Reader Graig M. needs your help. He writes:
I’m a daily reader of Anti-Racist parent, but I only occasionally post.
I work in education, and recently a friend of mine started writing a book for educators on how to teach multi-racial children. As the adoptive parent of a multi-racial daughter, she asked me to write about my experiences for a chapter in the book. I put together a piece that’s about 2000 words long.
Before I approve it’s publication, I wondered if I might share it with the readers at Anti-Racist Parent. Perhaps they could give me feedback about how to make it the best it can be for wider publication?
I read Graig’s wonderful story and knew I had to share it with all of you. Please let him know what you think.
During her third grade year, I accompanied my daughter Ashley’s class to a play. Before the performance, I was sitting between my Ashley and a classmate named Ashlee. The other girl was the class outcast. Poor, unkempt, and socially awkward, she was the kid that no one else wanted to sit next to. I’m drawn to those kids, so I was happy to sit with her and be her conversation partner.
As I talked with Ashlee about whatever 9 year-olds like to talk about, I could tell that my Ashley was growing impatient. Not only was her dad talking with someone else, he was talking with the one person that no one was supposed to talk with.
Ashlee soon made an abrupt transition. “You know what’s funny,” she started. “Her name is Ashley, and my name is Ashlee. She’s black, and I’m white.”
“I’m BI-RACIAL,” was the immediate response from my right. Ashley had whipped her head around me, her neck stretched to its limit and her eyes glaring.
I knew it was time to refocus my attention. And it was time for some discussion about identity.
Yes, Ashley is bi-racial.
I’m white. So is my wife.
Ashley is adopted. When she joined her family at age 6, we had a lot to learn about race. She had lived with her white biological mother, but had never known her black biological father.
When you adopt a child, one of the things that you’re taught is how to help the child tell their own “adoption story”. Indeed, almost right away Ashley needed to be able to explain that she was adopted. In first and second grade, her classmates would regularly look at me, turn their puzzled looks to her and then spit out some form of “Is that your dad?” that always made it clear something didn’t fit.
Of course it was race that tipped them off, but at that age the conversation didn’t readily go there. Ashley’s practiced adoption story at that point was pretty simple. “Yeah, I’m adopted.” When pressed, she could add “My biological mother couldn’t take care of me so I came to live with my new parents.”
On the day of that third grade field trip, it became clear that the issue in question was not adoption. It was time to help Ashley convert her adoption story into a story about race.
***
“I’m not black. I’m BI-RACIAL.” That statement is loaded with so much baggage. How do you help a nine year-old pick it apart?
To start with the first half of the statement, we had to examine why it was so important to Ashley that she make it clear that she wasn’t black. Initially, her response was that a third Ashley in their class was the black one. She wanted to distinguish herself from both of her like-named peers.
But of course children that young can learn the power of race and internalized racism along with it. With white parents, it’s saddening but not surprising that our young daughter would exhibit signs of such.
It would be naïve to see the vehemence behind Ashley’s statement as based in pride. It was clear upon utterance that she was rejecting her blackness. Remember that it had been prompted by her white classmate’s racial comparison – “I’m white, she’s black”.
Ashley’s response stung me when I heard it. Even as a white parent, I was keenly aware of the internalized racism inherent in the statement. Flooded with complex feelings, my thoughts flew. We hadn’t done enough to make her comfortable being black. She didn’t know how to talk about her race. My own racism even played out in briefly blaming Ashley for dropping a racial dialogue bomb, when clearly her white peer was equally involved. What a mess.
It’s been a struggle since her adoption to help Ashley find strength and pride in her blackness. In fourth grade we had advocated for her to be in a program for academically gifted students, and once she got in it she wanted out because there were no other kids who looked like her. In sixth grade, she told us with confidence that white kids are smarter than black kids.
Early in our life with Ashley, we were advised to recruit black god-parents to help us guide her development. God-parenting was not a part of either side of our family’s traditions. So we had no idea what role such people should play in our daughter’s life or our own. However, we did understand that god-parenting is a common part of African-American culture, and it was one way that we could bring the culture into our family’s life.
Luckily, we were able to recruit a wonderful couple who don’t have children of their own to share their love with Ashley. They provide her with many forms of support, but their most constant message to Ashley is guidance on how to balance the various burdens of being a strong, beautiful, intelligent, and independent black woman. Obviously they provide a perspective that we can’t, both because of our race and because children always seem to hear things differently from people who aren’t their parents.
It has been more difficult to ensure that Ashley gets the same identity affirmation in school. Now in high school, there are still a shortage of high achieving black kids in her school. When she is in advanced classes, she’s often one of three or fewer kids of color. In school-related settings where there are more black kids (such as the track team), academic success is often de-emphasized.
To counter this pressure, we’ve tried to make sure Ashley is enrolled in some of the many special programs designed to support achievement among African-American students. Like any youth organizations, some have been better than others. The best are ones that provide a space where students like Ashley can work together to build positive identities. Spaces that support the image of blackness that Ashley’s god-parents emphasize: strong, intelligent and independent.
****
Let’s go back to the second half of that statement. “I’m BI-RACIAL!”
Just as Ashley had developed an “adoption story” earlier, she needed a “bi-racial story.” I hated adding to her burden of always having to explain herself, but her life’s path had been cast. We needed to help her deal with it.
“Ashley,” I began later that evening., “I don’t think that she had any idea what you’re talking about. Do you remember when we taught you how to tell your adoption story? It’s just like that. People don’t understand just by looking at you and me. They need us to give them more information.”
There was a point when she was about seven that she got a huge identity affirmation while at the beach. Looking at lots of tanning white women, she said to her mother “Look, they all want to have the same color as me.” It’s always been easy to emphasize the beauty of her skin color, because people tell her how beautiful she is all the time.
But bi-raciality is about culture as much as color. Her color cues people to ask questions or make assumptions. But what’s always harder for her to explain (and maybe to understand) is her relationship to black culture as a kid growing up in a white family.
To help her develop her “bi-racial story” we had to dive deep into this story. We had to figure out how to help a nine year-old understand why white kids wouldn’t identify with her because of her skin color, but black kids wouldn’t identify with her because of how she speaks and acts as well as who her parents are. Really, it was a conversation about her whiteness.
The specifics of that day’s conversation elude me after seven years, but in truth it’s a conversation that has never ended. There have been so many examples of times that we’ve rehearsed her responses to peers who push her on identity issues.
There have been times in sports, such as when two black girls in her gym class told her that they were sitting out the tennis lessons because tennis was for white girls. Perplexed, Ashley brought that one home for discussion. She easily pointed out the success of Venus and Serena Williams. But the deeper struggle was about why the girls would sit out and risk failing to make a stand about racial identity. This struggle can’t be pulled apart from the idea that white kids care more about school success.
As the parent of any bi-racial kid knows, identity issues come up all the time in issues of dating. My favorite example came in eighth grade when Ashley started breaking down the complex rules of who gets to date who in her class. Her description was entirely about white and black kids. I asked her “Who do bi-racial kids get to date?” She replied “There’s a Brazilian boy who I think is cute.” A creative but ultimately unfulfilling answer, she knew she wasn’t going to get white racial privilege or black cultural currency in the dating game.
For most of those tough middle school years, her “bi-racial story” went something like this: “I’m bi-racial, but I’m also adopted and my parents are white.” The most common reply from her peers was “So are you black or white?” Ashley would roll her eyes and say “Both.” Almost any other question, such as “Why do you talk like a white person?” would be met with another eye roll and a typically pre-teen “I don’t know.”
These days, as an older teenager, Ashley is prone to telling people she’s “mixed.” I feel that term is shorthand, and for years I didn’t like it at all. I felt it was crass.
I remember being on a business trip and meeting a work colleague’s son. My colleague was white, his wife was black, and thus his some was bi-racial. I said to the son, “My daughter is bi-racial.” The ten year-old turned to his dad and said “What’s bi-racial?” “Mixed, son. Like you.” I really did cringe.
Now it doesn’t bother me so much. I understand that Ashley’s peers have developed an increasingly complex understanding of race. In part simply because their older, but also because bi-raciality is increasingly common in their lives. Most of the time, saying she’s “mixed” is enough to get Ashley by without having to pull out her whole bi-racial story again. Honestly, sometimes I’ll use the shorthand too.
In preparing to write this, I asked Ashley for her current assessment. She said “I just tell people I’m mixed. Sometimes I’ll say black, but I never say white.” Pause. “Sorry if that offends you.”
“No, that doesn’t offend me,” I replied. “I know how the world sees you.”
The world is confused by her. People know she’s not white. They also know she’s beautiful. What she never knows is what other assumptions they harbor based on her skin color. I’m sure her story will continue to evolve over time. I just hope that the world’s view evolves with her.
[I wrote this final part about adoption, but I didn't think it fit in well with the piece above. It could be added as a comment to the post or just left out.]
Most adoptive parents know that some day their child is going to drive a very specific stake through their hearts: “You’re not even my real parents.” Intellectually, this is a preposterous statement to hear from a teenager, but both parties know that it carries huge emotional weight.
Adopting Ashley trans-racially, we knew that she’d also have another zinger up her sleeve one day: “You don’t understand because you’re white.”
The two sledgehammers actually came within close proximity to one another. During a period of struggling with a daughter in her early teens (which is not uncommon for any parent-daughter relationship!), Ashley tried to use both of them within a week. The adoption line really hurt my wife. I played it off by telling Ashley it didn’t hurt because we’d always known she would say it at some point. Still, internally I was lamenting losing my secret dream that we would good enough parents that she would never say it!
But the “you’re not black” line really was a laugher. At this point several years later, I can’t remember the exact situation that precipitated it. But when it came up, I literally laughed in Ashley’s face. That didn’t help the situation given her percolating anger. But I quickly pointed out that my understanding of whatever she was complaining about was based on being her parent and not my (or her) race. It was true, and her argument was foiled.
Still, I made sure to bring it up again. Later when heads had cooled, I made a point to tell Ashley that race was not something that should get in the way of us understanding one another.
Hi ARP friends. Thanks for taking time to read my post. I just reread it and found more than a few typos and grammatical mistakes. My wife won’t forgive those but I hope the rest of you will.
I’d love to hear what others think. It’s always hard to see through your own blinders, and I don’t know where they are in this story.
This is an excellent piece! Thank you for sharing. I am the white mother of a (biological) bi-racial son and also a (biological) white daughter (a story for another day.) Let us just say that we receive some interesting looks inside and outside our community. Thankfully our community is no accustomed to seeing our unique combination
My son has experienced many of the same sort of identity issues as your daughter. He gets accused of being “white washed” which he usually retorts, “What do you expect? I am half white and both my parents are white?” He has a large circle of friends and his best friend is a girl who is also bi-racial. However, there is often a distinct separation between his white friends and his black friends. He has commented several times that he wishes he wasn’t the only black kid attending all white parties or activities.
He is often asked if he is adopted, and after a while he finds that question annoying. I also hate the questions is that your “real” mom or “dad”? A real parent is the one(s) that love, hold, console, discipline, laugh and cry with, et al … not merely the one who birthed a child.
My husband (who is white) loves our son deeply, even if he is not his biological father. He doesn’t like the term “step-dad” because there is nothing partial in his commitment to our son.
There is certainly a complexity unique to raising children of color, beautiful and perplexing.
Thank you for sharing. I am so glad I found a wonderful forum filled with the wisdom of experience and the desire to transform a small part of the world through informed, loving parenting of our amazingly precious children of color.
Angela Riccio
A well written message of universal benefit to parents/educators of all children. Intriguing..I’ve had the same conversations with my own daughters – who are Black with light skin & long hair.
Graig,
Thank you.
That’s an amazing courageous and inspiring story.
-Jeff
About the fact that race shouldn’t come between a child of mixed race and a white dad or mom, I do want to point out that it ain’t necessarily so. I’m asian-white mix, and I remember the many times my white dad pointed me out as asian during cultural events in a 99% white school. Being outed every year so publicly led to my being bullied a lot. My dad would never have figured out why you might not want to advertise, since he had such a strong sense of wanting to be something other than white. There are some things the white family members just aren’t going to experience, and while they can address some of their cluelessness, there are some things where the shared experience has to come from the parent/mentor of color.
What a thought-provoking, well-written piece. Thank you!
Greg, I really enjoyed your piece.
My oldest daughter who is just starting to go through what you described with yours is struggling with her own labels, she’s six. Right now she calls herself “brown”. And we get asked almost everyday, “is she yours?”
She is biologically mine and my husbands. But one day when she was mad at me she said, “I know I am adopted!”. What a zinger…
You are right about the piece being two stories, the way that it is written. But I think if you work at it you could integrate the two ideas.
Thanks for the window into what’s to come, and thanks for you paving the way for the parents of interracial children that follow behind you.
Craig-it is brave of you to write publicly about a difficult and highly personal parenting issue. I applaud your effort and fully embrace the typos. (I blame spellcheck for mine.)
But I’d like to respectfully raise some concerns from someone like Ashley (biracial, transracial adoptee) who is now a parent. I say this not as a criticism, but in the hope of being constructive. And in no way do I mean to put words in your wonderful daughter’s mouth.
But…Ashley said it best: “I just tell people I’m mixed. Sometimes I’ll say black, but I never say white.” Pause. “Sorry if that offends you.”
She’s had her own “stories” all along. And yes, there are usually more than one. These are separate and possibly contradictory from the ones you rehearsed and those you’ve heard her say IN FRONT of you. We (biracial adoptees) play a shapeshifter game every day. Whether we feel like giving out “more information” or not.
It’s possible she may have been hiding this from you for years out of fear of offending you AND her black god parents. It’s not surprising that she’s telling this now as a near adult. Some of the pressure is off her to live up to your expectations now that she has her own coping tools. Like any kid, right?
As advice to parents and teachers of biracial children, let them be what they feel like when they feel like. Try not to inadvertently pressure them to assume identities that are so fixed that they are hamstrung at how to adapt to a very harsh culture. Admit to being naive. (Laughing is up to you…)
Here’s the number one lesson my family learned the hard way: if the immediate school and community is isolating, pack up and MOVE. There’s really not much you can do at home, or teachers in a class, can do to counteract this.
No amount of god parents can make up for the wakeup call when your child realizes they didn’t have to live in isolation.
I really hope this comes across as more supportive than critical. And I know I’m biased (ha!) on this topic.
Kudos again to you Craig
Beside the typos
it is a very good piece. My husband and I are currently on a transracial adoption waiting list, and I really thirst for more pieces like this. I find that a lot of the literature out there seems very dated.
Also as a teacher I found it interesting as well. Soon, in both the school district my children will attend and the one in which I teach, mixed students will be the majority over both white and black students. I have had conversations with my classes about race and literature which eventually led to race and our school. I had a few mixed kids who were very proud of their multi-backgrounds. They piped up right away to tell their stories. I found that to be a step in the right direction. Everyone should be proud and own his or her story. I hope this is a trend that keeps growing.
I thought it was a well-written piece!
(I do have a brief word of caution though – are you okay/clear to publish this at ARP? I ask this because some book publishers also consider publishing at websites as “publishing” and depending on the agreement with the original author, publishing a piece like this may nullify any agreement they had.)
Liked the piece but I am going to send to others including the Association of Multiethnic Americans ( AMEA) , who most of the current board is Biracial and to my personal listserv of Biracials ( many who are adopted. ) I am curious if the Biracial adult kids have the same opinion as the parents of Biracial kids. For example, when you described your daughter now; you used racial attributes ( the point of the piece) and bueatiful. No doubt she is. But that is such a loaded word for us. Positive and yet , Biracial women are also smart, funny, athletic, musical….. You get the point. But sometimes we are only described as bueatiful or exotic. It makes us one dimension sex objects to be blunt. Anyway, just a thought. overall nice piece. And hope the book’s author takes into account not just parents’ perspective. Michelle
Thanks everyone. It’s reassuring to hear your voices.
A few responses…
Rachel- I love what you wrote. Of course Ashley has her own stories and always has. That’s the kind of thing that should seem obvious to me, but didn’t. Interestingly, I’ve asked Ashley twice if she wanted to read the piece and she said “yes” but put it off… Someday I’ll be interested to hear what she has to say.
Duffy- more multi-racial kids than black or white? Where do you live? I’d have to guess Cali or NYC, but either way that’s still amazing.
Casey- The good publisher (Corwin) let everyone who submitted a personal story hold their own copyright.
Michelle- The author is actually including a whole chapter of personal stories from multi-racial adults. As for my language describing Ashley – your point is well taken. I could easily have written a piece just about the perceptions of her beauty. I should edit this some to balance that one trait with others.
Thanks everyone!
Graig,
I know I’m coming into this late, but I thought I’d include my 2 cents for whatever they are worth.
First of all, like the above comments, I appreciate you sharing your family’s story so candidly and with such feeling. From a narrative pov, I think your “story” (I’m a lit prof) was engaging and entertaining and more to the point of the collection/this website it got to the heart of the issues that you wanted to discuss about transracial adoption, difficult conversations about race with your children, and the ongoing conversations about race that evolve as your child grow from elementary school age into adulthood.
Two points of constructive feedback:
*I llike the “coda” if you will about the two sledgehammers–I’m wondering if, perhaps, you could insert it into your piece around where you write about the “difficult” middle-school period of Ashley telling her bi-racial story. It could, perhaps, fit into the fact that Ashley’s understanding of race and of being adopted, transracially, did indeed evolve from the 3rd grade anecdote, including some anger issues that you had previously anticipated. I think that many transracial/adopted parents will understand this all too well (actually any parent will understand the years of teen anger).
*The description of you laughing at Ashley was both understandable but also as an outsider reading in, confusing and a bit harsh. Perhaps fleshing out that scene might help readers to understand your reaction, because certainly there seems like there might indeed be a real justification for Ashley telling you that you don’t understand because you aren’t black. Yes, you can understand because you are her father, because you are an actively anti-racist person living and pracicing what you preach. But whether she said it at 6, 16 or 36, it’d be true–there are things you can’t understand–or perhaps more accurately *FEEL* because you are white. There’s nothing wrong with that–there are things Ashley won’t be able to feel because she doesn’t have access to white privilege.
But that last part hit me a bit, because as a non-white person (I’m Asian American) I am assumed to have honorary-white status by some people but I don’t know waht it’s like to be white and I never pretend to (and the honorary white status goes out the window during any times of crises with an Asian nation–not that I believe it really exists with any true currency). And others say they know what it’s like to be Asian American, but truthfully, no one but another Asian American person could feel the specfic things I feel or understand them in the way that my racial lens has been reflecting my experiences.
That, again, doesn’t negate your own anti-racist work or others, but from a reader’s pov, more fleshing out of that scene and some brief sentence or phrase that does explain that while Ashley’s feelings are valid they also seemed mired, in that point, in teen angst, would help this reader.
But really, let me just finally say congratulations on writing such a wonderful piece. Writing is tough–it’s hard and painful and doing it so well (as you have) is a real achievement.
I thought this was a fantastic piece, especially since it shows how complex it all can be, even when you’re conscious and trying to do your best to be aware and figure it all out. And, even though I’m biracial black/white and not adopted, I can really relate to many of the struggles you all have gone through. Great stuff.
I find it interesting how much you stressed to Ashley her black half. It is as you say; the world will see her as black but being her father, you might have simply gone with the truth: she’s bi-racial or mixed. What was wrong with telling her she was both black and white? I understand the white liberal guilt and the fear that by being her white parents you are somehow magically suppressing her black side simply by existing but it kind of comes off that you insisted to her that she’s NOT WHITE when in fact she is. Don’t you think that gave her the justification for the phrase “you’re white you wouldn’t understand?” – she’s half white so perhaps she should have difficulties understanding you two?
Rubbish. Sounds to me like any other teenager having generational and cultural gaps. Race doesn’t have to be a part of that gap at all because it exists regardless. You shouldn’t insert racial issues where they don’t need to be and usually aren’t. Teenagers would say “you wouldn’t understand” attached to ANY reasoning they could grasp at. The fact is that you were steeling yourself to fall for it because you feel guilty to begin with.
actually what it boils down to is; when Ashley insisted on being bi-racial in her choice of labels, you tried to deny that in favor of her “being black” because you’re afraid of being accused of “whitewashing” her. She was a grade school kid trying to be unique, not categorized and you were denying her that. Ludicrous because she was technically correct anyway!
Now that she’s older, she’s got it cemented in her head that if she’s to choose a race, she’ll choose black because you, her parents, first impression of all whites, told her she wasn’t white.
I logged back in today to see if there were any new comments. Also, Ashley finally read the piece and I thought I’d report on her response.
Ashley said she really liked the piece, and she thought I had it about right. I honestly thought there would be something that she would dispute in the story, but I didn’t know what it would be. The funniest thing to me is that she doesn’t even remember the whole incident that this is based on. It’s such a strong memory for me that I never considered it might be so much less important to her.
Ashley’s main comments were about what readers said. I can’t remember specifics, so I won’t try to quote her. But in general, she felt like some of the readers understood her but some didn’t.
I feel the same way as the author. I’m not experienced at this, so I’m not used to seeing how people interpret your writing. It’s interesting to feel that some people really get it and others don’t.
For instance, I don’t really get smibbo’s comments. It’s almost like you didn’t read the second half of the story. The first half is mostly about how we tried to help Ashley grapple with the desire to avoid her blackness (“I’m not black.”). But the second is about how we taught her to tell her bi-racial story. I guess I didn’t say this explicitly (and maybe I will), but what she’s mostly heard is you’re bi-racial AND black AND white. With regards to her whiteness, it comes 50% biologically but 100% from being raised in our family. We’ve never hidden from that. But perhaps I just wasn’t able to get that all across. I’ll work on it.
Anyhow, you’ve all given me a lot to think about . I look forward to editing the piece with your comments in mind.
Thanks.