Reply to Racial issues in DCPS for mixed race kids

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Racial issues in DCPS for mixed race kids"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm biracial and my child looks white. She is who she thinks she is and not what any other human being would select for her. Jesus put her in her skin for his reasons. Enough of these race police trying to overstep him.[/quote]

I completely agree with you, but my child happens to look black. I wish I could let her decide who she thinks she is instead of society telling her. She has as much European heritage as African, but those things don't seem to matter when it comes to race. It's solely about the color of one's skin. I hope we as a society get past this during my daughter's generation. [/quote]
So what are you going to tell her- you look black and because of racism you'll be treated as black... so that makes you black. My biracial child "looks black". I tell him at all times he has the right to choose whatever he is. I explain that we come from a culture of embedded racism and many people of harbingers of white supremacy- including AAs who promote "one drop". He may face fall-out by racists, but that doesn't change who he is. He is biracial no matter what anyone thinks or says. People forget that the biracial experience includes getting the same discriminatory treatment AAs face, but they also get that same discrimination from AAs. So, he has to ready for the day he's called N. Doesn't make him not biracial. It makes him a victim of prejudice. He's also prepared for when he has to turn away from AAs who espouse hatred against white people. That's what it means to be biracial. One day parents of biracial kids will understand this. When it's not your experience, but that of you child, you don't understand their plight.[/quote]

I was sitting in a meeting with 2 young colleagues.  One colleague was white and the other black.  They were talking about a friend of hers who is biracial, but identifies as white.  Both women thought she was weird and insane because according to them, she was clearly black.  All it did was make her seem crazy and have everyone talking about her.  I'm sure she has no idea that her so called friends think she's a sell out  -- including the white ones![/quote]

The woman being ridiculed is biracial--that's just a fact.  She's no more black than she is white.  She is free to identify however she wants...no matter what her "friends" say.  I really don't know why people (especially blacks) are so invested in enforcing the one drop myth.  Why do you folks (along with the KKK) work so hard to promote the idea of white purity and white supremacy?!?  So sad.[/quote]

I kinda agree with you but on the other the woman just sounds clueless.  If it were some kind of subversive thing -- like I'll say I'm white because fuck white purity, I'd think it were interesting, but it sounds like she just grew up really sheltered and doesn't understand the reality of race relations.  [b]It's like she opted out of the whole race convo by claiming she's white (white ppl being the least likely to reflect on race relations, their own privilege, etc.). [/b] It is just kind of weird.  I'm biracial and identify as such.  I'm not sure why I would claim I'm white unless I was trying to make some kind of performance art point.  well, at least this woman's choice, intentionally or not, really brings to the fore the general idea that whiteness has to be kinda pure otherwise it's not real to society.  Fucked up for sure, but her self-identification highlights it in any interesting way....[/quote]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/robinson/robinson080199a.htm
I wonder if the woman is from another culture.  There's a great article by Eugene Robinson that appeared in the WaPo Magazine in 1999 about his experience with race as a foreign correspondent in Brazil.  He is at the beach with a bunch of friends and acquaintances and asks a woman who has similar features and color to him what it's like to be black in Brazil.  She insists that she is not black and that in fact neither is he.  Later he finds out that because she is economically well off that she (and other Brazilians) do not consider her to be black.  And this is true in some countries -- people identify racially in part for other reasons besides physical appearance.

[quote]I decided to give up on theoretical classification and focus instead on the concept of race relations, which I figured would translate more easily. I turned to my colleague's Brazilian girlfriend, whose name I recall as Velma, and asked what it was really like being black in Brazil.

She answered with a look of genuine surprise.

"But I'm not," she said. "I'm not black."

She smiled at me as one smiles at a child who just doesn't understand, an isn't-he-precious kind of smile. But then I saw her quickly glance around at the others, making eye contact, and I had the sense she was somehow seeking to validate the declaration she had just made.

Velma had been born more than a thousand miles away, in the poor northeastern part of Brazil, the equivalent of our Deep South -- a place where a plantation economy once flourished, where slavery had persisted a full generation past the end of the American Civil War. It was obvious to me at first glance that Velma was primarily a descendant of those slaves. She was a small woman with long, jet-black hair, flaring nostrils, high cheekbones, and brown skin at least a couple of shades darker than mine. It wasn't even a close call, in my book. But she was telling me she wasn't black.

I blurted out, "But you must be, Velma. I'm black, and you're as dark as I am."

She put her arm next to mine, to compare: Yes, she was darker. Positively, definitively darker.

"But this color isn't black," she said. "This isn't black at all."[/quote][/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics