INTERRACIAL VOICE - Guest Editorial

Guest Editorial

Custody Battlelines In The War For Mixed-Race Identity
By Tracy Cope

T. Cope I recently put together a website featuring my family, ("Welcome To Tracy's Family Homepage") including an email address for comments or questions. Because we are a mixed race couple I received this following question: "What should a biracial child be taught about his black ancestry?"

As a black mother of mixed-race children, I want my biracial children to know about the history and accomplishments of African-Americans. I also want them to know the history and accomplishments of European Americans and anyone that contributed to our culture, whether they are related to my children or not.

I want my biracial child schooled in the history of our shared culture the way any child would be. I want "Black" History smoothly integrated into American history and not compartmentalized into a special month or special chapter. I don’t want my biracial child to feel his blackness makes him odd or excluded and requiring special treatment.

I am black. My parents were black and they taught me how to walk, talk, dress and act. I was taught proper standard English; my parents corrected me if I used slang. I had to keep my elbows off the table. I was taught to take responsibility for my actions and not blame others for my failings. I was told in no uncertain terms that illegitimate offspring would not be welcome members of my parents' household. We attended church regularly, and it was and is a big part of our lives.

Education was a priority. Homework was done before television. I was encouraged to take honors classes; any bad grades were to be brought up by finals. Aware of preconceived notions that some white teachers had of black students, my parents would intervene. I always knew I would go to college, and I graduated. I have a job within my field of study. My first serious romantic relationship was at the age of 24; it was with the man I married who is the father of my children.

Now you know a little bit about my upbringing, and you know why I became who I am. This is black culture to me. What I describe above is the black culture that surrounded me and nourished me. I thrived on this version of black culture, and I think any child would. Even non-blacks. I think of it as black culture because it was taught to me by my black family; it was not taught to me by whites.

I’m not trying to imitate white people or anyone else. I just try to be myself. My identity came from my folks, just like yours did. My folks were black, but some people say I act "white"; the people who say I act white are the blacks that speak ebonics and like rap music. My behavior is not a valid expression of blackness to them.

When will my behavior be considered valid black behavior? Mainstream behavior is acceptable for all other minorities: for Italian-Americans, for Jewish-American and for Chinese-Americans. When will it be acceptable for blacks? When will blacks join the rest of the American mainstream? I’ll tell you.

Blacks have already joined the American Mainstream. My family did decades ago, but the self-appointed "spokespersons" for the black community refuse to acknowledge this. They do not consider my life a valid "black" experience. They instigate their ebonic-speaking children to call mainstream black kids racial slurs on the playgrounds.

*********** Getting back to the original question, a visitor to my webpage asked me:

"What should a biracial child be taught about his black ancestry?"

Here is what really was being asked:

"People say my mixed-race child is too mainstream. How do I fix this?"

The answer is don’t fix it. It’s not broken. Every child has a valid identity which they soak up from the world around them. We don’t need Louis Farrakhan or anyone else to validate our children’s identities. Our children grow naturally and pick up the coloration from what is around them, like a celery stalk in a cup of dye.

You learn identity from those around you. Mixed children reared around African Americans will pick up more black identity than those raised solely around whites; them there’s the facts, folks. But that’s all right; it takes all kinds to make a world. For good or bad, culture is what surrounds you; culture is what touches you on all sides. You slosh around in it and absorb it as a child. As an adult, you continue soaking up the changing culture but more importantly you now impart culture, values and identity to the young ones around yourself.

A young French child doesn't get special classes to learn his French identity. The French child just soaks it up from the French people around him. It was the same for all of us. We pieced together our identity from the people that were around us when we were little. Identity isn't a coerced event. Ethnic Identity just happens, and one person's ethnic identification is as valid as another's and deserves respect. It's not up to me to tell others how to relate to the cultures of their countless ancestors. To give a young mixed race child classes on how to be black is a bizarre and demeaning experience for both the teacher and pupil.

Racists would have us believe that intelligence, temperament, disposition, morality and all facets of human behavior are tied up in our genetic composition. If the white supremacists were correct that genetics determine these things then white people would all be moral and upstanding (hahaha!) and blacks would be incapable of speaking anything but ebonics, which is also not true. A mixed-race child reared in a white middle-class environment will disprove the racist's superstitions by absorbing white middle-class culture.

The mixed-race child will have problems living with either the whites or the blacks. Some whites will be racist while many blacks will only accept the mixed-race person if they pay lip service to certain credos and walk in lockstep. Until recently black Americans had no voice. There is still no voice for the mixed race people; blacks do the talking for them, and many whites write them off as "light skinned blacks". But mixed-race people are not light skinned blacks, and they are not dark skinned whites either. We are a group of individuals unto ourselves. The question is how do mixed race people come together as a group and assert to the country that we are not the property of the blacks?

In raising a mixed-race child, if one or the other side of the extended family opts out of child-rearing, the child will be more like the culture of the family members that raised him. This sometimes results in a partly black child that "acts" white (whatever acting white is). If this upsets people, blame the black family that opted out of the child's upbringing. The same thing goes for mixed race children that only "act" black, whatever acting black is.

Right now my children are embraced by both the white and the black community (and the Latino and Russian community as well). This country keeps changing. It's not a perfect world in regards to racism, far from it, but it's a dramatically improved world from what I grew up with, in the same area. It remains to be seen what kind of world my children will raise their children in. I have faith that twenty years from now race will be less of an issue. If we don't have some faith in the world to come, what sort of world will come?

People of African American descent have little to gain by drawing our cultural wagons into a circle and attempting to restrain those that would stray from its boundaries. If you have to fight to keep someone in the club, you've already lost the fight. I think that it cheapens our heritage to impose it on those that have no cohesion with us. I am referring to those that share a few genes with the black community, but culturally belong elsewhere.

By insisting that mixed-race people refer to themselves as black, the only thing that the black community is communicating to mixed-race people (and the world at large) is: "Since I have to be a nigger, you have to be a nigger, too!" Then we use words like "pride" and "beautiful black woman/man/people" in reference to ourselves, and I hardly think we believe these things. If we were indeed proud of our ethnicity, we would be secure enough not to force it on others.

Black American culture is multifaceted, but this fact has been ignored. I was made to feel that I wasn’t black, that I was a sellout because I spoke mainstream English and had middle class values. My tan skin, green eyes, and long wavy hair also made me a target for racist slurs from the ebonic youth. I never made whiteness or blackness a focus or a goal for my life. I just wanted to be me. My parents instilled in me to be the best person that I could be. If the black community says I’m black and only black and won’t let me go, fine. I’ll stay. But I’m not pretending anything. They’ll get all of me, my ideas and my properly enunciated vowel sounds, whether they like it or not. I may even correct their grammar.

I really don’t see any reason to emphasize a black identity over a white one for my children. What I’d like is for them to take the best of both groups and make their own identities. They’ll do this naturally. I don’t feel that there’s any advantage to locking them into some category and limiting their appreciation for certain types of music (except for cRAP music), foods, or overall outlook on life.