Counted

I’m all for making statements.  Heck, that’s the reason why I blog, to make statement, let my voice be heard, yada, yada, yada.

And for those who want to state that they are X race along with Y, I’m down for that to.  As a mom to a biracial teen I want him to feel comfortable with who he and where he comes from.

So, why do I have a problem with his?

Public schools in the Washington region and elsewhere are abandoning their check-one-box approach to gathering information about race and ethnicity in an effort to develop a more accurate portrait of classrooms transformed by immigration and interracial marriage. Next year, they will begin a separate count of students who are of more than one race.

Washington Post 23 Mar 09

Maybe it’s because of this:

Many civil rights advocates agree that it’s necessary to document the growing number of multiracial students, but they say these categories will mask valuable information about race that could be used to analyze educational challenges some groups face. They say it would be more accurate to report the data in detail, with racial and ethnic combinations.

“If we don’t know that some multiracial, Hispanic and black students are doing worse,” said Melissa Herman, a sociologist at Dartmouth College, “we can conveniently ignore that they are doing worse.”

Washington Post 23 March 09

Which reminds me a whole lot of this:

There are some bad adolescent behaviors that whites do more than blacks (like drinking and smoking), and there are other bad adolescent behaviors that blacks do more than whites (watching TV, fighting, getting sexually transmitted diseases). Mixed-race kids manage to be as bad as whites on the white behaviors and as bad as blacks on the black behaviors. Mixed-race kids act out in almost every way measured in the data set.

New York Times, Freakonomics Column, 12 Aug 08

When we start to loudly proclaim who we are to the world we also need to be aware what other people do with that information.

Do I think that African American children have a hard time learning in school compared to Asian Americans or white Americans?  Yes.  But then I also know that African Americans don’t do as well as children who are of African descent (Nigerian, Ugandan, Kenya).  So I guess my worry is, when children are multiracial, will they be looking at other factors, too, or will they automatically assume that a child who is Eurasian will have less problems although that might not be the case with a child whose Asian parent is first Gen and didn’t graduate from high school.  Or will they assume that a child who is Black and Native American might have a better time in less challenging classes than his/her classmates?

I guess my problem is, I don’t have a problem with telling what race a child is, I just worry that someone might infer who the child is because of their race.

Who they are means the same.

When asked if I would be interested in blogging for The Sweet Rice Chronicles, I wasn’t sure if I even qualified for something I felt was an honor.  How could I possibly write something people would be interested in reading?  As I sat back and thought about the purpose, I accepted the honor of writing quite proudly.  In fact I realize many of our stories are written on the same pages….

As described in why “The Sweet Rice Chronicles” and the notion of trying to help others through our thoughts and experiences it has brought me to write back quite a few years on my own style first.  Then bring people up today with the now. 

I think every single culture has experienced the taste of rice.  Sweet rice, plain rice, buttered rice, fried rice, soy sauced rice, etc… Even those in far off countries and places we only see on the discovery channel; not realizing they even existed until seeing their tribal dance on the screen, have experienced rice.  When the U.S. supplies food for the countries who lack such a necessity, on many of the huge brown sacks has a label that says “RICE.”   It’s an odd connection, but rice kind of connects each individual in this entire world for the simple fact that we have all eaten it at least one time or another.  The sweeter the better…  In this day and age, one would think that so many people have blended families that prejudice and racism could not exist.  Yet even in my own experiences that has not been the case.

I come from a few generations of mixed folks. My mom being Black, Dutch and Jewish.  My dad being Black, Mexican and Hopi.  Now in my era of the 70’s and 80’s were the questions and comments, “what are you”  “is you mixed”  “you don’t look black.”   As a child growing up, I admit that was confusing.  I did not look like the “stereotyped”  black individual.  I did not look like the Black characters that were on television back then. I remember in elementary school, a classmate tell me my mom was not black because she had blue eyes.  Wow, could he have been right?  I never did see a “black” person with blue eyes.   Which took me to ask my mom once again, “what are we?”  Her common reply, “We’re black.” 

In Jr. High I had kids tell me I was Creole.  I had no idea what Creole was or meant.  So once again, “mom, what are we?”  Sounding like a scratched record, “We’re black…”  My question, “We’re not Creole?”  Her reply, “No, Creole’s have French in them.  We are black.”   Explaining that we are black, but don’t look black was hard for some to comprehend.  I can say the benefit of being mixed for me was being able to get along with every race I came in contact with; Black, White, Asian, Latinos, Pacific Islanders, and more.  So growing up I considered myself  Black, mixed; but Black.

I was aware that a certain percent of black blood made you black.  But what if the percentage is so low, near extinction.  Does that old slavery day law/rule still exist?  I bring that  question up concerning a conversation I had with an old co-worker.   My children are half Samoan. During our discussion, I said my kids are Black.  of course going on how I was taught, any amount of Black blood makes you Black.  My co-workers argument was how could my kids be Black when I have a little bit of Black blood, and their dad is of Samoan blood?  His reasoning was that my children have more Samoan blood in them then Black.  And as much as we went back and forth about the race of my children, he actually made sense.  I don’t even know how to break down the percentage as I see other people do when it comes to the bloodline.  But my kids would be half Samoan, and a very small amount of Black.  So that is when I came to the realization that my kids are mixed Black, Samoan, Mexican and Hopi.

On sight you don’t even see the “Black” blood that runs through their veins.  Their last name would have people suspect that they are Samoan.  Their almond shaped eyes would have people assume a touch of Asian.  Their light skin and straight hair would have others believe they are White or Hispanic. 

I have seven children, so can you imagine the stories I have to share.  My children will grow up to be awesome Black, Samoan individuals.  Or Samoan, Black individuals.  No matter which way I say it, it still means the same.

By Any Other Name

I’m always on hypotheticals.  J hates it.  He really does.  But I can’t help it.  I like to think about things; maybe it’s a female thing.

I will ask him stuff like, “If I should die, would you remarry?”  “If I lost my job tomorrow what would we do?” and “Would you stay with me if I got really, really fat?”

“How fat?”

“What difference does it make?”

“It depends on how fat you got.  Like a little bit bigger than now or break the bed fat?”

“Are you saying I’m fat now?”

“Are you saying you’re fat now?”

I fuss at him.  He laughs, deflects and then asks me why do I ask about things that may never happen?  I should learn not to ask but I never do.

So a couple weeks ago I came up with the hypothetical question, “What if I told you I wanted to raise our future child as black?  What would you say?”

He knitted his eyebrows Korean-style and gave me a quizzical look.  “What do you mean by that?”

What did I mean by that?  Lately I have been talking to black moms of biracial kids and hearing them loudly reaffirm, “I’m raising _________ black.”  It sounds defiant, like black solidarity.  It’s like saying to the black community, “Yeah, I’m in an interracial relationship but my kids from it are black.  So what-what?”

But for 18 years I was a mother to a monoracial black child.  So how did I raise Cricket? 

Well…

Okay, I raised her the best way I saw fit.  Would it be defined at the “black way”?  Well, I’m black and I found my way.  I texted my daughter with the question: “Did I raise you black?”

I suspect her answer will be no in a general sense.  I’ve always danced to the beat of my own drummer.  While raising her people always gave me unwarranted advice or askance looks.  As a baby people would say I held her too much or talked to her like an adult.  As a toddler I allowed her to express herself by giving her permission to tell me when she didn’t like things but I explained to her I had the last word.  I put her in African dance classes, ballet, and tap and it was expressed to me through a mutual friend that her father’s family felt I was over scheduling her.  Even as a teen my daughter thought my notions didn’t fully jibe with other African Americans because when she needed to bring food for the Soul Food lunch at school she asked her paternal grandmother, not me. 

“I cook soul food!”  I said indignant.  I have to admit I don’t cook it a lot because I don’t really like soul food.  It can be greasy and fatty and as a child my mother would throw up her hands in surrender when I wouldn’t eat it.

“You cook it,” she acquiesced before pulling the rug from beneath me.  “But it’s healthy and soul food isn’t healthy.  The white girls at the school want authentic soul food not what you make.”

“I’m black, so that makes it authentic!”

Cricket sighs her forever sigh.  It can mean a myriad of things but mostly it means, loosely translated, you are so dumb.  So that is what she was saying, I was clueless.  “You can make it if you want to, but I’m not taking it to the school.”  So for my daughter’s four years at that preppy private school she asked her grandmother to cook greens and fried chicken to sell during the soul food luncheon.  Never once did she even take a biscuit from me (and I know I can make buttermilk biscuits).

It’s odd that I should be at that place, where I’m wondering about the strength of my blackness.  When I was a teen I knew it was strong –hell I could have been the poster child for Miss Black America.  I was going to raise all my kids on the music of Public Enemy and the Last Poets and not dress them in anything but black.   But life gives way to change and although my daughter is familiar with the music of PE (we even got a chance to meet Chuck D once) she is also a big fan of –dare I say it– Hannah Montana as well as TV on the Radio.  Her favorite color to wear is green, as mine as morphed into teal.  So my youthful zealousness of what was black in teens has been tempered with time.

Does my daughter define herself with the definition I have given her?  Ummm, no.  When she was younger I stuck her in a lot of musical theatre classes because she has talent in singing and dancing.  During her sophomore year of high school she deviated from it to play softball.  Softball!  The following year she went back to theatre for the chance to go with her fellow thespians to Scotland but now in college she has returned to sports by dropping theatre and rowing crew.  My daughter would use athlete as an adjective to describe herself although it’s not one I would use.

Culture is similar to that.  Is my daughter black in the same way that I am?  Probably not.  Just like I am not black the same way my mother was.  My mother was a part of the great migration from the South during the 1950s.  She knows about colored only water fountains and what it was like to drop out of school because the family needed to pick cotton for part of the year. 

I grew up in the 80s, post integration society although not fully integrated.  I had friends that were white as well as black.   The civil rights era was still fresh in the minds of my elders; I attended college, listening to conscientious rap, read Soul on Ice and the Autobiography of Malcolm X.

And Cricket?   She went private schools until college; her primary school was all black parochial and her high school all white college prep.  Her friends are diverse but so is her family.  Her brother and sister on her father’s side are half white; her stepbrother and stepfather are of Korean descent.  Her view of blackness will be different from mine.

This is the reply I got:

Cricket: What does that mean?

Me: What do you think it means?

Cricket: You can’t raise me a color so how can I be raised black?

I try a different route: did I raise you to be proud of your heritage?

Cricket: Yeah.

And that is all I can ask for.  When J2 first came to live with us he saw himself as black with an Asian father but now that he and J have become closer he designates himself as “Blasian”.   He found out while he was closing out J2’s web session and saw that J2 claims both sides of his ethnic background.

“So what do you think?” J asked me excited.  “It means he’s growing, right?”

I guessed so.  I just hope people grow with him so he can do it without a hassle.

 

 

 

Makes Me Want to Go Postal

Today’s Soundtrack:

When Cricket came home to visit a few weekends ago and went to the fridge to see there was nothing to eat she sigh aloud, “I am so glad I’m off at college.”

I thought, take me with you.

The Js are driving me out of my mind.  I’m outnumbered, the two of them plus their appetite against little ole me.

Ex: J2 is a sugar fiend.  He has been using my International Coffee Cream to flavor his milk.   Or more like it he’s using the milk to flavor his cream.  Do you know what it’s like to reach into the fridge to put cream in your coffee and it’s gone? 

And J.  He thinks every meal I make is for him and him alone.  I made a big pan of lasagna and gave a couple of small slices to Mimi to take with her and J asks, “Why did you give away my lasagna?”

And last night I come into the kitchen to find the homemade chicken soup I stuck in the freezer last month thawed out and just sitting on the counter.

Me: Why is this chicken soup sitting on the counter.

J: Oh, I put it in the microwave to eat on Sunday night but then I forgot about it.

Me: ( hitting the roof)  Who told you to take it out the freezer?  It was too much soup for one person anyway.

J: I just wanted some of my soup.

Me: Your soup?  It’s not your soup.  You didn’t make it.  And then you didn’t even eat it.  And then you ate the dinner I made last night!  Man what is wrong with you.  I’m gonna tell you what is wrong with you….

Man, I went on a long diatribe about him wasting food and all he kept saying is he wanted to eat his soup.  Like everything I make is just for him and him alone.

I text Cricket to tell her how the Js are doing and she texts me back, in a nutshell, “Sucks to be you.”

LOL

I love the two guys but they are driving me crazy.

On Sunday night I sat in my room eating my hidden stash or Oreo cookies.  J comes in and asks me what’s on my lips.

“Nothing.”

He looks closer and says, “It’s chocolate!  You’re eating chocolate.  You can’t do that; you have to share.”

“I bought them, I don’t have to share.”

“That’s not nice.”

I warn him that I’m riding the crimson waves.  “Those cookies are the only thing that’s keeping me from knocking you the heck out.”

He laughs at me.  He never takes me seriously. 

Man, he just don’t know.