I meant to continue this thought earlier but being the domestic goddess that I am, life got in the way...
Our vacuum broke this week, this is the second vacuum in 6 years that has broken due to my lovely Kim Kardashian locks…seriously, it might be time to shave my head.
So Im Racially Ambigous.
I kinda always felt that my ambiguity would protect me from any negative vibes people might put out there because I was hanging with the opposite-of-my-race crowd.
So I looked back through the years of my many groups of friends from my many travels and I realized something…
When I lived on military bases, I had friends of all races. When I moved back to civilian life and entered high school, my inter-racial companions were almost non-existent.
It wasn’t so much that I chose to hang out with only white girls…it was more that I was VERY shy and I would be friends with whomever chose me. And white girls chose me.
So during my entire high school career I had one black friend.
Why do I bring this up…
Well after reading the article posted above it got me thinking about expectations that I have for Emily, and what I imagined for her.
I imagined her racial ambiguity would be a good thing and that she will be free to hang out with whomever she chose without being called an ugly name.
But then I got REALLY honest with myself. Please don’t judge too harshly.
I was surprised with how dark she was when she was born. I thought she would look more like me. (The jury is still out on who she looks like more, I say her father.)
Then, when I imagined her bringing girlfriends home, I imagined white girls! I didn’t realize that this is what I was ASSUMING would happen. Now that I dug a little deeper, and saw what that I was indeed making assumptions, I realized that Em might come home with mostly black girls! This never occurred to me before, but it has now. And I am glad for it.
If she chooses to identify herself more as Black or African-American or even Ghanian, rather than Mixed, or Inter-Racial (I never imagined her saying White), then I am okay with that. I don’t think I will feel left out or that she is abandoning her heritage. I don’t have any “white” heritage to carry down anyway. I WANT her to know all about her Ghanian heritage and I know her family wants that for her too. In the end, her identity will be her choice. What I want most for my daughter is for her to feel loved and to be loving. To be confident and feel that she can do anything as long as she has Christ with her.
Hey Tiff, I enjoyed reading your thoughtful and honest comments. Now that you mention it, when Azad - my Irish-German-Indian - son was young I always envisioned him being friends with other Indian kids and possibly even marrying a nice Christian Indian woman someday. Whenever I would meet an Indian person at work, I would try to introduce them to my son in hopes that a relationship of some kind would blossom. Just never happened. As my son got older he used to tell me "yawn, you just like anyone who is Indian". Okay I admit I may be intrigued with the culture and have greedily watched any bollywood movie, any movie directly or even vaguely about India that came my way!! I even dabbled in henna tattooing and shared various bits of the Indian culture in the way of folk lore or food. Maybe someday, I dreamed, he will be a missionary to India! THEN, I found out in High School that he referred to himself as "Inuit", which would be someone from Alaska! Perhaps this started after 911? I didn't know if I should be humored or deeply concerned that I failed him in some way. I suppose I'm falling in the middle on that one. So I thought perhaps it's just due to our demographics here Phoenixville, PA. As he started out for College I wondered how would he be perceived? Would his whole friend dynamic change as people met him for the first time without his Irish-German entourage? Would people be shocked that he speaks English so well? Would they wonder about his religious background and think he was Muslim? As an out of state university student will he be red-flagged as a possible terrorist on his many trips to the airport? Will the parents of girls he dates be "worried" about him?! As it turns out he has become friends with people "just like him" in attitude and interests...Oh, and also with odd names :). Anyway, I digress. Jasmine is my 1 1/2 year old daughter that I adopted from South Wilmington. I'll be honest I have been thinking that she'll have some little black friends come over, their mom's will teach me how to do her hair, maybe they'll teach each other some funky dance moves and call each other "GirrrrrrlFriend"! I also think, maybe someday she'll marry a nice handsome black man like Frankie! But you know what people...there is only so much I can do...we live in Spring City for Pete's sake!! So perhaps, I'll be writing you in 20 years to say that Jasmine has been telling people that she is an orphan from Haiti and not that she was born in Wilmington DE, JUST like the rest of our family!!
ReplyDeleteha ha wow that was looooooooong!
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ReplyDeleteLOL I love it...i didnt realize i had so many expectations or assumptions too.
And you are so right...our neighborhoods arent very racially diverse, so there is less to choose from.
Thanks for sending me the article!