What Will Her Baby "Be"?

I keep thinking about a conversation I had on Wednesday with a dear friend who's pregnant. This is the friend I'm going to knit the baby blanket for, but to preserve her anonymity, I'll call her... Martha. How's that for a nice, anonymous name?

Martha is like me. She's also half black and half Irish, and, like me, identifies as being both black and biracial. Despite both being told at various times in our lives that we talk "white" or act "white", neither of us have ever identified as white. We like being black and neither of us is totally crazy.

No wait, that's not true! A dozen years ago on an American Airlines flight out of Birmingham, Alabama, I told my seat mate that I was white. He was an older white gentleman who chose to try to strike up the, "I'll bet your people are just so proud of that Barack Obama Tiger Woods, aren't ya?" conversation.

"What do you mean?" I replied.

"Y'know. 'Cause he's a black fella playing golf. Not to many of y'all black folks playing golf, now are there?" I remember he laughed and slapped his knee.

That's when my 23 year-old sort-of-crazy self decided to say, "Yeah... Tiger's great. As a white woman, I admire everything he's accomplished. It's amazing."

You can imagine how that stopped the laughter. "Whadda ya mean? You're not a white woman! Just look at yerself!"

I gave him my best, OMG, how could you say that I'm not white, I'm sooo shocked look, and said to the man, "Well, my daddy's white and you know, according to the old European patrilineal descent laws, that means I'm white." Then I calmly gave him my dazzling "How ya like me now!" smile.

He pushed the flight attendant button and asked to have his seat changed.

And that's the only time I've ever told someone that I'm white. Doing so in this country is completely unacceptable. We like our one drop rule here and it keeps us comfortable because that's the way it's always been. Black is black, as folks like to say.

In case someone takes me bringing all this up as a sign that I want to be white because of deeply ingrained self-hate, nooo, that's not the case. I just find how we rub along with these man-made racial definitions pretty fascinating and sometimes I like to push buttons just to see what happens. Plus, I've never "bought" that acknowledging and loving my Irish heritage means that I don't want to be black. Gosh, we're brainwashed, aren't we?

Anyway, my girlfriend, Martha, got married late last year to an awesome guy who's also Irish. They came out from NYC for a quick visit this week and of course we got to talking about the baby. She started telling me how she's thinking a whole lot lately about what the baby's going to look like and of course, this led to a conversation about race and what's the baby going to be identified as. "Be", as in, what race the baby is going to be.

Some people might think it's a silly thing to think about because a pregnant woman should just be thinking about delivering a healthy baby, but, again, this is America. We have race on the brain all the time, as evidenced by the fact that we're once more living in the days of the never ending discussion about whether or not Obama's actually black, even though he self-identifies as black.

Martha's going to have a baby that's essentially 3/4 Irish and 1/4 Grenadian. Clearly the baby's going to navigate it's own identity, but what does Martha do as a mother when she'll be required to "assign" an identity to her child? Or when other folks try to assign that identity? Does she adhere to the one drop rule which says that one drop of black blood equals black? Does she go old-school and say that her baby is a quadroon? Does she say that the baby is bi-racial, or does she say that her baby is white?

I think Martha's leaning toward seeing her baby as being black. And indeed, to claim blackness is something to be proud of, even if, sadly enough, it really isn't seen as something desirable in our culture. But, Martha was also talking about how, depending on what the baby looks like, she can see it going around saying, "I'm black!" and getting some crazy stares. We both know folks who have experienced this, folks who strongly identify as black, despite looking "white". Yeah, those are the folks who usually get told fun stuff like that they only claimed to be black so they could get an admissions edge at college.

Thinking about all this feels like trying to make sense out of system that's insane. I told Martha how the baby will have to find its own way, carve out its own identity, but that ultimately, the baby's "race" is going to be the least important thing about it when it's born. It's going to be a beautiful baby because it'll be loved and cherished.

But really, I don't have any easy answers for all this. Do you? What do you think?

It's Not The Color Of Your Skin, But The Depths Of Your Spirit That Counts

I began replying to a quite heart-felt comment left this morning by Dr. D. on my post I wrote a few days ago, entitled Black Celebration...Sort Of. Except, my comment was turning into a rather lengthy response. Ok, a really long response. What can I say, I'm on vacation and I have time to mull these things over in-depth. So I decided to post my reply here instead of in the comment box:

Dear Dr. D. (and everyone else too),

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your thoughts! I hear you and believe me, I know that the labels we use to identify ourselves are completely fabricated. You are right to raise the question, what is being white and what is being black? Sometimes I talk to people who don't even know that white people in the new world weren't even called white till after 1680. They don't know there was a legal process of deciding whether folks from southern and eastern Europe were white. Likewise, I meet folks who don't know black people weren't always called black. Regardless of background, we don't know our history and how developing racial classifications was a necessity for keeping the legitimacy of slavery and Jim Crow. Yes, all the terms we use so freely, that I use every day, were designed in order to deny the humanity of entire groups of people and keep us divided.

As for me, I think about how the baby of the white master and the black slave woman had to be black. If not, that would mess up the nice neat racial divisions put in place. So, if I live in a country where having one drop of black blood makes you black, and it's been that way for hundreds of years, it's really hard to go around claiming to be something else. Sure, it provides an incentive to do it, a drive to mess up the little system that's been put into place. But, given that in the African-American community there is historical legacy of people who are blond and blue eyed identifying as black, people who had some great great great great great great grandparent who was black, how can I be around black people and say that I'm not black?

If I do that, many black people, including those in my mother's family, are going to diss me. If I do that, people will say I don't have black pride, that I'm trying to get away from being black, that I'm ashamed of my background. Do I worry about what people will say? Sometimes. Do I worry it might be taken as a desire to not be black because in America, being black is seen as less desirable, less beautiful, less intelligent, less capable, lazier, more threatening, more criminal, and on and on and on. Do I want to claim both my identities in order to mess with the system? Oh yes. Indeed. Are either of those my true identity? No.

Undoubtedly, we are all truly spiritual beings housed in a physical existence. I certainly need to work more on developing my spiritual side. Yet that spiritual path has to be walked with practical feet. Sure, I don't want to let society tell me how to categorize myself, but what I want and what happens are two entirely different things. I don't know how it works in other countries, like in the UK for example, but here on a formal level, when I go to fill out any government form, I have to check a box that asks me to indicate what race I am. I have often had the box checked for me and, just to be difficult, I've asked government officials in both Chicago and Los Angeles how exactly it is that they decided to check black for me instead of, for example, Hispanic. I'm not Latina, but I like to poke holes in those dumb forms just to mess with the officials. I never considered asking why was it that in Chicago or LA the officials decided by just looking at me that I wasn't Hispanic till after I lived in Harlem. You see, in New York City, I was always taken as either Dominican or Puerto Rican. Especially because I wore my hair curly all the time. People there sometimes got upset with me because they thought I was trying to deny my Latin roots. It was a new perspective to consider. I asked myself how could all these people look exactly like me but not be black? How come they got to identify as Latino and if they lived somewhere else, like Chicago, would that, "I'm not black, I'm Dominican" thing even fly?

Another experience you make me think of is from five or six years ago. I sat next to a white man on a flight from Chicago to Birmingham, Alabama. No big deal there but twenty minutes into it, I was pretty fed up after he asked me, "Do you watch golf? You know, Tiger Woods really is a credit to your race."

I was really offended but wanted to be polite so I merely answered back that I did not watch golf. The man replied to me, "That's too bad. He's such an example of what black people can become if they just try."

I'm sure he was just trying to be sociable and friendly in his way, but I wasn't having it. The sass in me came out and I told him I really wouldn't know anything about being black since I was white. Wish you could have seen his mouth fall open as I explained, "After all, my father is white and I believe in going according to European patrilineal descent laws." He got really quiet. Five minutes later, he asked the flight attendant if he could have his seat changed.

An interesting read on why we're so messed up in America on this who's black and who isn't issue is a text by F.J. Davis called, "The Nation's Rule: Who is Black?" Click here to read an excerpt from it. I definitely think you'll find it interesting if you haven't already read it before.

Part of the article talks about a woman named Susie Guillory whose passport application was rejected because she'd checked the white box on the passport application. Turns out, Susie, who never knew she had black relatives, had been delivered by a nurse who knew her Louisiana family's history and checked the black box on Susie's birth certificate. Susie was only 1/32nd black, meaning several generations beforehand, she'd had a black relative. She was married to a white man and she sued the government because she didn't want to be black and wanted her birth certificate changed. She lost her case.

Sure, all that one drop rule craziness is man-made bullshit. Most black Americans truly cannot say that they don't have a white relative somewhere in their family tree. And yet we call ourselves black. Can all the "white" Americans like Susie, people who think they are "pure" Mayflower or Ellis Island white, really be so sure that they don't have a black ancestor in their family past?

Of course, on the one hand, the whole discussion is stupid because we are all one human family and are all connected anyway. On the other hand, it matters so much. My two sons are at least 1/4 white, but they are black. Sure they may have a white grandfather and a great-grandmother who was one of those 1/32nd black people, and another great grandmother who was part Native American, but according to the way things work here, they're black. If I tell them otherwise, I am not preparing them for what America has in store for them.

People may say my boys are cute now but I know that in ten years when my two sons are teenagers, if things stay the same in America, there are a whole lot of people who will be afraid of them just because they are black males. If things don't change, they'll be getting pulled over by the police. They'll have teachers that will assume they aren't smart. Yes, I am raising them to center their identity on their spiritual inheritance, not their racial or ethnic heritage. But the general world around me does not do the same.

We're pretty unique here in America given our depths of racial craziness but I believe we set a tone for the world in this. Therefore, we have an incredibly important responsibility to take the lead in eradicating this insanity. We can tell folks in the Sudan to stop what they are doing but they know that here in America, we are no model of racial and ethnic unity. Sure, there are definitely shining examples of unity. Certainly, within the Baha'i community that I grew up in back in Chicagoland and the one here in LA, I felt there was genuine love, trust and friendliness regardless of race or ethnicity. It's a community where race matters in a positive sense, not in a negative one. It's a community that is focuses less on terminology and more on the transformation of the heart. Truly, none of this changes if we don't change our hearts.

Last thing I'll say is that you also make me think about how I've told many teachers I've worked with here in Los Angeles that they have to teach their students in Compton and Watts, and every single other poor black and Latino neighborhood of Los Angeles, like those kids are going to grow up and marry their own children. To me, that's the ultimate test of commitment to fostering bonds of fellowship, love and friendship amongst people from diverse backgrounds. But that's a whole other topic.

Thank you, Dr. D. for sparking all these thoughts. I think about this stuff all the time and truly believe with more open and honest dialogue and some accompanying action, we can create a different future. Certainly, your thoughts and contributions are a part of that in your corner of the globe.

Black Celebration...Sort Of

You ever catch one of your "mixed" friends having a bad day? You know, your friend, the kid with one black parent and one white parent, slumped on the floor, sobbing into the edge of the bedspread, "All the black kids tease me because I'm mixed and all the white kids hate me because I'm black! I have no friends!"

Even if you don't realize your half white/half black friends have done that, they have. You just may not have been privy to that particular sob-fest. They were probably just doing what I call "one drop rule" math...

black mom + white dad = black child

white mom + black dad = black child

If you genuinely don't have any "mixed" friends to talk with about this math, go find some. We're everywhere these days. In the meantime, I'll share a bit of my experience with you.

Yes, growing up the white kids called me nigger and told me I was ugly. The black kids, well, black people in this country are trained to love them some light skin (seen any darker women in hip-hop videos lately? Ever?) so they wouldn't call me ugly. But, the meaner ones would call me "oreo". I'm assuming you know why the white kids would call me what they did, but I realize you may not be privy to the whole oreo lexicon.

Observe the photo. An oreo is black on the outside...and white on the inside. How could I be white on the inside, you ask?

Well, unfortunately, black kids in this country are trained to believe that doing well in school and being whip smart is "acting white". I was a big nerd. Nerdy enough to skip a grade in school. Nerdy enough to take the SAT in 7th grade and get a 1320. Plus, there were almost never any black students in any of my classes. Schools have this culture where academics=whiteness. You think back to your own honors and AP classes. How many black students were there in there? Not too many and I hope you don't think that's because of some inherent lack of ability. If you do, feel free to come to work with me to see what I see every single day. I get to see how black students aren't put on the college bound, AP track in school. Believe me, they are put on the step-n-fetchit track...and it's now my job to make sure they are taken off it.

To enhance the "mixed-girl" nerdiness, my parents were also super strict and never let me out of the house. I'm not kidding. Once school let out, no one saw me all summer. I spent my summers pulling weeds in our backyard and reading 700 page novels in one sitting. The summer between my junior and senior year in high school, I decided to read a book a day, just to see if I could. I read Dracula once a week for years. You've read Dracula before, sure. But 217 times? Yes, not only was I "mixed" but I was also pretty darn weird.

To foster my ascendancy from merely a "weird mixed girl" to an "ultra weird mixed girl", let's not forget the icing on the cake: house music and Depeche Mode. Every other black kid was drooling over Prince, New Edition, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson (before he tried to purposefully turn himself into the weird mixed kid) and Ready For The World. Not me. I was staying up all night listening to the Hot Mix 5 on WBMX and dreaming of marrying my favorite house DJ, Julian Jumpin' Perez.

I was busy scribbling Depeche Mode lyrics into my notebooks and was actually dumb enough to ask other black kids if they listened to them. "To who?" was the usual response. To give folks credit, 75% the white kids I knew only listened to hair metal bands like Def Leppard and didn't know who Depeche Mode was either. High school was tough. Like you, it wasn't till I left home for college, that I finally felt like I met people who were my friends despite all my weird quirks. Even though there were those who still called me an oreo every once in awhile, it was all good because I was having a whole lot of fun in life.

You'd think these issues of identity and feeling like the weird oreo mixed girl would evaporate now that I'm a grown woman, right? Yeah, I thought that too. But, last night, I had this dream where I decided to invite a black woman I like but who I don't know super well to my birthday party, happening next Friday. The conversation in the dream went something like this:

Liz: Yeah, I'm so excited about my party next Friday. I hope you can come.

Anonymous Black Woman: Oh. Where are you having it?

L: At my apartment. It's going to be a Depeche Mode themed party. I'm calling it "Black Celebration" after their fifth album.

ABW: Who?

L (oblivious to ABW's confusion and thinking she just can't hear me due to poor cell phone reception): Depeche Mode. So, everyone has to wear black but eyeliner on men is completely optional.

The response was silence.

Then, in the dream, all those feelings I thought I'd left behind came rushing to the forefront. I started to wonder if ABW was thinking, "Yep, Liz is a really still a weird mixed girl and I don't know if I want to be down with this." I started to explain that Depeche Mode's songwriter and sometime singer, Martin Gore, has a black father. "So, Depeche Mode, they're kinda black, you know." I start to elaborate on how I am working to close the education achievement gap. I remember saying, "Hey my husband is black and I have black kids." So please love me for being black, right?

None of it mattered. I still got called that name in the dream. ABW said it loudly, like it was on a world-wide intercom, "I knew it, you are an OREO!!! You aren't really black!"

Obviously, sticks and stones and all that. I know I'm not an oreo. I've always tried to avoid living my life ruled by our society's arbitrary meters of blackness or of whiteness. But I am left with a question. What does the dream mean and have I secretly been over-compensating in certain areas of my life for maybe not feeling quite black enough?