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Alice Walker On White Mothers Raising Biracial Children
- Jun 21, 2007 at 9:52 PM
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Asked what advice she would give to white mothers of biracial children, Rebecca Walker (who is, herself biracial, the daughter of Second Wave womanist Alice Walker, who is black, and a Jewish dad), wrote:
"After my (white) stepmother read my book, Black, White and Jewish, one of the things she said was that she never thought of me as black, she just thought of me as Rebecca. While this is a wonderful and important concept, I found it quite dangerous. Growing up, I was in fact a black child and I had to navigate being a black child in a racially stratified world. For any of my caregivers to ignore this basic truth was, in my opinion, to ignore the reality of my daily existence and thus be unable to help me figure out how to move skillfully through it.
"It is important for white parents of children of color to pay attention to how race functions in your child's life. It is important for you to come to your child's reality with at least some understanding of the issues they may be facing. This doesn't mean assuming that they are being marginalized or discriminated against; it does mean being vigilant about keeping communication open when it comes to issues of race, class and color, topics which are often masked in discussions about beauty, intelligence, socio-economic status, sexuality, and violence, among others. Often our kids are not able to identify and articulate how they feel in a given environment, and so we must know what to look for, and feel confident acting on what we see.
"I think that white parents should make every effort to live in diverse communities. You often cannot imagine the strain of being one of the few or the only one in a community. You may feel comfortable walking down the street where you live, or visiting the school you want your child to attend, but does your child? Because your family is "non-traditional" (whatever that means), reach out for the unspoken support of a community full of non-traditionals. This can free your children up to explore their individual interests more fully, instead of having to spend time figuring out what it means to be "different" from the status quo.
"Finally, have a clear philosophy about race, and communicate this to your children so they can contextualize themselves and your family within a bigger world-view. So many parents I talk to think that not talking about race is the way to a race-neutral world, but kids are getting a zillion subliminal messages about race every day. At least one of them should be yours."
Source:
http://mymotheriswhite.wordpress.com/2006/05/26/rebecca-walker-on-white-moms-raising-biracial-children/
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