I know these people are out there, but . . .

I know these people are out there, but I’d prefer to forget. I’m talking about the ‘coat and tie white supremacists’ who have stolen one of my posts and reprinted it on their ‘news’ site. I’m talking about the people who comment on that racist site, who are against ‘race mixing’ and are afraid of African American men. I’m talking about people who really believe there is a genetic racial hierarchy, with ‘Whites’ at the top, ‘Blacks’ at the bottom, and everyone else somewhere in between. I’m talking about people who believe that ‘White America’ is ‘America’.

I talked to someone at the Southern Poverty Law Center who monitors hate and extremist activity. They know all about this group–and are already monitoring them.

It is hard for me to believe I am writing about ideas that are new, threatening, or different enough to warrant the attention of such a group. (My blog post is included with articles from the Associated Press, The Washington Post, and Financial Times. Maybe I should be trying to get paid for my writing.) There are whole sites dedicated to writing about anti-racist activism. I am hard-pressed to understand why they chose my post, except for a recurring theme in the comments that goes something like this, ‘Parents [mothers, really], take a close look at this woman because she embodies the threat to conservative White America. This is what liberals are trying to turn your children into: someone who is open-minded about race, sexuality, religion, and life.’

I wonder if I had been alive during the 1960s civil rights and anti-war movements if I would have been a place-a-flower-in-the-barrel-of-the-gun kind of peace activist or a militant-in-your-face kind of angry activist. It seems to me there is a time in this world for both.

I have not been actively religious for many years. This situation has brought me the closest I have been to prayer in a long time, and here’s why: There is nothing I can say to any of these people that will change their false concepts of race or their erroneous concept of me. They condemn me because I identify as multiracial, because I have a multiracial family, because I believe White Privilege to be real, because I believe all people are inherently equal.

Some people you can reach, some are worth the fight. In the face of such rampant racism, ignorance, prejudice, and miseducation, I find myself channeling my forever-forgiving grandmother. I wish everyone peace and blessings, including the racists. What else can I do?

New Look

Some of you may notice that all the photos have disappeared. I have been writing about multiracial family life for three months now, and have loved sharing my perspective–and pictures of my family–with all you other awesome antiracist parents and members of multiracial families.

I chose to submit one of my posts to a monthly newsletter that unfortunately brought racist commentary to my blog. I will no longer be able to share photos of my beautiful family with you all, because of these unwelcome visitors.

The writing about our multiracial family life will continue, and I hope you all continue to read.

Peace and blessings,

Natasha

11 Action Items for Antiracist Activism

A longtime friend of mine called me today. She said, Now that I know about White Privilege, what can I do about it? Here are my . . .

11 Action Items for Antiracist Activism and Countering White Privilege

(1) TALK: Talk about race, racism, and White Privilege, and how important antiracist activism is to you. If you are White, you can use your presumed neutrality to talk to other White people, and to challenge and dismantle racist beliefs. [Resource: Talking About Race]

(2) SPEAK UP: Challenge racist remarks every time you hear them. If you are silent, you are complicit.

(3) LISTEN: When a Person of Color shares an experience of racism, or a race-based concern, listen.

(4) LANGUAGE: Use accurate, current terminology when talking about race and ethnicity. [Resource: Current Terminology in the United States]

(5) SELF-EDUCATE: Educate yourself. Continue to recognize the many ways you may benefit from racism or White Privilege (especially if you are, or appear to be, White).

(6) MEDIA: Read books, news, commentary, blogs, and political comics written by People of Color. Watch news, movies, and television shows written and produced by People of Color (not just Oprah).

(7) ENVIROMENT: Create a multiracial home environment or classroom. [Resource: Creating a Multiracial Environment]

(8) FRIENDSHIP: Make your group of friends multiracial and multicultural.

(9) JOIN: Become active in organizations that support multiracial and multicultural populations. Refuse to support or join racist or racially-exclusionary organizations, including schools and religious groups. If you are a member of an organization and the membership is almost all White, make the group more inclusive of People of Color.

(10) MONEY: Use your dollars to vote. Refuse to support places of business and companies (including restaurants, catalogs, stores, and brands) that uphold racist policies or actions.

(11) TRAINING: Initiate and support cultural competency, multicultural, and diversity trainings in your local schools, work places, and other organizations, including religious groups.

There are many additional antiracist actions one could take in the ongoing struggle against White Privilege, but these are the most concrete and practical. I will add more specific resources for each of the 11 items in the next week.

Asserting Multiracial Identity

We attended a party over the weekend where I met a few White parents with transracially adopted children. Their children are now teens and young adults, and several of them were also at this party. The kids had all grown up in this community, attended (or are still attending) the high school here in this town. We mothers (and some of their teenage children) ended up standing together and began talking about our families and the local schools. I said something like, “We always intended to move, but now with four multiracial children getting ready to start school, we hope to move in the next year.”

The more outspoken mother said to me, “Do you have five children?”

“No, four,” I replied. (We had already run down each of our family rosters just a few minutes before.)

This mother turned towards my beautiful three-year-old Gretel (who was sitting in a swing with a friend right behind us) and pointed at her. “How is she multiracial?” she said.

I paused. I wanted to say, none of your flipping business, you rude woman. I wanted to grab my child and walk away. It was pouring rain. The party had barely started. There was nowhere to go.

Gretel kept swinging, oblivious to the conversation. I took a deep breath and tried to give half a smile. “I have Cherokee heritage, as do Gretel and my son, Rico.”

“Oh!” she said, clearly surprised. “That’s great!”

The conversation turned back to our family’s dealings with the elementary school this spring. The mothers said when their kids had been in elementary school, there were NO other children of color present. I relayed the administrators’ quotes about there ‘not being enough minority students to have a race problem.’ The outspoken mother agreed with this assessment, and said she thought it was “better” for her children [of color] to have grown up and attended school in an environment with no other people of color because “the latent racism in the local [White] people has not been activated by being exposed to people of color.” Then she turned to her child who had recently graduated from the high school and said, “You never had any race-related problems in school. Did you?”

Her child looked down, looked back up and gave half a smile; shook their head. “I had a really cool group of friends, though.”

That pointed non-question-masquerading-as-a-question made me squirm. I remember being a teen and cringing inside when my mother put me on the spot like that. I’d come up with an answer that wouldn’t contradict her totally incorrect assumptions about me and my life, while still inserting a bit of my truth as well.

The other mother looked to her child (who is still attending the high school), and I said, “How do you find the high school?”

This beautiful, precious child looked up from the floor and replied, “I just try to avoid all the people there.” Their mother sighed. My heart sank. Oh no, not my children, I thought to myself.

One of the reasons we are committed to moving to a community with more populations of color and multiracial families is because I want my children to have choices. I hope I never put my children on the spot by speaking for them about their personal experience, by speaking for them from my paradigm, my expectations, my rationalizations for the choices I made that affected them. I want my children to be knowledgeable about their options, but to be able to make their own choices.

My children will eventually each choose their own racial identity. Walking in these tight spaces in and between racial categories is almost constant work. I understand why multiracial people choose a monoracial identity–it is so much simpler. But I will not choose monoracial identities for my multiracial children. I will respect their choices when they make them (even if their self-chosen racial identity changes repeatedly).

For now, my job is to keep the doors open, to affirm their multiracial identities–along with my own.

Reading About Race

I recently had the opportunity to speak with a parent considering domestic transracial adoption. All four of my kiddos fell asleep for their afternoon nap sooner than I had expected (that was a first), and I had a leisurely hour-long phone conversation with this soon-to-be parent. She really wanted book recommendations, my top two or three, for White parents about to become a multiracial family through transracial adoption. I laughed and said I recommend my favorite books to everyone I know, whether they are in a multiracial or a monoracial family; and these days my most-read books all relate to race.

She had already begun my top recommendation, A People’s History of The United States: 1492-Present, by Howard Zinn. My first read of this book eight years ago was eye-opening for me, especially because my history knowledge (national and world) is spotty at best. A People’s History covers the significant portion of U.S. history missing from traditional textbooks and classes. It is the U.S. history of women, African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants of all nationalities, the working class and the poor. It should be a required co-text in any highschool or college “American History” class.

The second book I recommended was Everyday Acts Against Racism: Raising Children in a Multiracial World, edited by Maureen T. Reddy. This is a collection of 20 essays by parents (mostly mothers) raising children of color. My two favorite essays, the ones I read over and over, are Trial and Error by Daryl LaRoche (an amazingly-written piece about privilege, institutionalized racism, and raising a multiracial daughter) and Bringing It On Home: Teaching/Mothering Antiracism by Lynda Marin (a grippingly self-exploratory piece about being multiracial, parenting, racism, and college-level teaching).

I lent the book Everyday Acts to a relative last summer, made sure she read the essay by LaRoche and left the rest of the browsing up to her. I told her it was my favorite book. When she returned the book, her only comment (accompanied by a bewildered look) was, “Some of these mothers seem angry.” I think she was worried I was becoming one of those mothers. Not purposelessly angry, I wanted to say, just working hard to do the right thing and fighting for their children’s rights. (I had lent her the book because I didn’t feel able to clearly explain to her where I am these days as a mother of multiracial children of color, and she obviously still didn’t understand.)

The third book I recommend to everyone these days is Some of My Best Friends: Writings on Interracial Friendships, edited by Emily Bernard. You have to take this book slow (or read it twice in a row like I did, because I read it so fast the first time I couldn’t keep all the stories straight). This book contains deep, well-crafted essays about platonic interracial relationships from 16 writers. My favorite essay here is ‘Cartilage’ by Susan Straight, a White mother of multiracial daughters who has lived in an African American neighborhood for 25 years.

Here you can also find my favorite children’s books about skin color and race, and ideas for how to start the conversation about ancestry, heritage, race and ethnicity with the children in your family or the children in your class.

Happy Reading!