Tag archive for "Colors"

Thought

Playground Politics: A 20-Something Black Mom Negotiates Strollers and Stereotypes

15 Comments 27 July 2009

By TARA PRINGLE JEFFERSON

The judgmental stares start as soon as I pull up into the parking lot of the neighborhood playground.

Among the rows and rows of gleaming silver and gold Honda Odysseys, I pop the trunk of my 1997 Buick LaSabre, grab the stroller and head to one side of the car to unbuckle my 2-year-old daughter. Her hand in mine, we head to the other side to get her younger brother. I plop him in the stroller and take the kids to the maze of swings and slides.

The other mothers look up casually when they see me. Then they do a double take.

A young 20-something mom.

With two kids.

And I’m black.

I know what they’re thinking. I live in an area where if I see another black person, I stop and make conversation. We are that rare. So our presence in our predominately-white town is almost always met with questioning looks.

As my babies and I move to the different areas of the park, my daughter jumping from swing to swing, the other moms and kids scatter as we approach. Honestly, I don’t mind, because I like my privacy and don’t care for chit-chat when trying to keep up with two kids under age two. But it just feels awkward, and that awkwardness continues when it’s time to go home and I get the disapproving stares as I load my kids into my car with the high mileage and loud engine.

True, I don’t have the 2009 minivan of the year as I schlep my kids here and there. But you know what? I love my car just the same.

My husband (then boyfriend) purchased the car for me shortly after we discovered I was pregnant with our first. At the time, I had no car and no easy way to get to my doctor’s appointments. That man emptied his savings account to get me that car to make sure we (me and our unborn child) were okay. For me, that car is a big honking symbol of our love, even more so than my wedding ring.

But they wouldn’t possibly know that. Couldn’t know it. When I get questions like, “so, is their dad in the picture?” I’m also sure they don’t care.

To be a young mom is one thing. To be a young black mom? That’s just asking for judgment.

I first noticed it with my first child, when I was in the hospital recovering after my C-section. Every doctor, nurse, janitor, even the lady that comes around to take the newborn photos, glanced slyly at my ring finger and casually made conversation like I was a single mom, even though my husband was sitting next to me and we were both wearing wedding rings.

People ask, “Are you the babysitter?” when I’m out with my crew.

Perfect strangers inquire about my salary and my ability to provide for my kids.

I’ve even been verbally accosted by two elderly women for, wait for it… sitting in my car with my daughter outside of the drugstore. They looked in my car, wrinkled their noses, and I heard one mutter, “Babies having babies,” as they walked away.

Deep sigh.

It seems like motherhood only comes in two forms: the confident/advanced in her career/30-something mom or the downtrodden/why-didn’t-she-just-keep-her-legs-closed teen mom.

I fit neither of those categories. And I’m glad I don’t.

I’ve learned more about myself, my values, my goals, my ambitions, my husband, and my friends in the past three years than I would have otherwise. I became a mother before I was ready, but who is ever 100 percent ready for the job?

Lots of people spend their 20s learning who they are. I’m spending my 20s learning who I can be, with my kids there to witness. I love that they will be there every step of the way with me. They’ve had a front row seat to every accomplishment I’ve had thus far. I took my final exams six days after giving birth to my daughter, my stomach throbbing from the stitches. I breastfed my daughter, then shrugged on my graduation gown and walked across the stage to grab my diploma. I got my first raise a few months after returning from maternity leave with my son.

They’re here to see it all, from beginning to end. When it’s all said and done, I will look back at my career and say, “We did this together.”

So when the other moms shun me on the playground, I don’t let it bother me. I hop in my trusty, reliable boat of a car, and throw a glance at the angels in the backseat. Wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Or a new minivan.

About our MyBrownBaby contributor:
Tara Pringle Jefferson is an Ohio-based freelance writer. A wife and mom of two, she pens the blog, The Young Mommy Life, where she discusses the joys and challenges of being a 20-something mom. She is writing a book about the young mom experience, set to be completed whenever she gets a solid chunk of quiet time.

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On The MBB Stoop

Here’s To Hoping It Won’t Matter To My Babies (and Their Friends) If They’re Black or White

16 Comments 01 July 2009

by JENNIFER JOHNSON

I wasn’t ever the prettiest girl in school. In fact—I was never even close. But that didn’t stop me from being one of the most outgoing girls in my class. I was a cheerleader, in the band, class president. I signed up for and tried out for nearly every club imaginable. But the fact of the matter was that the deep south, where racism is still fresh and obvious and seering, was not the ideal place for dating.

I remember in high school reading a newspaper article about a school in a town—too close to ours—that was having their first integrated prom. My school wasn’t this far behind the times, but it certainly was a lot like that other town’s school in other ways. People were much more comfortable choosing sides.

Not me, though. My best friend was white; friends from my neighborhood were black. And it wasn’t very common to have close friends of both races (I say both because where I grew up in Georgia there was just black and white—not much of anything else). By the time I started high school, we had moved to a predominantly white neighborhood, which then turned my neighborhood and school demographics into “mostly white.” Overall, it is safe to say most of my friends growing up were white.

When I turned 16 (the magic number in my house to begin dating) I imagined the phones ringing off the hook on the weekend, boys waiting in line to ask me out. But they never called and the dates never came. Instead, I had a lot of “guy friends.” You know, the ones who would hang out with you, and talk to you on the phone, but they’d mostly be plotting ways get hooked up with your friends.

This was the case with one of my best guy friends for quite some time. We were very close. He wanted a girlfriend, I wanted to be his girlfriend. But one day after school, he told me why that wasn’t possible. “Because you’re black,” he told me point blank.

Some of my girlfriends blamed not dating outside of their race on their religion. “It says in the Bible that you should stick to your own race,” they’d argue. But my parents always told me differently. “If that is the case, who are biracial people to marry?” they’d ask. “Only biracial people?”

I didn’t let those experiences drag me down. In fact, they built me up—made me a better, stronger woman. And when I moved away for college, I had the opportunity to date all sorts of men—men who weren’t scared of something different. The man I married—“The One”—happens to be white. And while we don’t share the same skin tone, we do share the same religious beliefs and many of the same cultural experiences. We are in this life together because we are in love and want to be together; what others think about it is really inconsequential to us.

Still, we often find ourselves questioning where we’ll live and raise our children because while I was strong as a single woman, and we have been strong as a couple, we worry—worry that things could be more difficult for our children. I worry especially that my daughters will face the same challenges I faced growing up, but won’t deal with it in the same was as I did, by pushing through it. I was able to brush it off my shoulder, but there are plenty other women who hold grudges, get upset, and turn it into much bigger things. I also worry my sons will have a hard time finding women to date because their parents don’t want their daughters dating “black boys.”

I worry, too, that if my children look biracial, adults will be too complimentary to my children. I don’t want my kids to suffer the “light-skinned complex,” in which they think they’re cuter than most because of the color of their skin and texture of their hair, or they learn to hate it because others are giving them a hard time about it.

I hope as my children grow up they meet other children who are taught to have friends of all races, and date people of all nationalities. Religion, career, personality—those are all things you can choose. You’re born your race.

I don’t want my children to grow up wishing they looked “more like daddy” or like their white friends, and I don’t want them wishing they looked more like me, either. I want them to be proud of who they are, and proud to be whatever color they may turn out to be. Most of all, I hope others around us are accepting and open-minded enough to see my kids and others for more than just the color of their skin. After all, hasn’t our country advanced far enough to where race and color shouldn’t matter? In some places, I think yes.

Growing up in the South gave me thick skin, and confidence in who I am as a person—as an individual. For me, “choosing sides” wasn’t easy. I can only imagine how much more difficult it will be for a biracial child who has one white parent and one black parent.

I can only pray that by then, my babies won’t have to make a choice.

About our MyBrownBaby contributor:
Future mama Jennifer Johnson chronicles her journey toward motherhood on her blog, Baby Makin(g) Machine.

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Thought

MyBrownBaby: Where No Question Is Considered A Dumb Question

12 Comments 15 March 2009

I started MyBrownBaby on a whim last September—back when the presidential election was in full gear and the Bristol Palin teen pregnancy fiasco was setting the news cycles on fire. My first post questioned how lil’ Miss Bristol’s pregnancy would have been viewed if she were, oh, say, a black teenager—a conversation that was being had by black moms everywhere, but was virtually ignored in every news story/analysis from here to Wasilla.

It was an observation that combined the two things I love writing about most—black folks and parenting—and I thought it a fitting debut post for MyBrownBaby, which I created to be a space where black moms could lend their critical voice, a voice that all-too-often is missing from the parenting debate. My intent was to make MyBrownBaby irreverent. Funny. Full of posts that make you think. Maybe even say, “Amen,” because it reminds you of what’s going on behind your closed door, with your family.

A place where African American moms—and their opinions—matter, and are heard, respected, and revered. For their poignancy and strength. For their intelligence and authenticity. Because they deserve it.

While I intended for black moms to call MyBrownBaby home, I certainly hoped that ALL moms would feel comfortable sitting on the MyBrownBaby stoop and commiseratating/learning/teaching about their views on motherhood, too. It never occurred to me, though, how difficult such a union would be—how it would feel, some days, more like a shotgun wedding than a uniting of minds and the sharing of opinions.

Nothing was truer this past weekend, when a post I wrote about a Today Show segment on Nadya Suleman, and a subsequent question I posed about the difference between how black moms and white moms viewed it, had a few folks coming thisclose to calling me a racist. It seemed that just posing a simple question—one that sought understanding, sans judgment—was enough to make people either cower in fear or lash out. Accuse and point fingers or fall dead silent.

A post I wrote a few months back, about a steamy conversation I had with a few white mom bloggers I met and became friends with on a Disney Wonder cruise, lays out pretty clearly how I feel about the need for us to get comfortable with asking and accepting questions without judgment. But the craziness of yesterday made me dig back deeper, to an email conversation I had with a dear blog friend of mine I met on the Mom Bloggers Club, back when both of us were fresh and new on the blogging scene. She came to me in confidence, so I’m not going to name names, but she reached out to me to tell me that while she loved my blog and reads it daily, she felt uncomfortable commenting on it:

Her: Your blog is one of the most professional-looking blogs I have ever seen and it’s easy to see what a blessing you are to those who visit your site. 

I usually don’t leave comments on your blog though because my fear is that I would be intruding. I am hoping and praying that that doesn’t sound offensive in any way, because I truly do love your blog. It’s one of my “must-read” blogs that I go to every day. At the same time, I don’t want to intrude on what the purpose of your blog is (since I am obviously a very white country gal) and offend any of your readers either by posting my thoughts on issues that might not even pertain to me…. I really have enjoyed getting to know you and reading the thoughts of someone who has a different view on some topics than I might have and yet very similar views on other topics… your blog opens up a world of issues to me that I wouldn’t typically encounter on a daily basis here in “Nowheresville.”

Me: It has been such a pleasure getting to know you, too, and I appreciate your honesty and candor. I hear where you’re coming from and understand your hesitancy in commenting, but I need you to know that your comments/thoughts/opinions are WELCOMED with open arms, a lot of love, and the deep belief that though we may come from separate places and have different backgrounds, we are ALL moms who want the same things for our families, and especially for our children. Sure, there are going to be times when you won’t necessarily agree with the MBB posts/writers or identify with where we’re coming from, but there will certainly be many more times than not that you’ll be able see something in the posts that you can relate to your own life. What I’m most happy about is that you’re coming to MBB to learn something you didn’t know–to see perspectives that are fresh and different and interesting and eye-opening. That tells me a lot about you—most important that you’re my kind of friend.

These days, she comments sans embarrassment or fear, much as I do on her blog. And we learn from one another every day—about family and motherhood, love and relationships, and especially what it feels like to walk in each other’s shoes. Judgment is checked at the door. And the only entrance fee is an open mind.

What a beautiful world this would be if we all could be more honest, open and ready to receive. I know I’ve got work to do. But I’m willing to work.

Are you?

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On The MBB Stoop, Thought

Hate It Or Love It, This Brown Girl Won’t Be Conforming To Your Definition of "Black."

13 Comments 16 February 2009


By CAROLYN EDGAR

When my 11-year-old daughter said she wanted to go dressed as an Oreo cookie for Halloween last year, I laughed.

“Cami. Really. Think about it.”

“What?” she asked.

An “Oreo” costume worn as social commentary would have been clever. But my daughter’s thinking was much more literal. She loves Oreos. She loves the Oreo commercial that pits Serena and Venus Williams against Eli and Peyton Manning. Why not be her favorite cookie for Halloween?

But at 11, she’s also savvy enough to know the other, derogatory meaning of that term. Understanding washed over her face while I fought to turn my guffaw to a chuckle.

“Ohhhhh.” She ended up wearing a ‘60s mod girl costume instead.

Cami has been called an Oreo often enough in her 11 years. She can’t dance. She has no rhythm. GPS navigation couldn’t help her find the beat. She couldn’t “code switch” to speak the street language of our Harlem neighborhood if her life depended on it. She’s tired of being told she “talks white,” but I’ve drilled it into her that no one race has a monopoly on proper grammar and diction. She has two or three black friends, but most of her friends are white.

As Cami figures out who she is, I try to stay out of the way. At four, she hated her curly hair and brown skin. Her white preschool classmates never let her play princess with them “because princesses don’t look like you.” Now, she loves her hair and skin. She is proud to be a black girl. She just refuses to let anyone else define for her what being “black” actually means. As she said recently, “I don’t have to like Lil’ Wayne to prove that I’m black!”

Cami has no patience for notions of what black people “do” and “don’t do.” She also does not require the presence of other black people to feel comfortable in a new environment. This past summer, she had her first sleep-away camp experience at a camp just outside Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Before deciding to send her there, I met with the camp director and asked a ton of questions about the camp, but none about the race or ethnicity of its campers.

When the director asked “Do you have any more questions?” for the third time, I realized he was expecting me to ask about the camp’s diversity. I asked the question, knowing the answer would have little bearing on my decision. Cami would be fine whether or not there were other black children at the camp. And things went pretty much as I expected. Cami had a great time at camp and made lots of new friends. The camp did have a handful of black children, but none of Cami’s new friends was black.

As Cami nears her 12th birthday, she tells me the black and Latino kids in her new school criticize her for hanging out with the white kids. She believes people should be judged for who they are, not for what they look like. She argues passionately, to me and to the kids at school, that “it shouldn’t matter” what race her friends are. I agree.

Still, I know from my own experiences that being involved in black social networks also will be important for her social development. By living in Harlem and attending a racially and economically diverse public school, Cami will gain a broad understanding of—or at least exposure to—class, and national and cultural identity issues among black Americans. But I’m a little concerned about what she may be missing by not being a bit more steeped in black culture, and how that might affect her socially.

As much as I hope and believe that we are in a time of true change, I also know that all of the things that divide black people simply will not fade away. I want Cami to continue to decide for herself who she is and who she wants to become. I want her to choose her friends based on common interests rather than common appearance. But I don’t want her to be shunned by other black kids because of those choices. I have considered joining various organizations to expose her to other black children who share her interests, but I wonder if it’s really necessary. I love her independence and her idealism, and a big part of me wants to just leave her alone.

And then there’s my 7-year-old son. I assumed he was still too young for race to be an issue—until the day he asked me how Michael Jackson got his skin to turn white, and could he do that to himself when he grows up.

I gave him a be-proud-to-be-African-American lecture on the spot, and added, “You can’t do ANYTHING to look like Michael Jackson, you hear me!” Self-determination has its limits.

About our MyBrownBaby contributor:
Carolyn Edgar is a corporate attorney based in New York City. A mom of two, she writes frequently for the New York City Moms Blog

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