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.
It not a matter of mixed race; it's more a matter of choosing cultures.
Do you like purple cars and gold teeth? Do you like engineering and harp music? Decisions, decisions, decisions.
Lone Star Champagne....mmmmmmmm...........
I grew up as a human being. When I went to college, I was told by other people I gew biracial. Go figure.
Is Angelina Jolie bi-racial? I can't tell..........
I know several children who have one white parent and one non-Caucasian parent (either African-American or Asian).
All the children are expected to identify as black, Asian etc.
Why is that? Aren't they just as much white as they are asian? aren't they just as much asian as they are white?
It sure sounds like the old "one drop of black blood" stuff to me. And I just don't get it. How can they "be" either race, solely, and why should they be forced to claim one race and reject the other?
During the early '90s I dated a guy who had a bi-racial cousin. I remember that she would come to their family functions with her mother (white) but her father (black) was never there. I asked my boyfriend at the time, what gives? It seems the father had never been accepted by the mother's parents and older family members. In fact, it was apparent that the mother herself wasn't exactly warmly welcomed at these events by these same folks. I remember how that girl, a young teenager at the time, would sit quietly by herself, picking at her nails, rarely making eye contact with anyone. My boyfriend and the other younger family members would try to include her but she was very aloof. It was really sad to watch. I wonder what became of her.
Solution...don't bi-racial. The kids are the victim in these cases. Until society looks at things as colorless, it will always be this way. And don't plan on a color blind society in our life time.
I grew up multi-ethnic. I thought I was in the clear for knowledge of all my ethnicities until I was 22 and I found out that I should be fitted for a yarmulke.
After that, I said "Screw this, I'm calling myself American".
Who says arabs are white??
White is seen as an absence of culture. That's why non-whites are referred to as "ethnic".
In Japan such kids are called ha-fu, the Japanese pronunciation for "half" (half-Japanese, half another race). Such people, while sometimes teased as kids (not our experience at all), are often later in life the object of admiration/envy for having the combined beauty of two races as opposed to one (often our experience): namely larger eyes and browner hair, a highly desired trait among many Japanese young people these days who have their eyelids widened and dye there hair lighter shades. Take a look at any pop fashion/music mag in Japan for prime examples.
Tiger Woods is a good example here in the US of a good-looking "bi-racial" person who seems very self-confident about himself.
Joshua sounds like he's simply carrying the racial "baggage" of his parents.
Japan * ping * (kono risuto ni hairitai ka detai wo shirasete kudasai : let me know if you want on or off this list)
I would think they would have a better chance being accepted by the white side then they would the black. Same with Japanese. I doubt this was the case 40 years ago.
Now I'm seriously confused. If one white parent and one black parent make someone bi racial, what does having a parent of either sex make me?
With all due respect, "society" can go f@#$ itself. My kin are kin, and I don't give a rat's rump what continent or island their ancestors came from. Same goes for friends and neighbours.
Ditto. my backgounr makes me three-parts American Indian to five parts Anglo, but I was raised in the "white world." My sister, who has the same parents is very dark while I am fair. She was also raised "white " It's a matter of which culture you choose.
Being "mixed" I can pick the best of both worlds. Cadillac CTS on "dubbs", 12 inch subwoofers, GWB sticker on the back.
As I got older I realized it was better to be tall, intellegent, and good-looking, (in that order) rather then white or black ;-)
I agree. Eurasians tend to be wonder-blends.
All the fill-in-oval quota sheets. I have had to fill in enough of these for school, job applications, etc. to know the categories. "White" is defined as "from Europe, Middle East and North Africa". Weird? Yeah. But the whole racial classification thing is weird to me. Especially, as this article points out, in a mixed-race society.
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