Monthly Archives: January 2007

by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Margie Perscheid

Whenever I see a white couple with an Asian or Hispanic child, I can’t help wondering whether adoption — like the personal ads — is one of the last areas of American life where naked expressions of racial preference are acceptable.

In Why Doesn’t White Adopt Black? , an op ed that ran in the Washington Post on December 24th, David Nicholson explored the racial dynamics of transracial and intercountry adoption. Although Nicholson’s question seems simple enough, getting my head around the answer was rather like trying to follow the surface of a Möbius strip, where you always end up on the other side of where you started.

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by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Meera Bowman Johnson

A week before my five-year-old daughter’s dance recital, her instructor, Miss Debbie, pulled me aside.

“We’re asking that all the girls wear their hair in a bun.”

I looked at Jasmin’s, golden-brown mane that was pulled neatly into a single puff on the top of her head. Each perfectly spiraled strand was infused with the genetic code of women who came before my child, myself and every other black woman in our family tree. These weren’t the girl next door’s curls. “A bun?”

The fitter-than-thou fifty-something in a black leotard, tights and pink leg warmers looked me squarely in the face. “Yes.”

“I’m not sure if it will do that.” I knew I sounded kind of strange, sitting there talking about my daughter’s hair as if it had a life of it’s own. But it did.

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by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Cloudscome

When I was in third grade we were living in a working class suburb of Cleveland. My school was about half Black and half White, with some Asian kids too. My parents bought a house in a neighborhood about a mile away so I had to change schools yet again for fourth grade. When I told my friends that I would be going to the other elementary school in the district they said,

“Oooh, you are going to Westwood? Those kids are tough over there. They carry guns to school!”

I was scared silly. Then school started and I went to Westwood and started making new friends. When I told my new friends that I had come from the other school they said,

“Ooooh! You came from Eastwood? Those kids are tough over there. They carry guns and knives to school!”

I had to laugh, which made them think I was even tougher. It was an Aha! moment for me. People are just scared of what is different or distant from them. There are tough kids and nice kids all over and you can’t believe what they say about each other. Continue reading →

by Carmen Van Kerckhove Did you know that instead of visiting this site everyday, you can be notified anytime a new post goes up? Option 1: Click below to subscribe to our RSS feed: Option 2: Get daily updates via … Continue reading →

by Carmen Van Kerckhove

I was recently reminded of the film short A Girl Like Me by the 18 year-old black female filmmaker, Kiri Davis. It’s a powerful seven minutes that demonstrates the extent to which people, especially women, have internalized messages about what it means to be beautiful.

This film focuses specifically on black children and teens, but I think many people of color have been raised to equate whiteness/fairness with beauty and goodness, and blackness/darkness with ugliness and evil. Growing up in Hong Kong as a Chinese/Belgian girl, I remember being constantly complimented only on my European features: “She has such light skin! Such a high nose bridge! Beautiful light brown hair!” I don’t ever remember receiving any positive feedback on my Chinese features. Continue reading →

by Carmen Van Kerckhove I’m excited to announce that I’ve joined the BlogHer team as contributing editor for their section on Race, Ethnicity & Culture! You can read my first post here. BlogHer is the leading guide to women bloggers. … Continue reading →

by Carmen Van Kerckhove Angelina Jolie was recently quoted in Elle magazine as saying this: “I think I feel so much more for Mad and Z because they’re survivors, they came through so much. Shiloh seemed so privileged from the … Continue reading →