But, Think of the Kids!

 

That was the most frequent verbalized objection to interracial mating when I was coming up in the 50s and 60s.  You might not have heard it recently, if ever.  Probably because it didn’t work.

Try as they might, the proponents of racial purity (except when it involved Asian women, who were considered acceptable, for whatever reason) – despite their desperate efforts, white people continued to find people of a different race, including blacks, with whom they made babies.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this subject this week.  Yes, the Cheerios commercial again.  Not the commercial, so much as the continued conversation about the racist rants that appeared under it in the YouTube comments section. Actually, I have been thinking about it all my life because all those warnings I heard, which were either too late for my parents to hear or too stupid for them to concern themselves with, had me poised to spend a lifetime being treated like scum on the bottoms of the “pure-raced” people’s shoes.

Did I have problems because of my mix-matched (in more ways than just race! – but that’s another post) parents?  Sure did.  You all know I did.  Just as I would have had a problem if I had red hair, or freckles, or a club foot, or too much flesh regardless of its color.

I think that refrain turned out to be a bunch of crap.  As usual, when people protest on behalf of some unknown possibility, it usually means they are thinking something completely different; such as envisioning their pure-as-the-driven-snow daughters wrapped in the ebony arms of some “black buck.” 

Black parents often said the exact same thing:  what about the kids? Just as there are today, there were most certainly anti-white black people, just on general principle. But back then the main concern was the blowback the black parents’ themselves, their children and their grandchildren would get from the society at large. And it would come from both sides of the color line, too.

Not only do I think those warnings were absolutely baseless; the truth is that those mixed-raced children have access to a special set of advantages neither their white nor their black contemporaries can access.

Perspective - There is a unique opportunity for the children who have the benefit of growing up around members of both parents’ families to learn the true elements of each family’s culture.  They have a bird’s-eye seat and can draw their own conclusions about what is true and what is not true inside the omnipresent stereotypes.  Obviously, when one parent is not involved in the child’s life at all – which, unfortunately happens all too often – then the child absorbs the culture of the custodial parent. 

We all know that our President, Barack Obama, had an absentee African father.  Young Barack was raised by his white mother at first;  his mother and an Indonesian stepfather for awhile; and finally by his beloved white grandparents.

Exoticism – Although most black people pride themselves at being able to “see” the black in any mixed-race person, no matter how much their Caucasian side dominates, non-black people don’t seem to have that skill.  Before they assume a person is part black, they will guess just about every other possible combination first.  Then they are likely to ask “What Are You?”  There was a time I would pretend not to understand the question.  I might even answer something obnoxious like “human” or “female.”  When I moved to San Francisco from Chicago in 1978, my co-workers stared at me surreptitiously (well, not really – I saw them) for weeks.  Finally, a man walked up to my desk and said “What the hell are you?  Chinese?” That was a first!

Even today, when people who are not prejudiced against intermarriage are discussing the possibility of a union between a man and a woman of different races you might hear this:  “They would have such beautiful children.”  I have yet to find a person who doesn’t think the blend of races produces some exceptionally interesting-looking kids.

Adaptability – Some people feel extremely uncomfortable about being the only person in a room of a different race or nationality than the others.  Mixed-race people are almost always in that situation, so there is little discomfort, at least not from the racial angle.  A shy person will feel uncomfortable, regardless of race, but a confident person can still feel like a fish out of water if surrounded by a crowd of people of a different race.

Did you ever wonder where Mr. President learned his undeniably black speech patterns and his Joe-cool swagger? He certainly didn’t learn it in Hawaii at the private schools he attended.  A quick look at the class pictures below will attest to the fact that he was isolated in terms of his blackness. 

Obama struggled with his identity, though, even in Honolulu,  one of the most diverse cities in America, because only 2% of the population was black in that city as recently as 2011. In his later teens he sought out the company of black Americans by hanging out with the black students at the University of Hawaii. 

I guarantee you, “Barry” Obama did not sound like either version of the President today.  He cultivated that persona.  He learned to “code-switch”, a phenomenon that has been frequently remarked upon since he has been President.  He most definitely does speak very differently when his audience’s majority is black than when he is addressing a majority-white audience.  He has honed a variety of codes as a result of his diverse exposure to international cultures. What he seems to have made the most habitual is the “code” he learned during his days on the South Side of Chicago.  He even picked up the Chicago Pimp Walk!

Almost every person I know who has at least one black parent has learned to code-switch, and so do I.  In my case it is probably a lot more subtle than President Obama’s, but I know without a doubt I could do it his way if pressed.  Most people have some level of code-switching, influenced by things such as their home town upbringing, their country, state or city or origin, etc.

Neither President Obama nor I were emotionally scarred by the simple, racial circumstances of our births. Missing fathers, adolescent angst, losses in competitions ( we share a similar sense of competition)?  Maybe.  But our admixture of ancestry has done far more to propel us to whatever level of success we’ve had – obviously, “Barry” beat my socks off on that one – than it ever did to harm us.

OPEN CALL

There are a number of people who read and comment on this blogging site who are members of mixed-race families.  I have shared my own individual perspective on the subject.  I would love to hear what the rest of you have to share.

This video I found on YouTube ought to get your juices flowing: