The Tricky World of Racial Identifiers

So I'm in my hometown of Wichita, KS this week and went to the mall with my sister in law, neice and daughter. On our way out, we were trying to figure out where a certain restaurant is, and I decided to ask a couple mall employees who were on their way out of the building. The woman was White and the man was Black.

The woman said the restaurant was at Harry and Woodlawn and then the Black guy says, "But you probably don't want to go there, there's lots of Black people there."

I laughed and said, "I don't mind Black people - we ARE* Black people." He looked at me like I was crazy and I pointed to my daughter, who is biracial - Black and White. She is fair skinned with freckles, green eyes and red hair - red hair with a kinky, coiled, Black texture. At first glance, many people assume she's just White.

*Let me note that I do not mean to say I think I'm a Black person just because my daughter is, I was saying, "You insult one of us, you insult all of us".

The guy realizes that my daughter is biracial and starts backtracking, but he really just made it worse. "Oh, I was just saying that there are a lot of ghetto people, gang bangers over there."

So . . . he was trying to communicate ghetto and gangbanger by saying Black to me. Awesome. Then he starts touching his hair (which is long, curly & pulled back in a ponytail) and saying how he's "Pretty Ricky". Pretty Ricky is a term used for Puerto Ricans or Black people who look Latino (whether they are or aren't). I take this to mean that he's referring to our whole conversation - Race Can Be Tricky, Y'all - but who knows, maybe I read him wrong. I thanked them for the information and said, "Let's go." Then I ranted in the car for 20 minutes about the way people deal with race in my hometown and scared my sister in law because I was driving fast. Sorry, SIL!

Now - besides recounting this experience, I want to ask a question. I was telling this story on Twitter, and a friend asked me why I use a single racial identifier (Black) for my biracial daughter (specifically I said she is Black-who-looks-White), and whether I ever use "White." I thought about it, and no, I never refer to her or my other two kids as just White, though I occasionally refer to them as Black. More often we use "biracial", "mixed" (outdated & offensive to some, I believe) or "Black and White".

My response is that I let the kids pick their own identifiers and we've talked a lot about them so they know they can pick what they want, when they want. It's their right to decide who they are & how they present themselves. I know my daughter, especially, gets asked the race question (What are you?) often because she has White coloring, a mixture of features, and Black hair texture. She often has to defend that yes, she is in fact Black, because people (usually kids) don't believe her. She mostly says she is bi-racial, Black and White.

I tend to refer to my kids as Black when we're in a situation like the one above - where someone is not taking into account that they have someone non-White in their presence and are saying some foolish stuff. Now, I speak up whether they're with me or not, but making their presence known usually stops the speaking person in their tracks when they realize they're talking about someone actually in front of them.

I also told my friend that after thinking about it, if my kids call themselves Black, I don't feel as though they are denying their White side. But if they were to call themselves White, I would feel as though they are denying their Black side.

My friend is concerned that my perspective on this is adding to the "one drop" concept - that a single drop of Black blood negates a person's Whiteness. This is a concept that has been used to discriminate against people of mixed ancestry.

You all know that I care a lot about race, that I talk about it, learn about it, try very hard to grow and get rid of prejudices I've grown up with. What do you think about this, and how I've been viewing race in terms of how my kids identify, and how I identify them?

For myself, I think that my friend is right - I am bolstering that concept . . . but knowing that doesn't change how I perceive my kids' race. I'm not saying I won't work on changing this perception - I probably will. I'd like to know your thoughts, though.

Sharing the Love

I get a lot of praise at work. I’ve been really fortunate to work for and with some high-profile people in my organization (though I personally don’t have a fancy position), people who are great supervisors and who give me many opportunities to shine. I do think that I do good work, but I think my successes may seem more obvious because they are more visible. I think many other people I work with deserve accolades as well and I actively work on telling the leaders of our org about the great things others are doing as well as suggesting that they be consulted or brought into projects.

An area where I’d like to improve is praising people to their face. I’d like to tell my peers and those above me when I appreciate something, and when I think they’ve done something well. It’s not that I never do this, but I don’t do it as often as I’d like, and I often feel awkward about it.

Any suggestions?

I Continue To Rock.

Continuing from yesterday’s blog award post, here are the 7 interesting things you probably did not know about me unless you have been my friend for a while in which case I can’t guarantee this post won’t be a complete yawnfest but whatever, here we go:

1 – I am short and curvy. At times, like when I see photos others have taken of me, I think I’d safely be called chubby. I simultaneously hate that and am working on being healthier, while also growing to like myself and the way I look, more and more each day. I’m still not fond of pictures of me but when I look in the mirror, I’m mostly happy (why do they look so different? It’s like I have the opposite of body dismorphic disorder – I think maybe I see myself as hotter than I am. That kind of sucks!). Anyway - I feel like a WOMAN. Boobs and ass and strong arms and legs and PLADOW! You know? I’m tired of wishing I could magically look like someone else. I suppose this is something that I really didn’t even know about myself until recently, because it’s only been true recently. I like myself. There. I said it.

2 – I get a little obsessive, especially when I find new friends online or in real life. I want to be all up in their business and read everything they’ve written and look at all their pictures and talk to them about everything. After a little while, this fades (assuming we don’t develop a real friendship) and I chill and I’m sure the object of my attention is thankful and relieved because they were wondering if they needed lock down all their profiles or something. I’m harmless folks, I promise.

3 – I’m very much a Scorpio, even most of the bad stuff, but I recognize that a lot of those traits aren’t socially acceptable. So I work on those things, trying to steer them in positive directions. But yeah. I’m a Scorpio. Rawr.

4 – I love the Big Bang Theory (tv show). I think it’s funny, I love that it’s a total nerd-gasm for people my age. It was somehow created by the same guy who did 2 and Half Men, which I really can’t even comprehend, but whatever. He hit a home run with #bbt.

5 – Speaking of TV, I like to download or Netflix series like Game of Thrones, Sons of Anarchy, The Wire . . . oh, and ALL THE BRITISH PERIOD PIECE MOVIES AND MINISERIES ZOMG. I like to watch it on my laptop while sewing. That’s a big day for me – munchies, stuff to sew, hours of laptop TV to watch & become fully engrossed in. *happy sigh*

6 – A few years back, I was much more balanced politically. I had some conservative beliefs, some liberal beliefs, some moderate beliefs. And I wanted to vote for people who represent my beliefs and would fight tooth and nail to impact our laws, our society, our world. Now, I’m almost allll liberal and you’d think that would mean I’m more satisfied because I can find people to vote for who more closely align with my beliefs. But nooooo. That would be too easy, right? Now I don’t care what the person believes (within reason) – I just want to vote for someone who knows how to compromise and knows that their personal career isn’t the most important thing at stake. I’m sad that we’re probably never going to see a major politician who works this way.

7 – Sometimes I have no idea what I’m doing with myself, and am scared I’ll wake up in 10, 15 years, in the same place. Still not knowing.

Apparently, I rock . . . and I'm not alone!

I’ve been thinking about my blog lately, how I want to get back into writing for it. I think of great blog posts – funny things, serious thing, a series here, a theme there. Of course, I’m never near a computer when this happens and when I am near a computer I’m working or tweeting and don’t feel motivated to bust out an entry. I think what I’m going to work on doing is jotting down a sentence, a paragraph, a song lyric – whatever strikes me and I have time for RIGHT THEN – and I’ll post that. We’ll see how this goes.

I love this - it's very Neil Young or Avett Bros, right?

Today, though, I’m prompted to post because a blogger I admire gave me a cool web award for being an inspiring blogger. I first noticed Mama Raby on a community blog we both frequent. I liked her comment, clicked on her handle and found myself reading entry after entry of her blog, Under the Maple Canopy. She has Folk Music Fridays, posts about living on less – including intentionally driving very little and instead walking/biking places with her family – politics, homeschooling and the thing that jumped out at me – a background in the Christian faith that she ultimately turned away from.

I’ve written a series of posts that may one day make it to this blog, all about my own journey into and out of faith. I’m still not comfortable saying “I am no longer a Christian”, mainly because of how my famiy will react (I’ve already gotten a dose from friends who were hurt and dismayed), but that’s for the most part, where I am right now. Who knows if I’ll return – I never thought I’d turn away, so I guess going back is just as possible – but yeah. This is where I am now. Reading what Mama Raby wrote about her own experience with faith helped me feel like I wasn’t a total freak, that there are others who’ve come to the same conclusions as I have. I can’t really explain how comforting that is. It just is, you know?

As an award winner, I’m asked to:

1.  Display the award certificate on your website.
2.  Announce your win with a post and include a link to whoever presented your award.
3.  Present 7 awards to deserving bloggers.  Create a post linking to them and drop them a comment to tip them off.
4.  Post 7 interesting facts about yourself.

Here are the bloggers I’m giving the award to:

1 – Ramou – Hilarious. Pop culture. She loves Justin Bieber. She talks about race. One day we will meet and have a day filled with drinking, dancing, ogling men and possibly crying. It will be a good cry, though.

2 – Melissa  – Formerly Melissa Howard of Real World New Orleans fame. She’s a real person, y’all. She’s a Nancy Grace devotee with a huge heart for VIOLENT, VIGILANTE JUSTICE to those who bring harm to the little babies of the world. She’s a wife and mom and one of the funniest people you’ll read on the internet. It’s possible that a day with Ramou could involve a road trip and kidnapping of Melissa. That is, if she doesn’t freak out and call the cops on me for being a total stalker, first.

3 – Nic  – Nic is an academic, a world traveler, a governmental do-gooder who lives in London. Well, she lives in the suburbs of London and that’s part of what she writes about – being a liberal city girl, remodeling a house with her husband in the suburbs, and doing it all with a lot of humor. I love her. I guess it goes without saying that if I ever have the opportunity to meet her in person, it will totally happen. I think she might be less wary by my intentions than Ramou or Melissa.

4 – Kelli – I know Kelli from the Chicago craft scene. We were on the same local Etsy team, she’s run a successful traveling craft show that is hosted in a different bar every month, she has a farmhouse in the middle of the city where she’s doing many of the things I dream about, like growing a big garden, raising chickens, wearing an apron. I know, I know, I can easily raise chickens. I bet you thought I was going to say I could easily wear an apron, right? Just trying to keep you on your toes. Anyway – Kelli is a peaceful soul and I have come to rely on the reminders from her blog to chill out, move a little slower and appreciate what the world around you has to offer. It’s possible that Kelli and I met way back when we had no idea who one another was, but damnit, she lives in Chicago and there is no reason I should not know her in person by now!

5 – Tracy - Right around the time I was getting to know Tracy through her blog and Twitter, she was moving from Brooklyn to suburban Boston. I pored over her entries about Brooklyn life – full of humor, great photos and references that made me think if we lived in the same town she would get SO SICK OF ME always wanting to hang out. Then she moved to Boston, freaked out over the wildlife in her backyard, and I thought, OK, STILL WANT TO STALK HER. So there’s really no change there. Whatever story she tells contains a lot of humanity, a lot of heart and a lot of humor. She is the cool girl at school I always wanted to be like because she rocked but wasn’t a horrid bitch.

6 – Tressie – Somehow, Tressie and I met via Twitter, and ZOMG I’m pretty sure we almost crashed the internet because we LUUUUBBBBBBBSSSSS each other. Tressie is funny (are we sensing a theme?) but y’all, TRESSIE IS SO SMART. You’ll find her blog full of fantastic entries about the research she’s doing on for-profit colleges and race, class, power, access. She’s also won a grant to host a conference on all of this in September, she’s published on HuffPo, she’s doing public radio interviews, she’s speaking truth to power and seeing results . . . you want to know her. Also if you follow her on Twitter you get to see a softer, snarkier, sillier side of Tressie. We’ve already discussed the HOT MESS it would be if, say, she and I had to ride the train together every day. Maybe more than anyone else on this list, I know that Tressie and I will meet. It will be great.

7 – Shay – Shay’s blog is about her life as a Black woman in Maine, the U.S.’s Whitest state, about current topics, her family, blogging and non-profit work. She says what she thinks, she questions, she doubts, she shouts, she laughs. She’s from Chicago and when she visits or when I get to Maine or when we meet up somewhere in the middle, I know we are going to have a good time. I imagine it not necessarily full of crazy activity. I’d be happy to sit around in a living room just talking about life. She’s the type of girlfriend who I’d love to have living down the street. I know she won’t care if my house is a complete wreck and I’m still in my PJs.

This blog post is long enough – my 7 interesting facts will be posted tomorrow!