Don't be black on my account
A black mother's gift to her biracial children.
By Debra J. Dickerson
Mar. 05, 2007 | Out of the blue last week my son, who is 5, asked me if I'd ever been "burned." I thought he was referring to the tattoos that I always tell him and his sister are boo-boos (how else to justify voluntary scarring when I won't even let them use a butter knife?), so I repeated my usual lie and added that "Mommy would never play with fire." I thought this was a safety discussion. He looked confused.
"Oh. I thought that was why you were brown."
My biracial, white-looking baby is discovering race. Granted, both of my children think my nappy, unprocessed, Sideshow Bob hair looks that way simply to entertain them, and never understand why everyone asks if I'm their nanny. I can't say I wasn't on notice. But I'd envied them their racial innocence. Too bad them days are over.
My son first brought up the subject of race two months ago. I took him and his 3-year-old sister to a concert at an inner-city elementary school right before Christmas. There were lots of cornrowed kids singing "Jingle Bells." My own child, as he sat fidgeting in my lap, stared at the crowd around him goggle-eyed and perplexed.
"Mommy," he said, craning his neck to scan the room, just so he could be certain, "everybody's brown. Really, look! They're all brown."
We live in snow-white upstate New York, but was he really so clueless?
"Why is everybody brown, Mommy?"
Yup. He was. Caught unawares, I just gulped for air. But he was waiting for an answer.
"Really, Mom. Everyone's brown. Everyone. Why?"
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Newsvine
Furl
Google
Yahoo
Obama Isn't Black
... and her kids don't have to be? I'm not sure I'm getting this chick. Her earlier Salon.com article went on about how Obama couldn't really claim black because he wasn't the descendant of a slave. I think she's confused about what black really is.
I'm pretty sure this whole
I'm pretty sure this whole episode is fictional.
Bruh
that ain't fictional.
Ms. Dickerson is entitled
to do as she pleases with her youngun's, but she needs to take "blackness" out that tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny little box she has it in. from what i've read, there is no blackness for her that is not 1) experienced in relationship to white folks (yuck! get a life) 2) wretchedly destitute and seeking basic expression in the world or something along those lines. in any event, since that's her pitch, it ain't gonna be appealing until her babies get hormonal and get down right sick of lookin' at all those pasty white folk upstate...then they'll be off to college for some sexperience. in any event, it'll be exotic because it'll never be authentic. see y'all at bootknock 2020.
iono
my problem with DD is that she assumes that Blackness is essential, rather than heritable. i mean...she was socialized into Blackness by external and internal factors - just like the rest of us. why would she not prepare her children for the world in the same way? i'd hate to be at the family reunions for that clan...them kids are going to be mad uncomfortable with they fam because mommy's uncomfortable in her own skin. like T3 said...them kids ain't gonna live upstate forever. Â
First, I'm still sure
First, I'm still sure there's a sizable amount of pure fiction in that mess.
But as for living upstate forever, they might. There are people on Staten Island that have never been to Manhattan.
Ain't that the truth
Shaolin tribe don't always make it across the river. Still, her deficit rendition of blackness is pure poverty and it will be unattractive as long as it is the only version her children have access to. If you understand yourself fully and exclusively as an appendage to white folks, then it all makes sense. If you've done the very, very difficult and never-ending work of seeking to free your mind, she looks about as crazy as a bat out of hell - or a troubled sister still residing in hell. as for the fiction, i don't claim to know her other works, so i'll stick with my premise, but leave room for yours.
If you understand yourself
Well, there you are.Â
And with that said...
And with that said, I'm with P6 - on tolerant island. For most of the confusion I've gathered coming from her talks (about her book or other tv appearances; articles), her interracial situation basically explains it all or at least gives me some clue as to why she is confused the way she is.Â
I said from the jump
...or at least from the time I heard her comments about Obama, that her analysis reminded me of the way that most people talk about interracial marriage, like black and white are irreducible and mutually exclusive categories. You can't put an interracial family into that construct without coming up with some pretty tortured definitions of yourself and your offspring.Â