Pickaninny

This is a little off the subject but I always make sure my daughter looks her best, even if we're just hanging out at home. I'd do this if she was white too. I work in a restaurant & yes, I see lots of little white & Hispanic kids coming in looking like slobs. It's like their parents dont care. A lot of the parents look like slobs too. I have a baby, so I know parents are busy, but I never go out into public without showering or shaving except to go to the gym. I hate it when they let their kids run all over the restaurant, disturbing the other customers & employees, & then they come up & order frozen custard. I'm thinking, "the last thing your kids need is more sugar." All of the black kids who have come in are very well behaved & clean, whether they have black or white parents. This got me thinking that maybe they think people will be judging them & their kids more based on how they look & act.

In my kids old daycare CC kids would show up hair sticking up and uncombed with their faces unwashed. No one blinked an eye... but let a AA kid show up like that they think that mommy doesn't take care of them. This is why it's important to have adult friends of your child's race. If you don't have those connections you will continue to feel odd or persecuted when that's not really the case. Yes there is a feeling of persecution but it won't be because of your race...you'll just be viewed as a trifling parent which is just getting the regular treatment. I will leave the house looking a hot mess before the kids will. This may all sound superficial but there is another layer to this... It's how you are perceived in public. Will you be respected or will people look down on you because of your appearance? With AA's there is a fine line to walk. A grungy day for us will not be perceived the same as a grungy day for a CC person. It could mean the difference between being getting good service or being ignored. Or even worse being followed because you look like you don't belong. I'm more worried for a child because they don't have the coping skills. There are people who could actually view your child as a threat just because they weren't groomed appropriately for the occasion. Those AA's moms who let their kids go out looking like a mess catch hell for it. They've just made up their minds they don't care what other people think. It's not real expensive to be clean and have your hair combed. Just take a real look at them... How are they living? Where are they living? What's their general outlook on life? My DD who will be 5 next month has figured out that people are more critical of us. She's told them at school that we don't feed her. You can take a look at her and see that she doesn't miss any meals. Yesterday I found out she told one of the parents that she didn't have a blanket for naptime. I was something hot when the parent told me that DD never has a blanket so she brought one for her to use. I was so glad the teacher chimed in and said that DD has one but it was misplaced and DD doesn't bother looking for it. DD has a very nice blanket that we wash every week. Why are we able to find it every week? Why would DS have one and not her? Grrr... DD is manipulative when she can figure out your weakness or bias. A dad can leave the house with the kids looking like anything. They get sympathy and strange women hitting on them. Let mommy go out with the kids looking all crazy.... not the same reaction.

Right. It's absolutely a matter of privilege. If I go out looking like a mess, I'm probably seen as just having an off day, or maybe sick. Whatever. No one is going to look at me as an example of a disheveled white person or make any huge judgements. I'm aware of the fact that it will be different for my son.I think it goes to exactly the same reason that black children are usually taught more formal manners. They usually say Mr. and Mrs. etc, whereas that's not so common among white children - at least around here. Parents know their kids are going to be seen with a more critical eye, so they teach and groom their children accordingly. We often have to explain to people why we insist that D call them by their last name. Or at least use Mr. or Miss Firstname. But we do because we know he's going to have to work harder to be seen in a positive light and an attractive appearance and good manners will help him.

Back when I was student teaching at an inner city, all AA school, it bothered me that the kids' families clearly didn't have money (lack of dental care, no school supplies at home, etc.) yet the kids were dressed to the nines in the best brand names, new Nikes, Tommy Hilfiger, etc. The little girls always had their hair done perfectly in the cutest styles. Well, now I get it, but for a young, white woman it just didn't make any sense. I was like "Where are the priorities?" Appearance is extremely important in the AA community, even for men. I wonder if it goes back to the days of slavery and not having anything to one's name and not being allowed to be clean and tidy, not even having control of what happened to your own family members. I have no idea, just something I've wondered about. I think slavery can be tied a lot of things like higher rates of absentee fathers, etc. so who knows? I think MB80sgirl is onto something when she says that Blacks know their going to be judged differently. I think it sucks that that's how things are though. Along these lines, does anyone know of any good books that would explain how racism ever came about, or the lasting effects of slavery on Blacks, things like what we are talking about here?

Also add to the factor, that's the only thing people like that have control over too. A $165 dollar sneaker is easier to get than say their own house. Maslov hierarchy of needs helped me realize that if you cannot get out of level one.. how can you prioritize much further? I will find this site that has a nice concise explanation and pm you. Even as a child of Black immigrants I learned a lot from my husband who is AA as in his people are from the United States. I realized that its not just about hard work and so on.. there was a systematic aspect to racism that's deliberate in the US. For about 10 people who we (general we) view in the hood or ghetto as making excuses or lazy, there was a great grandparent who was (despite slavery/Jim Crow) making it, and that fragile foundation was taken from them via systemic racism. When I say foundation I mean generational foundation..each generation leave something behind concrete (economics etc and abstract (self worth etc) that the next generation can continue to build on. Here is one of the books that I am reading at present, what I find interesting is how so many Blacks were doing well so soon after slavery. The foreword speaks of this in a sense to take away that Blacks had no gumption or intelligence to try to rebuild their family/community and so on. To put a positive spin on such information, this is a great lesson for our children to known to counteract the depressing their forefathers were slaves and that was it. Enterprising SouthernersBlack Economic Success in North CarolinaRobert C. KenzerMy home town:[URL="http://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/05/nyregion/codes-and-quotas-were-tools-of-housing-bias.html?pagewanted=1"]Codes and Quotas Were Tools of Housing Bias - NYTimes.com[/URL]One can also Google the present issue with the Black Farmers' lawsuit.[URL="http://washingtonpost.com"]washingtonpost.com - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines[/URL]Google the Kerner's report I believe Stanford has some info, now this was study based..but not really implemented:in the same time period 1965 (45 years ago):[url=http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm]U.S. Department of Labor -- History -- The Negro Family - The Case for National Action[/url]

Yes, this was exactly what I was talking about.

Tell me about the fathers who take the DDs out w/o thinking. Dh took DD out to Lowes (I was sleeping) with him, in 3T pants, with her sleep tousled hair. *roll eyes* Those women will come out of the wood-works to help a man with his baby. LOL

Last week a dad came into my work with a little girl wearing a brown paisley dress over turquoise leggings with ugly flowers on them & red socks. It was hideous. All I could think was, "Dad must have dressed her this morning."

Although I'm not black this was the way it was in my family as well....there was no furniture in the home, but I was always dressed to impress and had a bunch of toys. My L is biracial so her hair is a little different, but I always consult my good friend and she has taken me to a beauty salon/store in order to get good stuff for L's hair (which isn't much at this age), I've found this very helpful and has helped our friendship out even more....aside the fact that both of our roots are from the carribbean.

Well, now I'm really off topic here, but Nickchris was so nice to send me a great website with statistical data on segregation. (Thanks!) [url=http://www.umich.edu/~lawrace/]Geography of Race in the U.S.[/url]It got me thinking - I've heard that at my city (Milwaukee) is the #1 most segregated city in the US so I Googled it to see if that was still the case (I had heard this back in college so about 11 years ago). What I found is that it is true according to the 2000 census. I can't see that much has changed over the last 10 years, however. We actually live in a suburb, but it's only about a 12 minute drive to downtown Milwaukee. Anyway, our neighborhood is a little diverse - 1 Asian family, 1 other transracial family, a family that appears to be from Africa (I realize this sounds stupid, but they have very dark skin and speak with an accent that is not European, Caribbean, etc. They sound like a few African professors I had in college as well as a former boyfriend who was from Nigeria...). There was a Hispanic family on our street, but they recently moved. For the most part, our neighbors are old white folks. They are all very sweet and seem accepting of our family, but I just wish there was more diversity - diversity in race, language, religion, the whole gamut. I'm hoping that as some of the neighbors get older and sell their homes, the area will continue to get more diverse, but by then, we'll be moving. We need a slightly larger home, but chances are it will be in a white neighborhood because of the segregation of this darn city! Sorry, I'm just complaining! It's just frustrating, but what can be done to fix it?

Nick provided some pretty good links... You have to put in research time to explain why things are the way they are. Slavery, Jim Crow, black migration... They are intertwined and have had lasting effects for some people. My family has never lived in the inner city. Right out of slavery they were property owners and when they were run out of town or had their land stolen they picked themselves up and started right back over again. They did it as many times as was needed for something to stick. Some people don't have the fortitude to start over again and again especially when your life could be on the line. We always had nice clothing growing up but it was never clothing that was easily identifiable as a brand name. The quality of the garment was more important than the brand name. It was more important to buy land or a house than clothing. An education is more important than some expensive shoes. Somewhere along the line people got it twisted... a label being an indicator of success instead of a house or a good education. If you are living somewhere you can't buy a house or land how do you show you are doing okay? Another twist with the brand name thing is sales and advertising. Do a little research on the history of advertising and you will find out certain products or brand names could not be sold to AA's. Cadillac was number one on the list. New car dealerships could not sell them to AA's so AA's had to find a white person to buy it on their behalf or they had to find a way to buy it used. That's the reason for the AA's and Cadillacs stereotype... AA's had to jump some major hurdles to get them. It was a symbol of success in a round about way because you had to have money and connections to buy one. I hate cadillacs and I'm pretty sure that's the reason why.

Same with us. Education was stressed and while we were neat, we didn't have designer names or the latest fashions. We saw homeownership in the suburbs (Long Island, east of Manhattan) and hard work.

Whoops--wrong thread. I deleted

I wanted to add the sundown town link too Sleeplvr discussed a while back. However if one connected these obstacles over time you can get the drift. In the urban areas after a certain time post the Black migration.. you will see other factors as well. Once you are in the urban areas, its not that easy to get, and buy property. Too much money. I had White class mates (the North) who were surprised that I was able to purchase a house in the South. And a detached house with land. They were still saving up for the down-payment on their first house deposits. This was in the 90's.I can imagine that happening. Dh and I had an interesting experience a few years ago when we went to check out a car on the Mercedes dealership. I also had a conversation with a family friend who used to be a car salesman (he was AA) he mentioned the "approach" for Black customers.

Not that I have ever used the term, but I had heard it a few times while I was growing up. Never really knew what it was as I was extremely young when I heard it....... After clicking on the link, I am appaled. Stupid people amaze me.