For children growing up, family represents the beginnings of our sense of societal cohesion and those experiences influences our ways of defining different. As the mother of mixed children, it occurred to me that I would inevitably be called upon to answer some awkward and even appalling questions regarding these differences ; race relations in the US being as they are. But, what I never imagined was that I- progressive mom extraordinaire could and ultimately would, struggle for years before finding the answers.
One of the more comical albeit awkward moments happened in a NYC playground between my son Jordan when he was about 4 (now approaching 18), and a boy he befriended who was about the same age. After a few hours of play, the close of their time together drew near and, the other child’s parents’ called him to leave. The children mournfully said their ‘goodbyes’ and, just as the other child turned to exit with his parents, Jordan said, “Hey, is that your mommy and daddy”? His new friend nodded and Jordan, still staring turns, looks up at me quizzically and says, “How come his mommy isn’t Black?”
Cue the chemical onslaught; emotionally, I’m flooded: laughter, sobbing, anxiety, trembling-I’m reaching new heights on my internal awkward-o-meter. “Well, because Jordan… his mommy is different from your mommy. Some families don’t have Black mommies”. Of course, Jordan is now talking about [insert toy, show, insect] and I’m well, flummoxed; we don’t talk about race, like ever. I’m so embarrassed, where could he have learned such a thing?! It occurred to me then, Jordan’s tiny social circle- until this fateful afternoon, consisted of our mixed race/multicultural friends and family; a group of people who shared the same unspoken differences.
Fast forward a decade or more and our second child, Yael, has made yet another high volume tear and snot laden entrance after being called a “half-breed” and ridiculed for being “not really Black”, by two children in an AZ playground. Hmph, now I’m looking quizzical- okay livid and quizzical. After a brief tirade, I gingerly deliver the same lame, vague speech about differences. But, all the while, I’m thinking, “Uh, yeah, so what. There’s nothing wrong with being not really black. Half breed isn’t the most diplomatic term, but…well, have we gotten too diplomatic, too politically correct, too hypervigilante, too homogenous”? Are we so focused on explaining the pedantics of our differences that we have turned a blind eye to the ways differences enrich our single commonality?
To expect our fellow humans to ignore our differences is not only disingenuous but insulting as it undermines the beauty of our individuality. You see, it isn’t about looking different or being differently abled that continues to plague society, but a willful ignorance and indifference to the fact that we are all different; even those of us who look the same. If we, as a society are ever to achieve on a macrocosmic level, the cohesion that exists in families on a microcosmic level, we’ll need to begin with asserting ourselves and affirming our identities as unique members of the human race.
So, if you pass the playground and overhear a child declaring that they “are not half anything but completely, 100%, one of a kind”, that one belongs to me.
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