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Originally Posted by OneTimeSBX
i usually dont post personal threads, but since i have seen some highly intelligent answers on here, i thought i'd give it a shot.
i have a 6 1/2 year old daughter. her biological father is of mixed race, half black, half puerto rican. i, myself, am all black, but had both a white and indian great-grandmother. my daughter has that look that a lot of mixed race children have: the curly jet black hair, light skin. she is a beautiful child, not just because i am her mother, she has won various photo contests in our area (working on that college fund!) and has the greatest attitude.
last night, while watching something on TV, she looks up at me and asks, "why are white people prettier than black people?" i was truly stunned by her question and asked her why did she think that? she replied that they had better hair and skin. i pulled one of my Cosmo's off of the bedside table and started scrolling thru, asking her which girls were pretty, and which ones werent. the prettiest, she decided, was a blond haired, blue eyed girl. she didnt even give the girls who looked like her a second glance.
i was raised in the most un-racist household ever created. i have friends of all colors, and try to insure she has the same. still, i cant help but wonder, how do i handle this situation with her? i told her we would talk about it this weekend...i didnt want to put her off, but also want to go about it the correct way. any suggestions? do any of you have children with these issues? (i dont think it is a mixed-race thing, she has no clue of her latino/indian/white roots at all...)
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Thanks for this thread! It--again--exposes something deeply ingrained in our society:that white supremecy is the "biosphere" in which we live. It's not so much the presence of overt forms of racial prejudice and racial epithets at play; but it's the sociocultural environment embodied in relationships,language, images, gestures, institutions,economics,social cues, etc.
Children are quite sophisticated in picking up on all this up. It effects all of us in various ways, whites and people of color alike. We, people of color, have accepted this value system, too.All Afro-cultures--African American,Afro-Carribean, Latino, Francophone,Portugese, etc. in different ways evidence this value system. It's especially telling in the American context where there is a black/white social binary.To raise a child as if were in a "colorblind" world is simply to reinscribe whiteness as the basic social value. For the psychological well-being of children of color (black,biracial,etc.) they have to be grounded in a positive,affirming worldview about "blackness," which historically and presently has associations with inferiority and subservience. It has to be intentional.
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