When Annika was a baby, I once casually mentioned to Toyin that I’d like to dress her as Snow White for Halloween. He rolled his eyes and scoffed, “You can’t dress a black child as Snow White!” He was joking, mostly. But even so, that year, I dressed her as a kitty cat, because she [...]
Categories: Bi-racial, Parenting, Race, Racial Identity, Racism, Uncategorized
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Tags: Bi-racial, Race, Racial Identity, Racism
Last week I got into a little disagreement on Facebook, through a comment thread on an acquaintance’s page. I left a comment saying that people who fly confederate flags are generally not the kind of people who a black man (or woman) might want to be caught in a dark alley with. My point was [...]
Categories: Race, Racism, Uncategorized
| Tags: Race, Racism
Today I’ve got a guest post from Jen Marshall Duncan, another white mom with biracial children. She’s a teacher in Iowa. Her blog, Empatheia, is one of my regular reads because she is insightful, articulate and intelligent, a real gem in the blogger world. I came across this “I Don’t See Race” poster on Pinterest [...]
Categories: Blogging, Guest Post, Uncategorized
| Tags: Race, School
So George Zimmerman has been arrested. And everyone is happy. The racist bastard has been caught and will be judged. Except, I have to admit, it doesn’t feel like all is right with the world. It did at first. I was elated that he’d finally been charged. And I still think it’s the right answer. [...]
Categories: Race, Racism, Uncategorized
| Tags: Race, Racism
It’s time for my yearly bitch about how I can’t find black/biracial/dark-skinned-in-general dolls in general stores. My biggest complaint is with stores like HEB, Walgreens, CVS, (Wal-mart if I shopped there often enough) and Target. I”m mainly focusing on these stores because I hate to shop, I don’t go to malls, and I’m not going [...]
Categories: Bi-racial, Motherhood, Race, Racial Identity, Racism, Uncategorized
| Tags: Annika, Bi-racial, Multi-racial, Race, Racial Identity, Racism
White people are unbelievably uncomfortable talking about race or skin color. This is a fact that I have become acutely aware of in the past three years. In part, my observation of this fact came about with my becoming more accustomed to using skin color as a qualifier for myself. Annika notices and mentions often [...]
Categories: Bi-racial, Motherhood, Race, Racial Identity, Racism, Uncategorized
| Tags: Annika, Bi-racial, Inter-racial, Race, Racism, Stereotypes
When I read this story about the racist bake sale hosted by the UC Berkeley College Republicans, I was reminded of a case over University of Michigan’s law school admissions policy that went to the Supreme Court in 2003. In this case a white woman was passed over for admission. She sued the school,saying that [...]
Categories: Bi-racial, Detroit, Race, Racism
| Tags: Bi-racial, Race, Racism
Annika (and I) has been a big Dr. Seuss fan since she has been old enough to follow along with a book. Her first ever ever favorite book was The Foot Book. I kind of miss reading that one to her, even though, at the time, I wished that she enjoyed the more complex ones [...]
Categories: Motherhood, Racism
| Tags: Annika, Race, Random crap
One of the cool things about being the mom of a biracial child is that I feel like I’m bridging a gap. My posts on race are written from the perspective of a white woman in a country that has a history of racial tension. Even though much of the blatant racial tension is gone, [...]
Categories: Bi-racial, Life, Motherhood, Parenting, Race, Racism, Uncategorized
| Tags: Annika, Bi-racial, Parenting, Race, Racism, School
And so it begins. The realities of raising a child who straddles two worlds. The worlds that divide her between skin color and socioeconomic status. I’ve been touring preschools. Recently, I toured a small school on the east side of Austin. It was filled with mostly dark-skinned children, Hispanic and black. The teacher, in what [...]
Categories: Austin, Bi-racial, Life, Motherhood, Race, Racism
| Tags: Annika, Bi-racial, Motherhood, Race, Racism
