Finding Our Humanity: Calling on my fellow Euro-Americans

Last Sunday I was stopped by a member of my congregation… someone from what I call my church family. She mentioned THIS is why I cannot, will not, comply, written after I explained to my son that I would probably (or not) be arrested on the National Day of Non-Compliance. 

Arizona in Crayola: Multicultural, I guess. Non-Toxic, debatable.

 When I asked my son what might lead an officer to suspect someone was not in the country legally and he answered, with only a little doubt in his voice…

“Their race.”

To which I countered,

“What race are Americans?”

He responded, 

“White.”

With no hesitation. None whatsoever.

[snipped]

My son is only 14 years old, and already he’s picked up the subconscious message about who is American and who is not. My son is only 14 years old, it already it is imbedded somewhere in his subconscious that Americans are white.

 Read More

 
After confiding that she’d been thinking about that blog entry ever since, she started to talk about all the different classifications of Americans… Mexican, African, Native, Chinese etc.

I have to confess that I got a little nervous. Because the only thing harder than talking about race with people who are not white, in my experience, is talking about race with people who are. And I felt my shield go up, because I’ve heard one or two profoundly stupid things said in my church home, and I wasn’t sure what was coming. I was afraid it would be some argument about how all those prefixes should be dropped, and my mind was racing because I hadn’t been mentally prepared for a “that thing you said” conversation. But then she asked, “But what am I? Am I Caucasian or European American?” And I responded cautiously, still not sure where we were headed, “Well, there would be Italian, German, and Irish American…”

And then she asked the million dollar question. What can she do, in her day-to-day interactions, to challenge the assumption that Americans are of European descent by default, and everything else is “other.”

I wish I’d had a better answer. I’m a unusal case (in more ways than one, I know…) in that outside of work and church on Sunday, very few people who I see on a daily or weekly basis are white. I shared with her that I make it a point (with people who tend to use race or ethnicity to describe others when it is not relevant to the conversation), to mention EVERYONE’S race (aka, my “this white lady at walgreens” story), I don’t have those kinds of conversations often.

Tonight I was at a volunteer meeting for the Community Posada and someone (not white) mentioned Euro-Americans in a conversation, which was the motivation I needed to write this post and not table it until after I get all the other drafts in my head published. Most of the discussion on what I write happens in the link comments on my Facebook wall, but for the sake of centralizing feedback and hopefully providing some ideas and resources for others, I’d like to ask people to comment here and not on FB. You don’t need to sign up for an account to comment.

I want to hear from my Anglo/Euro/Caucasian American readers. Do you consciously use language to counteract the assumption that Americans are white by default? What does that sound like? How and when do you use it? What kind of reactions do you get? If you don’t, what kind of ideas do you have?

Thanks to all of you in advance, and a very special thanks to my sister. You renewed my faith last Sunday, as well as my commitment to continue witnessing, LOUDLY, about the costs of racism to white people. As proud as we may be to fight for justice, we need to acknowledge that we are also fighting for our own humanity.

A PS… This was written as a call for reflection & discussion to white/euro/anglo/gring@ people because I feel strongly we need to take more responsibility in creating equality and justice for all. People of privilege shouldn’t be looking to the people who are being oppressed to show us the light when we’re holding the matches and candles. That said, if you don’t fall into the targeted demographic and you have a suggestion about how we can do better or want to point out something we may do with the best of intentions that we really shouldn’t, jump right in.

Related Articles

• Own Your Beauty: On Being Multi-Racial in the Racist, Rural South (blogher.com)
• Why Racial Profiling Persists in Medical Research (time.com)
• All Are Alike Unto God: A Reaction to Margaret Blair Young and Darius Aidan Gray’s _Standing On the Promises_ Series (motleyvision.org)



Fun Friday

 Don’t need a trip to the beauty shop. ‘Cause I love what I got on top. It’s curly and it’s brown and it’s right up there! You know what I love? That’s right, my hair! I really love my hair!

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

Saturday Share from Cyndi’s Google Reader

 

Cathleen Falsani: Anam Cara: Praying for Our Kids and Their ‘Soul Friends’ via Religion on HuffingtonPost.com by Cathleen Falsani on 9/13/10

An Anam Cara is someone with whom you share your deepest loves, fears, dreams, doubts, joys and sorrows. That soul friend will know him and love him for exactly who he is. He or she is a friend who will uplift him, reflect God’s love for him, and draw him toward his Creator, not away or astray. 

I prayed that, in the words of William Shakespeare, my son would take his soul friends into his heart and “grapple them to [his] soul with hoops of steel.” 

Cathleen Falsani is journalist, blogger and author of several nonfiction books, including the memoir Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace, and the forthcoming The Thread: Faith, Friendship and Facebook. 

 Sounds From Mexico’s Bicentennial via NPR Programs: Tell Me More on 9/16/10 

Alfonso Andre, drummer for the Mexican band Jaugares, talks about the band’s remake of the song La Martiniana for a new album that commemorates the Mexican Bicentennial. Andre also talks about his conflicted feelings about celebrating Mexico’s history. 

What is the purpose of (sex) education via Adolescent Sexuality by Dr. Karen Rayne on 9/15/10 

A good sex education might delay sexual activity.  In fact, a good sex education will ideally delay sexual activity.  But that’s not the main purpose of good sex education.  The main purpose of sex education is to support lifelong healthy sexuality.  We must take the long view here.  Sex education should not be designed to keep a student from having sex in high school – that is far too short sighted. 

Sex education must be designed to address individuals across their lifespans – to give them tools, skills, knowledge, and strength to understand their bodies, to be both introspective and appropriately communicative about their own desires, respectful about other people’s desires, and both safer and reverent about the entire process. 

White Feminists and Me: a Fable of Solidarity via Womanist Musings by Renee on 9/14/10 

I’m a 23 year old Sinhalese woman in Minnesota by way of Dubai by way of Sri Lanka. I am a Womanist, and part of my womanism is figuring out how to be in solidarity with my transnational sisters worldwide. I’m a daughter, a sister, a partner and a writer. I’m a brown girl who knows Shakespeare by heart and devours anything Toni Morrison. I believe in radical, revolutionary 

A Bleak Picture For Young Black Male Students via NPR Programs: Talk of the Nation on 9/13/10 

A report from the Massachusetts-based Schott Foundation paints a bleak picture of how young black men fare in school: fewer than half graduate from high school. And in some states, like New York, the graduation rate is as low as one in four. The foundation’s John Jackson and David Sciarra of the Education Law Center discuss what’s needed to improve educational attainment among African American children. 

Middle Schools Are Disciplining Kids by Throwing Them Away via Colorlines by Michelle Chen on 9/14/10 

Talk all you want about improving our nation’s schools, but the fact is, students can’t close the “achievement gap” when they’re not allowed into the classroom. Yet school suspension rates are climbing and potentially stifling educational opportunity for disadvantaged middle-schoolers, according to a study by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

 

Activists have long warned of the school-to-prison pipeline–sort of the opposite of the honors track, steering poor kids of color into troubled adolescence and eventually the criminal justice system. The SPLC explains, “Disciplinary tactics that respond to typical adolescent behavior by removing students from school do not better prepare students for adulthood. Instead, they increase their risk of educational failure and dropout.” 

Conflating “Ethnic” and “Curvy” via Sociological Images by gwen on 9/15/10 

We’ve noted the fetishization of Black women’s butts before, and the conflation of non-White and curvy (also here). Yes, some non-White women have large butts and cleavage. So do lots of White women. And lots of women in all groups don’t have either, or have just one or the other, or have them but don’t still somehow manage to be very thin and toned overall. But having this body type is, in this case and many others, so identified as “ethnic” that White women who have boobs and hips become examples of “ethnic” beauty, not simply a version of female beauty. Notice that Scarlett Johansson’s body isn’t described as having “European curves” or, I don’t know, “British-American curves” or whatever her ethnic background might be in the way that Jennifer Lopez’s curves are perceived as an ethnic marker. It’s a great example of selective perception: women of all racial/ethnic backgrounds share body shapes, but certain physical features, such as hips, are seen as a group characteristic only for some women. 

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages) 

‘Values Voter Summit’ Will Likely Be Missing Jewish Voters: Conservative Conference Coincides With Yom Kippur via Religion on HuffingtonPost.com by Amanda Terkel on 9/15/10 

Yet it’s unlikely observant Jews will be able to attend the event, since it’s being held on Yom Kippur — the holiest Jewish holiday — which begins at sundown on Friday, Sept. 17 and ends at sundown on Saturday, Sept. 18 — right when the majority of the action at the conference is happening (including the Israel panel). In 2009, the Values Voter Summit took place during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. “Does the FRC think Jews don’t have values?” wondered Salon’s Washington Correspondent Mike Madden last year. “Or was this just the only fall weekend they could get into the Omni Shoreham hotel?” 

Anti-Defamation League spokesman Todd Gutnick said his organization didn’t see much of a problem with the conflict in timing. “Since these are all Christian groups involved, Jews wouldn’t be attending anyway,” he told the Huffington Post. Some conservative groups, however, are trying to make inroads with the Jewish community, recognizing that although some on the right consistently accuse progressives of being anti-Israel or even “anti-Jew”, Jews still overwhelmingly vote Democratic. On Monday, FreedomWorks, which helps organize many of the Tea Party gatherings around the country, told reporters that it was launching “a new initiative to reach out to racial, ethnic and religious minorities” — beginning with Jews, to coincide with the High Holidays. 

The Huffington Post contacted FRC Action for comment but did not receive a response. 

This Week in Blackness: White People and Black People Are So Different via Womanist Musings by Renee on 9/17/10 

Elon James has come up with a new This Week in Blackness, and of course I absolutely had to share it with you.  This week, Elon talked about the fact that Blacks and Whites experience the same event differently because of racism.   Whiteness has been taught to ignore this because it has been normalized therefore; it is quite easy to believe in a universal perspective.  There is a large difference 

Angela Himsel: Excuse Me, Are You…? via Religion on HuffingtonPost.com by Angela Himsel on 9/17/10 

On Yom Kippur, when I stand in synagogue for hours and recite the prayers, striking my fist against my chest to atone for my sins, and as I become more and more tired with the lack of food, water and more importantly, caffeine, it’s then that I feel a kind of certainty that God sees and loves each one of us in all of our totality, even the parts that we hide from one another and from ourselves. Wherever we are, whoever we’re with, God recognizes us and never needs to ask, on Yom Kippur or any other day, “Excuse me, are you Angela?” 

Off and Running Toward My Own Identity [Racialigious] via Racialicious – the intersection of race and pop culture on 9/7/10 

by Guest Contributor Collier Meyerson, originally published at Be’Chol Lashon 

 At 13 years old, in the planning stages of my Bat Mitzvah, my Hebrew School teacher called a meeting at his home to discuss details. He opened his door to see me, my father who is an Ashkenazi Jew and my black mother. Upon seeing my family, without asking, he regrettably informed us that the synagogue, would not allow me to perform the right of passage in their temple because my mother wasn’t a Jew. My wily mother, coyly and smarmily responded “oh, but her mother is Jewish.” 

Yes, it turns out my biological mother is a white Ashkenazi Jew. 

And with these words, my Hebrew school teacher, as though I was caught in the Woody Allen version of my own life as a film, threw his hands into the air and exclaimed “it’s Bashert [it’s destiny] then! You’ll have your Bat Mitzvah in the Temple!” In that moment I felt a definitive rage. I wanted desperately to be a part of the Upper West Side’s most exclusive and popular clique, Judaism, but felt what would prove to be an indelible stake in this idea of blackness, something pitted against Jewishness. And so there it was, in the home of my Hebrew School teacher that the two were separated, like oil and water. 

I was Black and Jewish but I couldn’t be both, I couldn’t be a Black Jew. 

Preparing My Kids To Be Able To Run Through Walls via Racialicious – the intersection of race and pop culture on 9/7/10 

by Guest Contributor Paula, originally published at Heart, Mind, and Seoul 

I think about the walls that threatened to thwart my growth when I was younger and how completely ill-prepared I was to handle them. If I’m being completely honest with myself, I realize that perhaps I’ve been far too generous in assessing how well equipped I was to deal with the very real walls of racism, prejudice and discrimination throughout my life. I have no doubt that my parents love and concern imparted upon me the knowledge that they were always there for me – and yes, that is huge in it’s own right – but as an Asian girl/adolescent/young adult, I recognize now just how unprepared I was in terms of not having the right language or effective strategies to be my own best advocate in my racially isolated world. 

 

Bloggers Unite – International Literacy Day: Reducing Illiteracy in the Prison Population Benefits ALL of Us! via THE INTERSECTION | MADNESS & REALITY by Joanna on 9/8/10 

An estimated 20 percent of the adult population in the US is functionally illiterate. That figure SKYROCKETS to over 60 percent when you examine the literacy rates of the inmate population in jails and prisons across the country. And even more appalling is the fact that over 85 percent of juvenile offenders have literacy issues.

Considering that illiteracy commonly leads to lengthy and repeated bouts of unemployment (over 75 percent of unemployed adults have some problems with reading and writing) the low rate of literacy among the inmate population is a recipe for explosive recidivism rates. After all, if an ex-prisoner is unable to find or keep a job due to literacy issues, where else can he turn but back to the behaviors that landed him in jail in the first place?

Although a lot of people take the “lock them up and throw away the key” attitude toward prisoners, and would rather REDUCE the services available to prisoners, there is PROOF that literacy programs in prison CAN and DO help reduce the rates of recidivism, and can lead to an overall reduction in incarceration rates. 

 Us (Moms) vs. Them (Teens) via I am the Glue by Laura on 9/11/10 

This will be an 18 year round/fight.
Keep it clean…your language…your room…etc.
At the end of the match, the winner will be decided by who is left standing, or not in jail, or rehab.
I am taking bets now.
I got some insider information…shhh…this is on the down low.
Us moms are the best bet because we have been there and done that.
Got a teenager to show for it. 

What I Did On My Summer Vacation…or Why Water Communion Makes Me Uncomfortable via East Of Midnight by Kim on 9/14/10 

Can anybody explain Water Communion to me in a way that doesn’t make it seem like it’s a glorified Show-and-Tell and another example of how classist UUism can be?  

Michael Zimmerman, Ph.D.: Overturning the Texas School Board Madness? It’s Possible via Religion on HuffingtonPost.com by Michael Zimmerman, Ph.D. on 9/14/10 

Voters in Texas’s 5th District have the opportunity to put an end to the embarrassing and anti-intellectual actions that have diminished education across the state, and that’s an opportunity that will likely impact text book choices around the rest of the United States. I, for one, hope that they opt to do just that by replacing Ken Mercer’s madness with Rebecca Bell-Metereau’s thoughtfulness. 

Charges That a Civil Rights Hero Was an FBI Spy Shouldn’t Shock Us via Colorlines by Barbara Ransby on 9/17/10 

 These stories remind us not only that our government has routinely violated the basic civil liberties of so many black activists over several generations, but it reminds us of the complexities and limitations of presumed racial loyalty. The Black Press was given access to movement events and meetings in the 1960s that white reporters were not. Why? It was assumed that a level of racial solidarity and loyalty existed. Maybe that was true. But maybe it wasn’t. We continue to project false expectations onto politicians and self-appointed race leaders because of phenotype rather than politics, ideas and other more tangible markers of “loyalty” to oppressed people. Everyone who looks like “us” is not a friend, and everyone who looks different is not automatically the enemy. This is a simple lesson that some of us still have to learn. 

Promise of a better life leads to the nightmare of sexual slavery – CNN via articles.cnn.com on 9/18/10

Many people associate prostitution with women walking the streets in shady areas and being picked up by johns. But Claudia says the prostitution ring for which she was forced to work had a long list of clients who knew the price they had to pay, who to call and where to go. It’s a well-organized and lucrative underground industry. Luis CdeBaca monitors human trafficking at the U.S. State Department. He says there are no reliable figures on the scale of the problem, but forced prostitution from Mexico and Central America is a big part of it.

Related Articles

• Teens report high exposure to sex education (washingtontimes.com)
• Most Teens Receive Formal Sex Ed (webmd.com)
• A Bleak Picture For Young Black Male Students (npr.org)
• CDC: One-third of sex ed omits birth control (msnbc.msn.com)

The sexualization of multiracial youth

 

As we move out of the early years, through the middle years, into the teen and young adult years, I wonder how the objectification I wrote about years ago will impact my children. As they move from hearing stereotypes like “Mixed kids/babies are SOOO cute!” (I’m sorry, but they’re not all cute) to “Mixed guys/girls are so HOT” (or exotic or striking), I wonder how to prepare them for the harsh reality of interracial dating, which will be much different for them than it was for me. I think it’s obvious in  “Post Racial America” how deeply stereotypes are imbedded in our subconscious; when you couple that with a pop culture that objectifies women in general, particularly women of color, and romanticizes abusive relationships (from cliques to intimate partner abuse to domestic violence), I find myself worrying more about teen dating violence than teen pregnancy.  

As our children grow older, and going beyond the social interactions of elementary school, what do relationships look like from junior high through adulthood, if our children don’t feel comfortable setting boundaries?

 Thinking specifically about my children’s African ancestry, I’m reminded of an article I read titled Trying to Break A ‘Culture of Silence’ on Rape: Group Part of Movement Tailoring Recovery Efforts to Minority Women where psychologist Carolyn West explains,  

There was that belief that black women were unrapable,” West said. “Legally, it wasn’t a crime to rape black women, literally for hundreds of years.  

Going back to Does Anybody Else Look Like Me?, author Donna Nakazawa writes,  

Biracial girls are often considered beautiful objects of curiosity because of their exotic looks, this attention does not necessarily translate into dating partners.  

New ARWA 101 Resource: The Costs of Racism to White People

While I was talking with various people about SB1070 over the last week or two, I noticed looks of surprise and confusion from white and brown people alike when I talked about the cost of laws like this to Whites. I’ve added an additional link to my page of Anti Racist White Allies (no, that doesn’t HAVE to be an oxyoron) that speaks more directly to those costs.

I think it’s important not to set ourselves up on too high a pedestal or delude ourselves into thinking that we are in this fight for people of color. While the effects of SB1070 and other forms of institutional racism are clearly more devastating to minority groups, they hurt white people to, and we have a vested interest in this fight.

The Costs of Racism to White People

WE TEND TO THINK OF RACISM as a problem for people of color and something we should be concerned about for their sake. It is true that racism is devastating to them, and if we believe in justice, quality, and equal opportunity for all, then we should be trying to end it. As we saw in the last sections, racism does produce material benefits for white people. However, the costs of racism to white people are devastating, especially to those of us without the money and power to buffer their effects. They are not the same costs as the day-to-day violence, discrimination, and harassment that people of color have to deal with. Nevertheless, they are significant costs that we have been trained to ignore, deny, or rationalize away. They are costs that other white people, particularly those with wealth, make us pay in our daily lives. It is sobering for us as white people to talk together about what it really costs to maintain such a system of division and exploitation in our society. We may even find it difficult to recognize some of the core costs of being white in our society.

via Anti Racist White Allies 101 « curlykidz.

Ground Zero, Day One: National Day of Non Compliance

Just your average Thursday night...

The title is a little misleading; while this was day one for many who stood on the side of love that day, my community has been living under SB1070 for two years this coming February… under 287(g). Please note that when I say my community, I don’t mean my county or even my city. I mean, MY NEIGHBORHOOD. The student body at my son’s high school is 71% Hispanic, 22% Black. 4% White, 2% Native American, and .6% Asian. When Sheriff Joe “Bull” Arpaio does an immigration sweep, it’s not in Scottsdale or Paradise Valley, it’s in neighborhoods like mine that are going to give him the biggest bang for his buck… the highest numbers of “suspected” illegal immigrants for his media whoring. 

Unlike PurpleCrayon, friend and member of my church fam, I was neither shocked nor surprised by the show of force from the good Sheriff. It’s funny to me that the Sheriff’s Posse always seems to strike in the hours just before & after dawn or dusk, but there’s nary a Posse to be found in the wee hours of the morning as I lie in bed listing to what I hope is random, rather than intentional, gunfire. Don’t worry about those gangs of urban terrorists Joe… you go on and russle up some landscapers and day laborers instead, cowboy.  

I have been trying for a couple days now to sort through everything that happened during the National Day of Non-Compliance and throughout the weekend. How do I summarize all that I witnessed, everything I felt? There are so many different facets that I’m struggling to organize them, and I’m starting to think this might be a multi post series.

THIS is why I cannot, will not, comply.

I was talking to my son just a while ago about some events taking place later this week, and as I was explaining civil disobedience & non violent resistance (It’s like you ripping up that test last spring, even after the teacher threatened your grade), we talked a little more about why I feel SB 1070 is an unjust and immoral law.

Anybody who knows me personally would most likely agree that I probably talk to my kids about race, stereotypes and racial profiling more than anybody we know.  

According to statistics, they are conversations that many who are in a position to do so, avoid. These are not easy conversations to have, and there are many times where I feel wholly inadequate in teaching my children to navigate through this muck. Sure, there are plenty of rainbow conversations about how we’re all heart and spirit under our skin early on, but there are many more that are painful. Like taking a potatoe peeler or cheese grater to your skin. Because sometimes by the time it’s over, you are ready to flay the skin from your own body and every body else’s just to be done with it. Sometimes because someone said some hateful thing to or in front of your child or they said some hateful thing to someone else… but as time goes on, sometimes you learn they have picked up some stereotype or prejudice of their own.

But still, no matter how difficult or painful, these conversations are some of the most important a parent can have with a child.

When I asked my son what might lead an officer to suspect someone was not in the country legally and he answered, with only a little doubt in his voice…

Scaring white people for fun and profit

Do you notice anything about those four stories — Van Jones, ACORN, the New Black Panther Party, and now Shirley Sherrod? This isn’t about racism. This isn’t a story about picking on black people. This is a story about political outcomes, about the tried and true political strategy not of targeting black people but of targeting white people, about making white people feel afraid of African Americans as if they are not fellow Americans but rather a threat to what white people have.

 

The Rachel Maddow Show – Scaring white people for fun and profit.

AND THEN THE MODERATOR STARTED TO TAKE HER CLOTHES OFF

When I first came to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Phoenix, I was searching for a safe church home for my interfaith family. When I walked into the Memorial Garden, stood at the center of That Which Might Have Been, I knew I was home.  And naively, I thought nothing would ever hurt me there. I learned that just like any family, church family can hurt you in ways that no one else could. 

I’ve posted some unedited text as well as a link to the video from Plenary VII, and I highly recommend watching it, if not in full, at least from 02:25:00(ish) on. I watched a lot of  the GA from Saturday & Sunday on streaming video, and Gini Coulter’s moderator’s report was some of the most candid and honest commentary about racism, ableism, inclusion and white and able-bodied and financial privilege and accountability that I’ve ever seen spoken at a UU microphone in the ten years I’ve been a UU. Sadly, it’s not something that I’ve really seen discussed at all at a congregational level… which is not to say that I haven’t had a number of personal conversations with church fam or that a discussion about our need to embrace The Journey Toward Wholeness Path to Anti-Racism  with the same commitment as we did when we became a Welcoming Congregation never happened… maybe it did and I just wasn’t there that day… but in any case, I’m as much to blame for that as any. Most discourse about race is centered on our work in the 1960’s civil rights movement. We (and by we I mean the white UU’s) rarely discuss where we failed in the past and where we are failing now. And believe me, we are still failing. I know this, because people in my congregation, who I know would NEVER knowingly hurt me or my children, people who love us, have cut me to my very core.

Some of these incidents are nearly as old as my youngest child, and I still don’t have enough spoons to say, “That thing you said was racist/a stereotype/hurtful.” But I’ll get there, because they too are my family, and this community is our home. This is where my son learned to see not just a father god, but a mother god, and to see god within himself. My elder daughter was dedicated at the center of the sculptures, my younger in the sanctuary. My son and my daughters will come of age here, and bridge to young adulthood. My grandfather (may he rest in peace, if he ever stops rolling over in his grave) was laid to rest (so to speak) here. One day my grandchildren will dance Universal Dances of Peace with me when they come for summer visits. When I die, my ashes will be interred in the Memorial Garden, and that is where my children and my grandchildren will go when they need to feel me, much as it is where I go when I need to feel “God.”

It is my home.

I am a thirty-something country-urban-professional-hippie-ghetto-trailer park-anti-racist-pro-choice-standing on the side of love-station wagon driving-single-ADHD-volleyball/boxing mom of three multiracial children and a couple bad-ass dogs, and I am a Unitarian Universalist.

2010 Loving Day Celebration – June 12, Phoenix Area

I got an email with information about a Loving Day Celebration from the organizer of the East Valley Interracial Couples & Families Meetup Group, and wanted to put it out there for those in the Phoenix area who may be interested:

We thought it would be a good idea to celebrate Loving Day but couldn’t find anything in Arizona on line for the event so we made our own.  The event will be at Tempe Town Lake on the 12th from 10-12:30.  This is our first time doing something like this so it will be very small and we are still trying to grow the group

THANKS ERICA!

East Valley Interracial Couples & Families Meetup Group (Scottsdale, AZ) – Meetup.com.

The Curly Crew debut at The Next Family — A Diverse Community For Modern Families

So a couple weeks ago I was invited to be a contributing blogger for multiracial families at The Next Family. My contributions will actually start waaaay back in 1999 when I first started blogging, so readers can kinda follow along with our family story. So, if you happen to have missed the last ten years of my wit, wisdom, and sheer brilliance… by all means, hustle on over there and subscribe to the RSS feed.

What is The Next Family?

The Next Family is a diverse community where modern families meet. It is the start of an on-going open minded and sincere dialog between urbanite families, adoptive families, in vitro parents, interracial families, same sex parents, single parents and so on. It is a way to remind people that the Next Generation of families already exists in larger numbers than the old model of a “family unit”.

The Next Family is the foundation of future families.

As you navigate through our site, please start the dialog with us by offering input as to the ways today’s Modern Families aren’t being served. Let us know what products you wish you had access to or cool stuff you would like to be created just for your “Next Family”.

This site will have resources available and answers to those tough questions you are asked about your own family or the family around the corner from you. The tough questions are asked, and the answers will be as diverse as our community.

We look forward to hearing your stories, and meeting your family!

You can check out my introduction at The Next Family — A Diverse Community For Modern Families.

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 Latino 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.”

  

Daija’s Hair Doodles

I need to find the charger for the digital camera so I can get a better video, but this is how we refresh our Doodles (check out the curly hair page for more pics & details) in the mornings.

“My People Are…” promotes positive racial & ethnic identity in ALL children