Identifying Color/Race

We've never made any disctinction on color/race in out immediate family. My niece had many school mates of all races and never gave it much thought. We are a white family. My cousin dated a black man for quite a time and they had a child together. My niece, was only about 5 when the baby was born. She thought that a white woman would have a white baby. It didn't seem to matter about daddy, because the baby comes out of mommy. After all, her orange cat had orange kittens. Kids - to cute!

I have tried hard to treat others all alike. I try to describe people to my oldest as "the lady with the white shirt", or "the man with the glasses and light hair". My daughter must have learned the tern white at school, because she started calling people "white" or "brown-like me". I tried to get her to explain what "brown" and "white" meant, but she would not entertain the term "black". I played confused when she said I was white and held my arm to a paper. She did seem to understand the difference and only used the terms to describe people. It took until she was in the first grade to accept the term "black", I think she must have been teased in kindergarten. She never would tell me why she didn't like being called black. I still try to describe people without using ethnicity, and it's easy to do that with her. Work and family don't make it easy. They still describe people as AA, Mexican, Asian, Hmong, Chinese, Hispanic, etc... My children are "mixed" race and don't fit into those tidy little categories. My two youngest are very obviously not 100% AA, while the oldest is not either, she looks more AA and thus is labled AA. AA people know that she is bi-racial and ask me all the time. "NO", I think- you just asked if I was her mom, I am light haired and light skinned, "Is she mixed? they ask. "DUH" (They don't know she was adopted)

This is just conjecture, but perhaps because she's picked up on the negative connotation of being "black"? In avoiding the use of "black" as a word to describe people, she may have come to believe there's something wrong with being "black"? Just as children who grow up in homes where everyone avoids yelling and arguments may come to fear raised voices and rising tempers. If she was teased and has come to associate "blackness" with something negative, that's truly awful. I hope she learns that there is nothing shameful in being black. It is a heritage she should embrace, not fear! I honestly can't remember when I learned my mom and I were different colors/races. She was white and I was black and that was the way things were. It was never a huge issue, but neither did my mom shy away from openly discussing race with us, even at a young age.

It's sad we have to live in a world where racial labels are required. However, until oppression stops we have to celebrate difference. It's getting better. I'm biracial, my spouse is white, my oldest two children are white, and my youngest is black. Most people mean well when they're curious about difference, even sometimes when they act aggressively. I've had people express concern especially before we adopted our youngest child and I would take the kids out alone. A lot of people have been programmed to go into a state of alert when they see a dark person with two little Anglo-Saxon children. The best way to deal with it is to be calm. I tell all my kids to be emotional-territorial winners. Too many people become intimidated when they encounter prejudice. My attitude is: I am free; you are free; we can have our separate trips or we can have the same trip. No one has to agree with me on race relations and even if someone has what I perceive as a dumb view, that's alright. I don't understand the paranoia surrounding children being exposed to (non-violent, non-aggressive) racial insensitivty. It's important to see where the other side fails. Stalin's paranoia was a self-fulfilling prophecy; so was Bucky Fuller's optimism. To quote Wilson, "The paranoids are right; they've got lots of enemies: Who would want to be their friends?"

I'm CC/my husband AA and we have 3 multiracial daughters (28, 18, 16)& 1 son (13). The oldest one lives in Honolulu now with her CC husband - and loves how she fits in with the multi-racial mixture of people there. On a recent trip to Portland, they were thinking about moving there.. after a few days her husband told her.. i know what's wrong... everyone here is white! They laughed and decided to stay in Hawaii! :) We have also tried to educate our children re: racial attitudes, & they all have many friends of diff races & colors. It's not quite the big deal to them as if was for example to their dad.. and not that they can't appreciate the difficulties he went thru in the 1950's thru the present. I think as kids tho .. they view him as 'ancient history' ... probably like i tho't of my dad as a teen. I think also their 'multi-racialness' sometimes gives them the ability to be whatever people think they are. Daughters # 2 & 3 state: some people ask me if I'm Filipino - I say sure. Someone else will ask if I'm Hawaiian.. I say yeah. When kids do ask 'what are you?' I tell them 1/2 black - 1/2 Irish.' And when they say 'No Way'... I say.. 'Excuse me? Yeah, way.' Interesting Note: Other multi-racial kids at school seem to recognize each other immediately. :) On forms at school they always marks the box: Black...why? 'Because they are the smallest group so maybe this will help.' When overhearing very overt racial remarks at her high school recently # 2 turned around and faced the idiot making them (and his 2 idiot blonde bimbos) and said, What the heck*? What's wrong with you? This is wrong wrong wrong!' A few minutes later when he went back to his racial comments... she went to class, stewed a bit, then told one of her teachers she wanted to go to the VP's office and report him. Her teacher supported her 100% and went with her. VP just happened to be a black man - one we knew from soccer games years ago. He was furious! Called the kid in and he got read the riot act, parents called..and next offense would be suspension. She was glad she was able to make a difference that day. --As a pre-schooler she was the only non-white child except for a few hispanic children. Teachers had a color chart for behavior: Green=good, Yellow=warning, Red=note home, Black=parents called. I asked the teacher...why are you using Black? My child's father is Black - do you not see how this can be used sublimally to effect my child's self-esteem? And how it can 'teach' non-black children to equate Black with Bad? She had never considered it, had borrowed it from another teacher. But she did change the color... to purple I think. Also that year my beautiful daughter came home telling me she wished she had blonde hair and blue eyes and white skin. I told her God gave her her beautiful black curls, and brown eyes, and brown skin because of her Poppa and Momma. After about 3 weeks she changed her tune to: I wish God had given me a brown mommy. LOL - we laugh about that one now! I'm not sure why color has to be such an issue here either. Kids seem to pick up the color coding so quickly - and it does take an effort to do as prose3a mentioned... the lady in the red dress, or the boy with the blue shirt. It does take the adults to set the stage. My children have heard their father use the term Black thru-out their lives as do many of his family/friends. I've tried to use other ways to describe people in later years, even re-educating myself in the process. Perhaps as multi-racial soon-to-be adults they can change the trend to less racial labelling esp with their own children. My daughters & I are very close - and altho I gave them dolls of many colors to play with, tried to help their father promote positive AA or Black role models, I also hope I helped in developing them as young women with many talents... art, poetry, creative writing, music, scholastic abilities... so they have something else other than just their gorgeous looks and their color to address 'who they are'. I'm CC/my husband AA and we have 3 multiracial daughters (28, 18, 16)& 1 son (13). The oldest one lives in Honolulu now with her CC husband - and loves how she fits in with the multi-racial mixture of people there. On a recent trip to Portland, they were thinking about moving there.. after a few days her husband told her.. i know what's wrong... everyone here is white! They laughed and decided to stay in Hawaii! :) We have also tried to educate our children re: racial attitudes, & they all have many friends of diff races & colors. It's not quite the big deal to them as if was for example to their dad.. and not that they can't appreciate the difficulties he went thru in the 1950's thru the present. I think as kids tho .. they view him as 'ancient history' ... probably like i tho't of my dad as a teen. I think also their 'multi-racialness' sometimes gives them the ability to be whatever people think they are. Daughters # 2 & 3 state: some people ask me if I'm Filipino - I say sure. Someone else will ask if I'm Hawaiian.. I say yeah. When kids do ask 'what are you?' I tell them 1/2 black - 1/2 Irish.' And when they say 'No Way'... I say.. 'Excuse me? Yeah, way.' Interesting Note: Other multi-racial kids at school seem to recognize each other immediately. :) On forms at school they always marks the box: Black...why? 'Because they are the smallest group so maybe this will help.' When overhearing very overt racial remarks at her high school recently # 2 turned around and faced the idiot making them (and his 2 idiot blonde bimbos) and said, What the heck*? What's wrong with you? This is wrong wrong wrong!' A few minutes later when he went back to his racial comments... she went to class, stewed a bit, then told one of her teachers she wanted to go to the VP's office and report him. Her teacher supported her 100% and went with her. VP just happened to be a black man - one we knew from soccer games years ago. He was furious! Called the kid in and he got read the riot act, parents called..and next offense would be suspension. She was glad she was able to make a difference that day. --As a pre-schooler she was the only non-white child except for a few hispanic children. Teachers had a color chart for behavior: Green=good, Yellow=warning, Red=note home, Black=parents called. I asked the teacher...why are you using Black? My child's father is Black - do you not see how this can be used sublimally to effect my child's self-esteem? And how it can 'teach' non-black children to equate Black with Bad? She had never considered it, had borrowed it from another teacher. But she did change the color... to purple I think. Also that year my beautiful daughter came home telling me she wished she had blonde hair and blue eyes and white skin. I told her God gave her her beautiful black curls, and brown eyes, and brown skin because of her Poppa and Momma. After about 3 weeks she changed her tune to: I wish God had given me a brown mommy. LOL - we laugh about that one now! I'm not sure why color has to be such an issue here either. Kids seem to pick up the color coding so quickly - and it does take an effort to do as prose3a mentioned... the lady in the red dress, or the boy with the blue shirt. It does take the adults to set the stage. My children have heard their father use the term Black thru-out their lives as do many of his family/friends. I've tried to use other ways to describe people in later years, even re-educating myself in the process. Perhaps as multi-racial soon-to-be adults they can change the trend to less racial labelling esp with their own children. My daughters & I are very close - and altho I gave them dolls of many colors to play with, tried to help their father promote positive AA or Black role models, I also hope I helped in developing them as young women with many talents... art, poetry, creative writing, music, scholastic abilities... so they have something else other than just their gorgeous looks and their color to address 'who they are'. My son has straight black hair, looks more amer indian or hispanic than he does black - but he has ALWAYS associated with being black...probably as he related to his father. He 'd look at picture books and point at the one with the darkest skin, curly black hair and say, "Mommy he looks like me!'. He was so proud of that! His best friends are multi racial or AA altho he has friends of all races. Hopefully as they grow older they will recognize their parents' failings, and love us anyways! And if they are able to love themselves and others in their lives.. I will at least have some satisfaction in knowing we did our best. *replaced in lieu of another more colorful adjective!