BLACKINESE

Pardner grew up in predominantly African-American neighborhoods. I was born in Panama and grew up spending time in Panama City and the Darien jungle town of La Palma (and in the interior, in smaller indigenous villages), usually being the only white person around besides my father. My godfather was an Emberá Cacique (the Emberá are the indigenous people of that region; Cacique means chief). The population in La Palma consists largely of Darienistas – descendants of escaped African slaves.

So Z’s New England-based family is a lot less super-White-rooted than most two-White-parented families around these parts….But that still doesn’t quite explain why she thinks she’s Black.

Z was adopted from China and is of – so far as I know and can tell – entirely Chinese ethnicity. When she was a baby I often thought she looked as if she could have been Emberá, but this resemblance has diminished as she has grown older.  In any case, I’ve always made sure to have positive representations (books, music, art) of people of all shapes, sizes, abilities, neurologies, and skin tones around the house. I try to celebrate a variety of cultures and perspectives. My goal has been not so much to make Z aware of being special (because she is Chinese, or was adopted, or…) but to teach –sometimes without explicitly doing so – that all people are inherently valuable.

For example, here are her favorite dolls:

                            

   

Figure I – Z’s Full Spectrum of Dolls

“Cinderelly,” far right, is a little hard to explain. Something involving Grandparents and a very headstrong young lady. Otherwise, as you can see, we have a very inclusive and diverse doll family. “Donna Poodle Itchy,” center, who is of Chinese descent, is Z’s favorite doll baby, but she loves them all. And, I suppose, feels ethnically connected with them all as well: she knows she is from China, her parents are White, and she is, apparently, Black-identified.

 I’ve heard her telling people several times, “There were only two Black kids at [her old school]. Me and [Black person].”

And check out this Thank-You card she – who has warm beige-toned skin - made for her best friend, who is from West Africa and has very dark brown skin:

                             Figure II – Thank You Card (Self-Portrait by Z, with her Best Friend)

Many, many moons ago, I worked at a fabulous organization called New Jersey S.E.E.D.S.  with the man I (along with his four sons, and I bet a few others like me whose lives he’s touched deeply) am now privileged to call “Dad.”* There was a student in our program who was half Black and half Chinese and called herself “Blackinese.” I’ve never forgotten the pride this student had in her voice when she explained her heritage, nor the excellent word she used to encapsulate that heritage.

I’ve been reluctant to too-strongly correct Z on her identification with other people of color of (speaking generally) a different color because it does seem to be a very positive thing for her. She is privileged to live among many terrific role models of all sorts, and in a progressive, inclusive community where being a person of color is a plus (ideally, in my humble opinion, it should be a neutral, butanyway…).

So I guess she’s just Blackinese.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

* Here’s what this wonderful man said when I asked him how he identifies himself ethnically as I began this post:

Hi [FSM],

Jesse Washington once asked me to describe my race in six words. I answered, “Race is a fiction; I’m black.”  

I do not say African-American because all of us come from Africa, some simply left the Motherland later than my ancestors did.  If we are simply African apes my ethnicity is special because I identify most with blacks worldwide.

Love,

[“Dad”]

YEP

The other day, à propos nothing so far as I could tell, Z told me, “Maybe when I grow up, I’ll go to a place in Africa...”

She paused.

(Somehow, I expected her to talk next about how she wanted to do some kind of volunteer work there, as we’ve been trying to figure out something like that to do together as a family in our community -- and we also have family involved in such endeavors locally and abroad. Accordingly, during her pause, I began to formulate a speech about the notions of needy people and starving children in Africa as part truth/part stereotype, explaining how there are also people in various regions of Africa living in the middle classes and above, just like here.

I would add how there are starving people here in the United States, too, and in our own state and town.

The people at that wedding we recently attended were mostly from Africa, I would point out momentarily, and as you can see they have what they need just like us and are in many cases better off: they can travel here, whereas we couldn’t right now afford to take a big trip like that…

But no.)

“…and get diamonds,” she continued.

(Well, there are other reasons to go to Africa, as well! Like making bridges between countries, learning about new cultures…

We need to be very careful with our priorities, my daughter, always honoring living beings above things, even valuable things. {I do so worry about Z’s attachment disorder making her always feel she is lacking something. After all, she herself was severely undernourished when she first came home.})

“…and gold.”

(Also, I might mention, Africa is not a country. It’s many nations, all with different politics, cultures, populations…)

“…Lots of diamonds!”

“Yep,” I replied.

Well…Good! Somebody in this family needs to be on the practical end of the Finance Spectrum.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

EIGHTY-SIXED

My daughter has an attachment disorder. When she is anything but entirely comfortable she talks constantly, animatedly and without ceasing.  My son has aspergers syndrome. He talks at high volume in an unmodulated voice.

In other words, my children are sometimes rather LOUD.

Consequently, we don’t spend a whole heck of a lot of time in restaurants.  But the other day we had a family date with another mother and her aspergian son and her peppy daughter and, sure enough, the table next to us complained.

See, we had thought we could have a peaceful night out with the kids.

We had walked into the restaurant and immediately seen a large, multigenerational family in the big center table. They’d smiled big, friendly, relieved smiles to see us. They knew we, with our four potentially rowdy elementary school aged kids, would balance they and their two little guys right out. 

But we all knew we’d all be trying to keep our children as well-behaved as possible for the comfort of other diners…

Our sons were excited to see each other. They began putting on raucous, clearly innocent and dorky (vs. aggressive or obnoxious - and why do I feel the need to point this out?) plays with their chopsticks. This friendship has been a beacon of hope for both boys, who struggle socially in their own schools.

Our gals were excited to see each other, chatty, berating their big brothers for being “annoying.”

Maybe four minutes after we sat down, a server approached our table. She was super sweet: “We don’t mind your kids at all but another table is very upset…” They informed us we were welcome to eat in the other part of the restaurant. The closed part? That is usually unused?

We knew it wasn’t her fault and agreed right away, trying to leave as little mess behind as possible, taking our glasses etc. with us, faces burning.

Someone from the other family asked what was going on. Looking straight at the offending table, I informed the nice family in a clear, LOUD voice that someone had complained about our children, despite the fact that they were being relatively well-behaved. I explained that we had to move to another room.

There’s a ferocity to motherhood that once made polite, feminist me hiss the B word at a woman who sniped about my letting my young child play under the table at a restaurant (at the time he'd been diagnosed with a sensory processing disorder and I knew he was overwhelmed by restaurant stimuli). ...A protectiveness that had me retorting “What are you whistling at? You better not be whistling at my baby!” at pregnancy catcallers.

As well as that loving ferocity and protectiveness, there is a sadness when someone judges your child on his or her appearance or on other inevitable aspects of their being. Doesn’t acceptance start in the little things? Allowing children to make a little noise? Reach for their Skittles? Be included even if they are a different color or neurology or different ^$%@%^% ANYTHING?

Don’t ALL children learn through having opportunities to broaden their experiences? By moving outside of their homes and their neighborhoods to restaurants, different streets, neighborhoods, cultures??? Don’t they deserve as many chances to grow as we are able to offer them?

Children who are held to basic standards of kindness yet allowed to make mistakes in the niceties without dreadful repercussions may grow up to be accepting, no?

Post the Zimmerman verdict, I listen to my friends with sons of color talking and writing about how they instruct their sons: “Don’t act suspicious,” “Stay quiet,” “Keep your hands visible, “Don’t make yourself a target”…

A week ago I might’ve ventured to hope that we were moving away from the necessity for such admonitions.

How far are we willing to go to keep our kids quiet? How far to keep them safe????

Acting “erratic” (G) and dining out while brown (Z) are definitely things I see in my kids’ futures. I want them to feel welcome in the world nonetheless! I thought taking them to a restaurant would be a good thing, but our good thing almost got eighty-sixed along with us.

Do you think, stern people of the next table, that we have not tried to have our children fit your behavioral standards?  Do you not think we are doing our best and maybe occasionally deserve the right to go out and eat dumplings?

See those first few sentences of this post where I define my kids as their conditions? You, next-table chumps, have just gone one worse than defining my children by their conditions. You haven’t even given them a chance.

Sure, sometimes a noise complaint is just a noise complaint. But I think we owe it to ALL OUR CHILDREN to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Children raised like that will likely do the same for others.

Anyway, the restaurant had another room and we went there – and the other family actually got up and came over to hang out with us out of solidarity. (Thank you, warmhearted, inclusive, attractive, multigenerational family!)

So things ended up ducky.

Still, the next time you are in a restaurant (or someplace), won’t you smile at someone who is maybe a tiny bit out of their comfort zone? Maybe even ask to watch the chopstick drama?

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

DIFFABILITY

Something tells me I am not the first person to be bothered by the “disability” label. I know it is useful in a variety of ways in terms of access and services, and that many do embrace it. Just – two quibbles:

First, as far as I can see, it is entirely too broad and general, encompassing people whose differences are so disparate as to be entirely unrelated. People with schizophrenia and people with paralysis. People with Down syndrome, people with Marfan syndrome and people with Asperger syndrome. Tourette’s and wounded vets. Environment. Fate. Genetics. Intellectual differences, emotional differences, physical differences…

Hmm. Sounds like…people.

Second, the term overlooks a crucial fact: that people with “disabilities” often have extraordinary abilities, some compensatory (the blind using other senses more effectively, for instance), some attendant to the “disability” (say, “savants” with autism or an olympic para athlete), some simply random or hereditary.

Again, what does this sound like? People?

So, while one could certainly say that a person with cerebral palsy is lacking a certain degree of mobility, one could also say that the person who yelled “Go back where you came from!” to my Chinese American friend and daughter when he almost mowed us down with his car was also lacking something most individuals might hope to share in a best case scenario.

Matter of fact, I can think of some fifth graders who are lacking a modicum of whatever car-slur dude was lacking.

Dear reader, you are probably tired of hearing this, but I do so wish the majority of people shared the exceptional openheartedness and kindness of my son, who happens to have autism. That they do not seems to me more of a “disability” than his.

I am not suggesting we throw out the useful aspects of disability as a category or identity.

Nevertheless, for general use, isn’t there something better?

After all, we are ALL “disabled” in the areas in which we struggle, and enabled both by the areas in which we flourish and by those aspects of our individual being that our cultural and social environments generally support. We all more or less successfully make all sorts of accommodations for differences and “special needs” (our own, and those of others). We blunder through all sorts of ill-fitting situations. We celebrate, ignore and denigrate myriad manifestations of the unique in equal measure.

The term “differently-abled” is so, so ungainly. Diffabled for short? A quick google search reveals I am by no means the first to think of this term, but it is one that bears disseminating.

It’s a great label – for everyone.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama