Talk to each other!

Its time for another cute kid picture!

This first photo was taken in 2008 when reader Anna’s son, Abenezer, was 6 years old. This was his first time eating a type of pasta called ziti, which are very wide and thick spaghetti, that are very difficult to eat, the only way is to suck them up a bit a time.  Abe is now 7 1/2 yrs old.

written by Love Isn’t Enough guest contributor Tonggu Momma; originally published at Our Little Tonginnator]

Last year I completely freaked out the first time I walked into the Tongginator’s kindergarten classroom and saw only two children of color in a class of 20 students. It took my husband – calm, rational Tonggu Daddy – to talk me down from my obsessive “we are ruining the Tongginator’s life” mantra. I mean, we live in the Washington, DC area… it’s not like our area is completely lacking in diversity. And it’s not like it’s too late to make changes for our family if, in fact, we do need to make changes.

The husband urged me to consider the big picture.

So I did. I took a deep breath and looked around me. And what I saw was one kindergarten class that did not match the overall diversity of the Tongginator’s school. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the school isn’t as racially diverse as I would like it, but it also isn’t terrible. The Husband and I also work hard to expose the Tongginator to more racial diversity outside of school, most notably through our Saturday morning Chinese culture classes. Plus, while our county is about 75% Caucasian, we live close to two more diverse counties, one of which is 62% Caucasian, with more than 12% of the population Asian-American, and the other which is only 28% Caucasian.

I decided to wait it out… to take it year by year… before freaking out again.

This year the Tongginator is one of seven children of color in a class of 28 students. And I’m left wondering… as do all parents who adopt transracially… how much diversity is enough? Where is the line? Is this area racially diverse enough? Or do we move in order to ensure more diversity? In one of the neighboring counties, the middle and high schools are some of the worst in the state. And, unfortunately, we seriously cannot afford to purchase a single family home in the other neighboring county.

Besides, neighbors like ours are worth their weight in gold. Not to mention the fact that we live just down the street from a Chinese-American family that is ALSO an adoptive family.

I think fretting about diversity is part and parcel with being a parent that adopted transracially. Last year I felt confident in our decision to stick it out. And this year? I don’t know. My insecurities came to the forefront when we dealt with that whole “Chinese food looks like throw-up” comment. The school handled the situation beautifully, but still… I can’t help but think that such a comment would never have occurred in a more culturally diverse school.

Seven. Out of 28.

How much diversity is enough?

Adoptee files class action suit: Irish babies used as guinea pigs for vaccine [O Solo Mama]

An Irish adoptee now living in Philadelphia has filed a class action suit in US court against the multinational drug giant GlaxoSmithKline for experimenting with a 4-in-1 vaccine on the children of Irish single mothers in the 1960s.

Mari Steed, 50, is also suing the Catholic convent  where her unwed mother lived for allowing the drug trial to occur in the first place.

Parenting under scrutiny [The New York Times/Motherlode]

Chris Gottlieb defends parents for a living. She is with the Family Defense Clinic at New York University School of Law, which represents parents accused of child abuse and neglect and tries to keep families together. With that daily backdrop, she read our discussion here a few weeks ago — the one about parents judging other parents harshly — through a somewhat different lens.

She had recently published an article in the University of Baltimore Law Review about “how the tendency to judge mothering harshly plays out for the poor and minority women who come under the scrutiny of the child welfare system.” She has adapted that article as a guest blog today — describing how her own experiences as a mother (her children are four and one) help her understand how it feels to be judged, and give her some insight into the feelings of her accused clients.

We are human [Resist Racism]

In the past, much of what I have tried to tell white people while doing anti-racist work boiled down to that:  I am human too.  I have tried to make them see that my experiences, that my very life is valid.

Now I make few personal disclosures.  It’s not like others haven’t told the same stories.  It’s not like racism is not obvious in the world we live in.  If white people want to observe and discuss racism, it is there.  If they open their eyes.

But they want a tour guide.  They want to watch somebody bleed.  Pain as entertainment.

Kindergarten and Racism: Welcome to the real world, kid  [Yoon’s Blur]

Choing-chong-dong-dung! Choing-chong-chung-chong!

My classmates are jumping around in and out of my face, in a dancing, clown-like way. They’re all laughing and pulling at the corners of their eyes.

I crinkle my nose and squint my eyes, as I pull my head back, and wonder to myself, What are they doing? They look and sound so silly.

I look behind me. I look around me. I feel confused. Why are they doing that?

I feel something in my chest sink. Something about this hurts, but I’m only five years old, and I can’t make sense of it.

Written by Love Isn’t Enough guest contributor Lisa; originally published at Sociological Images

Leontine G. sent in a troubling example of the framing of children’s deviance, and their own complicity in this framing. While we usually try to keep text down to a minimum on SocImages, this one needs to be handled with care.  So please forgive the unusual length of this post.

Leontine included two links: one to a Today show story about a 7-year-old boy who took his family’s car on a joyride and got caught by police, and one to a CNN story about a 7-year-old boy who took his family’s car on a joyride and got caught by police.  Different 7-year-olds.  One white, one black.

The white boy, Preston, is interviewed with his family on the set of the Today show.  Knowing his kid is safe, his Dad describes the event as “funny” and tells the audience that if this could happen to a “cotton candy all-American kid like Preston,” then “it could happen to anybody.”

When the host, Meredith Vieira, asks Preston why hid from the police, he says, “cause I wanted to, and she says, “I don’t blame you actually.”  With Preston not too forthcoming, his Mom steps in to say that he told her that “he just wanted to know what it felt like to drive a car.”  When Vieira asks him why he fled from the police, he replies with a shrug.  Vieira fills in the answer, “You wanted to get home?”

Vieira then comments on how they all then went to church.  The punishment?  Grounded for four days without TV or video games.  Vieira asks the child, “Do you think that’s fair?”  He says yes.  And she continues, “Do you now understand what you did?”  He nods and agrees.  “And that maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing?”  He nods and agrees.  “You gonna get behind the wheel of a car again?”  He says no.  Then she teases him about trying out model toy cars.

They conclude that this incident just goes to show that “Any little kid, you never know what can happen…” and closes “I’ll be seeing you at church buddy boy!”

The video:

All in all, exactly what you’d expect from the Today show: a heartwarming, human interest story with a happy ending. The child is framed as a fundamentally good kid who was curious and perhaps a bit impetuous. When he has no answers for Vieira’s questions, she slots in innocent ones.  And the mild punishment is seen as incidental to the more important idea that he learned something.

This story contrasts dramatically to the CNN story about Latarian Milton, a black 7-year-old who took his family’s car on a joy ride.  I’ll put the video first, but be forewarned, it’s disturbing not only because of the different frame placed on the boys actions, but because of the boy’s embracing of the spoiled identity:

With an absolutely polar introduction of “Not your typical 7-year-old,” this story is filmed on the street. Whereas the Today show screened the chase footage in real time, this one is sped up, making it seem even more extreme.

The interviewer, off-camera, asks Latarian why he took the car. He replied: “I wanted to do it ’cause it’s fun, it’s fun to do bad things.” The interviewer asks further, “Did you know that you could perhaps kill somebody?” And he replies: “Yes, but i wanted to do hoodrat stuff with my friends.”

The interviewer asks him what punishment he should receive and Latarian offers a punishment very similar to Preston’s: “Just a little bit… no video games for a whole weekend.” The reporter then explains that the police plan to go forward with charges of grand theft against him.  While he’s “too young to go into any type of juvenile facility,” he says, “police say they do want to get him into the system, so that they can get him some type of help.” 

The implication here, of course, is that this child is not innocent or impetuous like Preston, he’s a pre-criminal who needs “some type of help.” The sooner they get Latarian into “the (prison?) system,” the better. No cotton candy kid this one.

Unfortunately, Latarian says all the right things to make the narrative fit. He says he likes to do “bad” things, calls himself a “hoodrat,” and seems unremorseful, even defiant, for at least part of the interview (he looks a bit sheepish in the end when he finds out his grandmother is going to have to pay for the damage he did to other cars).

One way to interpret this is to say that Latarian IS a pre-criminal. That he DOES need to get into the system because he’s clearly a bad kid.  Someone inclined to believe that black people were, in fact, more prone to criminal behavior could watch these two videos and feel confirmed in their view.

But there is good evidence that people, beginning as children, internalize the stereotypes that others have of them.  As Ann Ferguson shows in her book, Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity, black children, especially boys, are stereotyped as pre-criminals; not adorably naughty, like white boys, but dangerously bad from the beginning.  And studies with children have shown that they often internalize this idea, as in the famous doll experiment in which both black and white children were more likely than not to identify the black doll as bad (see this similar demonstration of white preference on CNN and a discussion of the original doll experiment at ABC).  So I think this terribly sad story of Latarian is showing us how children learn to think of themselves as deviant and bad from the society around them.  Latarian, remember, is seven, just like Preston.  They’re both children, but they are being treated very differently, as these programs illustrate, and it is already starting to sink in.

Dear LIE,

I’ve been on-and-off following LIE for awhile now and I have a question. I am a white 19 year old who grew up in a small town in Connecticut where we had maybe one family in the entire school system who wasn’t 100% white. My parents are both white (and are divorced).

My dad is an extremely friendly and accepting person- I’ve never seen him seriously treat anyone different due to race (we moved to North Carolina 4 years ago), most of the ‘racist’ jokes he makes are towards the British or Scandinavia/Iceland. I don’t believe he has any obvious prejudices towards people of color (although he might).

But, like most of white USA, he is unaware of his white privilege. And it’s gotten worse lately, I think because of the Dr. Laura thing. He makes comments about how “If [white people and people of color] are really equal, why can’t white people use [the n-word]?” (yes, he says the word while saying he isn’t allowed to say it) and he believes that “affirmative action” is code for “reverse racism”.  He’ll also make jokes about how annoying PC terms are by, when a waitress asks if he wants white toast, he’ll say “The term is Caucasian American” or when the word ‘black’ comes up doing the same thing with African American instead- and I don’t know if this is bad or not, but I still think they’re in poor taste. And, because it’s generally to a waitress, its not like the person can tell him if they have a problem with that. I don’t think he means any harm, but he’s just… “blind” (to use the currently accepted terminology). 

My dad and I have never had the relationship where we talk to each other- he’s extremely accepting and if I have a problem I can ask for help, but we don’t really talk to each other that much and I really don’t know how to talk about this because it gets me pretty upset. (probably not as upset as someone who actually suffers from ideas like this, but it makes me so angry to see people who think like this)

Is there anything I can do here?

-False

From co-editor Julia:

Hi False,

Thanks so much for asking such a good and difficult question. This is something I struggle with myself. What I would suggest first is that you get more clear about what you would like the outcome to be. So, for example, do you want him to stop making such comments in your presence? Do you want him to gain a better understanding of his own privilege? Do you want him to understand how you feel when he makes such comments? All of these outcomes suggest different approaches. Although, of course, you cannot control the outcome because you cannot control his response. And I think it’s important to acknowledge that limit going in.

I would also encourage you to think about your fears about the worst-case scenario. It may be helpful to prepare yourself in advance for how you will feel and how you will prepare yourself to respond if he fulfills your worst expectations. Also, keep in mind that this conversation does not have to be the last conversation. You can always return, and sometimes people will surprise you in their capacity to change.

I know I have not actually answered your question, but I hope I’ve provided some helpful thoughts on preparing.

Readers,

What would you advise? Have you had such conversations with family and friends? What was the outcome? Are there any ways of approaching this kind of conversation that might be more likely to result in a better outcome?

Share what’s on your mind.

This picture is of a reader’s daughter graduating from VPK.  Look at that smile!

written by Love Isn’t Enough contributor Liz Dwyer; originally published at Los Angelista’s Guide to the Pursuit of Happiness

Did you know that I have weird, frizzy, nappy hair and I shouldn’t? Apparently, since one of my parents is white, it’s supposed to be a different texture.

Last night was quite fab till I decided to slap on my dunce cap and make a late-night run to CVS to pick up a few things. (Note to self, stay away from CVS after 11:30 pm.)

Alas, while perusing some lipstick I didn’t need, a pretty, twenty-something African-American woman asked, “Excuse me, is that your hair?”‘

Um, yes. It got stapled it to my scalp this morning. It is.

I get all excited when I think I’m about to have a conversation with a young sista about ditching chemicals and rocking the natural hair that grows out of her head. I was ready to drop knowledge. Smiles all around.

She was skeptical and didn’t believe I don’t have any chemicals in my hair. Nope, I insisted. I’m chemical free. I don’t even use chemical hair dye.

I wanted to stab myself in the eyeball when she said, “Well I guess I could get away with being natural if I had hair like you. You kinda got a good grade of hair.”

First of all, who the heck still uses the word “grade” to describe hair? This isn’t school and there’s no A+ being handed out for hair textures. Secondly, a “good” grade automatically implies that there’s a “bad” grade.

I’ll spell out the code language: A bad grade =more highly textured, kinky hair. More African. A good grade of hair means your hair is straighter and more European.

Same crap, different day. Heard it before. Yawn.

Continue Reading »

We need more black children’s books on Border’s bookshelves NOW [MyBrownBaby] 

My neighborhood Borders was running a children’s book drive for a local hospital and since Denene loves the children and books, I offered to purchase two books for donation. Grateful I was participating, the cashier offered up a stack of books for me to choose from. And what do you know, not one of them—save for a lone “Princess and the Frog” book buried all the way in the back/bottom of the pile—featured children of color.

 Not. One.

SPLC’s New Anti-Bullying Film and Teaching Kit Now Available [Southern Poverty Law Center]

Online ordering is now available for educators interested in obtaining a free copy of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s latest Teaching Tolerance film – Bullied: A Student, a School and a Case that Made History. 

Bullied tells the story of Jamie Nabozny, a student who stood up to his anti-gay tormentors and filed a federal lawsuit against his school district. The suit led to a landmark court decision finding that school officials could be held accountable for not stopping anti-gay abuse.

Gender and the Active/Passive Binary in Lego City [Sociological Images]  

Carol C. sent in another example of the male = active, female = passive dichotomy, this time from Lego. They have a line called Lego City, which contains four figures and various accessories. While you can obviously pose the characters however you want, Lego’s description of the set clearly assumes men are in more active, with specific work-related roles.

America Flunks at Teaching Black Males  [Change.org]

Here’s an alarming statistic for “post-racial” America: Only 47 percent of African-American men graduated from high school in the 2007-2008 school year. In fact, African-American men are far more likely to do time in the criminal justice system than graduate from college.

According to a new report, Yes We Can: The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males 2010, American public schools are failing a majority of black males. New York City, the district with the nation’s highest enrollment of Black students, only graduates 28 percent of its Black male students with Regents diplomas on time. This is a national education crisis but it also presents a crisis for the criminal justice system.

written by Love Isn’t Enough guest contributor Anne Sibley O’Brien; originally published at Coloring Between the Lines.

More than a decade ago, I participated in an “Undoing Racism” workshop run by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond.

During a workshop break, I had a conversation with an African-American woman about the phenomenon of white people being so unaware of the bias they carry and their frequent passionate defense that since they didn’t intend to do anything racist, it couldn’t have been racist. Yet the impact of their attitudes or actions remains harmful.

In the course of our discussion, this woman challenged my characterization of this process as being completely unconscious. She commented that it was a willful blindness, that people were capable of seeing their bias but chose not to. I’ve been pondering this idea ever since.

I suppose that this aspect of white conditioning is like an addictive pattern. My understanding of the process of freeing oneself from an addiction is that one must first become so aware of the harm one is causing that the pain of continuing is greater than the pain of letting go of the addictive substance or behavior. This is the catalyst for change and the beginning of recovery.

Anyone observing from the outside the devastation caused by full-blown addiction would find it hard to believe that the addict could be unaware of the impact. Denial is an essential cog in the machinery that maintains addiction. The same case could be made for the ways in which white people spend so much time defending and justifying our behaviors (and our books) rather than examining and working to change them.

Of course I was innocent when as a child I began to absorb the patterns of whiteness. But as an adult, whether or not I’ve been complicit in my lack of awareness, I always have the option of choosing to see. The most useful response when someone points out the gap between the intention and the impact of my actions is not to defend my intention but to invest my energy in closing the gap, to do whatever it takes to ensure that the impact matches my intention.

My deepest commitment and most engaged work to free myself from White Mind began once I realized the harm I was causing myself, how much of me I had lost in allowing these patterns to speak and act for me. I wanted my self back. I’ve discovered that my journey is furthered by two inner companions: one, a fierce and relentless warrior whose eyes are always open; the other a wise companion who reminds me to reach for my own goodness and humanity.

My journey is fueled by my knowledge of the ways white patterns dehumanize others and myself, and lit by the hope that I can break free of them. And I have discovered that, moment by moment and day by day, when I choose to see these patterns, they become visible.

Readers, what is on your mind this week?

This is Nathan, who just turned two!

written by Love Isn’t Enough contributor Liz Dwyer; originally published at Los Angelista’s Guide to the Pursuit of Happiness

Mom blogger. There’s a whole lot of mom bloggers these days. But what is a mom blogger?

Is she a mom that writes tips about the best stroller and how to save money on groceries? Or is she a mom that’s thinking about how she’s the first educator of her children and how she raises her kids to solve the issues of race, class, gender equality and all the other social problems of this world?

I don’t want to read about strollers. I want to read about how do I raise my child with the social and spiritual mindset, skills and knowledge to be a productive member of society?

My boys go to summer camp and on Wednesday they took a field trip to Zuma Beach. I figured the most exciting thing to happen would be a jellyfish sighting. Unfortunately, on the bus ride home, one of the other campers, an older 13 year-old boy, decided to slap my nine year-old , Mr. O, and hurl some racial epithets his way.

I had to figure out how to respond to that, and in the long run, how I deal with that will mean more to my son than what stroller I bought him or what babyfood he ate.

That child that slapped mine and called him racist names learned that from someone else. Someone who’s an adult. Someone who is probably a parent. If that parent chose to raise their child with an attitude of racial unity instead of an attitude of racism, prejudice and being a bully, the interaction wouldn’t have happened.

To all you moms out there – and all you dads too – kudos to those of you who are talking to your kids about the equality of all people. Thank you for thinking about that and talking about that instead of the fleeting material things of this world that ultimately do not shape our children into the adults they need to be.

Thank you for writing about it. It means more than the stroller posts ever could.

Raising Happiness by Christine Carter, Ph.D. (Review) [Big WOWO]  

I sometimes put my name on the waiting lists for popular books at the library.  I requested the book Raising Happiness by Christine Carter probably three or four months ago.  I was #25 or #26 in line, and my turn finally came up just last week.

This is an excellent book, both for children and parents.  I don’t know what the rest of you think, but I know very few parents who consciously raise their kids for happiness.  Success, maybe, and confidence, maybe, but happiness?  I think many parents view happiness as a fleeting kind of state, one which pales in comparison to more concrete goals like achievement or academic skills.  I think Western cultures view happiness as more of a temporary state than a goal.

When motherhood takes a hit [Moms of Hue]

While talking to her I was struck again by all the silence and shame we have around idealized visions of what it is to be maternal, let alone “the perfect mom” (which we know doesn’t exist).  What do we do with those feelings of disappointment when motherhood and our little angel aren’t what we were banking on? Is it just a phase sometimes? What happens when you fear it may be more of a life long disconnect?

When Mom is mistaken for the nanny [New York Times/Motherlode]

Nicole Blades, who writes the blog MsMaryMack.com, is getting distinct messages from outsiders, too. A media consultant now living in New Jersey, she is black, her husband is white, and, in a guest blog today, she describes how often she’s mistaken for the nanny. Like Monroe years ago, Blades is looking for words, ones that will set the record straight, strip bare well-meaning but hurtful assumptions, and reclaim her child as her own.

Why adoption hurts  [John Raible online]

Watch this clip from a Korean TV morning show. It captures well why many adoptees feel that adoption is painful, even when we love our adoptive families.

Written by Love Isn’t Enough co-editor Sarah

So tomorrow is my second trimester ultrasound and I am excited, but really nervous…and not just because tomorrow is the day when they will let me know if everything is looking anatomically okay with Baby.  Tomorrow we could find out Baby’s gender and, like it or not, that has some big implications for me, personally.

Let me start out by saying that I really, honestly, one-hundred percent DO NOT CARE whether Baby is a boy or a girl.*  My husband does not believe me, but I mean it.  I used to think that I really, really wanted a girl and that if had a second boy I would be really disappointed.  But somewhere during my son’s first two years of life I realized that I didn’t care anymore.  I don’t need to have a little girl to feel like I can identify with my child.  I know why I thought I wanted a girl.  I thought that I’d be able to understand a girl better.  That I’d be better able to relate to a daughter and that we’d have more of a bond than I would have with a son.  I have a sister who is close in age so I know what families with girls are like; they are familiar to me.  However, after having a boy I realize: you never fully understand your children.  They are unique individuals with their own thoughts, feelings, and agendas (yes, my son has an agenda…and if you met him you’d know exactly what I mean).  Boy or girl, I’m not sure I’d ever really know why my son does what he does.  He’s often a mystery to me.  Other times, I see so much of myself in him that I can’t help but laugh when he throws his blocks in frustration because he can’t line them up in a perfectly smooth-edged tower.  He comes by that temper honestly!  So, basically, I realize now that no matter which gender my child happens to be, I will always be able to relate to them and to bond to them…and there will always be times that they leave me scratching my head.  And that’s okay.  In fact, I’m kind of excited by the prospect of having two boys because then I’d be able to delight in how different and unique they are without attributing it to gender differences.

Actually, if I’m really being honest with myself I’ll admit it: I’m now a little scared to have a daughter.  Okay, so not scared per se, but I am intimidated.  In the last two years I’ve spent lots of time reading up on anti-racist parenting, anti-sexist parenting, and raising children of color and I’m a little worried about how I will be able to provide a positive sense of self to my black/biracial daughter.  I mean, my son has my husband (not to mention lots of other male relatives and friends) as a model of a smart, strong man of color.  Although my daughter would have my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, dozens of cousins, family friends, and neighbors as models of strong, intelligent women of color in her life, there will be no black/biracial role-model present for her in the home.  I’m sure at some point in her life she’ll feel like I can’t relate to her and that I don’t understand what life is like for her…the sad thing is that, unlike most teenagers that feel that way about their parents, she will probably be right.  Of course I know what it is like to move through this world as a woman, but I have no idea what it is like to be a woman of color.  Now, I know that this is not uncommon in families and that we (my husband and I) can work to overcome this obstacle in our parenting, but I have to be honest and say that it worries me.  It is what it is and I will have to think on it more if I find out tomorrow that I am, indeed, having a baby girl.

Plus (and this is really shameful), I think I might lose sleep over a little girl’s hair.  I mean, I already agonized over when to cut, how to cut, how to wash and comb, and how and if I should style my son’s hair…and his hair has only reached a maximum of maybe three inches.  Hair politics being what they are (complicated), I have no earthly idea how I will navigate that with a little girl when the time comes.  I can’t exactly cut most of her hair off like I did with my son.**  To make matters worse, my husband could not possibly care less about hair (he’s bald) and my mother-in-law and sister-in-law live in Virginia so they aren’t around to give me any advice.  Crap.  Again, not the end of the world, but a consideration for me when thinking about boy vs. girl.

There are other things that I am thinking about: how to avoid really frilly and over-the-top clothing if Baby is a girl, how I can delicately refuse to put a hair bow band on the baby’s head if Baby is a girl, making sure my older son doesn’t have to deal with any “now you’re the big brother and you have to be responsible” talk, and coping with any disappointment from family members who (all) hope that Baby is a girl (this last part will really upset me).  What about you, readers?  Did you have a preference for a boy or a girl?  If so, why?  Would you be happy, indifferent, or upset if you had only boys or only girls?

*Note: I do realize that there are other alternatives to the boy/girl dichotomy; however, I can’t honestly state that I know how I would feel about that until I’m in that situation.

** I guess technically I could, but I won’t.  Mostly because I wouldn’t want to, but also because both sides of my family would probably hold me down and slap me silly.

Dear LIE readers,

I’m turning this format a bit on its head today by asking  for LIE readers’ thoughts on my own question.

I was part of a conversation recently that started as a discussion among mostly white adoptive parents of black children about whether “monkey” could ever be used benignly in reference to a black child (e.g., “you’re such a good climber–you climb like a monkey!”) and morphed into a larger discussion about educating young children of color about racist terms and how to respond to them.

A few larger questions emerged that I would welcome your thoughts on (for the purposes of this conversation, I’m imagining the child I speak of below to be a child of color):

-If your child is unaware of the derogatory meaning of  a word like monkey, should the parent teach her this meaning before the world does?

-Does it matter how old the child is? Is there an age that is too young for such a conversation?

-How intentional should a parent be about this teaching? That is, should a parent wait for a sort of “teachable moment” to arise, but risk that the child will have the word directed against her in the meanwhile, or should the teaching be more intentional and planned? If the latter, what age is best to start? What form should the teaching take?

Also, feel free to address the original question, if that’s of interest to you:

-Can a word like “monkey” could ever be used benignly in reference to a black child?

-How would you address a child or adult who used the word in reference to your child with no malicious intention?

Brother and sister: two peas in a pod!

Thoughts, readers?

I recently had a conversation about the Karate Kid with Ankhesen Mie (who writes at her eponymous blog) that I am excited to share with you. It was inspired by something Ankhesen wrote in a brief blog post titled “Why I’m skipping the new “Karate Kid” movie:

With all the films depicting white kid heroes flooding our screens, yes…we need more POC in such roles.  Do we need such roles at the expense of other POC?  Absolutely not.

In a follow-up email, she summed up her argument as: “POC shouldn’t progress at the expense of other POC.”

Here is our conversation:

Julia: Can you tell me more about what you mean by “POC shouldn’t progress at the expense of other POC”? That is, what do you see as the progress in this movie? and what do you see as the expense?

 I’m also intrigued that this impression struck you so immediately without seeing the movie. Could you share what about ads/trailers/etc that you saw that produced such an instant reaction?

Ankhesen: Regarding the first question, The movie stars an American child of color as the hero.  For one, this doesn’t happen nearly often enough.  Usually the child hero is a white (and male).  So Jaden’s casting in a major film – complete with media hype and the presence of a legend (Jackie Chan) – is indeed a sign of progress.

 But with the progression comes the regression; instead of showing a child of color can hold his own around white kids, he’s moved all the way to China.  For one, this scenario is unusual and not very relatable to the average black child in America (i.e., you don’t hear about poor black single mothers having to up and move their families to China all the time).  Whenever the hero is a white child, the scenario is usually more realistic so as to make audiences more responsive to his plight.

 Secondly, this derails the opportunity to show what black children really go through in America and at whose hands.  We don’t get bullied by the Chinese when we grow up here.  We’re bullied mostly by black and white kids.  Thus “the blame” is shifted to another group, and they are – unsurprisingly – POC.

 Regarding the second question, In America, POC are “told” we hate each other.  We are “told” how we feel about other POC.  I recall a few years back a study was published showing that POC tended to trust white people more than they do one another.  Meanwhile, bloggers of color have found differently; POC have been working in various movements (indie film, music, shows, etc.) to work together and solidify our bonds.  But when our artists try to collaborate and produce something beautiful, their films aren’t funded, they don’t reach the big screen, and their albums aren’t promoted nationwide.

The Karate Kid tends to harm these struggling by pitting a black child against Asian children, when the very opposite is what our children need to see.

And this, by the way, is the “expense” I spoke of.  The black child finally gains a coveted role as a movie hero, but another group of POC – with whom he really ought to have no quarrel – is branded the villain.  Add insult to injury, he goes to their country, immerses himself in their culture, and presents himself not only as an equal, but a potential superior.  That’s a BIG no-no, not to mention a classic American fantasy.  Even worse, this film came out around the same as The Last Airbender, where all the heroes of Asian and Inuit descent were replaced with whites, while an Asian was cast as the villain.  It’s as though Hollywood is saying, “Okay, the black child will get to play, but not those other ones.”

…Except for the girl.  This really bothers me because it further erroneously assures American males that no matter where they go and no matter whom they have conflict with, the womenfolk will always be “receptive” to them, and if the men of that place have a problem, it’s simply because they’re jealous.  Couple that scenario with the regular emasculation Asian males already experience in America, and factor in the target age group of the audience.  Asian American boys are basically being “told” that the black dude (or white dude) will always get the girl.  Combined with Airbender, Asian Americans kids are being given really unhealthy messages: you don’t exist until you’re the villain…unless you’re an Asian girl, in which case, you get to be the love interest.

 And while this may sound like a bit too much analysis for a kid’s movie, we have to remember that America likes to market to the young.  We’ve already seen this storyline in films with older children and adults.  The Karate Kid has a whiff of The Last Samurai, while Airbender practically screams The Forbidden Kingdom and Dragonball Z.  And no…I didn’t bother watching the latter three either.

Julia: I’m interested in how you think Asian American kids will experience this movie. At the risk of asking you to restate some of your points, how do you think black American kids will experience this movie? (Or, perhaps, how would you have experienced such a movie as a child?)

Ankhesen: I think Asian American kids – no doubt informed by their older relatives – might have a “WTF?” moment with The Karate Kid.

 As for black children, I’ll be honest.  Very young children won’t notice a problem.  Children are highly susceptible and thus easily indoctrinated by media.  Growing up, I sure as hell didn’t have a lot black child heroes to watch.  I recall my father becoming deeply alarmed when I’d take out my coloring pencils and draw a bunch of white people.  That’s when I was ten.  When I was about seven, I remember that I spent pretty much every day drawing She-Ra.

 Most parents who are raising children of color want to overlook this stage because they don’t want to deal with their own helplessness.  They don’t have much to give their kids where media is concerned.  So they tell themselves it doesn’t matter, and that it’s not a big deal (what I call the “Princess & Frog Defense”) if their kids are mostly watching white kids.  Meanwhile, an unhealthy psychological foundation is being laid.  Children are being taught a “hierarchy” at an early age, that “white” is the default, and that for POC to see themselves in Hollywood – in a positive light – is rare and special privilege, one that POC can’t all have it at the same time.  If one POC gets to be hero, the other not only doesn’t, but they either have to be bad or simply nonexistent.

Julia: You mention helplessness of parents facing these sorts of problematic media images. Is there a way out of the helplessness, for parents of children of color, do you think? Obviously, this stuff is everywhere and you have only limited influence, but do you have any thoughts on how a parent of, say, a black child of an age where this movie would appeal should respond? Go to the movie but talk about what’s difficult about it? Not go to the movie and talk about why you’re not letting them go? Or?

Ankhesen: I appreciate how my father handled it; Africans don’t believe a person is “too young” to survive.  Children are very smart, highly adaptable, and generally have excellent memories.  Now is the BEST time to talk about race, to teach them how to analyze movies, and let them know what kind of world they live in.  When my father did this for a while, I eventually stopped wanting to see those movies.  If it didn’t “speak” to me, then it wasn’t for me, and so I didn’t bother.

And while books may feel a bit outdated, reading itself and the visual arts are not.  We live in the Communication Age, where it’s not hard to find what you need online.  I grew up in a house filled with African art and literature (my father didn’t believe in TV) and I am quite grateful because I was spared a lot – not all, but enough – of “issues” in terms of ethnic identity and self-image.  My father accomplished this before the net became widespread.  So believe it or not, there are options for parents; just because it’s not shiny, widely advertised, and high-tech doesn’t mean it’s not a resource.

 Parents who are raising children of color just might have to take an a cue and do things “underground railroad style” by simply exposing their kids to older art forms while giving them the tools to create art which will be more widely available in the future.  That’s to say, let your kids go to film school.  Let them study creative writing.  Don’t get mad when they’re more interested in doing plays in college than becoming an accountant or a doctor.

 POC need more actors and writers of color in America.  POC make up almost half of the US population right now.  The old excuse of “what the [white] audience wants to see” applies less now than it ever did before.

Julia: Interesting. I was also raised by a parent who didn’t believe in television, so I can really relate to what you’re saying. I appreciate you sharing what worked well for you. I think often we hear a lot about what NOT to to, but not a lot about what TO do, so I’m grateful for insight like this that eliminates some of the flailing around.

Thanks for taking so much time to do this. I think it will inspire a great conversation on LIE.

Ankhesen: Thanks for asking.