Re: What do you think about multiracial children?
Taken from a reasoning on Africa Speaks Reasoning Forum
The thread for this reasoning is linked here
Posted by Erzulie
February 01, 2005
Peace all.
I think that there is absolutely nothing problematic about a Black person, and more particularly a Black woman, asserting that she understands this current fixation on multiculturalism to be a false and dangerous paradigm. Black women and our perspectives are often silenced, excluded and abandoned when people start talking about the wonders of multiculturalism. More importantly, Black women who understand biracial progeny involving those of African descent as most often existing in relation to the projected demise of Black women's dignity, beauty and voice as the white supremacist aesthetics and values are still entrenched in the minds of many people globally, should not be demonized especially in Black safe places such as this.
Also, Black women are wise in maintaining a discerning approach to light skinned biracial folks as it is often probable that their allegiance to Black empowerment may be unsettled and inconsistent. Those of us sisters who are activists-by whatever definition-should be careful not to drain ourselves with political fence sitters and spirit parasites. Self-honouring and self-defense strategies employed by exploited people is never bigotry from this standpoint. Even biracial children (of Black men and non-Black women), as innocent as they may be, have often been conditioned already to relate to Black women in overly needy or disparaging ways. This can be very tiring and/or hurtful though often very subtle. This has been my experience. This is not to mention the absurdly strained relations between Black women and the Black men engaged in relations with non-Black women. There is overwhelming silence about this pain of rejection as Black women are often pushed to appear strong and unaffected by this growing preference for white femininity by Black men. By extension we become the bitchy ones when we express our feelings and our analysis of this trope of white supremacy.
As a woman of the African Diaspora, I am quite aware that most of us Black folks on this side of the Atlantic have European, Native, Latino etc foreparents. However, my everyday life as a dark-skinned woman does not reflect the creolization of my bloodlines nor serve me any privileges as marked by the colour hierarchy. Whatever the case, this (often forced) hybridity may not be the case for other peoples who lived outside the brutal chaos of the slave trade that shaped the so-called New World. Thus I cannot speak for the genetic makeup of Africans on the continent especially when most of my information would come from Western sources infected with their own agendas. Instead of thinking that we can always school African peoples on their his/herstory perhaps we should consider how in step we are with white supremacy in assuming their ignorance and when we do not question and deconstruct the knowledge of the West.
Posted: Sat 16 Apr 2005 17:02 Post subject: Re: Artcle: Black Wmn:\"Multiracialsm should be seen to be False\"
Quote:
More importantly, Black women who understand biracial progeny involving those of African descent as most often existing in relation to the projected demise of Black women's dignity, beauty and voice as the white supremacist aesthetics and values are still entrenched in the minds of many people globally, should not be demonized especially in Black safe places such as this.
This paragraph is very poorly written. I guess this paragraph can be condensed into the following sentence:
Black women who are insecure about part black biracials should not be demonized on their site.
Racist ideology does beguile the black woman of her dignity and beauty. The One Drop Rule, which is part of this racist thinking, is the tool being used to justify placing the image of the Mulattress as the preferred representation of Black womanhood. Yet this whole article promotes the ODR, while demonizing the multiracials who want to embrace both sides of their family.
Quote:
Even biracial children (of Black men and non-Black women), as innocent as they may be, have often been conditioned already to relate to Black women in overly needy or disparaging ways.
This is a blanket statement. Perhaps some of these children are but not all. I think this statement reveals more black (female) insecurity. This is the mindset that sets the white woman as the black woman's nemesis. All of the misgivings that black women with this mindset have about white women are now placed on white women's children. You can reasonably expect family loyalty from children to their mothers. I wouldn't want to keep company with an individual who I just don't relate to or habitually makes indirect, negative statements about my mother. I knew a white woman who married a black man. When her daughter 's hair became too much of a challenge, my friend gladly asked her black female friends for help and pointers. I doubt that my friend is teaching her children to mistrust black women. Halle Berry's white mother told her that she was a black person with a white mother. Ms. Berry sees herself as a black woman and there she is, representing the beauty of "black" womanhood. Now, we're back to the point that I made earlier.
Quote:
As a woman of the African Diaspora, I am quite aware that most of us Black folks on this side of the Atlantic have European, Native, Latino etc foreparents. However, my everyday life as a dark-skinned woman does not reflect the creolization of my bloodlines nor serve me any privileges as marked by the colour hierarchy.
As a tan multiracial of the African Diaspora, European Diaspora, and these people's encounter with the Native Americans my everyday life as light skinned woman does reflect the creolization of my bloodlines and I have been favored over darker people as a child and as an adult.
Quote:
Whatever the case, this (often forced) hybridity may not be the case for other peoples who lived outside the brutal chaos of the slave trade that shaped the so-called New World. Thus I cannot speak for the genetic makeup of Africans on the continent especially when most of my information would come from Western sources infected with their own agendas. Instead of thinking that we can always school African peoples on their his/herstory perhaps we should consider how in step we are with white supremacy in assuming their ignorance and when we do not question and deconstruct the knowledge of the West.
Present day biracials for the most part are not the result of slave rape. Some have strong family ties to their white relatives. I've never seen this admitted in a black publication though.
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