March 20, 2005

Rayne mixes it up beautifully with a little bit of race, politics and parenting
by Liza Sabater

I just recently read in a blog some statistics that show how acceptance of interracial marriages has declined since the 1980. I did not bookmark the post and have no idea which blog I read it (if any of my readers do know, please tell me where to find those dang numbers). Anyhow, I came across a post from none other than Rayne, one of my fellow writers at Radio Free Blogistan.

In it she relates how this was the first year she really had "The Talk" with her son. "The Talk", in this case is not about sex. In the case of a mixed-race family, "The Talk" is about race :

Rayne Today | Sickening truth

But the president helped change things, the one who got Martin Luther King out of jail so that Martin could keep working, right? What was that president's name?

Kennedy or Johnson? I asked him.

Kennedy, he said, that one. He helped get Martin Luther King out of jail. Is he still alive? he asked me.

I said no, someone shot and killed him.

Again, the stricken look of shock and disbelief.

Like Martin Luther King? Someone shot him with a gun, too?

Yes. I was very tiny, only a couple of years old. Your grandmother was twenty-two, younger than your stepbrother is now.

This was enough. He couldn't handle any more and needed a break. He was quiet for a few minutes, swaying a bit as he thought, twisting his lips as if working to say something that wouldn't come out. He blinked hard a few times then wandered off again to his room.

Good God, this made me feel sick, to have to tell him all these horrible things. It feels like I'm reliving these events again. I don't know how much he's grasping of the context.

And yet I remember how much I understood at seven years of age, when I read the evening paper with my father, understood how big and how tragic an event it was that Martin Luther King had been assassinated. No one talked about it with me; I read about it on my own, watched the evening news and heard about it on the radio. I don't know that I felt I could ask any questions about this event --but then even adults had much to learn at that point in time about the enormity of this loss. In this respect, my son is more fortunate that he can ask about this freely; there are so many resources about race in America than there were when I was his age.

In spite of feeling heartsick about teaching my son the bitter truth of our nation's past, I feel a sense of pride that he is so willing to deal with it head on.

I hope I'll be up to the challenge when he'll want to face down even uglier truths in the years ahead.

This is the first year we've had "The Talk" thanks to questions like :

"Mommy, why is it that your chocolate colored and Evan is caramelly and I'm more like pink?

"Dad, why is it people don't think I'm your son?"

"Mommy, why did those people stop you at the airport but not daddy?"

"Daddy, why did that guy wouldn't serve our table?"

I can completely identify with the weight of the responsibility. It's your duty, to tell them your history --which is also OUR history--, and it fills you with pride; but the violence, the utter violence involved in that history just weighs you down with sorrow. But you forge ahead because you have a duty to never forget and to make sure neither your children and your children's children.

When I told them one of their great great grandmothers had been a slave, they looked at me in total, utter disbelief. The little one couldn't get it. The big guy ... it took him a few hours to process that one; and he was not just pained but repulsed by the idea.

Just as Rayne, I've tried to do it as carefully and gently as possible; but where there is injustice, there will always be outrage. I think that outrage is good even at this age. It's attachment to this outrage that's what's counterproductive; and that's what we discussed. "Yes, you're mad, but don't get stuck in being mad." I told them, "Let's use that to make the world a better place. A place were people are treated fairly and with respect."

"How mommy?", asked the big guy.

"By doing just that --treating everybody fairly and with respect."

"That makes sense."

It was during our discussing Martin Luther King that Thing #2 asked : "So mommy, even if I'm pink, I'm also black?"

I couldn't help but hug him and kiss him. I knew why he was asking this : He felt he was being left out. Which is why we ended up reading about Africa and it's continental history of slavery. In talking about slavery, I became aware of how easy it was to fall into the trap of : "The white man is bad because he was a slave master."

No, there was no "white man" who invented slavery. Slavery has existed in every single human "civilization"; to the point that one could infer that without slavery there would not have been any "civilizations".

"So mommy, even if I am pink I am also black?"

"Yes honey, even if you're pink, you're also black."

"Cool. Evan I'm also black!"

"Awesome dude. Want to go play Yugi-Oh?"

"Ok. Mom we're done now."

"For now, yeah, we're done for now."

And the learning continues.

Posted by Liza Sabater in Civil Rights, Education, Ethnicity, History, Martin Luther King, Motherhood, Parenting, Politics, Race
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