not black (enough?).... how do I respond?
So I coach boys and girls high school sports and just love it. When Firefly was born, I took 5 weeks off to stay home and bond. During that time I brought her to practice, where my athletes were able to see the little girl I had talked so much about. It was great. I felt like I got to model healthy parenthood for them and the team loved seeing her. They knew our story of open adoption, and that Firefly was multi racial.
One visit, an athlete asked about her ethnicity, and I said she was black (a more accurate response on my part would have been "she's multi-racial"), that day I wasn't up to a long discussion about ethnicity. My star all-league senior girl came over and took one look at her, and then in a tone of disgust, proclaimed "she is not black." and walked away.
Now my All-star does describe herself as black or African American, and can be very disagreeable at times. She has a habit of ripping on others in a loud voice for all to hear. But this was my daughter, and I was the head coach, and both the content of what she said and her tone just pissed me off.
I think I retorted with a frustrated barrage of "well misses know it all, what makes someone black? is it how dark a person is? We all know that's not true. I tell you what her birth dad is as black as your dad, so what does that make her?"
I didn't really care if she was listening, because this athlete doesn't listen well anyways, but I needed her to know I was upset and that she needed to be more careful with what she said about Firefly if she was going to be on my good side. I also wanted all the athletes surrounding us to understand that what I thought she said was not OK.
But anyways, I've replayed this in my head a number of times, never satisfied with my response. Would be interested in hearing your thoughts. I feel like I need to be more prepared next time, for Firefly's sake.
7 comments:
Tell me you did not say that to one of your students.
it must be really frustrating to encounter that kind of judgment. (though maybe it was said to provoke a reaction?) I wish I had something better to suggest, but the great thing about a blog is that maybe someone else will.
After 10 minutes or so of thinking about this, I still don't know what I would say.
Maybe something like, "You're right. She's African American and absolutely perfect!"
1. disagree with her statement that she's not black and
2. note that her degree of whiteness or blackness (depending upon your point of view, I guess) doesn't matter as much as Firefly herself.
I'd be interested to see what everyone else responds. You've presened a doozie. :)
@ hero - I honestly can't remember exactly what I said, but it was something like that, I'm not sure. I was frustrated.
I think when someone's being judgmental, it doesn't matter so much what it's about. You either have an opportunity to educate them, or simply express that their comment is offensive and leave it at that. In your case, you could have asked what she meant, and gone on to have a detailed conversation about ethnicity/race, or just asked why she felt qualified to make that sort of statement. The fact that FD is black makes her black in our society, almost regardless of her skin color. Regardless of how wrong that is, it's the simple truth. For next time, you might consider saying something like: "Her birth dad is black, and we aren't ashamed of that" would probably work.
I think, first, that you shouldn't beat yourself up over this. You were clearly caught unaware by a young lady who sounds like she is a difficult personality to begin with. We all regret something we've said to someone about our children at least once during our experience as transracial parents.
I'd be shocked if you experience this situation very often (specifically, someone questioning her race--most people are going to realize that either 1. you know what you're talking about because you're her dad, or 2. that people of different ethnicities are not all of the exact same skin tone). If you ever DO happen to get this statement again, though, about the lovely Miss Firefly, I'd say you could probably just respectfully disagree and leave it at that. It's not their business anyway, if they choose to be so rude, right?
My eldest daughter (as well as her older bio-sibs, who don't live with us) is also a very fair-skinned black child. A much more common refrain in our lives is the nosy question, "What IS she?" Heh. I do have a rather polished and abrupt set of responses for that one! :-)
As the white mother of a mixed race child -- let me tell you this is going to go on for the rest of your life unless our society evolves a little faster than it is right now. In their late 30s my children have gotten pretty tired of it and as they say... "people won't let them be in any race"... they're not white enough, black enough, mixed enough ("enough" for WHAT?! I always say).
But the good news is... OBAMA! Now they say, "I'm like Obama"... and I say "I'm Obama's mother"... kind of shuts people up and makes them think at the same time... without getting into stupid fights.
Post a Comment