<p>Whatapainthisis, I am sorry to hear about what you had to go through in your neighborhood and during your childhood. I have heard similar stories from other people and recognize that not everyone has been as fortunate as I have been in this regard and yes, how fortunate my Chinese daughter has been to have been so accepted and loved by her relatives. Please know that I did not mean to sound as judgmental as I might have. I recognize that everyone’s situation is not the same.
It’s bizarre, isn’t it, how people fear that which they are not familiar with. It always makes me think of that song from the musical “South Pacific:” You Have To Be Taught. Look at the words to that song: so very, very sadly true.</p>
<p>NMR, I was thinking the same as you about South Pacific. Big surprise, right? 
Here are the lyrics, as I think they’re thought provoking and certainly apropos to this conversation.</p>
<p>You’ve got to be taught
to hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught
from year to year,
It’s got to be drummed
in your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.</p>
<p>You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught</p>
<p>You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.</p>
<p>When I think of it more, I made a very concerted effort with my daughter to “do things differently”. </p>
<p>Right from the beginning, I resisted they idea of her being given “girls toys” and insisted that she be given a variety of toys. I enrolled her in a multicultural arts afterschool program and I took her with me to college, where she met people of many cultures and orientations. I also had gay friends while in college. Over the years, even since moving away from the inner city to our 99% white neighborhood, it has been obvious to me that my daughter is completely impervious to any bias based on race or orientation because of her prior upbringing. </p>
<p>However, I am concerned for my son. While this neighborhood does not engage in house burnings, there is a more subtle racism. For example, rentals are not published in the paper, rather signs are put up in front of the house to discourage inner city minorities from coming in. Although my children attend a public school, the school crosses the line of secular holiday displays to outright promotion of religion through Christmas gift sales, inviting Santa into the school, Christmas parties, and a giving tree. In our neighborhood, the City puts on a “Christmas in the Park” where a tree is lit and Santa gives sleigh rides. Now I am not about to go and start filing lawsuits, but I am sensitive to the fact that if I were Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, etc., I would feel very excluded and unwelcome because of the “community feel”.</p>
<p>There is a family who adopted a mixed race child. Primarily because our children share nut allergies, I’ve made an effort to get to know this family and to encourage our children to play together. A few months ago, my son came home and referred to him as being “brown”, and I felt uncomfortable. I asked him why he mentioned that, and that he should be careful not to refer to him as being “brown”, amoungst other statements that we do not identify people by color. I’m not sure that I handled that well. </p>
<p>It’s ironic. I am worried that my son, raised within a marriage in the suburbs will end up worse off than my daughter, who was brought up by a single parent in the inner city.</p>
<p>Re: Noodles are Chinese.</p>
<p>Actually, that’s a little controversial. While there has been a 4,000-year-old bowl of what might be millet-flour noodles found in China, wheat noodles similar to today’s date back to the Middle East in 100-500 BC. Or so. It’s not like the historical documents of the time spend a lot of space talking about staple foods. The one thing that is for sure is that Marco Polo did NOT bring the idea of “noodle” to Italy from China. Noodles in the Mediterranean go back much earlier than that.</p>
<p>(Isn’t it amazing what 10 minutes on Google can produce? I love this kind of mini-research project.)
(Especially when I’m blocked on the new product plan I’m writing and am engaged in fairly strenuous work-avoidance.)</p>
<p>NotMamaRose: Thanks for taking the time to post about what I let slide by. To my mind a child is a child – someone to nurture and love. After the first hour, nationality, biological origin, the whole schmeer, no longer mean anything.</p>
<p>Or maybe after the first nanosecond.</p>
<p>That’s why when unfortunate incidents happen in neonatal units and babies are switched most parents can’t tell unless they’ve seen their child. IMO there is not some magical bond with a biological child that doesn’t exist with an adopted child.</p>
<p>My niece and nephew are equally loved; one is a biological child and one is an adopted child.</p>
<p>“I asked him why he mentioned that, and that he should be careful not to refer to him as being “brown”, amoungst other statements that we do not identify people by color. I’m not sure that I handled that well.”</p>
<p>At the risk of taking the thread further OT, I have to add I chucked when I read that. My H and I grew up in mostly black communities, in stark contrast to the one in which we have raised our kids. Race rarely seems an issue here ( although we could be in denial; FWIW, it was said to be one of 5 cities in which per capita income for blacks is higher than whites… My sis says that’s because me and H are the only ones) and we were careful about how we talked about it. the kids took to describing there friends by color using brown, orange, pink, etc. They never used black, but then they were often the only ones. H and I sometimes said “tall” when we meant black, and “short” when we meant white, and we only confessed this to our kids a few years ago. ( They are now almost 15 and 18).</p>
<p>Shrinkrap, do you have any advice on how I handled that? I am concerned. I like these parents and their child and I want to handle this properly. </p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, this is a nice neighborhood in many ways. Very low crime, close to a waterfront, modestly priced homes. </p>
<p>But just to give you an idea, I was in the hair section of the store one day and struck up a conversation with another female looking at hair products. My hair is long, thick, dark, and wavy. She was blond, as are most of the people in this predominantly German ancestry neighborhood. And I mentioned that I noticed that there are a lot of blonds, and that I feel kind of like I stand out. And she said “Well, you kind of do.” It felt very strange.</p>
<p>You want to talk about chucked, I almost upchucked this summer during a conversation with the child’s mother. I have met both parents and knew that the little boy is adopted. We got into a conversation about how quickly the kids were growing, their percentiles, and she mentioned that he is very tall for his age. My husband said “How tall is his father?” She said, “Well, his bio father was 6’7"”. I wanted to kick him, then slink off and die. I realized later that this really wasn’t such a bad thing, he just assumed that her husband was black. But still…</p>
<p>I lived in Japan for a year, and often had to deal with “outsider” issues. My best suggestion is to just have a sense of humor about yourself and your situation. </p>
<p>Usually, it’s best to just find the common ground and worry more about that than to deal with the differences. It’s amazing how many similarities there are between people who may have come in thinking about differences.</p>
<p>"“I asked him why he mentioned that, and that he should be careful not to refer to him as being “brown”, amoungst other statements that we do not identify people by color. I’m not sure that I handled that well.”</p>
<p>I’m black, and I think that you’re right to wonder if you handled that appropriately.</p>
<p>I don’t see anything wrong with describing people by their skin color. After all, we describe people all of the time by their hair color and gender. Mentioning someone’s skin color as part of describing what they look like is fine.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, in our society, some people have gotten the erroneous message that people who aren’t racist won’t notice others’ skin color. That’s just as ridiculous as suggesting that people wouldn’t notice others’ hair color or gender. It’s not as if someone’s race is something embarrassing about them.</p>
<p>“But just to give you an idea, I was in the hair section of the store one day and struck up a conversation with another female looking at hair products. My hair is long, thick, dark, and wavy. She was blond, as are most of the people in this predominantly German ancestry neighborhood. And I mentioned that I noticed that there are a lot of blonds, and that I feel kind of like I stand out. And she said “Well, you kind of do.” It felt very strange.”</p>
<p>What felt strange? Seems she just stated the obvious.</p>
<p>I know that with my medium brown skin and dredlocs, I stand out in lots of places that I go where I may be the only black person there. This includes in my neighborhood.</p>
<p>I’ve actually found it’s a plus that I stand out and people tend to remember me. I meet a lot of nice people because of standing out.</p>
<p>As a child, I didn’t like to use the terms “black” and “white” because they seemed inaccurate to me. I preferred to describe skin color as “peach,” or “brown.” I’m guessing this may have come from my 64-pack of Crayolas. One does not use a black crayon when drawing a black person, nor a white crayon for a white person.</p>
<p>I do remember being told that it was impolite to describe people as “brown.” But it’s a hard thing for a child to understand: somehow it is okay to say “her skin is a beautiful chocolate brown,” but not okay to talk about “brown people.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I cannot remember the entire context of the conversation, but it was not a simple matter of “He is brown”, but more in the context of “brown people” and everything that that kind of expression entails. I think what bothered me was his statements had shown a separatism where there never was one before. Before it was just two little kids who know each other by name. All of the sudden, the little boy is “brown people”. That breaking off is what still worries me. My daughter used to be very close with one of the only hispanic girls in the neighborhood (my niece being the only other). Once they got to high school, the girl began to put “Puerto Rican pride” all over everything, basically dropped all of her friends for hispanic friends outside of our community, changed her appearance and voice to fit in with them. My daughter never separated herself from this girl, but this girl pretty much rejected anything not Puerto Rican. I still don’t know what to make of it.</p>
<p>What disturbed me in the store was the tone with which the girl told me that I stand out, not so much what she said. It was as if she had been thinking it all along, like I didn’t really belong there, and that she had noticed that I was “out of place” so to speak. </p>
<p>Then again, maybe I just had pms. But I will say that there was a day when I had a picnic with my family at the local park, and a group of kids went by and shouted “Go back to Mexico”.</p>
<p>I also remember a time many years ago when I was trying hard to be politically correct. I was speaking to a man that I did not know and I referred to him as African American. He said “I’m not African American. I’m black! Call me black!”</p>
<p>My son thinks that we are “beige”. LOL.</p>
<p>Irene, exactly what you said. No problem describing skin color as brown, but I have a problem with “brown people”, and that is what was said.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, we could be twins! Fortunately (I assume) we don’t live in the same town or we might be confused ( I exaggerate of course), but in my town it appears I am VERY easy to remeber. I am always so embarrased when I don’t have a clue…Whatapain i will have to get back to you…I have someone waiting…</p>
<p>Okay, I’m back. I bet you should follow your sons lead; I bet he’s not anxious about it at all and that might be a good barometer. For the most part I let my kids be in their handling of "race relations’ as they seem to have much less baggage then i do. I just hope they will be prepared for other communities.</p>
<p>Whatapainthisis, haha, one of my best friends, Jaquoia, tells people Barack Obama is African American and she is Black.</p>
<p>Just a small note, but the Indian people I know refer to themselves as “brown” and talk about “brown people.” For example, looking at a picture of me and my friends from high school, an Indian friend of mine may ask, “who’s your brown friend?”</p>
<p>Thanks Northstarmom. I work at a school with hundreds and hundreds of children. I don’t know all of their names. The principal overheard my asking a teacher for the name of one of two boys in the hall. She asked which one and I said the black kid. Good Lord, there was hell to pay! If the child in question had been wearing something that was clearly identifiable, I would have said, “The one with orange striped shirt” or something to that effect. What made the two boys distinguishable was the color of their skin. I mean everybody who can see knows who is black and who is white. I suppose if I needed to speak to the other boy, I would have said, “The white kid.” I wonder if that would have caused such a reaction. I just don’t get it.</p>