Posted on 04/07/2006 10:49:37 AM PDT by Alice Linsley
Growing up Bi-racial
Joshua Brown
(Joshua Brown is a cadet at Millersburg Military Institute in Kentucky. He is studying Journalism and Creative Writing.)
Their hair may be black or golden brown. Their eyes may vary from cat green to bark brown. Skin tone may be light with freckles or a Hawaiian sun tan brown. These are some of the physical features of bi-racial persons. Bi-racial persons are faced with tough decisions when it comes to their families. White parents-in-law may not accept white daughters-in-law, or vice versa. The children of bi-racial marriages are often caught in the middle, having to choose which side of the family they will identify with.
A person shouldn’t have to pick sides, but in reality a kid can’t wear Abercrombie without their black side calling them white, and they can’t dress in Roca wear without being questioned by white family members. People say that society doesn’t care about race barriers, but in the day to day of bi-racial persons, it is evident that society does. Decades after desegregation, many Americans haven’t adjusted to inter-racial marriages and bi-racial offspring. Unfortunately, children who grow up with families not liking each other often feel that they are the cause of the conflict.
My own family has seen this dilemma. At my nephew’s birthday party, his mother’s side (white) wouldn’t celebrate his birthday with our side of the family, so they threw him a separate party for their side. It is their choice, but are they considering how this may affect him? My nephew will go through this when it comes to the holidays also. Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter become times of conflict and pain.
Sometimes I find myself tripping out about the clothes his mother lets him wear or the way she gets his hair cut. I like a coordinated and sharp look, but I would never try to dress him to fit in with only one side. It is tough to grow up having to please both sides of one’s family. For an interracial couple it is already tough, because they deal everyday with discrimination, but when they have to deal with watching their children suffer in strained relationships, it gets tougher.
People will need to open their eyes to the realities of bi-racial children and adjust. Why should a kid have to worry about things like: “Will grandma get mad if she hears me listening to rap music?” or “Will my uncle say something about me if I have braids?” Bi-racial children need room to live as normal children. What they need most is for their families to love them.
I KNOW WHAT HE MEANS.......
I don't think the issues outlined in the article are a result of Bi-racial, but an issue of Bicultural. No one cares what color your skin is, or your eyes, etc. But as the article pointed out there is a difference in culture and what each one appreciates, like music, dress, food, religion, and the like.
My kids are half French and half Texan
There's an old racist type saying that a black woman can't have a white baby but a white woman can have a black baby...............
So, do they eat BBQ Snails?......
I find it funny how Arabs are white and Hispanics aren't. How does that work?
"I've always found it funny how,today,when someone is seven-eighths white and one-eighth black,that person *invariably* identifies him/herself as being "black"."
Except by "black" people....in which case...they're not "black enough".
Careful...that axe swings both ways.
Maybe Barak Obama or Halley Barry could explain that one to ya.
With the exception of those who are unaware of it or actively attempt to hide that eighth, of course.
And those children are so very loved by all of the kin it never has entered their mind they might be slightly darker than the average Hwita clan member.
Kin is kin.
Hmm... bi-racial?
What happend to plain old "mixed?"
;-)
Its tough for them , thats no lie.
As my name indicates, I am in favor of the mongrelization of America. Maybe that would finally end the assumption that "race" somehow forces you to identify with a particular culture.
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