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Powell
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Joined: 27 Nov 2004
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 Posted: Mon 02 Feb 2009 04:07 Post subject: Why I was so eager to claim my biracial son for my own side |
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| Quote: | http://www.newsweek.com/id/181292
Beyond Just Black and White
Why I was so eager to claim my biracial son for my own side.
Raina Kelley
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Feb 2, 2009
When I took my newly born son from the nurse's arms, I did the expected counting of his fingers and toes. I checked under his cap for hair and flexed his little limbs. Once confident he was whole and healthy, I began to wonder how dark his skin would get. As a black woman married to one of the world's fairest men, I worried that our son would be so light-skinned as to appear Caucasian, and I wanted him to look black. After we all came home from the hospital this past June, I Googled newborn eye color to reassure myself that Gabriel's eyes wouldn't change from my shade of brown to my husband's green. I brushed up on my genetics, and though I discovered that curly hair is a dominant trait, Gabe has straight brown locks that stick up in a cowlick just like his dad's—not the wild curls I struggle to keep under control. Undaunted by these failures to find Gabe's blackness, I inspected my son's skin daily for the Mongolian spots common in African-American babies, but his skin was as smooth as … alabaster.
It was time to face facts. One day, I would be an old black lady hanging on the arm of a young white man who passersby would think was an obliging stranger but who was actually my offspring. It didn't help that everywhere my new nuclear family went, we were told that our son was the picture of his father, and, well, he is. So I began to wonder, if it's never much bothered me that I'm a different color from my husband, why was I as rigid as a Klan member when it came to identifying my son's race from birth?
It never occurred to me then that if people thought my son was white, it might make life easier on him. Obviously, I was not interested in logic. I just wanted to claim Gabriel for "my" side—in league with his mother against small minds, casual racism and discrimination. So even though Gabe still appeared Caucasian, I grew more obsessive in my racial cataloging. I'd ask my spouse embarrassingly leading questions: "Do you think you have a black son?" "Is it weird having a black kid?" "Would it be strange for you if Gabe became the second African-American president?" To his credit, he tried to answer in good faith until a particularly brutal interrogation when I heard him jokingly mutter to Gabe that "Mommy's racist against us white people." It sounded absurd to hear Gabe described as white even though I myself had been saying things like "I hope he darkens up" and "He looks Dutch." Clearly, I had become so eager for my son to be black that I was tiptoeing across the line from mildly offensive to racist. Not to mention that at that moment in time, it was even more absurd to call him black. Can you imagine the reverse scenario? Gabe born dark-skinned and my husband saying, "I hope he gets whiter"?
But by his third month, Gabe's skin tone began to darken and my hormones leveled off; I can now report that, seven months after his birth, Gabriel is the exact shade you'd get if you mixed his father and me up in a paint can—a color I call golden. This has made me realize that I want Gabe to be proud of his entire heritage. Why does my son have to bear the legacy of a one-drop rule that is the direct intellectual descendant of slavery and Jim Crow? The very concept, that even the smallest amount of black blood in your ancestry makes you African-American, harks back to the early 20th century when states including Texas and Virginia passed laws to protect the "purity" of the white race. Is this really a concept that needs to be perpetuated? And though I'm loath to admit it now, maybe I just wanted my son to be black because many people in this society think and say awful things about races that aren't theirs. I couldn't bear to worry that my son was thinking and saying those things about black people, about me.
But for Gabriel's sake, I'm going to try to stop playing the black-vs.-white game, since my son is actually neither white nor black. He's biracial, and there are hundreds of thousands of little golden children out there just like him. One of them even grew up to be president of the United States. The latest U.S. Census numbers indicate that there are 4.9 million biracial Americans. That's 1 million more "mutts," to quote President Obama, than in 2000 when the census began allowing Americans to identify themselves as more than one race. Indeed, in that census, 823 people identified themselves as a combination of six races.
New mothers being insecure, I've now begun to wonder whether my constant harping about skin tone warped my infant son for life. Did I already doom him to rebel against my dichotomous racial regime, reject his blackness altogether and move to the Netherlands, the land of his father's people? Or maybe he'll grow up to look upon his father as the Man, his mother as a race traitor, and move to Namibia to start a new black-separatist movement? Or maybe he'll just be himself, because when you juxtapose Obama's comments about society with the reality of his election, isn't the real secret of American freedom that we don't have to accept the roles that society assigns us? Our newly elected president ignored the racial stereotyping that seemed to limit what he could accomplish in this country—and he didn't do it by passively accepting society's assessment of his skin tone. Perhaps as the number of multiracial Americans continues to grow, there will be a plurality of golden people who are impossible to positively identify as one race or the other. And the rest of us who can be easily categorized will be forced to accept that color does not contribute to the content of one's character because we won't know which set of stereotypes to apply to whom. I want my son to grow up wearing his biracial heritage like an invisibility cloak, able to move unseen among people's prejudices—impervious to racial profiling. But I will prepare him for a world that may think he is black or white, even though he is golden. |
If a white mother of a biracial childl declared that she did not want her child to look black or identify as black, American blacks would come down on her like a ton of bricks.
I think Ms. Kelley must have a deep hatred for whites in general, despite having chosen a white husband. Otherwise, her son's color and future racial identity choices wouldn't bother her so much. |
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victoria bynum
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Joined: 24 Jan 2009
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| Posted: Mon 02 Feb 2009 15:44 Post subject: |
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I agree that if a white mother talked about wanting her biracial child to appear white, it would evoke strenous outcry. But I was also impressed by Ms Kelley's efforts to analyze her emotions and her own racial biases. I didn't perceive deep-seated hatred of whites but rather a genuine effort to untangle the contradictory messages and myths constantly promulgated about "race" and racial "authenticity."
I am new to this website, but have long admired the efforts of Mr. Sweet and Ms. Powell to get people thinking more deeply about societal constructions of race and the deeply-ingrained fallacies of most racial thinking. I am a historian of a multiracial community myself--the Knights from the Jones County region of Mississippi--and I appreciate so much the insights I have gained from the Study of Racialism.
Victoria Bynum |
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gemini072
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Joined: 27 Nov 2004
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| Posted: Mon 02 Feb 2009 18:40 Post subject: Re: Why I was so eager to claim my biracial son for my own side |
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[quote="Powell"] | Quote: | http://www.newsweek.com/id/181292
If a white mother of a biracial childl declared that she did not want her child to look black or identify as black, American blacks would come down on her like a ton of bricks.
It all depends. A lot of black-americans as well as whites expect the child to look mixed. I've definately heard enough stories of black parents of biracial children who want their child or at least hope they are lighter skinned with non-kinky hair. I've read essays from interracial couples where the white parent 'wished the childs hair was looser' or was more in a middle skin tone between both parents when the child was either darker or lighter.
I think Ms. Kelley must have a deep hatred for whites in general, despite having chosen a white husband. Otherwise, her son's color and future racial identity choices wouldn't bother her so much. |
She did something a lot of people, black white and mixed don't do which I agree with Victoria Bynum which is she thought her feelings and thoughts thru, challenged herself and her opinions. |
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zsana
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| Posted: Mon 02 Feb 2009 18:51 Post subject: |
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SMH...
As the mother of two biracial sons who take very much after my German husband - with a little bit of me peaking through as well - I found that piece to be very disturbing and borderline racist on multiple counts that I'd rather not delve into.
Towards the end of the article however, IMO it does seem she's being a little more level headed and egalitarian.
I hope so for her son and husbands sake.
Point blank, if a black woman can't fully accept without serious reservation/fear/nervousness the possibility that her child may look very much non black and if a white woman can't fully deal with the possibility of a very much non white appearanced child, they shouldn't be procreating "interracially" to begin with.
This extra "stress" that some women appear to be experiencing can be virtually eliminated. At least greatly reduced.
Staying with "your own kind" (same "race"/complexion/features/hair-type) lessons the chance of having children that apparently create such confusion/apprehension in some mothers. And fathers I assume.
Just my POV.
Very Interesting article. |
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Powell
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Joined: 27 Nov 2004
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| Posted: Tue 03 Feb 2009 05:58 Post subject: The Free State of Jones |
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| victoria bynum wrote: | I agree that if a white mother talked about wanting her biracial child to appear white, it would evoke strenous outcry. But I was also impressed by Ms Kelley's efforts to analyze her emotions and her own racial biases. I didn't perceive deep-seated hatred of whites but rather a genuine effort to untangle the contradictory messages and myths constantly promulgated about "race" and racial "authenticity."
I am new to this website, but have long admired the efforts of Mr. Sweet and Ms. Powell to get people thinking more deeply about societal constructions of race and the deeply-ingrained fallacies of most racial thinking. I am a historian of a multiracial community myself--the Knights from the Jones County region of Mississippi--and I appreciate so much the insights I have gained from the Study of Racialism.
Victoria Bynum |
We're glad to have Prof. Bynum here! She's the author of the excellent book, The Free State of Jones: Mississippi's Longest Civil War
http://uncpress.unc.edu/browse/book_detail?title_id=808
http://uncpress.unc.edu/browse/page/245
http://www.outlaw-agency.com/renegadesouth/
Books
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones_County,_Mississippi
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=8055
| Quote: | The fact that Newt Knight had a long-standing relationship and several children with Rachel Knight, a mulatto woman and former slave, brought the race issue to the forefront of many arguments. The fact that Rachel was a strong woman who took responsibility for her own life in difficult circumstances made gender a definite factor in what people wanted to believe, during the war and later.
All of these facts and factors came together in the miscegenation trial of Davis Knight, the great-grandson of Rachel, who married a white woman in 1948. Bynum suggests that the publication of Tap Roots in 1943 renewed awareness of Newt Knight and his offspring, and so Davis's marriage five years later became a matter in which townspeople felt they had a vested interest. Davis, who was probably of one-thirty-second part African descent, was found to be legally white and therefore not guilty of miscegenation. Race, class, and gender issues influenced the legal examination of his status, just as they inform Bynum's careful analysis. |
| Quote: | Civil War History 49.1 (2003) 72-74
Whatever the true relationship between Newt and Rachel, it is clear that the older children of the two intermarried beginning about 1878, thereby giving rise to a mixed-race community in Jones County that endures to this day. The ambiguous racial identities in the county were illuminated in 1948 when Davis Knight, a great-grandson of Rachel Knight, was convicted of violating the anti-miscegenation laws then on the books in Mississippi because he had married a white woman two years before. Although his conviction was overturned by the state supreme court, the case illustrates the complexity of the family relationships that resulted from the interracial unions inaugurated by Knight and his black paramour.
Bynum, who clearly sympathizes with Knight and his company of anti-Confederates, contends that the Civil War dissident has been stigmatized unfairly by his postwar defiance of racial customs. If he was not quite the Robin Hood figure depicted by his son, Thomas J. Knight, in a 1935 biography, he was certainly not the villainous traitor described by his segregationist grandniece, Ethel Knight, in what the author terms her "damning biography" published in 1951 (3). Rather, he was something of an heroic figure, whose unconventional personal conduct has forever tarnished his image. |
http://renegadesouth.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/the-multiracial-knight-women-during-the-20th-century/
http://renegadesouth.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/an-american-family-the-multiracial-knight-community/
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victoria bynum
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Joined: 24 Jan 2009
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| Posted: Tue 03 Feb 2009 18:59 Post subject: Biracial children |
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Zsana, you make an important point; I agree that there's something strange in the first place about a person linking up with someone they don't want their children to look "too much" like.
Powell, thank you for the warm welcome to this site.
Victoria Bynum |
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fwsweet
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Joined: 26 Nov 2004
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Location: Palm Coast, FL
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| Posted: Tue 03 Feb 2009 19:07 Post subject: |
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| Perhaps we could persuade MixedMom to re-tell the story of her friend unknowingly meeting MixedMom's husband and daughter at the supermarket. I fell off my chair laughing. |
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gemini072
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Joined: 27 Nov 2004
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| Posted: Wed 04 Feb 2009 02:38 Post subject: |
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| zsana wrote: | SMH...
As the mother of two biracial sons who take very much after my German husband - with a little bit of me peaking through as well - I found that piece to be very disturbing and borderline racist on multiple counts that I'd rather not delve into.
Towards the end of the article however, IMO it does seem she's being a little more level headed and egalitarian.
I hope so for her son and husbands sake.
Point blank, if a black woman can't fully accept without serious reservation/fear/nervousness the possibility that her child may look very much non black and if a white woman can't fully deal with the possibility of a very much non white appearanced child, they shouldn't be procreating "interracially" to begin with.
This extra "stress" that some women appear to be experiencing can be virtually eliminated. At least greatly reduced.
Staying with "your own kind" (same "race"/complexion/features/hair-type) lessons the chance of having children that apparently create such confusion/apprehension in some mothers. And fathers I assume.
Just my POV.
Very Interesting article. |
Good points Zsana, and there are still a lot of people who marry someone of another ethnic group with prejudices and stereotypes. I have a cousin who was dating a 'white' girl and she would call him the N word when she would get mad. Of course he finally left her because of it.
Sometimes it seems people have sex with 'others' out of curiosity will still harboring racialist ideas. Look at Strom Thurman.
One of the biggest jokes concerning ultra Black racialists is that they'll date or lay with a white woman in a minute.
I wonder do women tend to be more concerned with how the interracial child will look than men? |
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Famu
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Joined: 27 Sep 2007
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| Posted: Thu 05 Feb 2009 04:52 Post subject: |
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| As a black woman, I would at first be apprehensive if I had a child that appeared completely white, because I don't want to be mistaken for the nanny or the caretaker (again). I'm just being realistic. |
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fwsweet
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| Posted: Thu 05 Feb 2009 11:50 Post subject: |
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| Famu wrote: | | As a black woman, I would at first be apprehensive if I had a child that appeared completely white, because I don't want to be mistaken for the nanny or the caretaker (again). |
That happens to my daughter-in law all the time. I guess she must get used to it. |
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sagascend
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| Posted: Thu 05 Feb 2009 12:13 Post subject: |
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| Famu wrote: | | As a black woman, I would at first be apprehensive if I had a child that appeared completely white, because I don't want to be mistaken for the nanny or the caretaker (again). I'm just being realistic. |
This happened to a good friend of mine when her son was a baby. She lives in the Southwest so not only did she get the nanny comments from Anglos, she also got it from Mexican Americans. She was even propositioned for nanny services by someone at the mall. 
My cousin also has two kids who are very fair, and she is very dark. Her children look souther European. I'll have to ask her whether anyone has ever thought she was not the mother of her children, especially since she lives in a very nice area of Atlanta.
Personally, I would have a very hard time staying civil if someone so ignorant made these assumptions. I imagine some fathers might feel the same way if they are very fair and their kids come out looking more like a dark mom. |
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Powell
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| Posted: Thu 05 Feb 2009 14:20 Post subject: Mothers and Nannies |
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| The people who make the "nanny" assumptions are ignorant because of our educational system. Weren't we all told at some point that "dark" genes always overwhelm "light" genes? Weren't we all told at some point that SSA genes are the strongest in the world and Euro genes the weakest? Weren't we all told at some point that the offspring of a "white" and a "nonwhite" parent will look totally like the latter? Unless people have personal experience to the contrary, they will operate on the assumption that what they were taught is true. |
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fwsweet
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| Posted: Thu 05 Feb 2009 14:49 Post subject: Re: Mothers and Nannies |
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| Powell wrote: | | Weren't we all told...? |
I, for one, was never told those things. Even to a child they are obviously counterfactual. |
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OTHER
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| Posted: Thu 05 Feb 2009 15:35 Post subject: |
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I was never taught those things in an educational setting, but there are definitely Americans who still believe and propagate that line of thinking. I don't think people, and even kids, make the connection they ought to make based on reality. I had a White female student share that she's sure her future baby with her Mexican boyfriend will come out looking Mexican since Mexican genes are stronger than White genes. This was shared in a Discussion Board forum on the topic of Genetics and Heredity in an introductory Biology class. Of course, I did clarify, but who knows how many others believe such nonsense.
Another example of how the wrong conclusions can be drawn - I had a young student (teenager) who assumed that blue eye color was a dominant trait based on the prevalence of blue eyes in the people he knew. 
Unfortunately, people still rely too heavily on whatever they think is true based on word of mouth and cursory observations. That's much easier than paying attention to what actually IS true.  |
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fwsweet
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| Posted: Thu 05 Feb 2009 16:23 Post subject: |
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| OTHER wrote: | | I had a young student (teenager) who assumed that blue eye color was a dominant trait based on the prevalence of blue eyes in the people he knew. |
This is a pet peeve of mine. HS biology should not use Mendel's terms "dominant" and "recessive." At best they make it sound like the genes fight it out for control. At worst it makes students mis-remember that blue eyes must be "dominant" because two brown-eyed parents can have a blue-eyed child. Instead, they should teach that when one copy of a gene fails to work as in the ancestral (e.g.: brown iris), the other copy can sometimes pick up the slack. But when both fail, the deficiency becomes visible.
Last edited by fwsweet on Thu 05 Feb 2009 21:56; edited 1 time in total |
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gemini072
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| Posted: Thu 05 Feb 2009 18:53 Post subject: Re: Mothers and Nannies |
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| Powell wrote: | | The people who make the "nanny" assumptions are ignorant because of our educational system. Weren't we all told at some point that "dark" genes always overwhelm "light" genes? Weren't we all told at some point that SSA genes are the strongest in the world and Euro genes the weakest? Weren't we all told at some point that the offspring of a "white" and a "nonwhite" parent will look totally like the latter? Unless people have personal experience to the contrary, they will operate on the assumption that what they were taught is true. |
Actually last week I was talking with a coworker (27 white male:rural/suburbs) We were talking about Obama and ended up on identification.
He said mixed people will identify as black because the black genes are dominate. I said that's not true and he went on to explain that you can see 'black' mixture more than the white. |
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onlyhuman77
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Location: Harlem, NYC
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| Posted: Thu 05 Feb 2009 19:15 Post subject: Re: Mothers and Nannies |
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| gemini072 wrote: | | Powell wrote: | | The people who make the "nanny" assumptions are ignorant because of our educational system. Weren't we all told at some point that "dark" genes always overwhelm "light" genes? Weren't we all told at some point that SSA genes are the strongest in the world and Euro genes the weakest? Weren't we all told at some point that the offspring of a "white" and a "nonwhite" parent will look totally like the latter? Unless people have personal experience to the contrary, they will operate on the assumption that what they were taught is true. |
Actually last week I was talking with a coworker (27 white male:rural/suburbs) We were talking about Obama and ended up on identification.
He said mixed people will identify as black because the black genes are dominate. I said that's not true and he went on to explain that you can see 'black' mixture more than the white. |
People like that need to see the photo albums of Caucasians who are from MGM families and their eyes will be opened to just how indisitinguishable a Caucasian from an MGM family can be from a Caucasian that claims they have 100% European heritage. |
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gemini072
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| Posted: Thu 05 Feb 2009 20:23 Post subject: Re: Mothers and Nannies |
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| onlyhuman77 wrote: | | gemini072 wrote: | | Powell wrote: | | The people who make the "nanny" assumptions are ignorant because of our educational system. Weren't we all told at some point that "dark" genes always overwhelm "light" genes? Weren't we all told at some point that SSA genes are the strongest in the world and Euro genes the weakest? Weren't we all told at some point that the offspring of a "white" and a "nonwhite" parent will look totally like the latter? Unless people have personal experience to the contrary, they will operate on the assumption that what they were taught is true. |
Actually last week I was talking with a coworker (27 white male:rural/suburbs) We were talking about Obama and ended up on identification.
He said mixed people will identify as black because the black genes are dominate. I said that's not true and he went on to explain that you can see 'black' mixture more than the white. |
People like that need to see the photo albums of Caucasians who are from MGM families and their eyes will be opened to just how indisitinguishable a Caucasian from an MGM family can be from a Caucasian that claims they have 100% European heritage. |
True, I told him that what he is actually saying/doing is he recognizes the person has 'black' admixture and it stands out more 'to him' than recognizing the non-black admixture.
I used Vanessa Williams for example, I told him she has just as much recognizable Euro admixture as she does black. Outside of anything else her blue eyes are probably the first thing that catches your attention.
The other thing I said to him was if black admixture is more dominate then how is it that both Vanessa & her brother have blue eyes and the parent don't. |
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onlyhuman77
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| Posted: Thu 05 Feb 2009 21:08 Post subject: Re: Mothers and Nannies |
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| gemini072 wrote: | | onlyhuman77 wrote: | | gemini072 wrote: | | Powell wrote: | | The people who make the "nanny" assumptions are ignorant because of our educational system. Weren't we all told at some point that "dark" genes always overwhelm "light" genes? Weren't we all told at some point that SSA genes are the strongest in the world and Euro genes the weakest? Weren't we all told at some point that the offspring of a "white" and a "nonwhite" parent will look totally like the latter? Unless people have personal experience to the contrary, they will operate on the assumption that what they were taught is true. |
Actually last week I was talking with a coworker (27 white male:rural/suburbs) We were talking about Obama and ended up on identification.
He said mixed people will identify as black because the black genes are dominate. I said that's not true and he went on to explain that you can see 'black' mixture more than the white. |
People like that need to see the photo albums of Caucasians who are from MGM families and their eyes will be opened to just how indisitinguishable a Caucasian from an MGM family can be from a Caucasian that claims they have 100% European heritage. |
True, I told him that what he is actually saying/doing is he recognizes the person has 'black' admixture and it stands out more 'to him' than recognizing the non-black admixture.
I used Vanessa Williams for example, I told him she has just as much recognizable Euro admixture as she does black. Outside of anything else her blue eyes are probably the first thing that catches your attention.
The other thing I said to him was if black admixture is more dominate then how is it that both Vanessa & her brother have blue eyes and the parent don't. |
Vanessa Williams is a good example but I would of used Wentorth Miller since he has a Euro-mixed Caucasian mother and an MGM father yet Hollywood has not pigeon held him to only playing African American roles because of his father's ancestry.
People don't look at Wentwork Miller and see African American, they see Caucasian or racial ambiguity. If they can see more African than Caucasian when they look at Wentworth Miller they may not be working with a full deck.
Last edited by onlyhuman77 on Sat 07 Feb 2009 05:17; edited 1 time in total |
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Powell
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