For Bi-racial and Black baby dolls, Big Lots, it is

They even have curly hair!

Apparently, Big Lots stocks the most variety for baby dolls with different shades of brown skin. I've mentioned on my blog before my annoyance with all the big stores, HEB, Target, and Walmart, for not stocking baby dolls with skin shades other than White.

I found one of Annika's first Bi-racial baby dolls at a Big Lots in Michigan. 

Most of the time, general stores, like HEB, Walmart, and Target have absolutely zero Black dolls other than Barbies and if they stock Bratz dolls, they usually have a few Latina or Blasian dolls. Those types of dolls (Barbies and Bratz, not Latina and Blasian) piss me off for a variety of other reasons, having nothing to do with color and more to do with the sexual nature of playthings for small children who are not supposed to have sexual desires yet. But that's a whole other topic folks. 

Tonight I stopped in at the Big Lots (for Austinites, William Cannon and I-35 store) to pick up a couple of things. As usual, when I am in any store that carries toys, and I'm by myself, I browse the toy aisles, getting ideas for presents and seeing if there is anything on sale.

Let me tell ya folks, (and no, I am not getting paid to write this) Big Lots had quite a nice variety of Brown baby dolls. The best thing was that they had a variety of Brown-skinned dolls.

It wasn't so much, "Oh wow, they actually have a Black or Brown skinned baby doll." It was, "Damn, they have so many I have to choose which one I want."

That never happens folks.

So, big plug tonight for Big Lots. If you're in Austin and wanting a dark-skinned baby doll, head on over. They have several to choose from.

I bough two for Christmas. Pretty. Damn. Happy.

My epic parenting failure, or, Hey, have you seen my little Black girl? Do I get a do over?

I had a huge ah ha moment late last week after my last post on race, where I talked about how I have avoided calling Annika "Black."

For all my thinking on the topic of race, my education, my professional experience, my friendships, and my discussions with Toyin, I thought I had figured this one out. But I realized that I was doing exactly what the research says is a big no no. My avoidance of calling Annika a Black girl is exactly not what I should not be doing.

In NurtureShock, the research shows that White parents who avoid discussing race, thinking that will make their children colorblind to skin tones, actually achieve the opposite effect. Children can clearly see that other people have different skin colors. Just like anything they are curious about, they want to talk about it with their parents. But the avoidance of discussion sends the message that it's not okay, which sends the message that Black people are not okay. The authors of NurtureShock found that parental avoidance of skin color discussions sent the message to their children that they did not like Black people.

I thought that since I had discussed our skin colors with her that was enough. I thought that my willingness to talk about race with her would open us to conversations throughout her life. But children pick up on subtleties that we don't even think about. There is power in what is not said.

The thought that I might have sent any negative message to Annika about her skin color worries me. I think she's still too young to have picked up anything that complex. But then again, I don't know. She amazes me constantly with her new remarks and thoughts. Just last week she has started to say, "Mama, I got an idea."

Holy crap! You've got ideas??? When did that happen?

So, even though I knew that having a Black daughter would open me up to various viewpoints throughout her childhood, I thought I was on the right track. I had heard over and over, my Black friends saying that it was tiring to always be labeled, "The Black guy/woman." But those viewpoints were coming from adults who understand the complexity of human language and thought behind it. They've already figured out their racial identity.

After I wrote that post, I thought, "hmmm, this sounds like maybe I think that there's something wrong with being Black." That's not the case at all. (Seems like that should be obvious, but what the heck.) In fact, since having Annika, I think I have become even more colorblind.

When I look at Annika, I really don't see skin color. I mean, I see it. I see her. I see that she looks the way she looks. What I mean by colorblind is that I don't assign any qualities to her based on her skin color. I don't jump to her skin color as a defining quality because I see so much about her to describe to the world. So,  the experience in the sandwich shop was a bit of a jolt to me to view Annika and myself through that colored lens, once again. I don't know why it keeps being so shocking to me that people see us that way. When I told Toyin about it, I noted that never would have happened to him, the confusion about what racial qualities his child would have. It's not like I expect everyone to notice our similarities, or even that I expect people to assume anything other than what they do. It's just surreal, to view us through a stranger's eyes, and notice the differences that I don't see.

I see Bi-racial families and children all the time now. I notice them the way I noticed pregnant women when I was pregnant. I always assume that they are blood related, not adopted, even though I know logically that some of them probably are. But then again, it's logical to assume that some homogeneous-looking families have adopted kids, yet, I don't think to wonder about that.

And as I continue to notice other families who have made the choice to love others with different skin tones than themselves and to procreate, it warms my heart to know that by the time Annika is an adult, there will be even more muted tones in the world. Not because I think there's anything wrong with purity of culture or skin tone, but because it means that the world is becoming even more colorblind, as families gain more and more colors. It's not that we won't see color, but we will see past the color because of being close to people who don't look exactly like us.

It makes me happy to think that future generations will see things differently than past generations and hopefully, when Annika is an adult, maybe it would never even occur to her that there are associations with calling her daughter or son Black. Because even if she choose to procreate with a person of lighter skin color than herself, her children (if she has any), will for sure still be Black.

Or hell, maybe we'll have come up with a new name for it by then. As long as we continue to think it's all good and we're all just people underneath our outer shells, I suppose it doesn't really matter how we label each other.

For now, though, I need to get more comfortable with saying "my Black daughter." I will use it interchangeably with Bi-racial. And even though I see all of our similarities, I suppose I need to get comfortable with the fact that most people, at least initially, won't. They will see a White woman, with a Black kid and wonder if she's adopted. Or when I shout out that I'm looking for a little kid, I should assume that most people will think I'm looking for someone with blond hair, or blue eyes.

It doesn't sadden me, in case anyone is wondering. I will never ever wish that Annika looked any differently than she does, or that we looked more alike on the surface. I see who she is, that's what really matters. But it's also important to communicate all of this to her.

So, by saying it to others, I will essentially be telling her that she's gorgeous, inside and out.

Have you seen my little Black girl?

I did it. The other day I referred to Annika as a Black girl.

I've purposely avoided referring to her as "the Black girl," or "the Black baby," when speaking to other people. I've said Bi-racial a few times, but never Black. Not to other people. I've talked to her about her skin being Brown. I've never said to her, "You're Black."

Not because there's anything wrong with saying she's Black. I've avoided it because of the point made to me by many of my Black friends who wonder why White people always use the adjective, Black, to describe all Black people. Why can't they be the person with the brown hair? Or the guy in the red shirt? Or the funny person, or whatever other adjectives we often use to describe White people?

I don't think I ever heard anybody refer to a White person as "the White guy" until I moved to Detroit and I was often in the position of being one of the few or only White people in the room.

It seemed odd to me when I heard it.

So, that is why I have avoided calling Annika, "the Black girl." If I'm describing her I'll say she has brown curly hair, or I will point out the color of her dress.

It's not that I am trying to avoid Annika thinking of herself as Black. She is Black. But defining yourself in such narrow perimeters at such an early age, I think, can lead to limits in your own brain. So we will talk about her skin color. But I don't want to subtly infer anything to her about her skin color, and have her define herself with negative stereotypes about Black people that permeate our society. She's a girl, a person, first. She happens to have dark skin. Just like I happen to have lighter brown skin. (We've already had talks about how our skin colors are just different shades of brown.)

So, back to the story. The other day I took Annika out to lunch. We were in a sandwich shop, it was loud and busy with people, but not too busy. Once we got close to being done eating, typically, she was done sitting.

She started running around the table and then, across the room. Twice I chased her down and tried to finish eating. The third time, I sat for an extra five seconds scarfing down my last bites. After all, the place wasn't big enough for her to get lost. So as she rounded the corner toward the drink machines, I didn't worry.

When I followed her, I couldn't see her. I ran in the direction that she had gone the previous two times. It was in the direction of the outside doors, two sets of heavy glass doors that she could not push open herself. I was pretty sure I could hear her giggling. Annika has a very distinctive, high-pitched, little girl giggle. But the restaurant was loud. There was music playing. People were talking. Dishes were clanking. I ran toward the door and asked a man, "Did you see a little girl wander over here?"

"A little blond girl?" he said. "Yes, she went outside."

"No, no," I said. "Not blond."

For a second my brain was clogged with a sense of urgency, and my careful avoidance of being stereotypical.

"She went outside," he said again, pointing at a family that had walked outside. "With them."

I felt about 90 percent sure that Annika had not gone outside with a family she didn't know and that he was confusing me as the mother of a White child.

Plus, I still thought I could hear her.

But I was more concerned with the fact that my 2-year-old might, just possibly, might be wandering toward a parking lot that was pushed up against two busy streets.

I ran outside.

There were some people sitting at the tables outside.

"Did you see a little Black girl run out here? She's 2." I shouted, realizing that in this moment I did not want there to be any confusion about who I was looking for.

"Nope." They answered, with confidence.

I ran back inside and headed in the direction that I would have gone had the other man not steered me outside. She was there.

I felt relief. And a little weird.

I was glad that I had been able to switch my brain toward the urgency, instead of remaining PC.

After all, stereotypes are part of our language and thought process for a reason.

Stereotypes are a throwback from cave man days when one needed to be able to size up danger quickly.

They aren't as necessary as they were then.

But I suppose they still have their place, in the right moment.

Check this box please, and deny half of your identity

When I was pregnant one of my biggest fears regarding becoming the mother of a Bi-racial child was the thought that she would identify with one half of her racial identity. I worried (for obvious reasons) that the half she identified with would not be mine, thus denying our mother/child bond.

I don't think this is an unfounded fear. In this country, if you look Black, you are Black. No matter if you are half, or one quarter, Black is Black. White is White. I'm White. As far as I know, the majority of my ancestry is British, with a little German, French and Irish, but most likely 100 percent European. Except that there was a suspicion amongst my mother's family that my great grandfather may or may not have been at least partially Native American. He was suspected of "passing." The only reason anyone thought that, though, was because he never grew facial hair. He didn't look the part and he didn't pass on any ethnic qualities to his children.

In addition to this country's history of dividing the races by color, even the Black community doesn't let Bi-racial folks get away with being a mixture of both.

It's pretty common to hear Black people make fun of Bi-racial folks, saying they aren't insert-other-half here, they're just Black. A couple of high profile Bi-racial men come to mind, our president, Barack Obama and golfer Tiger Woods.

Even though President Obama was raised by a White mother and his White grandparents, he enlisted his Black/African half while running for president.

Tiger Woods has been given a lot of shit by Black people for saying he's Cablinasian, (half Asian -- one-quarter Chinese and one-quarter Thai --, one-quarter African American, one-eighth Native American, and one-eighth Dutch) thus standing up for his Bi-racial identity. Technically, he's more Asian than anything else.

I don't blame Obama for using his skin color to get votes. Hell, he was just playing the game. And he played it well. Even though Tiger Woods is no longer America's sweetheart because he turned out to be a flawed human being, I still give him props for insisting that he not deny his Asian roots.

Now that Annika is here, my old pregnancy fears have lessened because I have started thinking about how I will talk to her about her roots and her skin color.

I think the world is more tolerant now than it was when I was growing up. And I think as Annika ages, it will become even more so. Kids today are more tolerant and open-minded than my generation. Today we have people who refuse to identify with a gender identity, people who identify with both, people who look one way and feel another.

I see racial identity following the same trends as sexual identity heading toward more gray (or should I say, tan) areas. More and more people will refuse to pick one or the other. More and more people are refusing to say they are simply one thing.

Human beings are complex to the core. Using color to identify people, is, in my opinion, just as antiquated as defining life roles and fashion choices based on a person's genitalia.

Choosing a more complex racial identity is a common thought process amongst plenty of mothers of Bi-racial children.

I was browsing a Bi-racial mom forum recently, and the topic of choosing racial identity at school caught my attention. Will my daughter feel pressured to choose a racial identity that isn't consistent with who she really is?

One mom said when she signed her daughter up for school, instead of choosing one of the pre-filled racial identities, she chose Other and wrote in Bi-racial. She was told that she was not allowed to do that and must choose only one race.

Those boxes may seem insignificant, if you fit into one of them, but if you don't, they are not boxes anymore, they are fences.

Ever since Annika was born, I've thought a lot about a boy I knew in high school.

His name was Charles. He was a Bi-racial boy being raised by a single White mother, his father was Mexican. Charles' skin was as white as snow. He had thick black hair, straight as a board. He did not speak with an accent in class. But when surrounded by his Spanish friends, he laid it on thick, using Spanish slang and affecting an accent. Even back then, I knew this kid wasn't confused. He was ashamed. I could see it in his eyes. He was defensive about anyone calling him White. He was damn proud of being a Mexican and he did all he could to make sure everyone knew he was proud of his heritage.

The only problem was, it was only part of his heritage.

I used to wonder how it made his mother feel that he was so ashamed of his White half, especially since she was the one raising him, alone. He was forced to choose. For whatever reason, he felt that his Latin roots were the better choice.

I don't see why anyone has to choose. That's not a choice I want Annika to have to make. That's like asking someone to choose between an arm or a leg. It's like asking someone to choose air or water.

It's asking someone to choose, mother or father.

In between hair is "good"

When I was a kid, I never liked my hair. It was fine and wavy, so it curled funny, but it wasn't curly. I didn't have thick, straight hair. I didn't have curly hair. It was just wavy and weird. I always wanted thick, straight hair. OR, curly hair. What I had was in between.

Being Bi-racial, it is likely that Annika will feel this way about herself on many fronts. My goal is to ensure that she doesn't feel this way about her hair. 

I've come to terms with my hair. I'm okay with it now, but I also know that it will never be the long, luscious locks I dreamed of as an adolescent and 20-something. If I had been taught how to care for my hair when I was young, I might have had the chance to make it as beautiful as I wanted it to be. The potential was there. But now I don't have the desire for those beautiful locks as deeply as I once did, nor do I have the time to keep it up. 

Annika has lovely hair. As it stands now, she has relatively "good" hair. She has nice curls, that aren't too tight. If it stays this way when she's older she will be able to straighten it without using relaxer. That's fine and dandy, if that's what she wants to do. But I don't want her to feel like she has to straighten it.

I want her to like her hair. It is beautiful, thick, curly hair. I have known plenty of curly-haired women in my lifetime and most of them have hated their hair at some point in their lives, if not for most of it. My goal is to make sure that Annika has a good relationship with her hair, understands it, cherishes it, uses it to help her feel on the outside, like the lovely person she is on the inside.

That was always my goal, but I recently watched Good Hair, a documentary by Chris Rock about the Black hair industry. Frankly, it scared me deeply. To some it might seem that I am weighing Annika's self-esteem too heavily on her hair. But I know how women work in this country. Hair is important. I want it to be a source of satisfaction for Annika, not part of her sense of worth, but a source of pride.

But this movie left me wondering if I will be fighting against destined, lifelong discontent with her hair.

See, I always knew that Black women did things to their hair that White women didn't do. I knew they used weaves and straightened it. (Sure, White women do that stuff too, but it's not as pervasive.)

What I learned from this film was the extent of the pressure Black women feel, from the rest of the world, to do that stuff to their hair.

They are deeply unhappy with the basic nature of their hair. Tight, curly, afro-like hair is not considered, "good" hair. Good hair is considered to be relaxed, wavy or straightened and silky hair.

The film focused on three areas. How women feel about their hair; where the weaves come from; and the hair dressing industry.

The documentary presents the nature of the industry where hair dressers are rock stars. These rock stars will help you have "good hair," if you can afford it.

A yearly hair show is put on to sell the latest and greatest hair products. They hold a talent portion where the most talented hair dressers show off their hair cutting skills using circus-like skills. This is just the entertainment portion of the show, designed to draw customers in. The rest of the weekend is used to hawk the latest products. These products will help you have good hair. Because, apparently, natural hair is not "good."

Interviews with celebrities who talk about their weave and being addicted to the "creamy crack" (hair relaxer) prove that even the most successful women have hair issues. Once you start relaxing your hair, it is almost impossible to stop.

Women skip paying their bills in order to afford hair weaves that cost thousands of dollars. Rock interviews men who talk about how they are not allowed to touch their woman's hair and costs them intimacy because they feel like they can't get close enough.

All of that stuff was distressing. But the most distressing part, to me, was an interview of a small group of young Black businesswomen. All of the women in the group had straightened their hair and styled it in the way Caucasian women typically do. Except one of them.

She had sisterlocks, which is hair twisted to look like dreadlocks, but neater looking.

I thought her hair was cute. I didn't think she looked any less professional than the other women.

However, the other women disagreed. They told her that they thought her hair looked messy and she looked unprofessional. She was told, by her own peers, that they couldn't imagine her sitting in a meeting with other professionals. They also agreed that if they were hiring for a job, they might not consider her because of her hair.

I don't fault those women for judging her so harshly. What scares me is that they are right -- about how other people would view her. They know better than I do how the world views them. They were simply restating the message that had been sent to them for their whole lives. 

I see things differently than the rest of the world, which can be a real pain in the ass. When I looked at that woman I saw a lovely, professional-looking, young woman. I thought she had pretty hair. But most people won't see her that way.

This isn't really about hair anyway. This is really about the message that hair sends. When a Black woman doesn't straighten her hair and chooses to wear it closer to her natural texture, it sends the message, "I refuse to conform with your standards. I am an independent and autonomous thinker. I like myself."

These kinds of messages scare people in the professional world because it means that deep down, they won't be able to fully control this person. It also means that this person might just be strong enough to rise above you. People who choose not to fully conform are threatening to society because they might not accept the status quo. They might want to make changes. And we all know how most people hate change.

When it comes down to it, this isn't really about Black hair either.

I was in high school during the 1980s. During that time, no woman, White or Black, left their hair "natural." White women permed their hair to make it curly. We all used tons and tons of product and varying combs, brushes, hot rollers, curling irons, flat irons to make us look like we were more closely related to alien life-forms than humans.

I remember the ridiculous feats I had to go through every morning when I was getting ready. Don't even get me started on how much money I spent on hairspray.

I had one friend who knew her hair was close to being "done" when her curling iron started smoking from the hairspray.

Even though I consider myself to be pretty low maintenance these days, I still color my hair. I like the way it looks. I don't feel any pressure to do it. When  I started coloring my hair, I didn't feel pressure either. It was one of those, "sure, what the hell" kind of moments when my roommate was putting some color on her hair.

But I got a lot of attention after that. So I continued. It became part of my regular routine. It became a part of myself -- this idea that my regular old self was not as lovely as this fake part.

It's something I haven't even given much thought about, until now. Now that I have a daughter, who has beautiful, natural, curly hair. Hair that will be seen by some people as messy, or ugly, or not "good."

When women are given the message that their natural features aren't beautiful, it affects self-esteem. Sure, in an ideal world we wouldn't care what other people think. But what other people think does matter. Because it affects your ability to get a job, or get a loan to buy a house, or a car. It affects your ability to prove yourself in certain situations because the first thing people see about you is your external. If they don't like what they see, they won't bother to try to see the internal you.

But you know what? The world is wrong. Black hair is beautiful. It is "good." Fuck hair relaxer that has the potential to burn your skin and blind you. Fuck hair weaves that are stolen off of Indian women during temple sacrifices.

The world is wrong. Annika has good hair. We all have good hair.

Mommies and Daddies can be different colors

I've been waiting in anticipation for opportunities to talk to Annika about race, as recommended in NurtureShock. (I know, I know, if I love it so much I should just marry the damn book.)

Last week an opportunity presented itself that just screamed for a conversation. I was pretty excited about it since the other conversations have been more like, "Hey Annika, what color is your skin? What color is Mommy's skin?"

The opportunity arose while we were playing with Annika's Little People family. I bought a house and family figures off of Craigslist. It was a White daddy, White mommy and White baby. I had mentioned to a friend that my plan was to find some Black Little People to supplement the set, so she gave me a couple of Black females from her son's toy collection since he never plays with them and wouldn't notice them missing.

I've given a lot of thought to the types of toys Annika plays with. For instance, I anguished over buying her domestic toys like a play kitchen and a toy vacuum because I wondered about the implications. I've gone out of my way to make sure that her doll collection represents more Black dolls than White. Even though she doesn't seem to care much for cars I've added some to her toy collection so that she has access to "boy" toys as well as "girl" toys. She has a huge collection of Duplos, and she has a large animal collection.

Before I had kids, I sometimes wondered why people made such a big deal about the types of toys their kids played with. For instance, the idea that Barbie gives girls poor body images, or that boys should play with cars and girls should play with dolls seemed to me like people might be over thinking the influence of their childrens' toys. But since then, I've learned that toys and play are an extraordinarily important part of a child's life. 

As I learned in Playful Parenting, (another one of my favorite parenting books) play is how children form their thoughts about the world around them.

PP's author, Lawrence J. Cohen writes, "Play is fun, but it is also meaningful and complex. The more intelligent the animal, the more it plays. Unlike slugs or trees, every human learns new things about the world, and themselves, though discovery and practice. Some of this learning just happens automatically, by virtue of being alive, but much of it happens though play."

So with that in mind, I watch how Annika plays. I knew that one of the ways we would begin to discuss race was through play. It is important to me that she has lots of play characters that reflect her own skin tones.

I purposely inserted these new characters into her Little People family because it reflects her real life, even though the skin colors are switched at the moment.

Anyway, Annika has a tendency to carry around tiny little toys and she had left the Little People mommy at Toyin's.

When she noticed that the White mommy was missing, she asked me, "Mommy, where's my mommy?" Annika calls every "my" these days, so I knew what she meant.

I decided to take the opportunity to propose to her that one of the Black female figures could play the part of the mommy. So I handed one of them to her and said, "The other mommy is at Daddy's, but you can use this one."

Her response was more ardent than I expected.

"That's not MY mommy!" She shouted, handing it back to me.

"Why can't it be the mommy?" I asked her. She looked confused by my question as if the answer was obvious.

"Is it because she doesn't look like me?" I asked, holding the girl next to my face.

"Yes Mommy," she said. 

Then I picked up the daddy figure and said, "This daddy doesn't look like your daddy," I pointed out.

She stared down at the White daddy with brown wavy hair and a sweater vest, as if she was realizing for the first time that he was very dissimilar from Toyin. After, all, he is holding a cell phone and wears glasses, there is some similarity.

"See, Annika, mommies and daddies can be any color."

"Oh!" Annika squealed.

"Do you want to use this mommy now?" I asked, handing her the Black Little People woman.

"Ok!" She said excitedly.

"See," I said. "Mommies and daddies can be all colors."

"Thass right," she said.

A glimpse in to the world of being Bi-racial

I've been reading a book called, Half and Half. It's a compilation of essays by writers who are Bi-racial and/or Bi-cultural. All of the essays are compelling. But I wanted to share part of a particular one. It is written by James McBride, who is, like Annika, half White and half Black. I won't comment on it. It speaks for itself.

"I'm a black man and I've been running all my life. Sometimes I feel like my soul just wants to jump out of my skin and run off, things get that mixed up. But it doesn't matter, because what's inside is there to stay no matter how fast you sprint. Being mixed feels like that tingly feeling you have in your nose when you have to sneeze -- you're hanging on there waiting for it to happen, but it never does. You feel completely misunderstood by the rest of the world, which is probably how any sixteen-year-old feels, except that if you're brown-skinned like me, the feeling lasts for the rest of your life..... I hate it when people see my brown skin and assume that all I care about is gospel music and fried chicken and beating up the white man. I could care less. I'm too busy trying to live.

"Once a mulatto, always a mulatto, is what I say, and you have to be happy with what you have, though in this world some places are more conducive to the survival of a black white man like me than others... Washington is a town split straight down the middle -- between white and black, haves and have-nots, light-skinned and dark-skinned -- and full of jive talkers of both colors. The blacks are embittered and expect you to love Marion Barry unconditionally. The whites expect you to be either grateful for their liberal sensibilities or a raging militant. There's no middle ground."

Learning how to chill

Several years ago when I was living in Detroit and working at a bank in Grosse Pointe Woods -- an affluent and very White suburb that juts up against Detroit's border -- I got a lesson about race that is coming in very handy right about now.

It's funny how life teaches you everything you need to know, before you need to know it.

The bank I worked for was typical in that almost all of the employees were women. However, there was a divider. It was race. At any given time, we were usually about half White and half Black, sometimes fluctuating higher on the White side.

When I first started working there, the racial divide did not strike me as very pertinent. I had worked with all various shades of people in my life. I had lived in Okinawa, Japan for three years on a U.S. Air Force base where I worked with more Japanese and Filipinos than Whites. (It seems in some areas of the world, U.S. military men have a penchant for marrying Filipinos, hence, the high number on base.) So, I believed that I had a little bit of insight as to what it was like to be a minority.

Having moved around the world and back, I had become acquainted with learning about cultural differences since I had left my small hometown of Abilene, Texas.

But in Detroit, racial tensions run high, even to this day.

When I moved to Detroit, I was a naive 26-year-old. I had had a number of friends who were of different races and skin colors, but for the most part, I was sheltered from any major racial divide growing up.

It didn't take long for me to realize the division at work. I was used to women taking sides with each other during the fights that are usually a result of a hormonal imbalance. But no matter who your friends were, the racial division was as clear as Moses parting the Red Sea when a the fight was between a White woman and a Black woman.

While living in Okinawa, my best girlfriend was a Black woman from Cleveland. In my naivete I told her once that I believed the United States had eradicated the problems with race due to affirmative action and desegregation. I informed her that with a few exceptions, for the most part, most Americans were no longer racist. She assured me, in no uncertain terms, that I was highly highly mistaken.

So, there's the background to my story.

At the time this happened, I had been working at the bank for a couple of years. One morning I was sitting in our drive through area -- a small isolated building -- with two other co-workers. One was a Black woman and the other was White.

The White woman was someone who I found particularly annoying for a variety of reasons. She had a cackling laugh. She was a know-it-all. She wasn't as smart as she liked to think she was. She told stupid jokes. Her husband was a dick, but she seemed to think he was god's gift to the world. For all of these reasons, I hated it when she began to speak.

So there I was that morning, drinking my coffee and listening to this cacophonous harpie. Somehow, she got on the topic of what ended her husband's career in the Army

Harpie: "So, yeah, my husband is not afraid to tell anyone off! He will tell you what he thinks about anything."

Me: "Really."

Harpie: "Yeah, let me tell you about why he got kicked out of the Army."

Me: "Ok."

Harpie: "Well, his commanding officer gave him an order once and he did not want to follow it. Oh, did I mention that he was Black? Yeah, his C.O. was a Black dude. And so anyway, my husband told him he was not going to take any orders from a n--ger."

(Reminder that the other co-worker sitting in the room was a Black woman.)

I froze.

I could feel my whole body tensing for the fight I was SURE was about to happen between my co-workers. I was prepared to jump to the Black co-worker's defense and if it came to it, help her make a complaint to management.

Harpie was laughing and looking at me, waiting for the laughter.

I just stared at her.

I looked up at my other co-worker. She was counting money. She continued to count. She didn't flinch. I wondered if she had not heard harpie speaking. But I knew there was no way she could not have heard.

I said nothing.

Harpie continues laughing as if it's the funniest story she's ever told and the other co-worker never said a word.

Later I asked her why she said nothing. Did she not HEAR this bitch using the N word?

She laughed and she said to me, "Martha, you can't tell ignorant people anything. The best way to deal with shit like that is to ignore it. If you let it bother you, then they have won. See, they want it to bother you."

It wasn't the only time I heard that in my years of living in Detroit. But it was the first time.

That incident stuck with me for years and I would play it over and over again in my head. At first wishing I had said something, gotten irate, complained to management myself.

Then I would hear it again from various minority friends as the years went on. I began to accept it as truth, but it still didn't resonate with me because I am used to jumping up and down and screaming for justice. I like to get passionate. I enjoy arguments and debate.

Then this week, something happened that brought this memory to the forefront of my mind. When it comes to what people believe as truth about race (really about anything) you can't tell them they are wrong. Especially when it is an innocent gesture.

You see, the harpie didn't even see what she had said was wrong.

I'm starting to have flashes of what kind of racist comments I'm going to have to shield Annika from. Most of them will not be nearly as obvious as that harpie. Most of them will not realize they have said anything wrong. Most of them will not believe they hold racist attitudes. I know the harpie didn't think of herself as a racist.

I'm realizing that I will have to start educating Annika now to listen to herself when it comes to that feeling of, "I don't know why that bothers me, but it does."

I can't leave it all up to Toyin even though he will likely have had some life experience to relate to her on that level. I don't have that.

This week a remark in an online forum led me to have a conversation with Toyin about racial attitudes. He explained to me that just because people make missteps or just don't get it, doesn't mean I should get all fired up.

We also talked about the apathy I felt last week after the nanny incident.

He said something to the effect of, "Instead of getting pissed off, maybe you should try to educate."

To which I retorted, "Why, just because I have a Bi-racial child, it's now my job to educate people?" 

To which he quietly responded, "Yes."

Oh. Right.

So, I have decided to chill out over faux pas.

I have decided that apathy is not the answer. Neither is fiery anger. Because really it's all the same.

And now, looking back, I realize that if it wasn't for all my experiences and compassionate friends who took the time to educate me, I would not have the knowledge I have today.

Apparently, I could even be the nanny

Annika got mistaken for a boy at the park the other day. I guess the fact that she was wearing a black T-shirt and blue shoes won out over her blue nail polish and turquoise pants bespeckled with butterflies.

Those kinds of mistakes just make me laugh a little. At least they are the kinds of things that pretty much happen to everybody during the infant and toddler years. Mistaking a girl for a boy or vice versa is par for the course in pretty much any culture.

That experience far outweighed the interaction I had with a woman at the same park earlier in the week.

I was swinging Annika in the toddler swings when a graying White woman approached with a little blond girl.

I looked at the little girl and said to Annika, "She looks about the same age as you, sweetie."

The woman smiled and asked Annika's age. I told her, 2. She told me the age of the child with her, 2 and change. We smiled and murmured things about how cute they were. The girls giggled in their swings.

Then she turned to me and said, "Are you the mother?"

THE mother.  Not even her mother.

"Yes," I said.

This is where you expect me to get all irate.

But I didn't.

My stomach did not turn to bile or get all twisted up in knots. It turned more to a consistency of Playdough. Lumpy. Pureed. Mushy. Bored. Trite.

I felt my face go flat with disappointment at this now mundane question. It's getting a little tiring.

Even though Annika was still laughing and shouting "Wee, wee!" I asked her if she was ready to get down.

"Baby, do you want to slide?!" I asked her all excited.

"Nooo, SWING!" was the answer I got.

I just wanted to get away from the woman, who had noted that she was in fact, the little girl's grandmother.

Like I cared.

Either she noticed my lack of interest, or she understood that she had made a mistake. After a few minutes she said, "The reason I asked you if you were her mother is because you run into a lot of nannies here too."

"Oh," was my response.

That is true. It's the only park where I see nannies.

To me, the nannies stick out as nannies. They gather together with strollers and bottles and chat with each other while the children play within a safe distance. There is a distance in their interactions with the children in their care. They lack the tenderness that you see between mothers and their children. Maybe that's something only mothers notice.

I finally got Annika off the swing under the guise that we needed to change her diaper and offered her a snack.

Anyone who is not the mother of a Bi-racial child might not really get my point here. I even hesitated to write this because I'm not even quite sure I get it, but somehow I felt this experience was an important one to share.

That feeling - that dull, soft spot that has turned so quickly from irritation to lack of interest in engaging someone who would be even slightly insensitive to our familial difference - is very new to me.

I've never been one to turn away from a debate, a fight, a dialogue. I am always the one searching for knowledge and enlightenment. My curiosity peaks at the slightest hint of something new or out of the ordinary.

But this stuff, this is not new. Not in this country.

White people who are in denial about the state of the racial divide. White people who think that because we desegregated schools, and affirmative action placed Black workers further up the ladder, and the fact that we have a Black president makes it all better, makes it all okay, makes it all -- equal.

That soft, dull feeling that I can't even begin to describe as an ache, because it doesn't ache. It is more like a tumor. That is what I imagine dark-skinned people feel every time they interact with insensitive White people. People who think that a Band-Aid makes the wound disappear.

I spent nine years living in Detroit. I cannot even begin to tell you the hatred and vitriol that divides the metropolis. It is in ingrained so deeply that most people, Blacks and Whites, don't even see it as a color issue anymore.

I spent a lot of time chatting with my Black friends in Detroit. The ones who cared enough to attempt to enlighten me, about how it feels for your feelings to be swept aside as easily as, "Oh sorry, it was an honest mistake."

But I didn't really get it until now. Or, I should say, I am feeling it. Maybe I will never really get it. But I feel something that I definitely never felt before.

It's only been two years, of slip ups and insensitive questions about the maternal bond I share with a child who is not the same color as me.

And already, I have no desire to interact with someone who can't or won't even admit the possibility - until she has hard evidence - that she might be my daughter.

If I can get to this point in two years it makes me wonder how many years this country will pay dearly for the past mistakes we made. It makes me wonder how many generations it will take to slough off the ingrained anger and indifference, on both sides.

Just like the birds and the bees, parents should talk about race

Annika has been learning her colors for some time now. She learned brown and orange pretty well several months ago For a while she confused all her colors, but in the past few weeks she's really gotten the hang of it. Since she understands now that she knows her colors, she's been excitedly pointing out the colors of things without being prodded.

A mama friend of mine, who is also a fellow Bi-racial mom, told me that her daughter started being curious about her skin color around the age of 2. So ever since Annika's new proficiency with colors and labeling them I've been waiting with mild and somewhat increasing interest in when she notices our skin color is different.

A couple of weeks ago we were sitting in the living room with our dog, Baltar, and she looked at him and said to me, "Baltar brown."

This was new, pointing out his color instead of the color of something inanimate. I wondered if she was going to notice her own skin color, and then mine. I still don't know what exactly I will say to her about our differences. I think at first I will be matter-of-fact about it and then as she ages and the appropriate times present themselves I will delve deeper into it.

Then she looked down at herself and said, "Annika pink."

She was wearing a pink shirt.

Then she pointed at me and said, "Mommy red."

Yep, I was wearing a red shirt.

I wasn't disappointed though. She's a little young to talk to about skin color yet.

But that episode and a Facebook exchange with another mom about brown-skinned dolls led to a reminder of a couple of articles I read last year that I loved and I wanted to share. Even if you don't have children, these articles are good reminders that we, as a society, are still not completely comfortable with the topic of race. But it's good to talk about it, as you will read.

The first article is an excerpt from the book Nurtureshock. The article talks about how children are inherently racist. Not that they hate all people of different color, but they naturally select people who are like their parents, gravitate to them, and unless they are told differently, they believe that people similar to them are the best.

Studies performed at University of Texas, in Austin, showed that White parents didn't want to talk to their children about race. Unfortunately, this is the wrong way to approach it. These parents want their children to be colorblind. Their intentions are admirable. But silence on the topic was found to give the children the opposite idea. The researchers found that these kids, who could clearly see the differences, took it to mean that their parents didn't like Black people, or they thought it was a taboo topic.

The next article is about a Black family who adopted a White little girl and the racist attitudes they encountered, especially the father when he was alone with his daughter.

Finding a Bi-racial baby doll is starting to stress me out

Did you know that they sell hair relaxers for little girls? Yeah, you know, chemicals to make your hair straight if you have curly hair. They are sold in the ethnic section. But the pictures of all the girls are Black girls. I guess that's what ethnic means. (Please note the sarcasm.)

Yet, in those same stores you will be lucky to find a Black baby doll that would be way more appropriate to buy for the girls that are pictured on the side of the boxes of those hair chemicals.

This post has been brewing in my mind since I wrote my last post. The same day I read this article on The Root.

My first thought, to be honest, was, "Wow, they had enough Black Barbies to put them on sale? Where is this store?" (Louisiana.)

Ever since I was pregnant with Annika I have browsed the toy sections at random stores checking for Bi-racial and Black babies. And I am continually disappointed with the lack of baby dolls in colors besides White.

Annika actually has a Bi-racial baby doll, which I happened to come across at a used toy store, quite randomly. But other than that doll, I have yet to see any Bi-racial dolls and rarely see Black dolls in stores.

Now, I'm not a shopper by nature. I admit freely that I haven't done as much checking as I should have.

But this week we spent some time at a friend's house who has a 3-year-old. She has way more baby dolls than Annika. Annika was so absorbed in playing with the dolls, holding them, feeding them, pushing them in the stroller, I realized I need to get her more. She has exactly two, and one of them is White. Thanks Mom.

Spending time with our little friend who is well-endowed with baby dolls made me realize that I have been remiss in searching for some baby dolls closer to Annika's color, so I checked at the few stores we visited this week.

I didn't exactly expect grocery stores and pharmacies to carry a wide variety of dolls, but I figured they would probably have a few white dolls and maybe one shade of brown.

None of them had any brown.

I felt, sad. Angry. I wondered if I should complain to the management, but I didn't really feel like it would do any good. The problem is not with the managers at a handful of local grocery stores in largely White Austin. 

This morning I did a search on Amazon and was sadly, sadly disappointed to find exactly one Bi-racial baby doll. Two things. First off, she costs $49.95 and secondly, she doesn't even look Bi-racial! She looks White with brown curly hair. I found this doll labeled multi-ethnic, when I searched for Bi-racial baby doll. Closer to Annika's color, but she comes with a pretty hefty price, at $98. Oh, and she comes with a storybook and self-esteem poster too! Thanks for assuming my "multi-ethnic" child has self-esteem issues.

So, short story, when I look at run-of-the-mill stores for a baby doll for my daughter, I can't find one. When I search Amazon for Bi-racial baby doll, I come up with "Your search did not match any products." But they give me plenty of White dolls to choose from. A search for Bi-racial doll comes up with exactly three dolls
all priced between $50-$100.

I followed a few other links and found some Black and Bi-racial baby dolls. Amazon has several multi-ethnic dolls. Way to cover all your bases doll companies.

The thing is, I don't like to shop. I don't want to have to research buying a doll for my daughter. But it looks like I'm going to have to. Pretty ridiculous.

I know that there are going to plenty of dolls to choose from once I find them, and I'm sure they won't all be so high dollar. But it sure would have been nice to be able to pick up a cute little $5 bean bag doll at the grocery store.

My daughter is NOT the color of food

I think I finally get it. At least -- as much as a White person can "get it." And I'm even going to attempt writing about it, even though I'm not sure I can explain it.

Yesterday a White woman casually referred to Annika as "caramel-skinned."

She wasn't being racist or malicious. But in some ways that is exactly the problem.

She was reminding me that we'd met before and in her attempt to describe Annika she used the phrase. Likely it's her uber-liberal, supposedly open-minded way of attempting to connect to people of color without using such banal terms as "Black" or "African American."

I'm not a big fan of such terms as descriptors either. Not that there's anything wrong with saying them. What it comes down to is that they're overused, not that they should be changed to something less baggage-filled.

Living in Detroit for nine years, I got schooled in all the subconscious slights that we Whites/Caucasians make toward Blacks/African Americans.

It's not real racism. It's the kind of undercurrent that we (Whites) completely miss. It's so ingrained in us that it's normal that we don't understand some of the hostility we receive. Hell, a lot of the hostility that's doled out is subconscious and ingrained as well.

Toyin and I have had some pretty enlightening conversations about race.

But even so, since becoming Annika's mother, I have been on the end of such missteps by other White folks and actually felt the icky feelings.

When I was still pregnant I overheard a White woman telling a little girl that she liked her "puff balls."

She was talking about her hair.

I'm sure the woman meant no harm, but I was irritated as fuck by it. And I didn't even know the little girl.

Later on in my pregnancy I was taking a trip to see Toyin in Detroit. On the airplane I was sitting next to a White woman about my age and we got to chatting. She was a mother of two, so she was interested in hearing all about my birth plans and the father of my child.

As mothers do, we fell into talking about things that most strangers would not talk about, TMI subjects like poop, childhood bi-polarism, pregnancy sex, and then lice.

I had mentioned that Toyin was African, so she knew that I was carrying a bi-racial child.

When the topic of lice came up, I said, "Ooooh, that sounds gross. I so hope I never have to deal with that."

She replied, "Oh, no, you won't. They (lice) don't like horse hair."

I couldn't breathe for a few seconds. I felt like I had been kicked in the gut. Did she just compare my child's hair to animal hair?

Yes, yes she did.

I stuttered for a few seconds and said something that passed for a response.

She looked uncomfortable. We talked for a few minutes to pretend like nothing had happened. Then we fell into a silence for a time.

She probably didn't mean anything by it. It was probably so ingrained in her upbringing and since I am White, she fell into the trap of saying racist things to other Whites without fear of indignation.

And in case you're wondering, as Toyin did. I did not misunderstand her. It just reminded me that it was a common comparison that I had heard growing up in west Texas.

So, back to the overuse of the terms, African American and Black.

Nothing wrong with it, when used correctly or in the right context. But as Toyin explained to me once when I told him I didn't see anything wrong with using them as descriptors he said to me, "Yes, but why does it always have to be the first descriptor. How often to you describe someone as the White person? You would use the hair color, or height or what color shirt he/she is wearing." 

This might seem benign to some. I can say that at some point in my life, it certainly did to me.

But now, as a mother, I have begun to see how what others think of you can define you in many ways. It takes a strong and mature person to fight against stereotypes and even then, people don't always manage to fight them successfully.

So, really, changing her descriptors to something that sounds sweet or delicious doesn't change the fact that you are using her skin color to describe who she is.

Look past the color of my skin

It's probably going to sound weird for a white woman to complain about people seeing only skin color when they look at her, but that's just what I'm going to do here.

Yesterday I was chatting with another mom who is the mother of a bi-racial child. She is Brazilian, her husband is white. She has tan skin and curly hair; her son has bouncy blond curls and blue eyes. Even so, it was obvious to me that he was spawned from her genes. His face is a tiny replica of hers.

While we were talking I asked her about their ethnicity and we got to talking about bi-racial families. She said her mother was much darker than she and when she was a baby people used to think her mother was the nanny even though they had similar features.

"They only see the color of your skin," she said.

I nodded knowingly.

I had been telling her that I have been asked numerous times if Annika is adopted. This only happens when Toyin is not with us. I wrote in a previous post about how this happened to me at a relative's funeral, even though the man could clearly tell that Annika was bi-racial, he still assumed I was not her biological mother.

"I think she looks just like you," my new friend said smiling at Annika. I agreed, yes, Annika does look a lot like me. More and more each day.

For about five minutes I was a lesbian

It finally happened.
Using the term "partner" for Toyin, my co-parent and the father of my daughter, made it appear to someone that I am a lesbian.
To clarify, I don't mind lesbians. I have had, over the years, plenty of gay friends. But I am not gay.
It was pretty amusing. I always imagine that most people in my age group, like me, enjoy having gay friends. It makes us hipper, more diverse, and appearing to be very open-minded. How cool to go to a playgroup with a lesbian and her bi-racial baby! Now that's some serious points on the diversity scale. My new friend is, I believe, Asian, so maybe she cares less about that than me.
Here's what happened.
After a few months of haggling with calling Toyin my boyfriend (which he's not, but it's easier); trying to refer to him as Annika's dad; or just using his name and leaving off any modifier, I finally settled on calling him my partner while speaking of him to people who don't know us very well.
I knew it could be confusing to some people since it's common for gay couples to refer to their significant others as partners, so I always tried to make sure I referred to him as Annika's dad or use a male pronoun before I used the term "my partner." But I have gotten so comfortable using the term, that, without any forethought, I casually mentioned him as my partner to a woman I had just met in a playgroup.
After a couple minutes of talking she asked me if I had Annika with my partner or with someone else.
"What an odd question," I thought to myself as I answered her that, no, I had Annika with my current partner.
About ten seconds later it hit me and I smirked.
"She thinks I'm a lesbian," I realized.
Hee hee hee.
For a few minutes I felt like a very hip, urban stay-at-home mom lesbian whose partner was probably some sort creative type, a commercial photographer, a music producer or something like that who made lots of money to support her little bi-racial baby and breastfeeding lover.
In my head, if I was gay, my partner would be super cool, with lots of tattoos and piercings. I don't know why, because most gay people I know don't have any more tatts or piercings than anyone else I know, but it's my fantasy, so I can do what I want.
But alas, the fairy tale came to an end when I finally decided to tell her a little about Toyin and made sure to use male pronouns a lot.
She didn't seem disappointed. Hopefully, my coolness is still high up there since I am an unmarried mom to a black baby.
I remember a day and a place when that would have just made me a slut.