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.

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

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.