Life Links 7

• An awesome post about privilege–imagine privilege as “your big personal bodyguard“.

• The White Liberal Conundrum by Kai Chang, including the discussion in the comments–and Kevin’s idea about starting a Racism 101 site.

• Can you have reverse culture-shock if you’ve never left? Jennifer just returned from a year in Niger, but I feel this way all the time.

• Resist Racism asks, “How Does Racism Harm White People?“–read what commenters have to say.

• All about ‘good’ hair, from Los Angelista: read her posts Good Hair and Bad Hair: the silent messages our children receive and Straw Hair.

• Join the Campaign to capitalize the ‘B’ in Black, from My American Meltingpot.

• Qualities of an Ally, from Ally Work: Helping White People Fight White Supremacy.

Homeschool ~ Sept/Oct

Highlights and features from our first two months of homeschool/unschool kindergarten:

• Learn how to swim in grandparents’ pool (first week of September)
• Hatch and release Juna and Creek, two Monarch butterflies
• Ride scooters and bikes on grandparents’ “big, flat driveway” (ours is gravel)
• Say goodbye to our oldest dog; talk about death, euthanasia, disease, and grief
• Draw pictures for fall zine issue of Symony Fire
• Six weeks of pottery class
• Four weeks of soccer
• Talk about Christopher Columbus, Columbus day, and Native Americans (the original inhabitants of this piece of land we call the United States)
• Write all upper-case letters and numbers 0-9
• Build and decorate a cardboard-box castle
• Pick apples from our neighbor’s trees
• Watch college archery club practice
• Talk about the difference between being a servant and being a slave
• Listen to parents read Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and Beverly Cleary books (including Ramona the Pest & Socks)
• Make apple cider with a huge hand-press
• Build with legos
• Run in a 1-mile race
• Talk about hair texture, as it relates to hair care and styling options
• Read Go Dog Go out loud with Dad (Jaja)
• Read Hop on Pop out loud with Dad (Rico)
• Make up music and lyrics, and play songs on the keyboard
• Talk about lead, PVC, vinyl, and plastic–especially in toys and dishes
• Learn name/amount/recognition of penny, nickel, dime, and quarter
• Visit Patrick Dougherty stick sculptures
• Dig “one big daddy worm and nine baby worms” out of the garden

 Up and coming homeschool/unschool attractions:

• Halloween: history of the holiday and candy negotiations (We have a friend whose father used to pay them at the door for their entire bag of candy. Another family allowed their children a few pieces after trick-or-treating, and then the ‘Halloween Fairy’ came overnight and took all their candy–and left a toy in its place.)
• Cook and can applesauce
• 100-300 piece jigsaw puzzles
• Write all lower-case letters
• Plan for a family Thanksgiving gathering with more than 14 children under the age of eight in attendance
• Talk about Thanksgiving (history, Native Americans) and focus on personal gratitude
• Six weeks of ice skating/ice hockey
• Trip to Ithaca (?)
• Create handmade holiday presents for a multitude of extended family members
• Winter Solstice/Christmas/Winter holidays

Why Blog?

A close relative of mine admitted this morning that she hasn’t read my blog “in some time” because something I wrote troubled her–so she just stopped reading. She said she couldn’t remember what it was that bothered her, although I suspect she just didn’t want to tell me.

I’ve been doing this internet writing thing we call blogging for six months now. I used to despise the word ‘blog’. It sounds like I have something nasty stuck in the back of my throat. I don’t like how it makes my mouth feel when I say it. But I have grown used to it. I no longer say “I write online biweekly columns” when what I mean is “I blog”.

No one in my family blogs regularly (or if they do, it’s a really big secret). I keep up with IRL friends and online friends through their blogs; I click over almost every day. I love knowing the little extras going on in their lives, stories I may miss during a phone conversation or through email.

However, I’m not writing a family blog here, with commentary on our new sippy cups and discussions of the felt food I want to make for the kids’ toy kitchen. I’m writing about some of the topics that are most important to me, personally and professionally.

I work especially hard at my posts that explore multiracial families, multiracial people, White privilege, and antiracist activism. I started including Life Links posts when I realized there was all this background reading that often didn’t make it as a direct link in a topic-post, but the articles were important just the same. I also recognized that some of my family and close friends do read my blog regularly–and many of the issues I write about here are the same ones I struggle to talk about calmly and coherently with those who’ve known me longest.

I often write much more clearly than I speak. Organizing my ideas visually, in front of me, helps me focus. Because goodness knows, I can be all over the page. (Like Dawn, I see connections between everything.) So although it wasn’t one of the reasons I began blogging in the first place, I’ve realized that my writing and links here are a way for people who know our family IRL to get a glimpse inside my head, to see what I pick up when I read the news, to understand the importance of antiracist activism for all of us–whether we identify as White or as a Person Of Color. (It’s also a step removed from having all these discussions with me in person; I’ve been told I can be a little intense : )

I love hearing the stories my kids make up, watching their dance shows in the living room, their ‘football’ games in the backyard. I hold my breath and listen to their conversations sometimes, in the backseat of the car, at the lunch table. My children are little magical mysteries to me–living, breathing humans with their own thoughts and experiences and interpretations of the world.

If one of my kids ever writes a newspaper column or an online blog (or whatever similar thing people will be doing 15 years from now) I will not miss one single word. I will snip their words out of the newspaper, print them off the computer. I would consider it a great gift to be able to read an essay written by my child on the topics that are important to them, from their point of view. Even if what they have to say is hard for me to hear.

By writing this blog, by committing my thoughts and experiences twice each week to the internet equivalent of paper, I am saying “this stuff is important to me and to our family”. It makes me sad (and a bit angry) to know that although my writing is reaching nearly 1000 strangers every week, for some of my family members, it’s not worth their time.

Life Links 6

• An important and insightful article about the ethics of international adoption, written by a mother with a daughter adopted from Guatemala: Did I Steal My Daughter? The Tribulations of Global Adoption.
• A new blog about parenting biracial children written by a White mom to a Black-White biracial daughter (through birth).
• Over at Harlow’s Monkey: a post about ethical adoptions and transracially adopting parents.
• Old news, but still worth considering the implications: Nobel Prize winner James Watson’s statements about race-related intelligence.  
• A question from Liana (Black mom, married to White dad, adoptive parents to Black-White biracial daughter) about hidden meaning in people’s comments regarding family resemblance.
• An article addressing transracial (specifically Black-White) adoption, ending with with some great suggestions for pre-adoptive parents: It’s About Love, Not Race.
• From Racialicious: commentary and a collection of posts from International Blog Against Racism Week (IBARW)–which somehow I missed back in August when it all happened.

People of Color

I attended a powerful 3-day Undoing Racism training last week. It was conducted by The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, an organization that has been conducting these trainings around the country for 27 years. Day 2 of the training was a marathon day–8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. We never left the building; three meals were provided.The workshop included an historical accounting of the invention of ‘race’ in the United States, evolving alongside the gradual enslavement of African Americans–and the creation of the institution of slavery in the United States.

Days before the workshop began, I finished watching (for the second time) the PBS documentary, Race: The Power of an Illusion. The second segment of the film has an entire section dedicated to the European decimation of the Cherokee Nation. This part of the film made me wince with every word, as I felt my ancestors’ fear and sadness, as I began to understand true assimilation. The combination of these two events (workshop and documentary) have me thinking about some new facets of the same ideas I’m always kicking around.

For one thing, I realized how isolated I feel right now–as a person of color.

It was exceptionally clear at the workshop that if I identify as multiracial–and not White alone–then I am a person of color. I have been uncomfortable claiming a POC identity because I appear White, I was raised as White, and the majority of my ancestors are White. However, during the workshop, as we talked about different internal/personal issues and concerns–issues that were clearly divided along POC/White lines–there was no question in my mind (or to the leaders of the group, and how they treated me)–I am a person of color. This personal identity is a separate but overlapping identity from being a parent to children of color.

That was my greatest immediate gain from the workshop. I am now completely comfortable outwardly, verbally identifying myself as a person of color–not just as a multiracial person. It does not matter what I look like or how my family members identify themselves. The racism that dogs people of color in this country–that racism is my issue. Not just because I am a parent to children of color. Not just because I am an antiracist White person/parent. I take that racism personally. It is addressed towards me–to say nothing of my children, my family, my friends.

The workshop helped me understand some things I have been struggling with lately, issues no one else close to me seems to be dealing with right now. When I framed my issues from the perspective of a POC, my unusual struggles became normal phases many adults of color in this country go through. 

I’m also embracing my personal role as a resource for my children, especially the ones who do not physically represent their full ancestry. I still would like my kids to have (for example) close local family friends who are African American women. However, especially for my three daughters of color, my example and experience as a woman of color is also a significant paradigm.