Walking the (color)Line

WARNING – Racial Smog Ahead

Proceed with caution. If you have a low tolerance for white guilt (stage whisper: that’s code for, if you’re black) or tend to have defensive reactions during conversations about white privilege (stage whisper: that’s code for, if you’re white), I recommend some form of psychiatric medication or perhaps even the liberal use of recreational drugs before proceeding.

Know your limits. Step out of the sweat lodge as frequently as necessary.

Anti Racist White Allies 101 « curlykidz

Got my links fixed!

Anti Racist White Allies 101 « curlykidz.

via Anti Racist White Allies 101 « curlykidz.

What about the children?

Think About the Children

When Bardwell said interracial children “suffer” and are not accepted by blacks or whites, he was simply looking out for the couple’s best interest, Steve Benen sarcastically assures his readers at The Washington Monthly. “What a good point. The societal stigma on kids from mixed-race couples is so overwhelming, those kids would never have an opportunity to, say, grow up and someday seek the presidency of the United States.”

The Debate

• Of Course He’s Not Racist Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic
• Only Liberals Are Racist Adam Serwer, The Atlantic
• A Good Samaritan Andrew Belonsky, Gawker
• Think of the Children 44Steve Benen, The Washington Monthly
• Not Too Much of an Inconvenience Eugene Volokh, The Volokh Conspiracy

So unless you’ve been under a rock (or at least, if you haven’t read my blog this week, which is really the same thing, right?), you know that a Justice of the Peace refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple. A lot of people are expressing shock and awe… I’ve seen several comments to the effect, “this is 2009, not 1967.”

Ummm… peeps… I hate to point out the obvious, but Loving vs. Virginia didn’t make us any more post-racial than the 2008 elections. You may not have caught it, but in an article I posted last week, Gallup surveys were cited that indicate only 48 percent of Americans approved of marriage between blacks and whites in 1994, up 77 percent by 2007.

It’s 2009. 1994 was only 15 years ago. My oldest was born in 1996.

Dude. « Resist racism

What a great story!

This is Jordan Hunter, a 17-year-old student at Geneva High School. Hunter filed a complaint against one of his teachers for using a slur (”black f*g”).

Dude. You have my admiration.

Because in high school I doubt I would have done anything at all. In fact, I know so. Don’t ask

via Dude. « Resist racism.

via Dude. « Resist racism.

Project Implicit® – subconcious reflections on race

So I just took two Harvard Implicit Associations Tests.

It is well known that people don’t always ’speak their minds’, and it is suspected that people don’t always ‘know their minds’. Understanding such divergences is important to scientific psychology.

This web site presents a method that demonstrates the conscious-unconscious divergences much more convincingly than has been possible with previous methods. This new method is called the Implicit Association Test, or IAT for short.

Skin-tone (‘Light Skin – Dark Skin’ IAT). This IAT requires the ability to recognize light and dark-skinned faces. It often reveals an automatic preference for light-skin relative to dark-skin.

Race (‘Black – White’ IAT). This IAT requires the ability to distinguish faces of European and African origin. It indicates that most Americans have an automatic preference for white over black.

 I doubt my first result will surprise anyone who knows me.

Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between Dark Skin and Light Skin.

I’ll be blogging more about my second result.

Your data suggest a moderate automatic preference for African American compared to European American.

 Project Implicit® – Select a Test.

via Project Implicit® – Select a Test.

The W. Kamau Bell Curve: Ending Racism in About an Hour

I am guilty of using the terms “the n-word” & “non-white” within the last week or two… I would love to see this guy!!!

Prejudice and you

From Wikipedia-
A prejudice is a preconceived belief, opinion or judgment especially toward a group of people characterized by their race, social class, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or religion. Also, it means a priori beliefs (without knowledge of the facts) and includes “any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence.”[1] Although positive and negative prejudice both exist, when used negatively, “prejudice” implies fear and antipathy toward such a group.

For several years now, I have been getting into conversations more and more about how people respond to prejudice behavior. As a mother with an interracial family, I have talked with other parents with similar families across this country about their experiences and their attitudes. With the topics of race and gay marriage again and again being in the headlines for quite some time now, everyone is joining in.

I think that several things affect your view about how to deal with people who say ignorant, ugly things about groups of people. As individuals we are certainly shaped by the attitudes of our family and community. Negative situations fuel fear, anger and impatience. But a person’s basic attitude in life changes their perception of what other’s people’s intentions are, how to respond, and how effective you are at making an impact on the person who said or did something prejudice.

Aside From The Obvious: Racism 101

Aside From The Obvious: Racism 101

Would we ever question the natural citizenship of a white person running for president? Heck some Republicans were trying to repeal that provision to help the Governator of California who is undeniably not a natural born citizen.

Did we ever call Richard Nixon socialist (when it meant something) when he imposed wage and price controls or even tried to reform health care?

Did we question the integrity of Bush 1 when he addressed the nation’s schoolchildren and asked them to write him telling how they would help him? Yes precisely the same request, but no fears of brainwashing then and no demand for releasing the text in advance.

Is it any surprise that the worst outbreaks of this hostility are coming from the old Confederacy?

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.”

How Do I Make the Journey Easier?

Black Children/White World: How Do I Make the Journey Easier? at soulbrother v.2 really touched a chord in me.  As a white(ish)* mother of three multiracial  children, I’ve struggled with many of the issues described by Maxwell Reddick, a black father of three… right down to our sons being more confident in their racial identity than two of our daughters are. Despite those similarities, there are profound differences between our families, communities, and most certainly, the perspective through which each of us views the world.

The Summation

I have attempted to teach my children who they are, what they are. I have attempted to instill in them pride in who they are, what they are. But often I cannot find the right words. Often I am faltering in my speech. And too often I contradict myself in words and deeds.

But in the meantime, I fear they and other African American children like them are sinking gradually into the frigid depths of a cold naked abyss, and I am unable to find a rope long enough or strong enough to throw down to them and pull them to a place of safety.

What advice to you have for me?