Raising a multi-racial daughter

Well it's been a while since I have written a post. Not like anybody cares though. It's been a very long but successful semester. I am trying to enjoy this last week of freedom before my life becomes increasingly more complex. I'll have more students to teach next semester, many more than I had in the fall. I will also be moving full steam ahead in the data analysis and writing of my dissertation. But the greatest addition to my life complexity will be the arrival of my first child, my future daughter Brooklyn. She is due to arrive in March (right in the middle of my dissertation writing) and I'm getting increasingly excited but also very nervous.

I had recently been reflecting on the narrative of one of the subjects I am working with who talked about life as a bi-racial child. He seemed very uncomfortable and at many times out of place. He felt that he was not perceived to be Black enough for his Black friends, not Mexican enough for his Mexican friends, and perceived as the "other" by his white friends. He felt he was existing in between racial worlds. At times he felt that he overcompensated for this by adopting behaviors, style, and attitudes that he felt would make him "Black" enough with his Black friends (he admitted that he felt he had a better chance being accepted by Blacks than my other racial groups).

Of course I had to think about why my own daughter may experience being the product of Black/White/Mexican parents. How will people perceive her? How will they interact with her? How will she identify herself. Both my wife and I realize that the 1/8th drop of blood rule is still socially applied in American society so she will most likely be perceived by others as Black. But even with this socially applied racial category, what benefits and privileges will she experience? What will she experience differently than her mother and I?

Historically, and even contemporarily, light-skinned Black people have held certain privileges over their darker-skinned counterparts. They are viewed in higher esteem, more intelligent, and closer in proximity to white superiority. Many of our most popular Black actresses and models are fairer skinned and anybody who has ever seen a Hip-Hop music video knows that the light skinned girl is usually the center of attraction. Underground Hip-Hop artist, Dom Kennedy, even spits in his song "Bite Me, "I'm just trying to party with the light skinned hoes".

Black fraternities on college campuses have also historically been segregated based on phenotype. Author Lawrence Otis Graham in his book "Our Kind of People" writes that the first Black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha only accepted those Blacks who were of the fairer tone. In fact, it was called the paper bag test. If you were darker than a paper bag then you could not be accepted in the organization. Of course times have changed in terms of the stringency of this rule but talk to any Black student on a college campus and they can identify what kind of Black person would be in what kind of fraternity or sorority. The light skinned "pretty" girls with the "good hair" will be AKA's. The high achieving Black men will be in Alpha Phi Alpha. The dark-skinned athletic male will be in Omega Psi Phi.

So what does this mean for Brooklyn? How is her future impacted by pre-determined racial scripts? Will she inherit more privileges than disadvantages? Was our race mixing a good thing for her? What will she lose? What confusion will she experience? Will she be accepted or rejected? I clearly have no good answers otherwise I would not be posting this (and I would be a very rich man too). I could imagine it will be hard enough to raise a child in today's society. I'm sure it will be hard to raise a girl while trying my very best to help her avoid the powerful influence of gender socialization (I will probably never buy her anything pink and she will be at Oakland Raiders games with me). But now on top of these already daunting tasks, I must find ways to progressively racially socialize her and prepare her for what she may or may not experience. This will be the task. In 30 years I'll let you know how I did.