The issue is not all how the parent deals with raising the child it is
how others will see the child. It's not as much about whether the
child knows that who they are is more important, it's the questions
that children have when they realize that that rule does not always
apply to them. Children of color don't feel badly about how they look
(necessarily) in transracial families it becomes how and why some
things are different. So, without being conscious of it you can give
mixed messages.
An example for it's not how you look...but, you would get a very
different impression if you visit the AA haircare boards. We are
teaching to be the same but make a big deal about hair being different
and needing special things and about how the skin needs different
creams. That's meant to simply be an example of how children can
possibly get mixed messages.
Valarie
http://www.witheyeslikemine.blogspot.com
FROM GRACE:
Ultimately, what I've decided is that dealing with racial issues
requires a healthy mindset- a healthy attitude- a healthy awareness.
I don't think I will personally be pushing racial issues onto my
kids, but I want to be aware and sensitive, and be prepared with
good answers. I am already teaching my daughter that WHO you are is
more important that how you look- I would teach her that even if we
weren't adopting transracially. I am already teaching my daughter
about Ethiopian culture- the food, the history, the beautiful
people, but I would do that about the country we are adopting from,
even if I wasn't adopting from an African country.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
TransRacial Study on Race and Religion
Free Assessment of Your Race and Religious Preferences
Project Implicit has created a series of assessments to evaluate whether or not one has a preference for one race, culture, skin-tone, or religion over another. It is really interesting in the way that you move the through the online assessment. You get your results immediately.
FROM THE SITE: Psychologists understand that people may not say what's on their minds either because they are unwilling or because they are unable to do so. The IAT measures implicit attitudes and beliefs that people are either unwilling or unable to report.
Project Implicit has created a series of assessments to evaluate whether or not one has a preference for one race, culture, skin-tone, or religion over another. It is really interesting in the way that you move the through the online assessment. You get your results immediately.
FROM THE SITE: Psychologists understand that people may not say what's on their minds either because they are unwilling or because they are unable to do so. The IAT measures implicit attitudes and beliefs that people are either unwilling or unable to report.
- Take the Assessment for Black/White Race Preference
- Take the Assessment for Skin Tone Preference
- Take the Assessment for Religious Identification
- Take the Assessment for Asian/White Race Preferences
- Take the Assessment for Arab/Muslim Preferences
- Take the Assessment for 2008 Presidential Candidates
Monday, January 21, 2008
RBCWW - Raising Black Childen While White
Mary Owlhaven writes an incredible blog on Ethiopian adoption and transracial adoption in general. She wrote a great post about raising her Ethiopian girls in a predominately white area. Below is an insightful response from a white woman living in a predominately black area..
And while it may be a touch awkward at first, one of the main things I have learned from living in such a diverse place is that conversations on race are necessary and often not as painful as we might expect. I think that sometimes when we don't know what to do or say about race, we try to ignore it. But you and every one around you can see with plain eyes that you are white parents raising black children and I think most people "get" that there are unique issues that might arise as a result. And I don't know how to say this without it possibly being misconstrued, so here goes: I think black folks probably "get" those issues even more because as white folks, we probably haven't thought about our race or racism nearly as much as black folks have, simply because we have always been the racial majority and have generally not been discriminated against based on race. I personally never thought about my "whiteness" until I lived in a place where I was the minority. Continue ReadingI echo what she says about black people "getting it". I think that in general we focus less on whiteness of the parent and more on the needs of the child. I can't speak for everyone but those who have had experiences like me and know some of the challenges that the child might face welcome the opportunity to talk openly about the issues and offer encouragement where we can.
Getting A Little Personal: Education Epilogue
The Prelude
Part 1: Early Education
Part 2: MisEducation
Part 3: Educating Them & Us
Part 4: Home Schooling
Part 5: Return to Education
Part 6: Education of a Mayor
The Epilogue
I was sure that I was finished with this series of articles but last night one of my childhood friends called me and I was telling her about the articles that I wrote. She was one of my neighborhood friends that had spent all of her time on the normal neighborhood track. Although she is about to begin a PhD program at Duke, she talked about how much she missed in those early school years and that today she is still playing catch up on so many fundamental things that were never taught to her.
I think I left off at the revelation that I had in high school about the advantages I had because of the unusual access that I'd been given to the white educational system. It's amazing what little things I'd learned sitting at the table of white families and interacting with the good doctors network. Be careful here, there may be a tendency to say, "well that was so great for you." I'd say it was fortunate for me and the reason why is that I was privy to private conversation. The only analogy that I can think of is a beauty pageant. Imagine that we are all competing in a beauty pageant but I've been hanging out with the children of the judges for years. Pageant talk is common at the dinner table and as a child I don't only get to go the pageants but I also get a backstage page to hang out with contestants. On a couple of occasions I even get to have my picture taken with the winners. Now, after 10-15 years of this you, the neighborhood kids, and I decide to compete in the same pageant with other young women. I have a little bit of advantage don't I? I know what the judges like, how the judges think, how other winners prepared, and have seen first hand what not to do. A couple of the pageant winner even volunteer to coach me for free because of our relationship. That was the benefit that was given to me. Good for me but how would you feel if I won! Fair and square right? After all, do you even have any idea of what I had been absorbing over the years?
With that in mind here is the quick rundown. The day that I showed up for high school advanced placement, I was given books like Homer's Odyssey that we had read in seventh grade. I'd already been through much of Shakespeare but I got to do it over again in high school. It was a cake walk. A new socialization program began. This is the first time that I noticed that even in a school that was mixed, but predominately white students didn't mix socially. What I mean is that we attended classes together but in the cafeteria there was a white side and a black side with an invisible line down the middle. We didn't hang out with the white kids after school unless we were on the same sports teams and even some of the sports were segregated.
The school was predominately white, but my class had more black students than the school had ever had. It was the first year that the entire student council was black. There was a little problem when the majority (first time ever) had a black prom committee There was some discussion about having separate proms or some foolishness because OTHERS didn't like some of the decisions that the (black) committee was making. Now for 30 years there had been all white student governments, all white prom committees but when we elected a black prom queen, it's the first time I heard they, "they voted for her because she was black" line of reasoning. There wasn't much mention of the fact that she was also smart, attractive, funny, and the first black valedictorian. For point of reference, this was the same year that Vanessa Williams became the first black Ms. America.
Back to education. I was accepted into Michigan State University in the second month of my senior year of high school. Even in college I found that I had been well prepared and exposed to much of what I was learning. It seemed that was not the case for many of the friends that I made that had come from Detroit Public Schools. For many of those students it was the first time that they had been in a school with so many white people. My roommate was from some small Michigan town, within five minutes of meeting me I wasn't even shocked by what she said. Here is the introduction:
Her: Hey I'm ... You're black. Cool.
Me: I'm Valarie.
Her: Well, my parents told me that it was okay if my roommate was black but if you start bringing black men around here I'm supposed to get the hell out.
Me: Glad to meet you.
We didn't make it till the end of the year. We ended up in student court months later after she called me the ultimate N and it got really ugly. This definitely wasn't the first time that I'd heard it but it was the most explosive because she said it out in an open hallway where other students black and white heard her and I watched some of the black students cry from being hurt so badly.
I'll skip over much of the rest of undergrad but I had a great time. I did well in my classes and had a great social life. I participated in a wide range of campus activities but I was also a member of the black caucus, a black sorority, and black student choir. Of course we always get the question why is there a black caucus, a black sorority, and a black student choir? My flippant answer is because every other caucus, sorority, and choir on campus is white. The real answer goes back to my point about my teenage revelation and the story of Mayor Young. In the black caucus I was able to bond with and help other students that were struggling with fitting in, feeling accepted, and wanting to give up. In my sorority we focused on and won awards for community service, developing reading programs, sponsoring food drives, any other programming that we thought would help our community and people at large. We as a black people come from a strong culture of giving back. These organizations allowed us to do that, to open doors for those behind and beside us. It was almost a requirement. These organizations gave us an opportunity to celebrate our successes with each other, to pool our resources and collectively work for causes that we believed in. The black choir gave me a chance to sing the songs that were true to our experience, that told our story of our hope and determination. Songs that we sung from the depth of our souls to anyone who would listen.
With that in mind, there was another important thing that happened in undergrad. I started receiving letters from one of the black professors on campus. He had singled out (here we go again) a group of black students that he wanted to work with individually. He believed that this group of students would go on to higher levels of education. He set up meetings for us with admissions counselors from other schools, he took us out on special field trips to learn about interviewing and how to network once we graduated. In a school with 50,000 students, he felt a responsibility to a few of the 5,000 black students to let us know that he believed in us. Dr. Redd was invaluable to me over my four years in college and I maintained a great relationship with him for about 15 years after graduating. He exposed me to an understanding of college that I would not otherwise have had. He was a place for me to go when it got tough. He knew exactly what to say to encourage me along the way.
I did go on to graduate school and I'll make this part short. Well, I'll try. I got into grad school with no problem. The same theme emerged. I was the ONLY one, the only black woman in my classes. That doesn't matter though does it? It was graduate school right? I'd worked my tail off since I was moved to the new school in kindergarten. Graduate school is where the path led me. I finished graduate school in two years while working a REAL full-time job. I drove 40 miles one way to school after working a 10 hour day at my job.
I haven't explored a lot of these issues in a very long time. What I'd like people to take away is that I am a pretty typical black woman in society. All of my black friends, men and women would tell you stories just like mine. When I meet people in the workplace there is an instant connection and a familiarity because I know some of the hurdles they had to go through to achieve what they have achieved.
Now, my friends who were educated and travailed the same crazy educational system that I did have children that are in school reliving some of the same experiences in 2008. The children in my church attend schools where they are the ONLY black child or one of few. They are telling us the exact same stories from our own childhoods. They are hearing the same types of comments from their classmates and from their teachers in 2008.
My story is not unique among my peers. It's the stories that we only tell to each other and from them the lessons that we teach to our children. What do the white families that were on the other side of these stories teach to their children?
FOOTNOTE: My graduate thesis was on a program that I developed called Project HOPE. The title, "The Development of Culturally Relevant, Community-Based Enrichment Programs for African-American Children."
Part 1: Early Education
Part 2: MisEducation
Part 3: Educating Them & Us
Part 4: Home Schooling
Part 5: Return to Education
Part 6: Education of a Mayor
The Epilogue
I was sure that I was finished with this series of articles but last night one of my childhood friends called me and I was telling her about the articles that I wrote. She was one of my neighborhood friends that had spent all of her time on the normal neighborhood track. Although she is about to begin a PhD program at Duke, she talked about how much she missed in those early school years and that today she is still playing catch up on so many fundamental things that were never taught to her.
I think I left off at the revelation that I had in high school about the advantages I had because of the unusual access that I'd been given to the white educational system. It's amazing what little things I'd learned sitting at the table of white families and interacting with the good doctors network. Be careful here, there may be a tendency to say, "well that was so great for you." I'd say it was fortunate for me and the reason why is that I was privy to private conversation. The only analogy that I can think of is a beauty pageant. Imagine that we are all competing in a beauty pageant but I've been hanging out with the children of the judges for years. Pageant talk is common at the dinner table and as a child I don't only get to go the pageants but I also get a backstage page to hang out with contestants. On a couple of occasions I even get to have my picture taken with the winners. Now, after 10-15 years of this you, the neighborhood kids, and I decide to compete in the same pageant with other young women. I have a little bit of advantage don't I? I know what the judges like, how the judges think, how other winners prepared, and have seen first hand what not to do. A couple of the pageant winner even volunteer to coach me for free because of our relationship. That was the benefit that was given to me. Good for me but how would you feel if I won! Fair and square right? After all, do you even have any idea of what I had been absorbing over the years?
With that in mind here is the quick rundown. The day that I showed up for high school advanced placement, I was given books like Homer's Odyssey that we had read in seventh grade. I'd already been through much of Shakespeare but I got to do it over again in high school. It was a cake walk. A new socialization program began. This is the first time that I noticed that even in a school that was mixed, but predominately white students didn't mix socially. What I mean is that we attended classes together but in the cafeteria there was a white side and a black side with an invisible line down the middle. We didn't hang out with the white kids after school unless we were on the same sports teams and even some of the sports were segregated.
The school was predominately white, but my class had more black students than the school had ever had. It was the first year that the entire student council was black. There was a little problem when the majority (first time ever) had a black prom committee There was some discussion about having separate proms or some foolishness because OTHERS didn't like some of the decisions that the (black) committee was making. Now for 30 years there had been all white student governments, all white prom committees but when we elected a black prom queen, it's the first time I heard they, "they voted for her because she was black" line of reasoning. There wasn't much mention of the fact that she was also smart, attractive, funny, and the first black valedictorian. For point of reference, this was the same year that Vanessa Williams became the first black Ms. America.
Back to education. I was accepted into Michigan State University in the second month of my senior year of high school. Even in college I found that I had been well prepared and exposed to much of what I was learning. It seemed that was not the case for many of the friends that I made that had come from Detroit Public Schools. For many of those students it was the first time that they had been in a school with so many white people. My roommate was from some small Michigan town, within five minutes of meeting me I wasn't even shocked by what she said. Here is the introduction:
Her: Hey I'm ... You're black. Cool.
Me: I'm Valarie.
Her: Well, my parents told me that it was okay if my roommate was black but if you start bringing black men around here I'm supposed to get the hell out.
Me: Glad to meet you.
We didn't make it till the end of the year. We ended up in student court months later after she called me the ultimate N and it got really ugly. This definitely wasn't the first time that I'd heard it but it was the most explosive because she said it out in an open hallway where other students black and white heard her and I watched some of the black students cry from being hurt so badly.
I'll skip over much of the rest of undergrad but I had a great time. I did well in my classes and had a great social life. I participated in a wide range of campus activities but I was also a member of the black caucus, a black sorority, and black student choir. Of course we always get the question why is there a black caucus, a black sorority, and a black student choir? My flippant answer is because every other caucus, sorority, and choir on campus is white. The real answer goes back to my point about my teenage revelation and the story of Mayor Young. In the black caucus I was able to bond with and help other students that were struggling with fitting in, feeling accepted, and wanting to give up. In my sorority we focused on and won awards for community service, developing reading programs, sponsoring food drives, any other programming that we thought would help our community and people at large. We as a black people come from a strong culture of giving back. These organizations allowed us to do that, to open doors for those behind and beside us. It was almost a requirement. These organizations gave us an opportunity to celebrate our successes with each other, to pool our resources and collectively work for causes that we believed in. The black choir gave me a chance to sing the songs that were true to our experience, that told our story of our hope and determination. Songs that we sung from the depth of our souls to anyone who would listen.
With that in mind, there was another important thing that happened in undergrad. I started receiving letters from one of the black professors on campus. He had singled out (here we go again) a group of black students that he wanted to work with individually. He believed that this group of students would go on to higher levels of education. He set up meetings for us with admissions counselors from other schools, he took us out on special field trips to learn about interviewing and how to network once we graduated. In a school with 50,000 students, he felt a responsibility to a few of the 5,000 black students to let us know that he believed in us. Dr. Redd was invaluable to me over my four years in college and I maintained a great relationship with him for about 15 years after graduating. He exposed me to an understanding of college that I would not otherwise have had. He was a place for me to go when it got tough. He knew exactly what to say to encourage me along the way.
I did go on to graduate school and I'll make this part short. Well, I'll try. I got into grad school with no problem. The same theme emerged. I was the ONLY one, the only black woman in my classes. That doesn't matter though does it? It was graduate school right? I'd worked my tail off since I was moved to the new school in kindergarten. Graduate school is where the path led me. I finished graduate school in two years while working a REAL full-time job. I drove 40 miles one way to school after working a 10 hour day at my job.
- One professor told me that my writing was not up to par. He asked me what special provisions had been made to get me into graduate school because it was obvious to him that I wasn't prepared to be there. It was my last year and I had a 3.9 GPA at the time and I'd been inducted into Who's Who of America's English students. I'd been published first at the age of 8 and had won ACT-SO for writing as a high school freshman and sophomore. But, of course he could be right.
- The same semester in a completely different class we were asked to prepare and present a report. Because I was a full-time working person in an office with many resources I was able to put together a great looking presentation. I was so proud of my color graphics that today no one would think anything of. On a break after my presentation the professor told me that he thought that I was "showing off". If you've read the whole series you know that this is a return to an old theme. He told me to stop trying to make the other students look bad and he took a half-point off of my grade as a warning to, "tone it down."
I haven't explored a lot of these issues in a very long time. What I'd like people to take away is that I am a pretty typical black woman in society. All of my black friends, men and women would tell you stories just like mine. When I meet people in the workplace there is an instant connection and a familiarity because I know some of the hurdles they had to go through to achieve what they have achieved.
Now, my friends who were educated and travailed the same crazy educational system that I did have children that are in school reliving some of the same experiences in 2008. The children in my church attend schools where they are the ONLY black child or one of few. They are telling us the exact same stories from our own childhoods. They are hearing the same types of comments from their classmates and from their teachers in 2008.
My story is not unique among my peers. It's the stories that we only tell to each other and from them the lessons that we teach to our children. What do the white families that were on the other side of these stories teach to their children?
FOOTNOTE: My graduate thesis was on a program that I developed called Project HOPE. The title, "The Development of Culturally Relevant, Community-Based Enrichment Programs for African-American Children."
Sunday, January 20, 2008
What is the Color of my Culture?
The Color of My Culture
Valarie A. Washington
copyright(c)2008
Valarie A. Washington
copyright(c)2008
My culture is colored by the family that raised me. It is the soulful blackness of the church that loved me and the colorful mix of the the foods and flavors that nourished me. My culture is the red-hot rhythmic dance of a people, the jazzy blues of music that beats in my heart, and the brown-eyed melodies of life that I learned how to sing.
The color of my culture is dark green and life affirming like collard greens on Thanksgiving. It's rich and strong in orange fibrous keratin like yams on Sunday afternoon. It is golden yellow like fresh cornbread crisp from that old cast iron skillet, and it is the conspicuous black spot staring back at me from black-eyed peas cooked on New Years day. My culture is as colorful as any soul food dinner served on mix-matched plates and as shiny as the Reynold's wrap we use to take our plates to go. It's sour green pickles, wine candy, red kool-aid, grape now-n-laters, red-hots, lemon heads, and bomb-pops.
My culture is multi-colored like kente clothe weaved together in a really tight pattern. It is jewel-toned and ruby red like the church ladies hats. It's soft pink and lilac like little girl dresses on Easter morning. It is beautiful like the stained glassed church windows that we propped open on hot summer holy ghost days. It is as majestic and and rich as Mahalia's voice on Precious Lord and the regal way she stood in her choir robe on the back of those church fans we use to wave. My culture is far-reaching faith in a Thomas Dorsey classic like Peace in the Valley. My culture is as white and pure like the hearts of the stewardess' board and the church mothers sitting clustered on the front row. My culture is contrast of pure whites, whiter than snow that we sang about in familiar hymns cast against the blackest covered Bible that holds God's powerful word.
My culture is bright yellow like the smiles on our faces listening to the children's sunshine band sing songs from their tender hearts. It is as complex as the synchronized turns that the ushers and the urshers made walking up and down the aisles of the church. It is the melodic hues flowing from the voices of the young adult choir singing the chorus of "How I Got Over!" My culture is intensified by the click clack joy of tambourines and that shrill B flat that sister Mary always managed to squeeze out just a little off key. My culture is concrete gray and unshakable like the faith we were always taught to have. It is as thunderous and moving as the morning prayer that would raise you from your seat, wake the sleeping child, compel you to wave your hands, testify, and shout -- AMEN!
The color of my culture is cocoa-brown skin, light, bright, and almost white. It is colored like the ashy knees in summer, Vaseline, and blue hair grease or the kind that we scooped out of the red jar. My culture is colorful barrettes, beads and ribbons that little girls wear in their hair. My culture is colored by the rhythmic way we in which speak, the way we roll our Rrrra's, and the way that only my mother could turn a phrase. It is the worn-out beige handle of that old worn out pressing comb that was always sparking on the kitchen stove. It is lively and colorful like our conversations and slips of the tongue that only grand-momma or big momma can make.
My culture is the royal blue way they we love and revere our mothers. It's the gold-ribbon honor that The Spinners gave to "Sadie", and Boys II Men gave to "Mama". My culture is loud like my mother and her sisters when they hear their favorite song on the radio. It is as deep as the deepest note that Barry White ever sung and higher pitched than the notes Minnie Ripperton sang about, "Lovin' You" and every note she sang in between when she took us, "Back Down Memory Lane."
My culture is crimson stained from the blood shed by the Martin King's, Emmit Till's, James Chaney's, Malcolm's and nameless men that died to make us free. My culture is played out in the soundtrack of our lives sung by Marvin, Curtis, Otis, and James Brown who first told us to be black and proud before he sang anything about feeling good. My culture pours out red heart love and chocolate covered soul like Patti, Aretha, and Gladys. The color of my culture changes effortlessly like a chameleon. Because, when we had little to believe in, we sang, hummed and waited when Sam Cooke told us "A Change is Going to Come..." And even now when we feel like we want to give in, we can still hear Luther saying, "Never too much, Never too much..." My culture is familial and connected like, Marvin Gaye's, "Brother, Brother, Brother" and the true refrain he sings in, "Make You Wanna Holler." You know, "throw up both my hands."
The color of my culture is true blue American and the color of hope that Barak Obama had the audacity to write about. It is the silk ribbon in Stevie Wonder's sky. It is the crayon box of colors that drew out the richness of a people before MTV had a generation and Beyonce ever had a hit. The color of my culture holds the supremeness of the Supremes, the emotion of the Emotions, and the dreams of the original Dreamette's . My culture is found in the rainbow colored way in which we were loved, protected, and encouraged that allows us to love, honor, and share in return.
My culture is the red carpet red that led me to every good thing that has and will ever happen in my life. It is a shinning star that announced the birth of a King and the same bright light that will lead the way for every little black boy and girl for generations to come.
The color of my culture is a legacy that won't end with bars and tones at midnight and it is the hope of a people that will never ever fade.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Who Will I Be When I Grow Up
Today it is hard to believe that there was a time that there were very few images of black people in the media. Who did you most want to be like when you grew up? The cultural icons of the 60s, 70s and 80s were very different. If it weren't for Jet and Ebony magazine I would not have had a real image of what was possible for me and visions of who I needed to become. Cultural identity is reflected back in the positive images of self.
I always loved Gladys Knight. As a little girl with a lot of hair she was the only woman that I saw with long flowing hair. She was beautiful to me, she was talented, and classy.
My favorite author was Langston Hughes. I remember writing a report on him and my teacher had no idea who he was. He was one of the greatest writers of the Harlem Renaissance but he was omitted from any discussions of literature in my school. There was a poem that he wrote that summed up my experience.
I always loved Gladys Knight. As a little girl with a lot of hair she was the only woman that I saw with long flowing hair. She was beautiful to me, she was talented, and classy.
My favorite author was Langston Hughes. I remember writing a report on him and my teacher had no idea who he was. He was one of the greatest writers of the Harlem Renaissance but he was omitted from any discussions of literature in my school. There was a poem that he wrote that summed up my experience.
I, Too, Sing America
I am the darker brother,
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes.
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed-
I, too, am American
Mother to Son
Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
Colorstruck
Whenever I introduce any words and phrases, I will always try to give some historical context and resources.
COLORSTRUCK: In one of the articles I mentioned that my grandmother was colorstruck, and she was. She really did not like people with dark skin and she hated kinky hair.
COLORSTRUCK: In one of the articles I mentioned that my grandmother was colorstruck, and she was. She really did not like people with dark skin and she hated kinky hair.
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