Preparing our children for racism

Tansi-Greetings my relative

How do we prepare our children to deal with racism? As much as we hate it, racism is alive and well. Mind you it's a lot better now than when I was growing up and 'white' boys would cruise the reservation looking for young girls to gang rape. My Grandmother called them 'mad dogs'.

My children range from Chinese American, Hispanic/Sioux Indian, African American and AA/NA mix. My younger AA son's get more 'looks' than my Chinese American daughter who almost never gets a negative response. When we're out with just her, we've NEVER been asked 'where did you get her'. Yet when I go out with my AA boys someone always asks. It's usually not malicious, just curious. But as my children get older, it will become more of an issue.

So how do we teach them to be assertive, and have healthy boundaries without encouraging them to develop a chip on their shoulders, going around looking for trouble?

My DH, while he is brilliant, is from the 'privileged' class.. Male, upper middle class and Caucasion.. and he simply doesn't 'get it' about racism.. he often doesn't get that it's racism..

(Note from DH editor: I often pretend not to get it, because it's fun to get under the Mohawk's skin. :-) Sometimes racism is there, but not a huge deal. Other times, racism is a huge deal. I choose my battles carefully.)

We live in a very nice and relatively (For Utah at least) diverse neighborhood. We have Asian people, Samoan and Tongan people, Japanese, Laotian and Chinese people around us. Our church has many families, formed by adoption and marriage that are interracial. But, Utah, for the most part is pretty 'white bread'.

But every now and again, ugly racism rears it's nasty head.

Example:

For instance, we had an AA birth mom living with us while she waited to deliver her baby, who was being placed with a friend of mine. We went to the local Dairy Queen. Since we had the little boys with us, she offered to go inside and get our order. (We sat out front of the main door, for a few minutes debating how and what to get). The people inside were staring at her. She went up to the door, and the manager came over and locked the door. (We were about 10 minutes from closing time) She knocked.. he opened the door (with the chain on) and said "Go Away, we're closed". And yanked the door shut. She came back to the car. Another person (Caucasian) came to the door, banged on it and was immediately admitted.

We sat in the car, watching and astounded. Two more CC people were allowed in, while we watched.

MY husband made lots of excuses, 'well, that must be relatives coming to pick up their kids' or 'must be a special customer'. He DIDN'T see that it was clearly a racist issue.

(DH: As described, it was certainly a racist issue. Sometimes, there is more than one side to a story. In this case, sadly, there wasn't :-(   I hadn't heard about the follow up with the manager before making my comments.)

The birth mom, who was from New York City, was ready to throw rocks at the windows. We went elsewhere for our ice cream.

Later I challenged the manager on the issue. Made a BIG fuss.. he apologized.. said the assistant manager was young, inexperienced, and thought she was going to 'rob the place'.. yeah, right, a nine months pregnant woman was going to rob them! But he was sorry.. was willing to talk to his staff.. make sure it didn't happen again. Gave us a bunch of freebies and coupons.

My boys are still too young to notice.. but that won't last long..

Those of you who are adult adoptees or have grown up in a transracial family, what helped you to know what was racist and what was just nasty people? How do you handle it?

I'm an old Mohawk woman.. I tend to get in people's faces when needed (only after pleasant and polite don't work) and am regularly asked "You're not from around here ARE you?"

We also are almost never asked about our Hispanic/Indian children either, unless we have all our children with us.. and DH Kelly has NEVER in nine years been asked if his now 9 year old Chinese American daughter is 'his'. Even when we're obviously together.

(DH: True enough, Chinese American and Hispanic/Indian is still viewed as very different from black. Black people are a new thing here in Happy Valley. I think with time, things will get better here. Whenever a new culture comes into contact with an established culture, there is an initial period of discord. The end result of the discord is either integration, or effective annihilation of the other party. Sadly, for the American Indian, the result was effective annihilation when the white man came. When the Irish first came, they were terribly discriminated against, (actually put to work in jobs considered too hazardous for slave labor) but were eventually accepted. The other week, I was in California at a Pollo Loco and there were among the customers 8 Hispanics, 12 Blacks, 7 Caucasians, and 3 Orientals. I couldn't help but think that this was exactly what Dr. King must have had in mind. Nobody seemed to notice anyone on the basis of color. I smiled and most of them smiled back. Utah will follow, but only as the pioneers of various races integrate into our once very white society. Asian and Hispanic people have been here longer than the blacks, although I am sure this is only part of the equation.)