Being "Different" and Fighting Bullies

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

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

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

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.

Disaster Planning (Just in Case)

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."

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

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.

What “White Culture” means to black-white families

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.

Roses and Thorns: Step-parenting in Mixed Families

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.

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

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.