Category: skin color

Leave Him Alone: Microaggressions in Pre-K and Elementary School

Dr. Mama Esq.7 Comments

Photo: Me! All rights reserved.

Our school district has recently started a new task force looking at minority achievement. In such a resource rich district, but also with many social inequalities, its unsurprising but still really angering that we have disparities in the rate of college readiness, standardized test scores, and simply personal experiences. The number of times I’ve heard truly devastating stories of how kids are treated based on their racial, ethnic, or linguistic background is simply appalling in a school district that touts how progressive it is.

The creation of the task force got me thinking (as always) about my family’s experiences here. My children are in the second and third grades (and another a few years behind them), and we’ve been dealing with little things — microaggressions — since we started here four years ago. Microaggressions, a term coined by Dr. Chester M. Pierce, a professor of education and psychiatry at Harvard University, in the 1970s, refers to  “everyday insults, indignities and demeaning messages sent to people of color by well-intentioned white people who are unaware of the hidden messages being sent to them.” I believe that my children’s teachers believed they were helping my kids — and my husband and I as parents. But their words and actions did a lot more harm than they realized.

Here’s a sampling of our experiences, from my point of view when they occurred:

Continue reading “Leave Him Alone: Microaggressions in Pre-K and Elementary School” →

To My Prince and Queen: Do Not Be Afraid

Dr. Mama Esq.2 Comments

To my children, my Prince and my Queen,

This week you returned back home from spending the summer with your grandparents. For eight weeks, you engaged in what so many of our people have done for generations: spent the summers unburdened by camps and activities in order to spend time with your extended family, surrounded by the love of folks who knew you before you even took your first breath. You learned a different way of being, likely seeing more people who look like you in eight weeks than you do the remaining weeks of the year at home. A friend called it “black camp;” over the summer, you received an immersion education in the ways of black folks.

Usually, the eight weeks are a time of rest and relaxation for your father and I.

Yet the events of this summer made this time less carefree than usual. More importantly, and in a manner far more dire, I’m scared about my ability to protect you.

Continue reading “To My Prince and Queen: Do Not Be Afraid” →

Doc McStuffins Isn’t Enough

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Doc McStuffins, Disney’s black doctor character, is a “crossover hit.” Sales of Doc McStuffins character products are evenly distributed by race and even gender, prompting a popular refrain about the virtues of colorblindness, as reported by the New York Times:

“‘The kids who are of color see her as an African-American girl, and that’s really big for them,’ said Chris Nee, the creator of Doc McStuffins. ‘And I think a lot of other kids don’t see her color, and that’s wonderful as well.'”

If only that were true.

People want to believe that young children do not see color. It seemingly provides us with the opportunity to intervene on young minds before racial stereotypes take hold. If young children do not see color, then we can provide multi-cultural materials to promote diversity, even when our personal lives — where we live, the conversations in which we participate, with whom we educate our kids — fail to reflect the racial equality and diversity we say we value.

What is true is that kids do “see” color because it is embedded into the very fabric of who we are as a nation. But kids, especially white children, are taught to ignore what they see, which is very different than not seeing color at all.

Continue reading “Doc McStuffins Isn’t Enough” →

“Beautiful.” The Single Best Word My Daughter Said Last Night.

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Lupita. Lupita. Lupita.

We can’t stop saying her name. Can’t stop commenting on how gorgeous she is. Can’t stop focusing on how glamourous she is. Can’t stop raving about her every fashionchoice. I love her. I can’t find any reason to not think she’s as fabulous as she seems.

We can’t stop saying her name. You get the feeling that a lot of time was put into news broadcasters and red-carpet-watchers practicing Nyong’o. (If you don’t know, you can hear her say it here.) After last year’s catastrophe over Quvenzhane’s, it would have been a crying shame for anyone to have gotten it wrong.

But one thing I haven’t heard people talking about is her acting, at least not as much as they talk about her looks.

Continue reading ““Beautiful.” The Single Best Word My Daughter Said Last Night.” →

dying in the streets

Dr. Mama Esq.1 Comment

i wasn’t even going to comment on trayvon’s death. so many others have said so many eloquent things that i just didn’t feel the need to add anything. but then my son, my 6-year-old prince, made me see that silence is not what’s good in these streets.

i watch this news with my kids every morning as we eat our breakfast. i understand they may not “get” everything, but i want them to know there is a world out there bigger than them. well, this morning on good morning america, there was a story on the shooting death of trayvon martin.

my six year old son sees trayvon’s picture and asks – ‘who is he?’

me: ‘he’s a child – a 17 year old boy – who was shot and killed while walking down the street.’

him: ‘why? what was he doing?’

me: ‘honestly, he wasn’t doing anything. he was black and walking.’

him: ‘that’s just like martin luther king. he was shot because he was black too.’

my six year old son can recognize that this shooting of a black child is as suspect as the 1968 shooting of a civil rights legend. my six year old son can recognize that something is as amiss in our society today, with our black president, as it was when blacks were still fighting for our “rights.”

[pause]

how many more trayvons do we need to see that race and racism is as alive today as it was 50 years ago? the means and methods have changed, but not the end results.

our peoples are still dying in the street in this war.

and i still need to teach my black son how not to become a casualty.

Out the Mouth

Dr. Mama Esq.3 Comments

“If you speak Chinese, you must be white.”

******

The other day, my son, age 6, my daughter, age 4, and my husband and I (age 30 something) were driving down a busy street on our way to drop me off to have lunch with a friend. On this street, there are a number of restaurants from many different cultures: Japanese, Chinese, Indian, American, Italian. For some reason still unbeknownst to me, my son noticed a Chinese restaurant and said the words that begin this post.

I don’t think my husband heard these words, but I sure did. I immediately responded, “Well, Big A, that doesn’t really make sense. Most people who speak Chinese are, well, Chinese. Not white.”

“Yes, they are. They are white.”

At this point, my husband says, “What? WHAT??” I put out my hand, meaning to signal, “SHUT UP.” Big A continues:

“This girl in my class, Benny*, she speaks Chinese. And she’s white.”

Now, I know Benny. Benny is certainly NOT white. But perhaps she is biracial, so I allow for this possibility. “Well, maybe Benny has a white parent and a Chinese parent. But she’s at least part Chinese. That shows that non-white people can speak Chinese.”

And then something really brilliant comes to me.

“And you know what, Big A? Ms. Arlene* speaks Chinese. Did you know that?” Ms. Arlene is a very close family friend, and she’s black. But she speaks fluent Chinese, and is teaching it to her (black) children.

Big A: “Well then she must be white.” Loving the 6-year-old logic.

Me: “But you know she’s not. She’s black, like us.”

Big A: “Ms. Arlene’s not black. She’s brown.” Ut-oh. Ms. Arlene is light-skinned, but only a little more so than Big A and his sister. At this point, I’m a little lost, especially because we have now pulled up to my lunch spot, on a busy street, with no time to sit and continue to chat. I’m torn between three interrelated issues that I’d like to address in my last words. So I chose what I consider to be the easiest.

“You know, Big A, Chinese is a language. Anyone can speak Chinese. Just like anyone can speak English. You can speak Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Swahili – it doesn’t matter. Language is available to everyone.”

But this point, his eyes have glazed over and he’s on to some new distraction outside his window.

****

The other two issues, outside that of language specifically, was dealing with the “Chinese = white” racial confluence and the “light-skinned = brown not black” skin color conundrum. Several days later, however, these two kinda intercepted.

We’re watching Ni Hao, Kai-Lan. It dawns on me that this is a perfect time to address the “Chinese = white” issue. Kai-Lan is obviously Asian, right?

“Big A – look! Kai-Lan is speaking Chinese, and she is Chinese, right? Not white, right?”

Never looking away from the television: “She is white.” I suppose it’s not obvious.

“What do you mean? Kai-Lan is not white. Look at her!”

“Mommy. You look at her. She’s white.”

******

I thought I’d done well by “teaching” my kids that they were black. I wanted them to understand one of the social groups to which they belong, and to have a deep seated appreciation and love for their social group. I never wanted to reduce being black to skin color, but have definitely used skin color as a starting point for our conversations.

But now I realize that I must go deeper, even starting at such young ages. I somehow assumed that they would innately see and appreciate the difference among folks once I pointed out their blackness, but I now realize either (or both) one of two things is occurring: 1) they only see themselves (black) verses everyone else (non-black = white) or 2) they are utterly confused about themselves being “black” when their skin is not Crayola black and therefore are not able to tell the “difference” between other groups with similar skin colorings.

Sigh.

I’d thought that “teaching” them about race would be like “teaching” them about our religion, Christianity. I thought they’d hear the songs and the stories and the admonitions, “You should love God” and a love of the Lord and Jesus would just permeate their souls. And for a while, I thought that was what was happening. We started really “doing church” two years ago and since then, they will say on their own how much they love God and spout their knowledge of the Bible and prefer Bible songs over other songs and will talk about being like Jesus. And while I understand this is indoctrination in some form, it’s also been a full-court blast socialization, full of questioning and misunderstanding (“is God like magic?”). It hasn’t been one conversation here and there every few weeks. It’s been every day.

If I had to choose, I want my children to have a better understanding of Christ than I do them having an understanding of race. But now I know what I need to aim toward, at least somewhat. Race, ethnicity, culture, and language need to be a constant part of our conversations. Otherwise, one day they are going to misidentify the wrong person. Someone who ain’t playin’ “I don’t know the difference between White and Chinese because I don’t see race.” Yeah, that can’t happen.

 

 

they learned it from watching you

Dr. Mama Esq.10 Comments

My four year old is the only black girl – hell, person – in her preschool. Last year this wasn’t the case, as her brother was there with her. But this year she is all alone.

Last year, there were some problems with “mean girls” – yes, in preschool. They would exclude Little A, and if there is one thing Little A cannot stand is being excluded. Even when children tell her they won’t be her friend, she replies, “Well, we don’t have to be friends to play together.” Yeah.

So imagine how pissed I am that now children in the preschool are still excluding – but making it explicitly about skin color, eye shape, and hair texture.

What is the school doing about it? Well, first they discussed it with the kids, pointing out how the teachers (none of them black, but two white, one southeast Asian and another east Asian) are all different but they all like and love one another. Next they plan to consult with folks who have experience handling this in early education. They also talked to a few parents, three of whom have a child of color and the other a parent of a white child, because “those were the names that came up.”

Will there be a parent meeting about this? Well, yes, but no date has been set. And their next step today in this conversation? Talking about animals.

Animals.

This whole situation pisses. me. off.

One, this is not a new issue, so I’m quite annoyed at the school’s reactive posture. This should have been seen as a possible problem from what happened last year with exclusion, and me specifically bringing up the problem of race and racial differences. Why they are unprepared for this blows my mind.

Two, why only have conversations with the children most negatively affected – the conversations should really be with the parents of white children. They are the ones doing the excluding. They are the ones acting out racial prejudice.

Which leads me to my last issue – having the teachers address it in school is fine with me, but let’s please recognize that these children learned this behavior at home.

They learned racial prejudice and exclusion from watching their parents.

Young children emulate their parents. They think their parents are the best thing in the world. And in thinking so, they copy what they see their parents doing. I know, because my kids, at 5 and 4, are copying me all the time. My son wants to “wear pajamas like Mommy.” My daughter tries to match my clothes each day. They talk like me, use the same idioms as me.

And while being an overt racist will probably lead to racist kids, you don’t need to be a verbal racist to show racism in your life. You don’t need to say that black people are bad or Asian people are weird for your kids to learn racism. They learn it through the daily experiences of our lives, from what we watch on TV to the people they see on the street everyday. And most importantly – who you hang out with, who you invite over, who are obviously your friends send messages to kids about what you value as a family. For my kids, living in an area that is 2% black, we practically have no choice but to live truly multi-racial and multi-cultural lives. We have white friends who come over, who are obviously mommy and daddy’s friends. We have babysitters that are white. We have good friends of practically every race. And our kids know they are our friends because we talk about them, we hang out with them, they have a constant pressence in our lives. So our kids don’t get any idea about excluding children based on race or appearance.

For (some of) these white kids though, their lives are white. Their parents don’t have friends of other races – they don’t have to. Their kids witness their parents having mono-racial ideas of who is worth hanging out with and who is not. And while kids may not, at this age, put an inherent value on thing like skin color, hair type, and eye shape, they do recognize difference easily enough to see that the only place they interact with people not like them is in school. And they make an inference that if Mom and Dad don’t hang out with these people, then I shouldn’t either – for whatever reason.

This is a nasty lesson to start learning at 4 and 5. I’m determined, however, to make this a teaching moment for all involved, especially the white parents.

Why We All Can’t Just Get Along

Dr. Mama Esq.8 Comments

I’m comfortable with who I am and what I believe in. I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer for the same naive reasons I guess a lot of kids say they want to be lawyers: I truly believe in justice and fairness. As someone yesterday said to me, “Right is right.” I’ve never heard more true words.

I used to wonder why justice was so important to me. Why the littlest amount of unfairness touched me in a place so deep. So there was a time in my life where I routinely took personality tests.  I was obsessed with knowing about myself, trying to understand what made me tick. My favorite test is the MBTI, which splits people into 16 personality types based on combinations of pairs of four dyads: Introverted or Extroverted; Sensing or iNtuitive; Thinking or Feeling; and Judging or Perceiving. My type has changed slightly over the years, and I’m an almost even split between both Introverted/Extroverted and Perceiving/Judging. But as I’ve gotten older, I think I gravate more toward a particular “type.”

I am an ENFP: The Champion.

As a Champion, I’m an easy person to get along with. I smile, I laugh, I joke. I’m charming, in my most humble opinion. I make friends easily too, everywhere I go. But there are some things that I believe in, and when you mess with me and those things, when you mess with one of my values, then…well, all bets are off.

And so my life is one of a strong dichotomy. I’ve been accused of being too serious. I’ve been told to lighten up, take a chill pill, relax, calm down, and breathe. I’ve been told to choose my battles, that nothing in life is that serious, and that I just get too worked up. I’ve been told that I am intimidating, aggressive, overbearing, argumentative, contrary and loud-mouthed.

For telling my truth. For saying what I believe to be right.

I’m working this summer for a large urban school district that ranks at the almost bottom for educational equity. The opportunity and achievement gaps in this district are shameful. So when I go to work every day, and when I interact with my fellow interns who are working at other educational institutions this summer, I’m not always smiling. I’m not agreeing to so-called “community agreements” on how I’m supposed to talk about race, class, and power. I’m not giving everyone the benefit of the doubt that folks have good intentions. I’m not assuming that no one in the room is a racist.

I’m thinking about what needs to be said and done right here, right now, to get it across to these people that a crime is being committed again children – who look like my kids – every single day in the school that’s right down the block.

I’m thinking about what needs to be said right here, right now, to get these folks to stop experimenting on our kids and just teach them to read, write, and count. I’m thinking about wanting them to stop hiding the real issues of racism and classism and white privilege behind hollow conversations of “results-based-budgeting” that have no student results actually driving it.

That’s what I’m doing.

We can’t all just get along because getting along often means being silent. Getting along means being a bystander. Getting along means, if you want to keep it real, making white folks feel comfortable. Well, I’m not here to make you comfortable. I’m not here to make you feel good that you’ve chosen to work in education. I’m not here to sing fucking kumbaya. For me, while I’ve always had a passion for justice, now it’s personal.

See, my baby …

 

… my beautiful black boy. . .

is starting kindergarten in the fall. And I’m scared as hell.

Look, I don’t need friends, I need foot soldiers. I don’t care if you like me or not. I just want you to be as mad as I am that children like him are undervalued because of the color of their skin.

So I need you to be ready to  work for change. I’ll be right there with you. If I have to piss you off to move you toward action, then so be it.

Let’s get it started.

 

 

being black

Dr. Mama Esq.2 Comments

Written by CocoaMamas contributor Mikila.

I just read an article about a woman named Sandra Laing who is a black South African born to white South African parents.  The problem for her is that she was born in Apartheid South Africa, 1966.

Yes, you read that correctly, a black girl born to 2 white parents.  She was biologically linked to both of them.  It was found that a latent gene from black ancestors popped up and Sandra was the winner of the “look totally different from your parents sweepstakes.”  Unfortunately for Sandra, her visible differences resulted in disconnect from her parents, domestic violence, and many years of guilt and anger.  Today, she is happier and proud.  Reading the article made me think about race and raising my own children.

I recall 2 years ago, my son had just started first grade at a local catholic school.  He didn’t know anyone at the school, and he was not strong at meeting new people.  He mustered enough strength to ask a child if he could play with him, all to be informed that he was too brown to play.  Yes, my little 6 year old son had his first experience with racism.  My initial response was to march down to the school and rip the child’s head, the parent’s head, and the teacher’s head right off.  My husband had a different reaction.  He asked my son, “What did you do?”  My son responded, “I walked away and found someone else to play with.”  Yes, majority of the children in this school are white.  Trust me, I was livid.

Many people probably feel we responded in too passive a way, but as a person who grew up in a posh resort town, I know a lot about dealing with white people on a regular basis.  I thought about my husband’s reaction, and realized, my son will deal with ignorant people throughout his life.  He might as well learn how to handle it in first grade.  We explained to him that his skin color is just fine.  His classmates’ skin color is also fine.  He moved on and life went on as normal.

Three years later, along comes my daughter.  Girls really are wired differently.  She began to pay attention to color at a much younger age.  I had to literally brainwash her at one point, because thanks to Barbie, she told me many times at the age of 3 years old that she wanted to be white with blonde hair.  My little girl went from being a wannabe to “Angela Davis” in mere seconds.  I then had to add another layer to the issue of color.  I explained to her, just as I did to her brother, that her skin is beautiful.  I also had to tell her that other people’s skin color was beautiful to, but for them not her.

This is a complicated issue, because you want to raise well-rounded open-minded individuals.  The question remains, when do you deal with color, and how do you answer those difficult questions?  I was devastated both times I had to face the fact that racism as well as color issues, is something I had to explain to my children.  I realize now, both experiences opened the door for me to show them in small ways how to be proud of their color, heritage, past and future.  It was nice to see even through all the heartache that Sandra Laing found that out too.  Being black is truly beautiful, no matter what someone else will have you believe.

Mikila is a 35 year-old mother of 2 beautiful children:  an 8 year old son, and a 4 year old daughter.  She graduated from college in 1998, and will be attending Law School August 2011 to study Child and Education Advocacy. She is very passionate about helping parents of special needs children, as she is learning more about how to help her own daughter navigate this world.  She has a super supportive husband who is a very active participant in their children’s upbringing. Mikila is also a partner in a debt management consulting firm. A born-again Christian, Mikila also enjoys volunteer work, music, and helping her children grow into the people they are destined to become.

My Brown Boy?

Dr. Mama Esq.5 Comments

Written by new CocoaMamas contributor HarlemMommy.  Welcome her to CocoaMamas!

As a Black woman, I was prepared to nurture my brown child.  Showering her with love for her complexion. Empowering him with the strength of his heritage. I had so many books about African-American heroes and trailblazers. Seriously, my grandmother got me a complete set. Lena Horne, Crispus Attucks, Oprah. My kid was gong to love himself, his people and his color.

My husband loves Dave Matthews Band. He played high school lacrosse. Yup, he’s white.

My son? Handsome as all get out and a smile that’s out of this world. Brown? Not so much. He’s Black. He must be; he’s mine.  He’s also my husband’s child. How do I nurture that?

In The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, the main character, Rachel, is often asked where she got her blue eyes. The question is intrusive, but not completely unexpected. The way her grandmother answers however is poignant. “You know Roger’s granddad had these eyes.” This is a lie. A lie told to “protect” Rachel from the white mother who tried to kill her as she herself committed suicide.

Rachel, however, sees the lie for what it is; an attempt to remove her mother, her whiteness, and her complications from her new life. This obviously pained Rachel. If you have to deny a parent, you have to deny a part of yourself.

There’s the rub. You can’t deny a child’s parent and expect the child to be unaffected. Whether you deny the Mom because she’s white or say negative things about Dad because he’s always late with child support.

So where does that leave me? Before meeting my husband, I had a good beat on the world. Biracial people are Black. Yes, race is a social construct, but if you’re Black and something else, then you’re Black. It’s cool to be Black and that’s how society will see you, so that’s who you are. Duh.

It felt good to know so much and not feel ambiguity about race. Then I met this white guy. Then I fell all in love. Now we have this impossibly adorable munchkin we get to raise into a man. A Black man?  Can I call him my little brown boy if he’s not that brown?

Would it be fair to my Scooba to tell him that he’s Black because that’s how society will view him? What if, because he’s so light, people view him as white? How would I feel if he identified as white? Is that “passing”? I would be devastated if he identified solely as white, regardless of how society views him. I would have failed him as a Black woman; as a Black mother. It would mean he was ashamed, that he felt Black was less-than. That he felt I was less-than.

Children are not carbon copies of the parent. You can set a foundation for a child, but he ultimately must get in where he fit in. But how would any of us feel if a part of us that we felt was fundamental to our being was not fully reflected or embraced in our child?

Can I expect him to identify solely as Black? To deny either his Black or white side would be unfair. So when he asks what he is, we’re going to say he’s Black and white. As for how society sees him? That’s society’s problem. Scooba has the right to define himself; as do all of us. President Obama identifies as Black and his white mother approved of this. Am I a jerk that I can’t be selfless and let my son identify as white if he wants to? I’m gonna be that jerk.

Husband and I need to work twice as hard to ensure he sees both parts of himself represented in books we read to him and the media he sees. This means we read Whose Toes Are Those and sing Sweet Honey in the Rock. He’ll see plenty of images of white people, so we’re covered there. We’re going to be extra vigilant not to put him in a box or let others do so either. Scooba determines who he is and where he wants to stand in the world. Is that naïve? Perhaps, but we are not post-racial, so race still matters; and I at least want to have a plan when it comes up. I will fortify my son to stand up for who he is and allow him the space to establish that for himself.

HarlemMommy is a breastfeeding, cloth diapering mother of one. She works with middle schools and loves to read. Her husband is very funny and they love to travel. She also writes at www.BoobsAndBummis.wordpress.com.