We go to dinner. We talk a bit more about cheering, about high school, about the recital tomorrow, about inviting one of her friends to join us at the community pool for a few hours after that. We eat ice cream while sitting on a bench in a nearby plaza. On summer Saturday nights middle aged guys play hits from "back in the day" while little kids play and dance with their mothers. We get stared at a bit—pale, Irish Kevin holding hands with short brown me. Si our brown-skinned teen beauty and lively Lil Bit who many might see as a white girl with olive skin. Both of them are licking their ice creams, both of them are calling us "Mom" and "Dad". I only really notice the stares when they last a little too long.

Kevin doesn't seem to notice at all. He rubs my shoulder and smiles. I know that look; I know what he's thinking. He's thinking that it's a perfect evening, sitting here, eating ice cream and listening to music with his girls. He's thinking he's lucky—we all are—because we have each other.

We ARE lucky and I know it for sure when Sisi says out of nowhere, "You know, the Coach said a lot of the varsity girls had taken those cheering clinics. Maybe if I took one and kept working on my dancing, I could go straight to the varsity cheering squad next year. What do you think, Mom?"

Kevin gives my shoulder another squeeze, signaling his support. I know our budget has gotten tighter over the last several years, but I'm sure with a little research I can find a decent program that won't break the bank. "Absolutely, I say. We'll look into it for the Fall."

She seems content—so I'm content. The band—men about our age who got day jobs and had kids, but never gave up their guitars--- burst into Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer." The lyrics fit the moment: "We gotta hold on, to what we've got. It doesn't make a difference if we make it or not. We've got each other and that's a lot, for love… we'll give it our shot."

Si gave it her shot. It wasn't her year, but she's got all of us to fall back on. And regardless of our skin tones, that's a lot—and we all know it.

How I Know God has a Sense of Humor

2010-06-05T07:56:00.001-07:00

I'm about to write some words I never thought I'd ever write.

Not only am I going to write these words, but I am going to mean them from the bottom of my feminist, womanist, gurl power heart. Are you ready? Here they are:

I hope my daughter makes cheerleader.

What? You were expecting something else? Trust me when I tell you, this is monumental for me. As a younger woman I would have been appalled by the very suggestion that I would encourage and support and female child of mine in such a seeming superficial activity. After all, what is a more traditional role for a young woman than standing on the sidelines cheering for the men? And in those skimpy little uniforms, no less, which do nothing but objectify women. And then there are all the stereotypes about the type of girls who BECOME cheerleaders: vain, shallow, self-absorbed, popular, clique-ish.

Of course, it's obvious from that paragraph that I was never a cheerleader! Debate club? Check. Band? First chair saxophone. Editor of the school paper? Of course. Let's make short work of it: I was a nerd. Most of my friends were nerds. We didn't really know any cheerleaders personally but we saw them from a distance and, to our eyes, it looked like they were living a very different high school reality. I won't admit to any jealousy but I suppose it's at least possible that I may have felt that from time to time. But then I had my straight As to give me solace.

My ignorance and arrogance provided the opportunity for God, the Divine Power, the Universe or whoever to teach me a lesson. The lesson comes in the form of my dear daughter, Sisi who is as unlike me as any human being I can ever imagine. Of all the spirits in the world, that hers should be linked by maternal bond to mine is ludicrous. We barely speak the same language. I'm orderly—she's a slob. I prefer books for information—she'd rather talk to people. I've struggled with weight my whole life—she's working her curves. When I was 14, I always sort of knew that high school was just a very short time in my life. For Sisi high school is EVERYTHING.

The one thing we share is moments of intense self-doubt.

Sisi is terrified of being a 9^th grader this fall. She's had a great time in middle school and "reigned" as a popular 8^th grader who manages to get along with kids of all different interests and backgrounds. As the school year comes within days of closing, her anxieties about high school have increased.

"I won't know anyone," she lamented. And while that's not entirely true, because of county boundaries many of her middle school friends will end up at other high schools. "I'll be a loser with no friends."

We even discussed it with our pediatrician during a recent visit. "This age is filled with anxieties like that. Friendships can change pretty quickly and some girls have a really hard time with that," she told us. "The best thing to do is get involved with something. Girls who do sports usually fare better than girls who aren't athletic."

Sisi wrinkled her nose. She's a decent gymnast and loves hip hop dance, but team sports? Not so much.

Meanwhile, things seemed to be getting worse. Her grades slipped as she fretted over the impact of the last days of middle school. She came home alternately euphoric about the fun she was having with her buddies and despondent that soon they would be scattered to high schools across the county and she would be alone.

So when she brought up the information about cheerleading tryouts at the high school all my reservations about gender roles, short skirts, and mean girl stereotypes when right out the window.

"If you want to tryout, I'll sign the permission forms," I said.

"Do you think I can do it?"

"I know you can." I got a smile for that one—but I meant it. A cute, popular girl who likes people, who likes to tumble and dance? My daughter is the definition of a cheerleader.

The only problem is she's not so sure. Enter that Intense Self Doubt, with a side order of "everyone's looking at me."

The tryout clinic began Tuesday. Every afternoon for three hours they've chanted and dance, jumped and flipped. I've rarely seen my daughter more self-disciplined, more focused, more positive. Gone is obsession with the end of middle school and the tearful conversations about having no friends. She is completely involved with learning the routines and making the squad. She's made friends with some of the girls trying out who will also be 9^th graders this fall and with the rising sophomore, juniors and seniors, too. Surprisingly, although she's been busy every afternoon, her grades have actually improved.

The tryout is this morning at 11 am—and I, the former cheerleader skeptic, want her to make it with all my heart and soul. If she does, SVHS is about to get the loudest most active Booster Mom imaginable! LOL! She waved to me when I dropped her off, but her eyes were scared. I know that look—and if it gets the better of her, we may have to tryout again next year. Intense self doubt and are old friends… but that's another blog.

Life is so funny—and for me full of endless learning opportunities about my own faulty assumptions, judgments and prejudices. Tonight at 7 pm when the results are posted on the gym door something inside me will make a full circle, taking me back to high school—and in many ways, back to square one on my notions about identity, individuality, cliques and community.

Hold your breath with us, cross your fingers. Tomorrow, I'll write about either disappointment or elation… and I honestly don't know which.

Today in the New York Times- Fewer Black Men for Black Women to Marry... Because They're Marrying Out

2010-06-04T06:29:00.000-07:00

Kevin and I are among the relics in our digital society-- because we actually still subscribe to print newspapers. Two of them: The Washington Post and The New York Times. But, as I said, it's a digital world, and before I actually read the Times this morning, I checked my email.

Halima Sal Anderson, author of a popular blog (interracialblackwomen.blogpost.com) and one of the godmothers of the IR (interracial) movement had sent me a note and link to this article:

"Black Women See Shrinking Pool of Black Men at the Altar"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/us/04interracial.html

Of course, this isn't news to me. Researching my book revealed the shrinking marriage pool, and since its publication, I've received all kinds of new data that only confirms that the pool of black men interested in marriage to a black woman is decreasing. But to me, the New York Times piece buried the REAL lead of this story, which isn't about black men and black women at all, but the growth of interracial relationships across the population of our country. Here's the last paragraph of the piece:

"Of all 3.8 million adults who married i 2008, 31% of Asians, 26% of Hispanic people, 16% of blacks and 9% of whites married a person whose race or ethnicity was different from their own. Those were all record highs." (emphasis added)

It's old news that there are a lot a single black women and fewer eligible black men. For the past few months that story has circulated a great deal of the mainstream media, the black media and the blogosphere. What IS news is that interracial marriages across the board are on the rise-- and that those couples and their children will have a far reaching impact on our country, on our race relations and on how we identify ourselves and others. That's the REAL story that this data suggests-- and I'm a little disappointed that instead of digging for something really unique in the numbers, the Times decided to follow the same, now tired storyline that ABC's Nightline did back in December.

The important issue isn't that black women are single, or that black men are marrying out. The real story is that our culture is becoming increasingly racially fluid, with more and more Americans choosing their partners based on character and common ground rather than racial or ethnic identifications. That's the next story I want to read... or am I going to have to write it?

What it means to be a 14 year old Black girl

2010-06-03T15:36:00.000-07:00

Recently, on the recommendation of both our pediatrician and a family friend, I read Reviving Ophelia, a book about the struggles of adolescent girls. It's a bit dated (it was written in 1994, before the Internet added a whole new level of complexity to being a teenaged girl) but some parts of it were intensely relevant to my current struggles.

And yes, struggle is the right word. Adolescence, as we all remember, is the struggle to find autonomy and identity separate and apart from one's parents. One of my favorite lines from Reviving Ophelia was that parents should think of teenagers as "being like people on LSD" because like a person on a drug trip teens are often living in an alternate reality. I read that section aloud to my husband and we both laughed. It was a grim, battle weary laugh-- but a laugh all the same.

My daughter Sisi turns 14 this summer. She's a good kid, wants to do right and wants to please us, her parents. But she also believes she knows everything. She wants to be free. She thinks our rules are "stupid"; she thinks they are punishments rather than protections. She tries to find out just how far she can bend those rules before they break. She loves us, but right now, to paraphrase the words of the song, love has nothing to do with it.

I remember when she LOVED for her mother to show up at school. These days, she's embarrassed to be seen in my presence for any length of time. But as uncomfortable as my presence is, her stepfather's is even more distressing.

"He's white, Mom," she says, rolling her eyes when I ask why Dad can't pick her up from cheerleading tryouts.

"Yes, he's been that way for as long as you've known him. Going on six years," I remind her.

"Yes, but I don't know these girls and I don't want these girls to know that yet. I don't want to explain him. He just complicates my life."

I understand... and I don't. I understand that people are curious. They take an extra moment to stare--especially when Kevin and Sierra are alone together. Because they aren't related by blood, there's little resemblance. And sometimes, people who see an older white man and a teenaged black girl add up the picture to an ugly, sexual conclusion that couldn't be further from the truth.

And then there are the comments she's gotten from some of her black girlfriends already: "Your mama married him 'cause white men got money, right?" she told me one friend asked. My daughter forgot to tell the girl her mom's a Harvard educated lawyer who makes money too. (DAMN-- missed opportunity to start dismantling some of the stereotypes about who black women are! But that's another post.) "That ain't even right!" A black boy she knows called out when Kevin picked her up from a school dance.

So, I do understand... but only up to a point.

Because, after all, these are other people's prejudices-- and problems. Kevin has been and is a wonderful stepfather to this girl and I long for the day when she can once again assert that proudly, like she did when she was little. I'm eager for her to outgrow her awkwardness and concern for the opinions of her peers and assert her individuality again.

I'm also annoyed. It's distressing to me that in 2010 black kids are still pressing each other into a "black box" in order to gain acceptance. In our community there are immigrants from nearly every country on the planet-- it's that diverse. But clearly, my daughter is receiving the message that her family's diversity calls into question her authencity as a black teen. It makes her different-- and not necessarily in a good way. The result: Kevin often gets pushed to the margins of her life.

Reviving Ophelia was useful to me framing my daughter's dilemma, but in addressing it. One of my compliants about the book is that, with the exception of a story of the identity issues of a Native American girl adopted by a white couple, it didn't deal with the concerns of girls of color at all. And given the wealth of extremely negative stereotypes aimed at girls of color there's a lot to be said. One of the most powerful things I've read about the cultural influences on young black girls was "Freaks, Gold Diggers, Divas and Dykes" a paper written by Georgia State professor Layli Phillips documenting the sociohistoric archetypes of black women that appear in modern media aimed at black teen girls. It's frightening how aggressively these images are marketed-- and how passively we all accept them.

Bottom line: Sisi may want to fit in-- to accept the limits of the roles that her peers find acceptable for her-- but it's my job to constantly raise her eyes to the horizons. In ways big and small, my husband and I will remind her that there is a world beyond high school, role for her beyond what her friends think is "okay" and families beyond convenient colorings or definitions.

Her job may be to rebel, but mine is to set expectations and challenge her meet them. So I'm sending Kevin to pick her up from cheerleading... and hoping she'll greet her stepfather with pride.

The Beginning, The Purpose, The Mission

2010-06-03T11:24:00.000-07:00

I am a black woman who is married to a white man. We are raising two daughters: the first is a teenager, mine from a prior marriage. Her skin is brown like mine and her father's, but she identifies herself as "a person." When you look at her, you would probably call her an African American child, but my daughter dislikes that phrase. "Mom, I have friends whose parents are from AFRICA. They're the African Americans. We're something else." She's right.

Her quest for identity is a part of the reason why I felt compelled to start this blog.

My second daughter is only 4 years old. She is mine too, and her father is my current husband, Kevin. He's Irish American, older than me and proud as a peacock of her. Most of the time when I look at her, I see a white girl... with suspiciously frizzy hair. When Kevin looks at her, however, he sometimes see more of me-- especially in the way her skin browns in the summer sun (his just reddens).

Her quest for identity hasn't yet begun...but it's a part of why I wanted to right this blog.

My husband works in financial sales, but I write. I'm known for writing a bit about interracial relationships-- Don't Bring Home A White Boy (And Other Notions That Keep Black Women from Dating Out) specifically-- and race, relationships and how we navigate the spaces between "me" and "we" are interesting to me. I want to write about those as they crop up in our lives. That, too, is a reason for this blog.

What I have found lately is that, while there are blogs that deal with parenting mixed children, blogs for black women, blogs for white men, blogs about relationships, blogs about marriage, etc. there's not much written about what it means to be a multi-racial family. I suspect I know at least one of the reasons:

The real truth about multiracial families is that first and foremost, we're FAMILIES. We deal with the same stuff as any other family: conflicts of time, money and generation. In my home, racial issues are often secondary to paying the mortgage, following up on the girls' academic performance, figuring out who's going to pick up from cheerleading practice, why we always seem to be out of milk, and how to fix what's broken now.

I want to write about these issues, too, because they emphasize a critical point: an family is a family. It doesn't matter that my husband and I are different races. It matters how we raise these girls. It matters how he deals with step-parenting. It matters how I teach my teenager about boys and sex and becoming a woman-- even though I came of age in a very different time than hers. It matters how we balance our resources to give them opportunities to learn about their talents. It matters how we stay connected to each other as husband and wife.

I want this blog to be about those things, too. Because what we are living in this life in black and white is always a LIFE first.

But of course, this blog will also be about race. It will be about the times that my husband's "white male privilege" reminds us both that in the eyes of the world, he gets the benefit of the doubt, while I may still have something to prove (or disprove). It's about the larger world of data and politics that impacts our lives or how others see us. And the places where our disparate upbringing and experiences cause us to see the world from wildly different points of view. It's about how we reconcile those differences... and the occasions when we don't.

So, welcome to my blog. Meet my family... and feel free to comment on this Diary of Our Lives in Black and White.