Parenting Children of Color

[J's Mombee]

I am an African American Mom of my African American DS, and I just realized that I could come to MDC and learn about co-sleeping, BFing, CDing, refusing vaccination, APing, and GDing, as well as other parenting stuff. I was really hurt to see the thread "Do Black People Scare You," and to read that almost 5% of MDCers said yes.

So, is there a forum that discusses helping out Cloth Diapered, non-vaccinated, co-sleeping, APed, GDed African American children prepare to cope with people that are sure to be afraid of them when they grow up. While people making prejudgements is not new to me, I just shudder at the reminding thought of what my DS is in for.

I know that I have to be there to be sure to remind him of the disadvantage that those people are coming from who fear him without getting to know him, and I need to be there to help him to find healthy ways to combat racism and prejudice, but does anyone on MDC have any tips for that? Doesn't this fall into Parenting? Any tips? Other African American moms have any tips? Any moms who are not of color have any idea what this must be like, feel like, or have any tips?

Finally, any body have ANY idea what it must have been like to read that friggin thread and imagine your son being the person that people will fear?

I wish that I could say that I could just move away, but in the US, where could I really go with DS to keep him protected?

Most parents are hoping to protect their children from predators, dangers, hurts, etc, but I need to be mindful of perfectly "nice" people being afraid of him too! What kind of crap is that?!?!?!?

What kind of place is MDC? Or have I just been naive? Don't answer that, I know that I got caught up in the parenting side of it, and I was indeed naive.

[olliepop]

I haven't seen that thread (yet) but my feelings are hurt just hearing about it. My dc are biracial (DH is white) and I am AA. I often wonder how my little guy (only 9 months now) is going to be treated and perceived. If that thread is any indication, we're really going to have our work cut out for us.

Going to read now, but ...

I read the first two pages -- it might take days to get through it all. I have no advice. I have two handsome and well behaved nephews, who are now 14 and 18. They are the sweetest boys you ever want to meet, even in a park or a dark alley. It breaks my heart to see how some women clutch their purses when they see them at the mall or how the man will trade places w/the woman so she doesn't have to walk near them. It's pretty sad.

[shayinme]

I am also African-American and sometimes this is a hard place to be because it feels so clearly slanted towards folks who are not of color.

My son is 15, at 15 he stands 6'1 and already I see the fear when we are out, I notice how women get out of his way, how cops slow down when we are out walking. I won't lie and say it doesn't hurt, a couple months ago he went out at nighttime with a friend and I was on pins and needles, sure enough he ran into some trouble. Some UA violation threw a can of soda at him.

All I can do is pray for him, I have a younger brother who I know my parents did the same with and today at 26 he is almost done with his masters and is an architect.

Raising black boys is hard work but it can be done, all we can do is raise them well and prepare them for what they will face in this world.

I read the threads here and just remind myself that this is all part of the world he will be in.. as well as his sister who is 2.

I don't know of any AP Black sites though I do connect online with sistas who are more AO leaning and that helps alot.

Shay

[dealic]

I was shocked when I saw that thread too. To me, the very idea that the question could be posed was terrible.

Teaching children about prejudice is something I worry about. I can't even begin to imagine explaining to them that they could be on the receiving end of it. There might be an answer out there, and I have an idea about what it may be. There was a thread recently discussing the hurt queer people felt at the passive prejudice that "becoming straight" was something worthy of praise or congratulations. Straight people came into the thread and were shocked to hear about our upset. If you are in a majority on something, you tend not to be able to "see" the discriminations faced by the minority. I think that pointing them out, and the pain they cause, may cause people enough cognitive dissonance that they will be more aware later, and correct themselves or others in similar circumstances.

I believe this because I think most of the hurt comes from people who don't mean to be offensive, but are just ignorant of the pain their words or actions cause. There are some people, of course, who are actually honestly strongly prejudiced against something, but I think most other people are trying to be good, fair people, and there are simply SOOO many little prejudices in our society that it takes them time, and help to find them all in themselves. I think this thread may be one baby step in the right direction.

[yamilee21]

The sad and simple fact is that MDC is just as racist as everywhere else, despite the effort being made with the racism workshop (which the people who need it the most are obviously not participating in). An easy way to deal is to stick with the areas of interest that have little potential for racist outbursts (like Cloth Diapering, Lactivism) while avoiding areas where racial-issues threads regularly come up (Talk Amongst Ourselves, News & Current Events, Education). Of course, you could always use those threads to help you figure out who the racists are here, and add them to your ignore list.

The way I see it, I already have to exert a whole lot of energy battling/protecting/preparing my son from racism in real-life; which is far more important than battling it on the Internet, where people may or may not be who they claim. For a long time, I've been wanting to find or start a board "just for us" because it would be nice to be able to ask about dealing with racism from an AP perspective without having to deal with a bunch of responses asking me, well, how do I know for sure that it really is racism, blah, blah, blah - as if a lifetime of being a person of colour in the United States hasn't given me enough experience to know what racism is. But really, how many of us are out there anyway? I'm in NYC, and I've attended so many different AP-ish groups and meeting, and have met only a handful of other black women.

[shayinme]

Originally Posted by yamilee21

For a long time, I've been wanting to find or start a board "just for us" because it would be nice to be able to ask about dealing with racism from an AP perspective without having to deal with a bunch of responses asking me, well, how do I know for sure that it really is racism, blah, blah, blah - as if a lifetime of being a person of colour in the United States hasn't given me enough experience to know what racism is. But really, how many of us are out there anyway? I'm in NYC, and I've attended so many different AP-ish groups and meeting, and have met only a handful of other black women.

I suspect there are more AP leaning Black women out there but so many of us are busy that its hard to find the time to go to groups, etc. Also my own experience is that I have encountred more racism with the so called enlightened AP Mamas than I have with more mainstream Mamas.

I was just thinking about the first extended nursing pair I ever saw was a Black woman who used to live in my neighborhood many years ago. She was an artist, and was nursing her 3 yo.. I remember being stunned but now that I am nursing a 26 mo, I am so glad that was my first image of nursing and extended nursing at that.

Truthfully, I feel like Black American culture is not one that would take kindly to many practices that AP'ers do so those of us who do co-sleep, BF, cloth dipe, GD probably keep it on the down low. I know I have not volunteered to my family that dd is still nursing.. I know what would happen and well I don't need that discussion. Already I know my dad wonders why I don't spank dd : .

This thread is just another reminder why I wish this board had a specific multicultural board so we could have these discussions.

Shay

[jeliphish]

The fact that post was even allowed to remain on this board enrages me. Is the thread still up? I searched but I cannot find it. It is completely ignorant and irresponsible to question such a thing---even if the intentions were not based on racist views. Would someone post "Do white people scare you?"...no. Why is it still acceptable to group individuals as one? I'm sorry, I am just so angy and saddened by this.
I have a white neighbor that scares me, as well as a black neighbor who scares me; just the same- I have a white neighbor who I chat with daily and a black neighbor who walks with me and our DC's everyother night. The white guy next door and his wife get drunk all the time and scream at eachother- How could I group any of these individuals together?!!!

Sorry MDC allowed this to remain

Hollie

[j924]

As a white mama rasing black children, I hope that the collective mothers of color do stay. I can't imagine what pain that thread must have caused you, and it is selfish of me to even ask you to stay. Personally though I have collected so much advice from all of you on how to help my children be strong in a world that isn't ready for them that I personally would miss your very unique and special vocies.

[dealic]

Oh, yes, that too. As a white not-yet-a-mama, please do stay. I really like that I can seek diversity missing IRL in my community by reaching out over the internet. There are very few NFL AP mamas in my town, but also very few non whites (we are 98% white, and were much worse when I was growing up). This community is better for its diversity, and I hope it doesn't lose this aspect of it.

[captain crunchy]

It is completely ignorant and irresponsible to question such a thing---even if the intentions were not based on racist views.

Just fyi, the OP of that thread is a POC, I believe AA, and started that thread (it is a very old thread) in the interest of opening up a discussion. Discussions have to take place. To sit in a world of lollipops and gumdrops and pretend that racism doesn't exsist is naive at best. To say "I am colorblind, I see no color!" is dismissive. As one mama pointed out on that thread, saying "I am colorblind!" essentially means, what, you have to look past my color in order to respect me? You can't respect me as a black woman, you have to remove all color to do that? That is just one *aha* moment for me in that thread... as I don't believe I am racist in any way, but it has been challenging me to examine myself further in those areas.

The thread has educated a lot of people and has challenged people to open their minds and come to a lot of realizations about themselves. I know some offensive things have been said, and that sucks, but at the same time, a lot of people are learning and getting lots of great insights from the mamas of color who are contributing A LOT to the thread, working tirelessly to educate and offer their unique perspective as AA women and being people of color in a world of white privledge. I thank them for that immensely.

To the OP, I am sorry that thread and other places on MDC have brought about sad/angry emotions out for you. We all want the best for our kids and I can't imagine having all the worries I have about raising dd, and add to it the thought that some people will judge her based on her skin tone. That is where I acknowledge white privledge, among other areas. *hugs*

[cappuccinosmom]

I'm white, raising biracial children. This thread reminded me that my boys may have to deal with the kind of thing you are talking about someday. : I know my dh (black) can look very intimidating to certain people.

However, one thing I can do is to teach my boys to behave and treat others in ways that will not engender fear. Some people will still be idiots just because of skin color, but how one presents onself does go a long way. If one is a peaceful, friendly, compassionate person, and lives that out daily, then one is not responsible for other people's fears, and I want to instill in my children confidence and the ability to leave racists in their dust , and not agonize over the way others feel about them because of skin color.
That is how my dh is, and I hope our boys will grow up to be like him--determined, single-minded, passionate, and loving, caring men.

Personally, regardless of color, there are certain young men who do make me fearful (by virtue of their young male-ness, not color!). I don't care if they are white, black or purple. If they put on public diplay their affinity for violence and criminality, I get as far away from them as possible. We live in a rough neighborhood that had drug problems for several years. And at one point the "death to snitches" t-shirts were on blatant display all over the place. I don't blame anybody for being afraid of that, and I hope nobody would call me racist for fearing the young men who wore those shirts. :

[yamilee21]

Originally Posted by cappuccinosmom

...I don't care if they are white, black or purple. ...

Interestingly, there are several posts on the other thread (starting in the 870s) that explain why the "black, white or [some other colour that humans don't have as a skin-tone]" is offensive. Somehow, such a phrase is always a part of every racial discussion anyway.

[nextcommercial]

MDC is an extremely diverse community. There are people here from every background, color, country.

Some people here are very offensive and cruel. (which is funny, since it is SUPPOSED to be "gentle")

I think it is naive to think that you will find such a large community without racist feelings and prejudices to something.

I fully and freely admit that I have prejudices. I have TONS of them. I see teenagers with their pants hanging down below their hips and think they are Gang material. Obviously they aren't ALL Gang material, but it still crosses my mind anyway.

Our own experiences color who we are, and how we feel about others. If you live in a rough area, you are afraid. In my State, it isn't the young black men who scare us. It is the "young hispanic males". Is it wrong to feel that way? Of course.. but we can't help ourselves. I think it is human nature.

HOWEVER, that post should have never been made. It didn't serve any purpose other than to make someone feel better about their fears. It was hurtful and useless. ( I didn't see the post though.)

I am sorry that there was a post like that. Only 5% said they were afraid of black people. They could have been more specific, because we all have a fear of someone. If the post had asked "Who are you afraid of" I think that would be more informative (still useless though). I wonder how many people would have said they were afraid of Cops, or teenagers, Or men, or hispanics, or middle Easterns...

Your situation IS harder than all of the others. I know this, and I am not making light of it. I realize that young black men have a much tougher time in this world. They have to work harder to prove themselves. Every mistake is looked at differently. The way they dress, talk, behave is scrutinized.

I agree with everything you said. It sucks.

[crittersmom]

I don't have alot of time for internet but when I do this is the place I keep coming back to because I don't know where else to go to find out about GD or vaxing.I had never heard about it.I come and go and usually skip over most posts unless I have something helpful to post.I don't have any close IRL friends yet so I have been spending more time entertaining myself in the Talk it Out section and have gotten caught up in some of the "race" threads.I hope maybe if its repeated enough times "No, you didn't own anyone but you are still able to move more freely than me so don't tell me to get over it." that it will get through to some mamas and they will pass it along to thier kids.
I've also noticed there is a cycle of crappy posters and then things settle and people are better.I am a Navy wife and there have been comments made that this board isn't friendly towards us(military) either but its not going to stop me from sticking around and getting the info I need or get in touch with a mama of color who might be in my neighborhood (or the next one )
Stick around and keep showing "them" that you aren't going to back down and help even out this board.
FWIW I am of very mixed heritage even though according to "one drop" I am AA and if I am asked well what are you the most of well my dad was Sicilian and French and my mom is the rest.I can check off every dang box except Asian and when I look at DS#2 I wonder....Sometimes my schools would count me as white or black for statitstic purposes.: I am hoping to learn how to raise my even more mixed children.I hope that I can teach them to have pride in all of thier heritage like my mom and grandma did for me.

[1xmom]

I am also a Mother of Color and have been here for awhile. I do remember that particular thread and have not read it since it has resurfaced. I have looked every so often for a community of gentle AA mothers and to no avail, none are as active as this one. Yes, there will be some posts that offend me, but I just let it go, and don't even bother reading some of the threads depending on my mood and the title of the thread. I don't post as often as some, but still enjoy reading about other mothers who generally have the same parenting style that I have.

[ASusan]

Maybe this should be another thread (appropriate for a multicultural forum?), but I'll put it here. Bear with me, as I am not editing too much here, just typing my thoughts...

I'm white, married to a black West Indian, and soon to be a mama to a mixed race child, who will be perceived (and treated) by most of America as black as s/he grows up.

I think there are implications here for gentle discipline and philosopies such as consensual living, etc, which I will introduce below.

A black child/teen does not have the luxury of acting out, disrespecting authority, or behaving in ways that exhibit less than optimal self-control. A black child/teen who is faced with authority (e.g., teachers, police) does not have the luxury of questioning that authority or hesitating for even a second when asked to do something. S/he must respect that authority immediately and completely. Sometimes, their very lives depend on it.

Thus, all the families in our "circle" (mixed couples and black couples) have the best behaved children in our small community. They are regularly told this by parents of less-well-behaved children, who have varying discipline strategies - some very permissive. The families in our circle all have what I believe to be relatively reasonable discipline strategies. However, many gentle discipline advocates here at MDC would be up-in-arms to observe some of the techniques used. There is never any physical punishment, but there are punishments and time-outs. Sometimes the punishment consequences are logical, but they are frequently parent-created. (One example, a 6-yr-old who lied repeatedly was banned from the family ice cream outings for a while. She had to go with the family when they got ice cream, but she wasn't allowed ice cream. The family had a LOT of ice cream over a week's time period. Totally not logical, but it worked.) Total gentle discipline in this crowd would probably be taken as permissive, especially if the behavior of the child was the least bit out of control.

In DH's family, I KNOW there will be threats of physical punishment, if not actual meting out of spanking. Culturally, all adults have authority over children (and anyone younger than them, as I learned too late with DH's sister, who is 15 years older than me, and who I have a little bit of a rocky relationship because I initially didn't "respect" her authority.) DH's mother was known as "the enforcer" in the family. (I just learned this at her 80th birthday. All the nieces and nephews went to stay with her when their behavior got out of control. She snapped them back in line.) DH's mother will be staying with us for 3 months this winter, when baby will be 2-5 mos., so I don't expect that we'll have to worry about discipline at that point. But the plan is to have her stay with us for 3-4 mos out of every year as soon as our house is built next summer. Discipline may, indeed, be an issue that we will have to work out.

OK, I'm clearly rambling now. But I hope I've made a starting point for some discussion.

[JustKiya]

I plan on raising my children as I was raised, to understand that there are people in the world who believe that they are superior/better than my children are simply based on their skin color.

I will teach my children that those people are narrowminded fools, not worthy of the energy it would take to attempt to make them see my children as the beautiful, wonderful, intelligent, amazing creations they are.

I will console my children when they are hurt by those fools, and I will teach them how to appropiately respond to them.

I will not try to protect them from it, as I know that when I am not there to protect them is when they most need the strength that I can teach them.

I will not tolerate racism in any form - no matter the color of the racist. I will not tolerate piegonholing, assumption making, and will teach the wisdom of taking people as they are, and not as their apperance would set them up to be.

I'll expose my children to people of every culture, faith, and ethnicity that I can - to teach them that people are people, even when they are fools and assholes.

And for those women who will still cringe in fear away from my sons, I will teach my sons that that is a failing in HER parenting - not in our race or in our parenting.

As far as the stricter disipline standards set on children of color, well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I'm TIRED of people beating children. It only works long term on those who would TEND towards compliance anyway, and for the more spirited ones, it just builds distrust and resentment. Besides, everytime I think about it, I think of the whippings that slaves used to be 'disiplinced' with, and I'm horrified that as a culture, we have taken that form of disipline and made it 'right'.

Sheesh, that was a ramble too.

[AngelBee]

I will NOT read the other thread. :Puke

My heart breaks for you.

: that one day all children will be able to grow up in true freedom.

[captain optimism]

The internet in general has all the same social problems that you can encounter in the real world (what people used to call "meat space"--I love that, don't you?) There's huge ideological, ethnic and personal diversity on this board. You are going to see people on the right and left of all kinds of political questions, religious people and atheists, feminists and women who think they should submit to their husbands--the gamut.

There are just a lot of different kinds of people who want gentle discipline, attachment parenting, and natural family living, and you will be surprised at what other things interest parents here.

I have been thinking a lot about how to cope with racism in online interactions, where people seem to feel freer to express ugly ideas because they are faceless. (Or maybe they say these things in person, too, and I just live in my nice little Jewish bubble.) Because it's here at MDC and also other places. At MDC the board decided to run a combatting racism online workshop as a way of coping. I think this was a good solution, though I'm not participating. (When it started I didn't feel like I was still involved enough to make this my place to do that.)

In other online communities I've seen similar steps. International Blog Against Racism Week, that was one--mainly on LiveJournal. The plus side of the internet are all the opportunities to educate. That includes lots of links.

[mommaduck]

I was pretty shocked to see that thread and have avoided it, hoping it would disappear. Also the "are hispanics white" and "are jewish people white", etc. argh!

however, it was an honest question and might be trying to get at what causes racial fear in some people. There are those that have been so isolated within their own groups, that they do fear someone that is not what they are used to (I spent three years in the pacific in a classroom full of asians and islanders...I was white. Move me to the midwest at 9yrs old and I was actually SCARED of white and black kids...mostly the white ones, because the black kids were nice to me right off the bat, the white ones were uppity). So it might help in educating people to overcome their fears and prejudices (intentional or not).