why Will won’t pledge << The Next Family

 

What an awesome kid!

At the end of our interview, I ask young Will a question that might be a civics test nightmare for your average 10-year-old. Will’s answer, though, is good enough — simple enough, true enough — to give me a little rush of goose pimples. What does being an American mean?

“Freedom of speech,” Will says, without even stopping to think. “The freedom to disagree. That’s what I think pretty much being an American represents.”

Somewhere, Thomas Jefferson smiles.

The Next Family » A Boy And His Flag- why Will won’t pledge- An Article from the Arkansas Times

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RIP Shaniya Davis

I hope you are with angels now.

Body of Shaniya Davis Found Alongside North Carolina Highway – ABC News.

She loves me, she loves me not: Black, White, or Illegal Alien?

I touched on issues surrounding the term illegal alien* a couple weeks ago in Walking the (color)Line, when I mentioned a couple ways I suspected this term has affected my children’s perceptions of the Hispanic community. There was a part of me that wondered whether I was reading too much into things… but let’s just say that’s no longer a concern. Within the last week or two, I read a blog or article about multiracial girls being asked what color their husbands would be. I wondered if Halle had ever heard or been asked something like this. I made a little note to self to bring it up, but Thursday night in the car, she raised the subject. She was talking about how she was going to date a boy for one year when she grew up, and asked if that was too long. I told her it depended on the boy; with some boys, a year might be too long, with another, a year may not be long enough. She suddenly started talking about whether this boy might be white or black and something about so and so… I interrupted and asked if people asked her that, and she confirmed. Then I asked, “Do you guys talk about that?” and she responds matter of factly, “Oh, yeah.” I asked if that was something that had just come up this year, and she said no, it was last year too. I asked how it came up, and she said, just when they talk about who they think is cute. She continued with her story…

“Anyway, so and so asked me once, and I said he would probably be Black or White, but not Mexican, but then I met Tristan, and I like him and I think he’s cute, and he’s Mexican…”

Her voice trailed off.

I asked why she hadn’t thought she would date someone who was Mexican before Tristan.

“Well, cuz they do a lot of bad things. I mean, they’re always on the news cuz they’re criminals… and stuff.”

cue my breaking (anti-racist) heart.

Needless to say, we had an immediate conversation about perception, stereotypes, racism, media bias, and Bull Connor Jr. Nickel Bag Joe Sherrif Arpaio. And we will continue to have these conversations (and others, like how there are a lot more people in the world than just Black, White or Hispanic), because this IS a big problem. And it’s not because this flies in the face of what I believe personally, but because the seed of racism is finding roothold in the heart of THIS child.

Her love is like the ocean...

This is my UU, social justice, civil action child. This is the child who drew the line with her peers over the n-word. This is the child who has volunteered to mentor special needs kids or served in student government or both for three of the four years she’s been attending her current school. This is the child whose teacher has made it a point to contact me no less than three times so far this school year to express his gratitude to and  praise the way Halle had befriended a new ESL student, which makes me wonder that my daughter’s unreserved offer of friendship is already rare by the age of 10. This is the child who took the initiative, unsolicited, and went to a Spanish-speaking teacher to get a “cheat sheet” of basic conversational phrases, and carried two spanish english dictionaries with her every day for the first two months of school.

“Now think carefully about what I’m saying, and why it matters. Here was a woman who no longer could recognize her own children; a woman who had no idea who her husband had been; no clue where she was, what her name was, what year it was; and yet, knew what she had been taught at a very early age to call black people. Once she was no longer capable of resisting this demon, tucked away like a ticking time bomb in the far corners of her mind, it would reassert itself and explode with a vengeance. She could not remember how to feed herself. She could not go to the bathroom by herself. She could not recognize a glass of water for what it was. But she could recognize a nigger. America had seen to that, and no disease would strip her of that memory. Indeed, it would be one of the last words I would hear her say, before finally she stopped talking at all. “ ~Tim Wise, White Like Me

This is the depth of our racist conditioning.

*If you’re unaware of the controversy over the term Illegal Alien or just don’t get why people are “making such a big deal about it” or that it’s not just about being politically correct, I found an article that sums up what is so very wrong about this expression very well: Why use of the term “illegal alien” is inaccurate, offensive, and should be eliminated from our public discourse. | Border Crossing Law Blog.

 

 

 

When one refers to an immigrant as an “illegal alien,” they are using the term as a noun. They are effectively saying that the individual, as opposed to any actions that the individual has taken, is illegal. The term “illegal alien” implies that a person’s existence is criminal. I’m not aware of any other circumstance in our common vernacular where a crime is considered to render the individual – as opposed to the individual’s actions – as being illegal. We don’t even refer to our most dangerous and vile criminals as being “illegal.”

 

Creepy encounters at Doomtown

So after locking my keys in my car in a store parking lot on our way out on All Hallow’s Eve, we made a late appearance at Doomtown… just me and the curlykidz. This is the first time in years we didn’t go in a big group… but now that most of the group is in middle school, I don’t see or talk to most of the moms. So it was a little strange not to be making a caravan trip… but it was still a really good time. As usual, a kid or two expressed concern about entering the premises, but also as usual, before long they had stopped running from the monster, and were hunting them down instead… making friends, shaking hands (real and fake), and having philosophical conversations. The grim reaper stopped and pointed at Halle… and she deadpans, “You’re pointing at her, right?” and gestures to me. Wow… thanks for throwing me to the wolves!

Later on, a man passing by us said, “Grim comes for you tonight.” I thought it was the Rawhide employee, off duty, and laughed as we walked on.  A few seconds later, the devil on horseback approached and asked what he’d said to me.  I relayed the conversation, and he asks me to please do him a favor and go tell security, because he’s never seen the man before… and moves away.

I’m not sure about this, but change direction and go over to the Sheriff’s office and tell the guy of the request. He doesn’t seem to concerned, and I said I hadn’t really thought anything of it, but the  devil had been concerned… and speaking of the devil (I slay me) he gallops by like he’s in pursuit at this moment, and the Sheriff starts to look concerned. So we walk away, and I’m trying to explain to the kids what the big deal is, when out of the corner of my eye, I see that same guy, just standing there, basically now behind us, even though he had passed us shortly before (if this makes sense).

Now I’m feeling creeped out. So we go into one of the shops and browse around for several minutes, and as we exit, there’s that same guy again, just kinda hovering. Not exactly coming into the store, but hesitating like he’s about to. He doesn’t seem to be headed in any direction, and he doesn’t seem to be with anyone. I start to veer off to the side, and that’s when I see a couple of men in real law enforcement uniforms…

We didn’t see creepy dude again that night… and I left very thankful for good people lookin’ out.

Q1 Report Cards & Halloween Costumes

Tyler has C’s in Albegra & Language Arts and B’s in Science, Social Studies, PE & Electronics Band. Overall I’m happy with his report card; his average GPA is better than it’s been for a while. I’m not happy about the C’s, obviously, but I’m most concerned about his grade in Algebra. He has tests each semester that he has to pass with a 70% in order to get high school credit for the class. I’m having a hard time figuring out how much of his grade is effort (or lack thereof) or subject content. I guess the district has a new policy where kids have to be re evaluated for 504’s every three years. This gets on my nerves for several reasons, one of which is that on the paperwork I have to fill out, they ask me to provide copies of report cards. ?!?!?!?!

Halle has a C in math (what’s UP with math this quarter?) and has herself convinced that it’s soooo hard. I watch her try and use strategies to solve problems that I swear to God add like, three or four extra steps. So we’re working on that, and she’s got A’s in every other subject.  She says she wants to run for Student Congress this year instead of Conflict Manager, which is a relief to me. Iasked her if she was going to join Buddy Club this year, and she said no… if she does Student Congress and Buddy Club it’s just too much running around (all these activities happen during lunch recess). I thought that was pretty impressive… hopefully she’ll be able to maintain that awareness of what she can handle & what’s going to just stress her out, unlike those of us who “should” ourselves to death.

Daija is coming along… she’s got self control & taking esponsibility as areas of concern, and everything else is developing or proficient (she doesn’t get letter grades yet). We’re working on that as well… Mommy needs to be more consistent! We spoiled the baby, and now I’m paying for it (and sadly, so is her teacher).

We went and got costumes last night, and somehow, not one of the kids is a vampire. Tyler is an “underworld outcast” and Daija is a US Diva. Halle said over the weekend she wanted to use last year’s costume (she was cleopatra). So I may be dressing up as cleopatra’s mother again… and we’ll be doing our usual Halloween tradition of trick or treating around the neighborhood for a minute and then heading to Doomtown at Rawhide.

White Parents, Black Babies

 I was reading a post at Womanist Musings about transracial adoption last week. I left a brief comment, but decided to post my somewhat lengthy thoughts here because a) my thoughts are more related to multiracial families rather than transracial adoption and b) I think she makes several excellent points that are relevant for biological parents of multiracial children.

I know what it is to love a child. I know what it is to hold their little hand and see the world through their eyes but children of color require more. This is not about special treatment, as much as it is arming them and protecting them from the certain cruelties ahead. The first time my child was demeaned because of his color, it was to me, his Black mother that he poured out his soul and not his White father. Children know intuitively who can be of help. Without a parent of color, each assault is new and shocking.

When I taught my child that officer friendly wasn’t necessarily friendly, it was with the passion of Black mother that has heard far too many laments of Black mothers, who have lost their children to police violence. When I inform him that his behaviour must be different than his White friends, it is with the knowledge that though they are both children, the world will see my gentle Black child much differently. When it comes to children of color, there are harsh lessons that must be taught and to believe that a White parent is prepared to do that is to deny the racist culture in which we live. Children need love and they need a sense of community to grow, though these things are quickly forgotten when a White person steps up to adopt. Whiteness may be the dominant culture, but it is not the only culture or community of value.

I think Renee makes some really, really excellent points. I do agree that when it comes to transracial parenting, whether by birth or adoption, white parents are often poorly equipped to address the cultural needs of children of color, or prepare them for a racialized society. But (yeah, I know… you saw this coming) I disagree that it’s the black parent by default or that it’s impossible for a white parent to handle. When my 10yo daughter was troubled by a classmate dropping the n-word in conversation, she did know, intuitively, who could be of help, and it was her white mother, not her black father.

It happened because I am parenting with purpose, and not depending on luck (or love) to get us through.

I think first and foremost, she came to me because I initiate dialogue about race and she knows that I am open to discussion, that I am going to stay calm and LISTEN to her, whereas her father tends to overreact to the most benign scrapes & bruises. Secondly, there’s the whole African vs. African American dynamic in our family. Like many African immigrants, Dad has picked up a lot of negative stereotypes about Black Americans; furthermore, he has no ties to the African American community. Between the two of us, I am more familiar, for lack of a better word, with Black American culture and history than he is. That’s not to say that as a white woman I know what it’s like to be black or that I have more experience with racism, but his experience in this country is as an African man in America, and my daughter’s is that of a biracial/Black American.

I have no experience with transracial adoption, but I ran into the challenge of raising a COC without a COC (community of color this time) when my then 3yo’s dad moved to the opposite coast and took the “color connection” with him. I worried how my son was going to develop a healthy sense of self during summer visitations. Over and over in multiracial parenting bulleting boards & support groups I ran into white mothers who dismissed the importance of actively providing their multiracial children with a healthy culture of color when the father wasn’t playing an active role. “Well, his (absent) father doesn’t consider himself african american, so I don’t worry about it.

So I tried not to, and I told myself love would be enough (love, and the massive stack of books featuring black children of various cultures). And it was pretty easy at first, because my son wasn’t much darker than I was. We didn’t get many comments from strangers. But I was about to give birth to my second child… and then the cat was out of the bag. After Halle was born, it suddenly became glaringly obvious that Tyler was biracial. People were suddenly very curious about where Tyler’s curly hair came from, and I began to worry that Tyler was going to slug some well meaning white lady in Target who loitered too long and gushed too many compliments.  Strangers aren’t supposed to talk to kids! or Strangers aren’t allowed to touch my sister! he would tell them.

Like you should need a four year old to tell you that.

As the years went on, and the zooing got worse, I began to contemplate “reverse white flight.” So I moved. And I thought, that was that. My children had love, a community of color that included teachers and peers, tons of black children’s books, and I’d thrown in brown baby dolls and a Ruby Bridges movie.

But all that wasn’t enough, because I still didn’t get it. I still had to let go of what I believed about race, and accept someone else’s reality.

via Womanist Musings.

Soft Feathers on a Duck

I was on Skype with my sister the other day, who lives in Germany & has an 18mo Saint Bernard… probably not the dog I would recommend to a first time dog owner with limited access to obedience classes, training supplies, & breed & training books. I’m sure all these things can be found in Germany… but my sister hasn’t come across them and hasn’t been able to get anything shipped to her from US suppliers like Petsmart, because it’s an APO. Anyway, she’s got this 120 pound dog she can no longer control, and she and her husband are at complete odds as far as how to manage it. I was giving her some suggestions and pointers that have worked for me, and thought… what the heck. It’s not like my blog doesn’t already go in seven directions at once, and decided I’d blog about my training efforts.

So far, the new additions to our crew are working out really well… The dogs are getting along remarkably well with each other, and have been great with the kids. Sassy is really warming up and starting to seek out attention, and Rico… well, he has love like an ocean for everybody. Slowly but surely, Sassy & Rico are learning the new house rules.

Training, I have to admit, has been going a little slow… in part because I’m not just training, I’m re-training… and not just one dog, but two, as this is the first time I’ve introduced two new dogs into the mix at once. Not to mention, I have three little helpers who want to chime in every time I speak to a dog… and now the dog in question has a variety of commands coming from all corners.

“the only color”

A new mommy friend mentioned looking for a sport for her daughter, and I started telling her about Halle’s wonderful experience with the Starlings/TEAM AZ, and reminiscing over last season and how much she grew in the experience. While I was reminiscing, I remembered how nervous Halle was at tryouts, and her fear when she thought she was going to be placed on a team where she would be “the only color” and emailed a friend about it…

a Facebook “oops”

So I woke up this morning and had a notification that a coworker had accepted my invitation to join Facebook. This was puzzling, since I don’t solicit people to join facebook if they’re not already on, unless you’re family anyway. I also seem to have a lot of email on my blackberry, for it being not quite 5AM… and strangely, some of them are out of office replies from vendors that I hadn’t emailed from work and who I’d never given my blackberry email to. Then I get an actual response from another coworker to an email I apparently generated, inviting them to view my pictures on facebook. I couldn’t have been more mortified… I mean, my kids & dogs are real cute, but most of the time that you get an email from someone you don’t really know inviting them to view your pictures… well… they’re not of cute kids & dogs.

I think my son, who has only been on facebook for a month, showed me a text he’d received from an uncle, telling Tyler he’d just signed up for facebook. I told him he could add his uncle this weekend, but Tyler was having trouble sleeping last night, and I strongly suspect he went online at some point with the intent of “friending” his uncle. The late hour may be why he didn’t realize he was in my account and not his, or that the “friend finder for smartphones” was not going to work on the kiddie lojack cell phone that he carries to & from the school bus stop… but it does would explain why he’d asked me yesterday evening what kind of phone he had/if it was a smartphone. It looks like he unintentionally sent invitations to join facebook to everyone in my blackberry, which wouldn’t be too big of a deal if I only had personal contact in my blackberry, but I sync it with outlook at work… so that request would have gone out to HUNDREDS of people. Literally. I’ve worked for US Airways for almost ten years and I probably have at least 1500 contacts in oulook.

So long story short/short story long… if you got an invitation to be my friend or view my pictures, please feel free to disregard or accept as you see fit. I only ask that either way, you never mention this little fiasco to me or anyone else for the rest of your natural life…

my daughter confronts the N-Word… with love

I wrote a blog a couple years ago about the controversy surrounding the Don Imus fiasco, where he referred to a championship basketball team of women as Nappy Headed Hos… which led to a conversation with my children about the words ho and nigger, among others. In this entry I titled Don’t call me out of name, a phrase which comes from street vernacular and means don’t label me something I’m not, I struggled with a heavy subject… how could I give my children not only the tools, but also the strength to take a stand for themselves against the lure of the n-word in peer situations. While it’s probably unlikely my kids would feel pressure to use the word themselves, I wanted to empower them to “be the change” and influence others in a positive manner to not only discourage others from using the n-word to address them, but to also reconsider their use of the word, period.

I realize that’s a mighty tall order… and from a white girl at that. Like black folks haven’t been trying to discourage their kids from the use of the word for more years than I’ve been alive. And I can get up on my soapbox with other white folks and let them have it over the n-word… cuz to paraphrase a handful of white folks who are way smarter than me… racism is a white problem. We created it, we benefit from it… we need to address it within ourselves, our families, and our communities. And I feel pretty confident in teaching my children not to tolerate for one second a white person calling them by that pejorative. But I really struggled with how to guide my brown-skinned children through the minefield of the n-word when it’s used a so called endearment or as a sign of solidarity. I’m not naive enough to think that being called a nigger lover gives me any kind of authority on what it feels like to be on the receiving end of the n-word, whether from the mouth of a white or black person… and while I know that anyone who lived through the civil rights movement and the first generation after would be hard pressed to justify or tolerate it’s use, but I guess part of me did figure that it was somehow less painful for the younger generation to hear, that whether they used it themselves or not, they were desensitized to the vulgarity of the word due to the prevalence of it’s use in music and media. I was very much mistaken in this assumption, and exactly how deeply wrong I was became very clear to me last year as my daughter first encountered the complexity of social cliques… part of the shrapnel I mention in that post was one girl’s foul mouth, including her use of the word “nigga.”

4th Grade Cliques

Last year as my (then) nine year old found herself mired in the drama of the 4th grade cliques… which I remember being the middle school cliques. 4th grade is the new 7th, or so they say… but getting back on track…

In fourth grade, Halle ran into a “mean girl” situation in her classroom… and even worse, it was between two friends who couldn’t stand each other. They threatened each other, spread rumors about each other, and each tried to rally Halle to their cause, which was very distressing to my little diplomat. She had played an official role of “Peer Mediator” for younger students the previous two years, and very naturally fell into a role of trying to mediate a situation that was way over her head.  And because so much of the conflict was playground politics and lunchroom underground, it wasn’t visible to teachers & staff.

A conversation with my son about the Obama Speech

So at bedtime I chatted with the girls about their days, and asked about the Obama speech. Afterwards, I asked my son about it, and before he really got started, I got what I decided was a flash of inspired brilliance and grabbed my crackberry and recorded our conversation. I wish I’d done that with the girls… sometimes with Tyler, you ask a question and when he’s finally done talking, it’s been an hour and you’re asking yourself…

Who put a quarter in you?

… and sometimes, he has a hard time figuring out how to express his thoughts verbally.

He’s like his mama like that…

 a 13yo’s take on the Obama Speech

When I was listening to this afterwards, I cringed a little bit. Something I said with the best of intentions doesn’t sit too well with me.

That Magic Mom-ment…

That magic moment…
when your lips are close to MIIIIIIIINE…
will last forEVERRRRR…

No no no… not THAT magic moment… I’m talking about how (OF COURSE) you tell your kids all the time that you love them, and praise their accomplishments. But especially as you approach the turbulent tween & teen years, you wonder if you tell them enough, and whether it just goes in one ear, stopping only long enough to roll the eyes, and right back out the other. Every once in a while you get the opportunity to tell them something about themselves that isn’t about them as your child, but about the phenomenal individual they are growing into… and you know, with every fiber of your being, that they are going to carry that moment with them for the rest of their lives, and it will be a talisman between them and all the bullshit they are going to have to wade through in middle & high school.

About us… « FINALLY UPDATED

So it’s not a GREAT about us page… and I cheated and used part of my other blog’s “about” page… but at least it’s semi accurate!

via About us… « FINALLY UPDATED.

Bike Riding…

So tonight at dinner we’re having some nice conversation.

Tyler: I wish we could go for a bike ride.

Halle: Where at?

Daija: Colorado! 

Tyler:  WHY in Colorado?

Daija: What?  I dunno… cuz it’s as big as our world… it’s medium-large…

God, I love these kids…