Communal Tears

Late last night, in the throes of my despair over the apparent outcome of our presidential election, I heard Van Jones say that it was a hard night to be a parent. A hard night to put our children to bed, hard to anticipate the morning's breakfast conversation.

I woke my children up gently this morning, with the upsetting news that Donald Trump would be our next president. They responded with exclamations like, "Oh no!" and "That sucks! NO!" because we've talked candidly about what we see as the dangers of a Trump presidency.

My thirteen-year-old was the first one dressed and the first to sit down to breakfast. She'd gotten a full night's sleep, unlike me and my three-hour nap. Before eating, she did her Instagram check-in. Then she frowned, scowled, and groaned loudly. "What is it?" I asked. "What are they saying?"
They being her vast community of middle-school-aged kids whose feeds she follows with religious zeal.

"My friends are all saying that now, when we pledge allegiance to the flag, we'll be pledging allegiance to a rapist."

I stopped myself from trying to debunk what she'd said. Really, I want her to oppose this president. I want her and her friends to be critical of his ugly, hateful manner. I want her social network to bond over this, and to mobilize against this.

I told her, "No, he is not what America stands for. He does not speak for us, and you do not have to pledge allegiance to anything you don't believe in. But know that America is full of potential goodness. Not the shit he spews."

Then I left the kitchen so she wouldn't have to watch me cry. My crying makes her really uncomfortable, and the day was so very young.

When I came back, she was done with her breakfast. I started to say, "You know, we have to get over ourselves, and our own upset. What's devastating about this is-"

"All of the immigrant families who are terrified of being deported." She finished it for me. My long list of fears can wait. We have friends, neighbors and classmates who surely woke up fearing for their lives.

The streets of our progressive Hudson Valley town are desolate today. It's gloomy and cold, raining down communal tears.

Hurt and Fear

(photo: AP)

I catch myself hiding my tears from my daughters this morning. The shooting death of Philando Castile, captured on video by his girlfriend (pictured) in the immediate gaze of her little daughter. The four-year-old assuring her mommy that she'll be OK as their beloved lies dying. Shot by a white police officer in front of their eyes.

I'm crying for that little brown girl, and all the brown people whose trust or respect or faith in "white people" is eroding. I'm crying for all of us who have to live in this climate of distrust, mistrust, hatred, as if "white people" were a tangible distinction. My white mother is not the enemy. My white husband is not the enemy. My family and friends are not the enemy. They are people who care deeply about making a positive change. They are active in their caring, apparent in daily life.

There are decent police officers in this country. But when they see their brothers shot down in the line of duty, as they did last night in Dallas, their hurt and fear will tempt them to act indecently. Violence begets violence and the spiral spins.

I am hurt and fearful. Trying to protect my mixed-race children from the feelings I can hardly bear.

What Would Muhammad Ali Do?

This past Saturday, I was especially grateful to the New York Times' editorial staff for compiling an in-depth, special-edition-insert tribute to Muhammad Ali. My children had heard me blather on about his Greatness all week long, but the photos and detailed chronology of his achievements made him real for my girls, who are too young to have known him. It also gave me the opportunity to re-live those magic moments from my childhood, when Ali was a real-world super hero.

On Sunday afternoon, that newspaper insert was still on my kitchen counter when my husband informed me of the mass killings in Orlando: A Muslim man had opened fire on a crowded dance floor in a gay nightclub, murdering 49 strangers and wounding 53 more. He said he did it in the name of the radicalized Islamic State.

It was too soon for publication of the victim's portraits or the lists of their names. From my kitchen in New York, they were 49 unknowable souls. The faces that came to mind were those of my gay friends; and my Muslim friends; and the countless dance floor crowds I've been a part of. Through my tears, I saw the face of a young Muhammad Ali and recalled the soundbite I'd heard more than once that previous week, of his refusal to kill innocent brown people who'd done nothing to him. In the name of Islam, he dedicated his life to peace and brotherhood.

If only he could lift us out of this.

Mommy's Checking Boxes

Last year, around Thanksgiving, I decided to apply to graduate school. I could see that my daughters, ages ten and twelve, had entered a less needy phase of life, and I felt ready for my own new phase. So I braced myself, recalling the last time I’d toiled over college applications, circa 1984. This time, I was deeply grateful for the technological tools that ease the process. Filling out all those forms, and writing and revising all those essays, without having to load up my mother’s IBM Selectric with carbon paper and triplicate forms! No need for Wite-Out! Hallelujah! Even my Letters of Recommendation were processed electronically.

On each school’s application, I found that the “Ethnicity” boxes were new and improved, too. 

Some had a “multiracial” box, equipped with a drop-down menu of “specifics”.  Some encouraged, “list all that apply”, with an extra field in which to enumerate the ingredients of “Other”.  Even without the old discomfort of having to single out my blackness, I still felt a queasy Affirmative Action twinge. Would my exoticism boost my acceptance chances? And if it did, was that a bad thing?

In the months I spent waiting for acceptance letters, our family life took an unexpected turn. 

For reasons I won’t disclose here (saving it for a future post), my husband and I found ourselves looking for a new school for our ten-year-old daughter. We threw ourselves into a past-all-deadlines dash to find her a sixth grade slot for the 2016-17 year.  And once again, I was checking boxes.

The thing about my daughter is, her looks don’t disclose her black heritage.  

Her skin is “peachy” like her father’s. I’ve been told she looks Israeli, which complies with her genealogical makeup: five of her eight great-grandparents were Russian Jews. Her hair is smooth and wavy with no trace of curl or kink. No spirals. Nada. 

I checked the “multiracial” boxes on her school applications, same as mine. 

It’s who she is, and how she identifies. I’ve heard her defend her blackness with a hint of defiance. I felt it too, as I filled out her forms. And I couldn’t help but wonder how much longer these statistics would matter: how many more dilute generations will bother to claim a measurable mix?

The good news is that my girl had a great classroom visit at a school filled with children of every imaginable color.  She fit right in, and reported having made a few new friends in that one, short day. A much-needed reassurance that, for the next three years, she will thrive in that new community: Accepted.

Imagine: Race is Over

It's a new year.

An election year. The end of an era. Soon we will stop being America With It's First Black President. It's a messy ending, marked by what many are calling the New Civil Rights Movement.

I was born during the "old" Civil Rights movement.
I was a black child, raised by a white mother, at a time when no one denied that race mattered. Remnants of Jim Crow were rampant in the South. School desegregation was a bold, new concept. My parents and their peers believed that change was happening, and that it would last.

Progress has been arguably slow.
In the meantime, some scholars deem race an artificial construct. But it's been the basis of prejudice and subjugation here in America since the appearance of the first settlers. It's been at the core of hundreds of years of socio-political-economic imbalance. Race is an age-old system of labels, and in order to disable the system, we have to subvert the semantics.

By the end of 2015, I felt totally overwhelmed by all the talk about race, my own included.
As the holiday season approached, I decided I needed a moment of silence. I opted to stay quiet, and just listen. I've been watching the Supreme Court shake out an affirmative action battle in Texas. I've tracked "White Debt" with Eula Biss, and #BlackLivesMatter with Charles M. Blow and Roxane Gay. I've discussed police training methods with a Maryland-based expert who happens to be my sister. I've been taking it all in, without taking sides. I don't feel personally insulted or offended, nor am I living in daily fear for my wellbeing.

But I do worry about this election.
I am stunned to hear kingpins of the Republican party use hate-speech to rally support. It's top-tier intolerance, anti-American blasphemy. It has to stop.

Back to semantics.
I have the privilege (yes, that word) of being able to say "I'm mixed"; I get to be something other than Black or White. Removing the race labels doesn't change who I am; but because I'm both instead of either, it takes me out of the struggle. I'm not on one side - cue Joni Mitchell - I'm on both sides.

In this new year, I want to recommend that we lose the labels.
Use qualifiers like "My parents come from (fill in the blank)."

See how it feels to just be.