Religion and culture in an interfaith, transracial family
by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Dawn Friedman
We are a transracial family. My husband, my son and myself are white. Our daughter is African-American and joined our family through an open, domestic adoption three years ago. Both my kids are being raised in my Jewish faith in that their formal religious education is happening at our synagogue. They are also being raised less formally with some understanding of Christianity because their father is a Christian. Because it’s easier for me to talk about my beliefs than it is for their dad to talk about his, when my 10-year old son asks big questions I answer from a Jewish perspective, as I understand it.
We’re not so great at the trappings of either of our religions. Judaism — even Reform — has a lot of trappings and this is one of several reasons that our kids are at temple instead of at church. It’s pretty easy to embrace Christianity — you just become Christian. But Judaism has a lot of formal rites that can be confusing and off-putting and to learn them now will make it easier for them to live Jewish later, if they choose to.
That’s our immediate family: non-denominational, liberal Christian and very Reform Jew. Our extended families are everything from Christian Scientist to Atheist to Catholic to Pagan. My kids have some exposure to all of that but their faith teachings spring from my Judaism and Brett’s Christianity.
Now to explain why I feel that it’s more important that our daughter Madison have exposure to Christianity than it is for our son:
1. Her birth family is French-Catholic. Her grandparents met in Catholic high school (Her birth mom, Jessica, has a French last name that’s very common in New Orleans). Madison’s history on both her maternal and her paternal grandparent’s side is Creole way, way back. She should have a cultural understanding of that because it’s a rich part of her birth heritage.
2. Also her birth family, even when they don’t practice Catholicism does practice Christianity. It’s a huge part of their lives and the emails and things we get from them reflect this. She needs to understand this so she has a shared language or at the very least understands their point of view. (Also as an aside, her adoption into a Jewish-identifying family was a concern for some of her first family and we’ve made a point of letting them know that they don’t need to censor their faith with us.)
3. Likewise, Christianity is a very important part of the African American community at large. “Church clothes,” gospel music, biblical teachings — they are important cultural touchstones. Madison is going to miss out on a lot of cultural touchstones by virtue of growing up in our white family and I can’t try to replicate them for her. What I can do is offer her an understanding of them by actively seeking out members of the community who are willing to educate her about them.
I don’t think that Madison has a “true” religion that I can ferret out by looking at the color of her skin or her family tree. I certainly don’t have the hubris to enter into the debate happening in the black community about the relevance of Christianity — what do I know? I’m a white Jew! I’m not talking about faith; I’m talking about the cultural experience of religion.
We’re all for formal and informal multicultural religious education and the informal part is, to me, about addressing the immediacy of a shared cultural experience. This is also why I haven’t gone out of my way to expose my children to Buddhists — we don’t know any. (We know some people who are casually interested in Buddhism but no one who is a practicing Buddhist.) Likewise, in my need-to-happen-more forays into local African American community, I’m seeing a default to Christianity. Several black people have also explicitly told me that I need to expose Madison to Christianity
A woman wrote me awhile back about being a Jewish woman with a child from Guatemala and she said that her son’s birth religion is Catholic but she can’t teach him Catholicism because she’s Jewish. I understand the dilemma — but I’m NOT talking about raising our children in their birth faith. I’m talking about giving our children an understanding of their birth culture.
Here’s something of an example — one reason I think people assume I’m Christian is that I understand some Christian language. I understand what “the world” means. I understand what it means when someone says, “I was convicted on that.” Recently a guy I met at a networking event assumed I was Christian after he used some of that language and I didn’t ask him what he meant. I realize that by knowing his language, he was able to more comfortably (and surely unconsciously) make an assumption about me. I was welcome in a discussion we went on to have that I might not have been otherwise. I want Madison to grok the language.
It goes back to an old post I wrote about American-Family and math camp. To be Chinese, her Chinese husband quite clearly says, means to go to math camp. So should all white parents of adopted Chinese children sign up for math camp? Well, maybe. If math camp has the opportunity to be a shared touchstone that will make it easier for said child to enter into his/her birth community, then math camp has way more importance than just, you know, math camp. It’s a cultural experience that can give a child options.
There are black kids at our synagogue (not many but they’re there). The difference between them and Madison is that they all have at least one black parent. Those children may have to struggle to define what their blackness means to them (or what other people’s assumptions about their blackness means to them) but it will be a different struggle than Madison’s and I think I need to be more proactive than those other parents need to be.
I don’t want to dictate Madison’s experience by telling her that there is one more legitimate way to be black than another (that it is more legitimate to be Christian or Muslim or to embrace the example of Ethiopian Jews). Her experience as a child of African American heritage is legitimate because she is legitimate. BUT I do want her to know what the world at large is talking about. Even if she never has a chummy time in someone’s kitchen getting her hair done, she needs to know that lots of other black women do and that sometimes people will look at her skin and think she shares an experience that she doesn’t. I don’t want her to be broadsided by this — I want her to be prepared, at the very least to be prepared to know that she doesn’t know things but also where to find out. I want her to feel comfortable finding out. Having some shared language will, I know, make her search easier.
The reason I know how painful it is to be ignorant of things that feel like they should have been a birth right is that I’m a second generation interfaith Jew who converted at 30-something. It’s hard sometimes to participate in temple activities and I can’t help but wish my parents had given me an idea of what was going on even if they didn’t want to teach me the faith of Judaism. (It’s a relief to be able to talk about grandmother’s hamantaschen even though I didn’t even know that’s what they were until I went to my first Purim celebration as an adult.) Sometimes I don’t mind being ignorant but lots of times I want to (irony alert) pass as a regular old Jew. Sometimes Madison will want to be able to blend in, too, and I will do my best to open doors so she can craft her own identity instead of being stuck with the one we’re foisting on her.
What Madison’s faith will be is entirely up to her — she may end up feeling strong ties to her French-Catholic ancestry, or her adoptive dad’s mom’s Christian Science history, or she may say to heck with all that and become a Scientologist. Being a second-generation interfaith family, I feel that religion has way more to do with following your heart than with following familial dictates. But I also know that sometimes we look for — and find — truth by following our roots. Madison has a lot of roots. She has those that came to her by adoption, she has those that come from her first family and she has those that are part of the shared history of African Americans.
It’s easy for me to share my faith and to share my family’s faith (including her dad’s family) but it will take special effort on my part to share the religious culture that she lost by being adopted. I want her to have access, should she choose to exercise it.
I’m not sure what that will look like but I imagine I will follow the lead of our local (i.e, Columbus) African American community and seeing where it leads us. Also it comes from studying black history, reading books with black protagonists, and yes, from reading Essence. (I don’t subscribe anymore but I did and I learned a lot — about hair and about religion to start.)
Dawn Friedman is a writer and mother to two children. Her articles have appeared in Salon.com, Yoga Journal, Brain Child and the Greater Good and she is the op-ed editor at Literary Mama. She is also the founder of OpenAdoptionSupport.com and since the adoption of her daughter in 2004 has become passionate about the need for adoption reform. She blogs at this woman’s work.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
kim wrote:
Dawn…my house is full of ill children today, and I’m bone tired (Red-bone tired? Nah.)
Your efforts to expose your child to a language, mythology, practice of worship through fellowship and song, simply to give the basis of a sort of collective consciousness is such a powerful, forward-thinking act of love.
You embolden us all with your willingness to delve deep, and cross lines.
You are surely emboldening your daughter to love all the ways in which she is loved, from all corners. Amen and otherwise.
Thank you for sharing.
(I am a Christian Atheist…or so I’ve been accused of being, and sometimes I must use the language as well. But I do genuinely love the old-style Gospel music.)
Posted 17 Dec 2007 at 2:00 pm ¶
harlemjd wrote:
Just remember - if she doesn’t know (or forgets) what “I was convicted on that” means, she can always blame it on Catholicism; we speak very differently from Protestants.
BTW, what does it mean? I’m familiar with (though not fond of) “the world” and some other “Christian” terms, but that one’s new to me.
Posted 17 Dec 2007 at 5:02 pm ¶
dawn wrote:
harlemjd, I don’t actually know EXACTLY what it means but I BELIEVE it means (from hearing it in context) that it means that someone has prayed about something and feels their belief comes through God’s conviction through prayer that it is true. (I have also heard people say, “He laid a conviction on my heart about that.”) Hopefully someone who actually uses the term can correct me if I’m wrong or have some subtleties wrong!
Posted 17 Dec 2007 at 7:01 pm ¶
Deesha wrote:
Dawn,
My understanding is that “to be convicted” is hearing God saying “tsk-tsk” directly into your heart. “I was determined not to apologize to her, but God convicted me about that, so I apologized.” Or, “I used to buy a lottery ticket every Friday, but then I was convicted about that, and realized that there were better uses for that money.”
You wrote:
“Even if she never has a chummy time in someone’s kitchen getting her hair done, she needs to know that lots of other black women do and that sometimes people will look at her skin and think she shares an experience that she doesn’t. I don’t want her to be broadsided by this — I want her to be prepared, at the very least to be prepared to know that she doesn’t know things but also where to find out. I want her to feel comfortable finding out. Having some shared language will, I know, make her search easier.”
I think you really hit on something here. It’s a dynamic I’ve observed with light-skinned vs. dark-skinned blacks, and biracial blacks and “other” blacks. It’s this circular mistrust and colorism and dysfunction that is just maddening to watch, and I believe you are equipping Madison to steer clear of some of this. In online forums and in “real life,” I hear complaints from blacks about “uppity” light-skinned blacks or biracial people who “don’t want to be black.” And then those folks counter-charge with accounts of the hatred or mistreatment or rejection they’ve experienced from other blacks who are darker-skinned.
Often, I think that a lot (though not all) of this mess stems from presumptions based on appearance, and, as you wrote, presumptions about shared experiences. So, when someone who looks like Madison, doesn’t speak “the language” and doesn’t get the cultural references, and possible gets uncomfortable when she is expected to, this can be misinterpreted as aloofness, uppityness, or a desire “not to be black.”
I believe both “sides” have legitimate gripes, but so often there’s too little dialogue, and way too much presuming going on.
Posted 17 Dec 2007 at 10:14 pm ¶
DWS wrote:
“I was convicted on that.” I believe if a Christian uses this term it means that the Holy Spirit whom is believed to dwell on the inside of us is “quenched” when we act in a manner that conflicts with that Spirit.” In other words, when we do wrong, we are convicted because we realize our actions are in conflict with God’s spirit within us.
Posted 17 Dec 2007 at 10:34 pm ¶
courtney wrote:
Interesting post. Thank you, Dawn. My dad’s family is Christian - lapsed Catholics turned congegationalists - and it’s true - I _don’t_ speak their language. And they’re fairly secular and the same race as me.
kim, I’m nodding and smiling at “christian atheist.” As a fifth generation atheist on my mom’s side, I hadn’t realized I was a “christian atheist” or secular christian, as I sometimes say, until I moved to Israel. (This despite the fact that half of my husband’s family are secular Jews.)
Posted 18 Dec 2007 at 8:36 am ¶
Stephanie W wrote:
Dawn, I really appreciate your efforts to expose you child to AA “cultural faith”. However, as an AA I can say I had no idea what “convicted on something” meant, what “grok” meant and only a loose knowledge of the “world”. It seems to me that some of the ideas you have about her cultrual heritage are somewhat stereotyical and/or idealized.
For example, for me there was NEVER anything chummy about getting my hair done, it was always a painful and unhappy expereince as a child.
I think that understanding the faith of her FAMILIES, their rituals and traditions will allow her to best mix in AA culture. I don’t think that any one experience is typical. The African diaspora is large and we have many varied faith and cutural traditions.
Posted 18 Dec 2007 at 8:49 am ¶
Katie wrote:
Hi Dawn - I second where Stephanie is coming from.
I think that a large percentage of Chinese people would agree that math camp has NOTHING to do with being culturally Chinese - in fact, that really plays into some stereotypes about being Asian American that many of us AsAms have had to fight all our lives. I winced when I read your words - I could see that you were well-meaning, but math camp =/= cultural camp.
I really support your efforts to expose your daughter to many kinds of experiences, but I got the sense in this piece that sometimes you were mixing stereotypes up with lived experiences.
Posted 18 Dec 2007 at 10:26 am ¶
dawn wrote:
Stephanie, I didn’t use “convicted” or “the world” or “grok”, (which is a sci fi term!) in the context of “AA cultural faith.” I used “convicted” and “the world” to show how knowing someone’s language can open up the possibility of relationships at a different level. Specifically how it’s let me into some discussions with Christians I might not otherwise had. (As it happens, those are terms I’ve heard from white Fundamentalists.) Grok I just used because I knew fans of Heinlein would get it.
My mistaken use of the word “chummy” is proof that I’m not the one who’s going to do a good job of teaching this stuff to Madison, thus underlining my belief that I need to get her access in another way.
Katie, I encourage you to re-read the paragraph about math camp so you can see that:
1. I was speaking about America-Family’s blogged math camp discussions and not my own feelings about math camp (of which I have none);
2. I was saying that those of who adopt transracially/transculturally need to appreciate that the things that might seem small or insignificant to us might have greater resonance in our children’s birth culture. Your comment underlines that for me: “in fact, that really plays into some stereotypes about being Asian American that many of us AsAms have had to fight all our lives.” So clearly the choosing and NOT choosing of math camp has different resonance in the life of a child of Asian descent than it has for either my white or black child. If I flippantly said to my friend raising children in her Chinese-American/white family, “To heck with math camp!” or “Sign up, what’s the big deal?” I’d be dismissing the nuances of a discussion I have no play in.
The point of my post is that I believe that as a white person I WILL FAIL my African American daughter if I don’t give her more opportunity to get access to her community. I’ll screw up if I rely on my limited understanding of what it means to be Black in America.
So when you guys say, “Dawn, you’re getting this wrong.” I say, yeah, that’s what I just wrote.”
Posted 18 Dec 2007 at 12:46 pm ¶
cloudscome wrote:
Yes Dawn! I know just what you mean. I like what Deesha said a lot too: “Often, I think that a lot (though not all) of this mess stems from presumptions based on appearance, and, as you wrote, presumptions about shared experiences. So, when someone who looks like Madison, doesn’t speak “the language” and doesn’t get the cultural references, and possible gets uncomfortable when she is expected to, this can be misinterpreted as aloofness, uppityness, or a desire “not to be black.”
That is the bind I fear my sons will be in if I don’t get them more connected to their birth families and deeper into a black community. I have heard some of my black male friends complain about being told they are not black enough when they function well in a mostly white environment (like my school). I imagine a black guy with a white mom will have it even harder.
Posted 18 Dec 2007 at 3:35 pm ¶
AmericanFamily/Amber wrote:
If you follow the links, you will see that the math camp reference comes from a conversation I had with my husband who is Asian.
For *my husband*, math camp was the first time he found himself in as a member of a majority group. It was also one of the first times he was in a place with a bunch of kids his age and total felt like he fit in…that his Chineseness didn’t set him apart. To him, math camp was the awakening of his pride in being Chinese and the awakening of his Asian American identity.
When white parent swho have adopted Asian kids have in the past asked my husband how they find Asian peers for their children, my husband always lists math camp as one of his top suggestions along with SAT prep classes, violin and piano lessons, chess club and Chinese language school. These aren’t included because they are stereotypically Asian activities, but because a lot of Asian parents value these skills and enroll their kids in these classes in our area.
I don’t know if there are any specific posts on my blog in which I discuss the cultural importance that my husband places on math camp and that experience, or if Dawn was just drawing on personal conversations we have had. My blog does have a number of posts that discuss the weight he places on academic success and how he feels that FOR HIM, this is part of his Chinese culture and he is not willing to let that go. (This post was linked in the post on Dawn’s blog that is linked in this article. http://american-family.org/2006/10/09/love-is-sometimes-a-battlefield/)
Posted 18 Dec 2007 at 5:09 pm ¶
Katie wrote:
I’m not taking issue with your post, Amber. I do take issue with the way it’s used in Dawn’s writing.
Dawn, you say, “To be Chinese, her Chinese husband quite clearly says, means to go to math camp. So should all white parents of adopted Chinese children sign up for math camp? Well, maybe. If math camp has the opportunity to be a shared touchstone that will make it easier for said child to enter into his/her birth community, then math camp has way more importance than just, you know, math camp. It’s a cultural experience that can give a child options.”
Well, given what Amber just said, it seems like the math camp thing became more than the sum of its parts because of the opportunity to interact with other Asian American kids, rather than a “cultural experience.” The greater import of math camp was in the proximity of other AsAms rather than the math-camp-ness of it. I don’t think you’re using her example in the same way she is.
Amber, you may very well disagree, I’m just saying how it read to me.
Also, math camp is obviously something that only a certain socioeconomic subset of people can afford, thereby selecting the pool of people who attend. Does that mean that those Chinese people who didn’t attend are less Chinese because of it? Of course not. But it is another way that “math camp” is not a synonym for “touchstone of cultural Chineseness.”
I think what I’m really taking issue with here is the issue of access to other cultures - what I am reading as your assumption that somehow, if you collect enough of the correct cultural signifiers for your daughter, she will have access to cultures other than her own as it is lived in your family and your community. The thing is, Blackness as I understand it through my lens of Asianness doesn’t work the same way as Judaism (which I read your words to mean White Ashkenazic American Judaism). I think you should be less concerned with how Madison will become Black - not that I think you should be doing anything differently by any means - but by how she is becoming Jewish. She IS Black. It’s something that she IS. Your giving her a lens into other Black American experiences is useful, but authentic Blackness will be with her wherever she goes, because her transracially adopted self IS it.
Some of her struggle, like mine as a product of a White Jew and a Korean American Buddhist, may also be around Judaism - the racism of the White Ashkenazic American Jewish community in particular. In some ways this was harder FOR ME than negotiating my Koreanness because of the deep-down assumption of many White Ashkenazi Jews that I knew that, no matter my qualifications, someone who looked like me couldn’t be Jewish.
Dawn, you end your comment with, “So when you guys say, “Dawn, you’re getting this wrong.” I say, yeah, that’s what I just wrote.” I feel like this is giving you a free pass to say that wherever you misstep on race is not your fault - that you have nothing to learn because you CAN’T learn as a White person. Well, I think you can. I read alot of the post as being an affirmation of a kind of choose-your-own-identity, specifically in the way you use your language - “her search,” “craft her own identity,” “share the religious culture that she lost,” etc. That speaks very much to the privilege of Whiteness to be mutable that way, to take most any cultural form that it chooses. She’ll be read as Black, I understand, and will not always have the privilege of disassociating her identity from her skin color.
What I’m trying to say is, you seem very intent on giving her access to knowledge of what it means to be a middle-class Black Essence reader. Maybe that’s one way to be Black, but it’s not the only way. Teaching her how to deal identify and deal with racism from within and without would be just as helpful, and I don’t see in your words an understanding of how her options will be shaped by that reality.
Finally, I want to restate that I do respect what you’ve done as a parent. This response is about what I see in your post, not you as a person or your parenting skills. I hope you feel like continuing the conversation.
Posted 18 Dec 2007 at 8:00 pm ¶
Deesha wrote:
Katie, you wrote:
“I think you should be less concerned with how Madison will become Black - not that I think you should be doing anything differently by any means - but by how she is becoming Jewish. She IS Black. It’s something that she IS. Your giving her a lens into other Black American experiences is useful, but authentic Blackness will be with her wherever she goes, because her transracially adopted self IS it.”
In response to “She IS black”…
Though you and I and most if not all reading this would agree that this is true, there is a very good possibility that Madison’s blackness will be questioned, and I’m assuming that Dawn is making the efforts she’s making in part to equip her to understand why this may be. There likely will be “cultural” expectations of her as a black person in some corners; how she looks and what she “is”, won’t matter. It won’t be enough. The authenticity of her blackness may be questioned.
I agree with your assessment of Judaism vs. Blackness, generally speaking, but I’d venture a guess that Madison’s blackness is more likely to be questioned than her Jewishness.
I understand the concern about mistaking stereotypes for cultural experiences, however, some black folks traffic in these stereotypes as well, and will question the blackness of anyone who doesn’t fit their expectations of what it means to be black. This can include appearance, musical and other artistic preferences, how one speaks, and on and on. The dreaded and self-hating accusation of “acting white” is all-too-real.
That said, I don’t know if Dawn’s concern is about authenticity, as much as it is about equipping Madison for the world in which she lives, including the context of what her skin color means/may mean in the world beyond her front door. I didn’t read Dawn’s efforts as an exhaustive list of “ways to be black”; I read it as what she’s identified as SOME cultural touchstones for SOME black people. As Madison grows, she’ll see more and learn more, just like the rest of us. She will learn about the diversity of not just black folks, but all folks, by living. But it sounds to me–though Dawn can clarify for herself–that Dawn has decided that she has to start somewhere.
Posted 18 Dec 2007 at 10:16 pm ¶
dawn wrote:
Thanks, Deesha, for helping to clarify what I’m trying (and clearly not succeeding) in saying.
Katie, I wrote, “I don’t want to dictate Madison’s experience by telling her that there is one more legitimate way to be black than another … Her experience as a child of African American heritage is legitimate because she is legitimate.” I know this. Also I am also arguing that math camp is, as you write, “more than the sum of its parts.” I didn’t go into the entire math camp discussion because I linked back to a post that links back to a post.
This particular entry was originally part of a conversation on my blog prompted by people who were confused about why I was putting diversity at the top of our list in looking at preschools. (Specifically why I would not have sent my son to a Christian-identified preschool but would send my daughter, given that the preschool had black kids/black teachers.) It may be that it’s losing a lot out of context. I do know that some of what you’re reading as my intentions and as my assumptions is wrong; I can only take the blame as a writer.
Posted 19 Dec 2007 at 9:30 am ¶
kim wrote:
Alright. I’ll second Deesha’s fervent efforts to support Dawn’s intentions, and say, to Dawn:
what’s wrong with the use of chummy? (Smile, Lady.)
A Northeastern, urban experience (Black or otherwise) is going to be radically different from a Midwestern experience from a Pacific Rim experience, in expression and definition both to self and the imperious “Other,” which inhabits so much of the psyche - and discussion- of the collective Black community.
Almost none of the issues Dawn speaks of regarding her child and exposure to aspects of cultural Blackness are absent from my own consciousness of my children’s experience as young Black people.
Introducing a background and a language for that which will often be used, both in the collective community (away from Other listening ears), referenced in literature and whispered as jeer in hallways, is important. A knowledge of the ways in which many particulars of the public definitions of Blackness will impact their lives is something I must expose my children to.
It’s not about identification, but knowledge, and the fundamental tools of empowerment.
Posted 19 Dec 2007 at 2:43 pm ¶
Deesha wrote:
Kim wrote:
“Almost none of the issues Dawn speaks of regarding her child and exposure to aspects of cultural Blackness are absent from my own consciousness of my children’s experience as young Black people.”
This came to my mind as well. It is such a fine line to walk not to pander to stereotypes, but we’ve had experiences here where other blacks, notably my family down South, have expectations of my daughters to know about what they consider “typical” black things. And a few times, my girls have been clueless. For example, my family laughed out loud when my children said, “What’s Kool-Aid?” when a relative offered them some last summer. As black kids, somehow they are* supposed* to know what Kool-Aid is, and enjoy drinking it, I guess, lol.
My oldest daughter did not appreciate being laughed at and didn’t understand what the big deal was. I explained to her that we drank a lot of Kool-Aid growing up as kids, and so our family thought my kids woulld drink it too.
So, while I didn’t give them a Brief History of Kool-Aid and Black Folks when we got back to Pittsburgh, recently it did dawn on me that in all my efforts to be health-conscious, I have abandoned the kind of cooking that I grew up with that I tend to associate with my Southern black roots. So, every now and then I will cook like my grandmother cooked–what is typically considered soul food–because doing so passes down our history and culture.
Is it stereotypical to think it’s important that my kids know how to fry chicken like my grandmother does? Some people may think so, but I’m more concerned about the bigger picture of keeping our family traditions alive. (Though hopefully the Kool-Aid tradition will die with me!)
Posted 19 Dec 2007 at 4:54 pm ¶
kim wrote:
Wouldn’t you like a cut-away of the kidney after a lifetime of Kool-Aid ingestion?
(And, for the record, I never heard of putting oranges in Kool-Aid until a commercial of a few years ago.)
Posted 19 Dec 2007 at 6:58 pm ¶
Bo Er Ya wrote:
Dawn it sounds like you and your family might really enjoy attending, or attending activities at a Unitarian Church. The Religious education there tends to give kids a window into all kinds of faith traditions and focus on building a personal identity.
Posted 20 Dec 2007 at 12:31 pm ¶
Tami wrote:
Deesha, you make some wonderful points.
Reading this article, it occurred to me that what Dawn’s daughter will face is not so different from what I faced as a child, though her experience may be amplified by having non-black parents.
I was the kid often accused by peers of “acting white” or “talking white.” It wasn’t about my parents. My parents are black with Southern roots. It wasn’t about skin color. People can identify me as obviously African American. It was about my bookishness, my speech patterns, my musical choices, my interests, my suburban upbringing. There were people who simply believed I didn’t share the right cultural touchstones to be “authentic.” That much of what those people would deem authentically black is rooted in stereotype made no difference to me at 13 years old.
Dawn, it is admirable that you are anticipating the cultural challenges your daughter may face and working to ease her path.
Posted 20 Dec 2007 at 1:12 pm ¶
Deesha wrote:
Kim,
I vaguely remember the oranges in the Kool-Aid.
But…did you guys ever use concentrated Kool-Aid (an envelope of K-A full of water) as hair dye/rinse? That was major trifling but some girls in my neighborhood did it. I never did it myself, but I put it on my doll’s hair.
Ah, memories.
Posted 20 Dec 2007 at 2:27 pm ¶
Katie wrote:
I think alot of my resistance here comes from hearing a White person referencing math camp, Essence, etc., where I wouldn’t be as bothered by a person of color doing so.
I feel better hearing more about where you’re coming from, Dawn (not that you need my good feelings!). I think some of what I read you as having said was not accurate, given some rereading and some thought. Thanks also to all who clarified your words.
Posted 20 Dec 2007 at 6:39 pm ¶