“She’s Black, she’s Black, she’s BLAAAAACK!” was just about all my brain could handle. Maintaining a simple and polite conversation was barely possible. No matter how much we had in common, no matter how likely a future friendship, I could think of nothing but that amazing dark skin, the transcendent hair texture, and my entire personal history of race relationships. Oh, how I wanted to prove to this woman that I was not like just any white woman! I knew, of course, it was just this level of self-consciousness that would make me utterly annoying to her. But, I just couldn’t help myself.
Helping myself, though, is really what race relations is about for me these days. I do care about the greater socio-political issues (shocking disregard for people’s lives all across the continent of Africa, overt brutality in our country, job discrimination, and of course the list goes on). However, my personal journey with racism now centers around me, my husband, and most of all, my daughter.
When I sat for coffee with the “she’s black she’s black she’s BLACK” woman, I was reminded of a time in college in the late 80’s when a fellow student raged at me something like, “I am not all black people! I can’t solve your problems!” The disgust, the tears, and the absolute giving up I felt from her did change me. I was so ignorant, so inexperienced with people who were not white-upper-class-and-highly-educated that I lumped anyone unlike me into a group. This group, I thought, would be my source for how to fix the world. Surely, they knew what I could do to not be like a bigot, a racist, a slave owner.
It was then I began to try and get over myself. Trouble was, I just didn’t have anyone to practice being just a person with. There was no one in my life I could intentionally not discuss race relations and curing the world of injustice. There was no one in my life with darker skin, or fancier hair. There wasn’t even anyone I knew whose family had struggled financially, dark or fair skinned. And, yes, I recognized how this desire to not look to someone for all the answers was just a different side of the same coin.
I don’t believe in the concept of being “color-blind.” I find it offensive to everyone involved. Why should anyone pretend someone doesn’t look the way they do? How is that respectful? One constant in my life is my need for authenticity. Facing tough issues by talking about them; I don’t do well with elephant’s snoozing on the throw rug nearby.
It my own need for honesty and clarity that had me obsessing, desperate for an intense and intimate conversation about race every time I ran in to this woman. Entirely annoying, of course, since I knew I was just doing it again. Not seeing her as a woman, a mother, a wife, a writer, a social justice activist, but only seeing her Blackness. I really didn’t want to, but I knew if I pretended I wasn’t, it would just make it worse.
In college, I studied and fell in love with “Symbolic Interactionism.” Put forward in force by Herbert Blumer but made real to me by Erving Goffman, the idea that we all together strive most of all to maintain a coherent sense of reality. The “presentation of self” is disturbed when an individual becomes obsessed with their own performance. Smooth interactions between individuals are the goal of most players in life, most of the time throughout our daily lives (most don’t walk down a crowded busy street intentionally slamming into other people, we work together as individuals to keep the peace).
I know in my past I have suffered from white guilt and that has prevented me from behaving naturally. It’s humiliating, really, but, it’s my own shit.
Playing with dollhouse toys, my daughter announced one afternoon that she called one set of dolls the dark-skinned dolls. She didn’t say that the other set was the light skinned dolls. I gathered myself together enough not to launch in to a whole history of race issues in the USA. She’d made a simple observation. We’ve tried to always be sure she has characters in books with lots of different backgrounds, tried to always have dolls that are not only blond and white, knowing every little thing is part of the greater picture. We talked to her about melanin when she first asked about darker skin after visiting my parents’ church. We’ve done everything we can to not make a big deal, but to still keep the option for deeper discussion open. And, yes, I am probably over-thinking it way too much. But, then again, I’m really not.
We live in a state (Maine) where it’s not common to see people who aren’t white. Economic status is more varied than where I grew up, but trying to recognize those differences takes a judgmental frame of mind, not easy for a four year old to pick up on. We visit Boston (awfully white city, but relatively International) and come across families speaking other languages, wearing interesting clothes, looking remarkably different. It’s nice, and we talk about things with her, but what will help Maya most?
I tried signing her up for a Kwanzaa celebration class for toddlers, but was vastly disappointed when the instructor slipped up and asked the class if they knew about the country of Africa. I do believe that experience with people with darker skin, with different languages, and with different cultural backgrounds is the best thing we can give Maya (and ourselves). But, how can this happen and not be contrived?
I’ve written previously about my six grade field trip on a bus into Hartford where the teachers showed us “urban decay” and “urban renewal.” They actually stopped the busses in stressed out neighborhoods and said “this is urban decay.” I guarantee you there were people around those streets. How can [my husband] and I be sure that signing Maya up for classes or working to have playgroups where the kids aren’t just white isn’t a lot like that? I suppose it makes a difference if there is a genuine interest in the topic, or if the playgroup participants are actually friends. Knowing I have the motivation of “exposure” however, is what feels too close to that old frame of mind (“these people will give me the answers, ease my guilt”).
Today we went to the toy store where [my husband] and I very blatantly purchased an excessively expensive and annoying toy strictly for bribery (you reach this milestone, we’ll celebrate with this toy!). We reached the shelves and the Baby Alive toys available were only the dark skinned, curly haired dolls (sort of African American looking, though I think they all look like aliens). We had watched a movie on the computer that morning as we whetted her appetite for the thing where the freakishly large-eyed blond baby says, “uh oh, I made a stinky!” I flinched at the shelf. I wondered if I should be prepared for Maya to say, “That isn’t the doll we saw, I want the other one!” I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to say, “It’s this doll or no doll,” because I didn’t want the darker doll to be the disappointing choice.
Maya didn’t say a word about how she looked different (even though the doll was surrounded by the blond dolls of the “pee-pee only” version). She hugged the box to herself. She has been cherishing the boxed doll all day (she gets to open it after she reaches her milestone).
On the way home from the store, this is what she said, “The company that makes these dolls must really want children to buy them!”
“Yeah, hunny, why is that?”
“Because she has dark skin and dark skin is the most beautiful.”
“Dark skin is beautiful, hunny, yes, they must know.”
Inside I’m not afraid her pale-skinned self-esteem is suffering, I’m doing a touchdown dance with fireworks. Thinking, at least at the moment, she’s making good associations.
A few months ago (a year?) I said to the “she’s black she’s black she’s BLACK” woman who I had come to know on some deeper levels, “It’s so nice to finally know you as a just a person.” I honestly don’t remember if we went forward with that conversation at that point, or later in safer email, but, it’s true that she’s the first Black woman (and Latina, it turns out) who I consider a friend. And, it’s most definitely true that while I have fleeting thoughts of “wow, that hair is so cool,” or, “her skin is so stunning,” I realize I have thoughts like that about all of my friends in different ways (“how does she pull of those knit caps?” “when does she have the time to shave her legs?” “her hair always looks so clean.”). They are fleeting and I’m not obsessed.
[My husband] doesn’t have the same hang-ups I do. He grew up in a much more culturally diverse world (Southern New Mexico). He’s also blessed with an ability to not over-think things. But, he knows what I’m talking about when we try to decide how to help Maya not think that this world (Maine) is typical of the rest of the world. He knows how gross it feels to imagine signing Maya up for a playgroup or class only because we know she’d meet kids who aren’t white. I suppose, like everything, I’ll have to turn this over to faith. Trusting that it will all work out because God’s in charge and I’m not.
I don’t know the answers. I don’t know how I can help Maya make friends without having an internal explosion about race or class issues go on in her brain. For this day, for this moment, I’ll take Maya finding the “dark skin is the most beautiful” as a pretty good start.

Anne Lamott really pisses me off. In fact, when I saw her Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year in the parenting section a couple years ago at the Harvard COOP, I actually gave the book the finger. Such was my resentment at some writer journaling in public about motherhood, like I could. Or, like I should.
It must be trite, it must be drivel, it must be painfully common. How presumptuous to think she had something unique and fascinating to say about parenting.
The fact that my resentment blossomed and exploded with physical force (the middle finger jammed up at the softcover book) didn’t elude me. I recognize jealousy. I recognize fear: Afraid. Really, really afraid. Here was this dream and someone else was living it and how could I possibly ever do it if other people already are. I only want the path less traveled on; I won’t be a sheep or a lemming.
So it required great bravery on my part last week to pick up the book, purchase it, and open the cover to read. I finished it in 36 hours which says a lot as a parent of a 4 year old.
That weekend as I read, I began feeling rumblings in my body. Discomfort. A loosening of my glue.
I turned to the wisest person I know. I turned to this four year old who has spent her life facing her fears and asked, “Sweetie? There’s something I really, really want to do but I’m scared to do it. But I want to do it, but I’m scared. What should I do? How can I do this thing? How do you do it when you feel this way?”
Very seriously and with several long long seconds of contemplation, she looked at me with those ocean-deep eyes and gave me the answer. “Mommy, I listen to what my body is telling me. I might need to give myself more time with my Mommy first, but when my body tells me I’m ready, I just do it.”
Later that day, lying on my back finishing up the Lamott book I spilled empathetic laughter every few minutes. With my four year old audience demanding it, I read the funniest portions out loud (meatball-like poops rolling away, slapping an infant for fear it wasn’t just sleep overcoming him but rather a seizure). Most items made Maya giggle, too.
Years ago (1996 to be exact), I began writing a weekly column and posting it online. This was before I knew the term “blogging,” and certainly the activity of blogging hadn’t reached the masses. My self-imposed deadlines kicked my ass, really. I took them so seriously. I remember many a Wednesday evening sweating and twisted at the computer screen researching “What in the hell is going on with the Hutu and the Tutsis?” Or simply commenting on my latest self-revelation that I somehow imagined might interest someone.
For the past year, I’ve known an intense magnetic pull bringing me back to writing personal essays. I left them when I became suddenly embarrassed at how self-obsessed I knew I seemed to some.
I’ve found the courage to begin reading these kinds of things again, Anna Quindlen, Barbara Kingsolver, (and of course that beastly and fabulous Anne Lamott), most recently. In their words I’ve found not only camaraderie but also inspiration. Much of why I drink their words with such abandon are the feelings I get of a Shared Experience. As I approach my own writing, I feel a permission to address the day-to-day.
Each essayist has a unique voice and experience, no matter how common the theme. Knowing I can say “what’s already been said” and have it still be new and unique simply because it comes from me frees me from the sheep and lemmings fear. Any path I choose will be less traveled because the path belongs to me.
I’m falling apart from the inside out. I’m unhinged, unglued, and frighteningly free floating. My writing days return like a herd of buffalo. Knowing I seem just fine, perhaps a little tired, but as if I’m a functioning member of our simple world, well, that’s just craziness at it’s strangest. How these feelings can be mauling my insides while I stroll through the pumpkin field with my darling daughter and my dreamy husband? I know it’s all because the writing is coming.
I know it because my body says I’m ready.

She climbed into my lap, assumed the nursing position and asked quietly, “nah-nah.” Without thinking about it, I lifted my shirt and unsnapped my bra. After her sucking began I was suddenly self-conscious. We were at the library story hour; a room full of mothers with their small children and babies. I believe I should never have to tell my daughter we can’t nurse because other people don’t like it. The thing is, as she gets older I’m uncovering levels of discomfort and ignorance that make my insides ache. Why should I have to tell my little girl some people don’t understand that nursing is a beautiful thing? Why should I have to say, we can’t nurse in the doctor’s office because I’m worried the person sitting next to me might get uncomfortable?
When I’m in line in the supermarket – the example even the most passionate “lactivists” use as a place where they might not nurse their toddlers – I want to shout, would you be uncomfortable if I gave her a bottle? Would you be uncomfortable if I gave her a favorite teddy bear or hugged her? Why should she have to give up this perfect source of comfort because our culture seems to think a plastic pacifier is more civilized and that breasts are just for sex?
Yesterday I was in a small hotel suite with my in-laws and Maya was painfully over-tired, obviously fighting a cold, and meeting new grandparents for just about the first time. She wanted to nurse. I had on a sling, so I found it easy to let her nurse even in such close quarters – I was surprised when my father-in-law bounded off of the couch we were all sitting on and burst into the other room, apparently finding a sudden desperate need to wash his hands. When he came back, he sat in the chair on the opposite side of the room and his eyes looked everywhere but at me and my beautiful two year old, who was snuggled inside the colorful fabric of her favorite “tsing.”
Today in the same little hotel room, I told her she’d have to wait – she grew more persistent, since she’s not used to me saying no to nah-nah for what must have seemed like no reason.
I began to tell her that some people don’t understand how special nursing is. Then I stopped myself.
The world can be such a hard place.
She has a lifetime to learn about pain and disappointment – I’m not going to force those lessons on her. Frankly, I think the people who don’t understand the power of the nursing bond are missing out on one of life’s greatest miracles. Until she wants it to be different, we’re going to have nah-nah whenever and wherever she wants it.
In fact, I’ve got to go now. Maya’s asking for some nah-nah.

The last few weeks have been tough for our family. Emotionally exhausting. Maya made it clear it wasn’t okay for me to leave her with a babysitter, or her grandparents, or even her Daddy. I tried working from my home office, but every few minutes she would want to nurse or talk with me. Trying to get work done at a local coffee shop was out, too. When I started toward the door, she would tremble with tears in her eyes and plead, “Mommy, no! Don’t go now!”
Parenting is a series of choices. Josh and I follow our gut. If we discover later the research backs us up, that’s nifty. But, no matter what the experts suggest, we stay true to our instincts.
When Maya told me not to go, I heard choruses of outsiders in my mind telling me, “she’s testing you, trying to manipulate you; you are the adult and mustn’t let her push you around; she needs your consistency (I said I was going, so I should go for her sake),” and on and on.
Those were loud and pushy and misguided outsiders’ voices.
In my gut, in my heart, my soul, my core, I knew that Maya was testing me. She was saying, “I need you to stay. When I need you and I tell you so, will you hear?”
I passed the test.
I bulldozed through the swamp of voices predicting an overindulged and “spoiled” child and landed safely in the nest of comforting my daughter.
The need for Mommy to stay hasn’t wavered over the past several weeks; so, as I mentioned, it’s been an exhausting time for our family. Josh has taken up a great deal of slack in housekeeping (tasks for which he already pulls at least half the weight), has thickened his skin to the “no Daddy!” times, and has reassured me that he agrees our choices are right for our family. Respecting Maya’s needs is how we care for her, even if it means in the short-term all my emotional resources are being spent on her security.
When would it end? I thought many times. Surely, allowing her to nurse whenever she wants to (needs its own essay) and not leaving her with a sitter – not leaving her, period – surely all of this responsiveness would soon increase her sense of security?
Why, then, did it seem that Maya clung even more desperately to me – saying no to a trip to the market with Daddy (always a favorite jaunt for the pair), even at times not wanting Mommy to leave the room?
The responsibility of attending to her needs has been heavy, but small moments convince me the choices we are making are right for us. When she was falling asleep a few nights ago, Maya rested her hand on my cheek and said, “Stay, Mommy.”
“Yes, yes, I will stay,” I whispered, pressing my mouth against her sweet sweaty head.
I wondered if this was just the typical two-year-old stuff or something bigger. Maya answered my questions this weekend.
“Mommy’s not going to die,” she stated with a question’s tone while in her rocking chair.
“What?” I said, not quite sure I heard her, could she have said…?
“You’re not going to die,” she said, staring intensely at me with the widest big eyes a little girl could ever have.
“No! No, hunny, I am not going to die!”
“Daddy’s not going to die,” she said, almost without inflection.
“No! No, he’s not. He won’t.”
Throughout the weekend she continued on this theme, asking if we were going to die. Talking about her animal parents and friends dying, requesting the stories we tell be about parents or friends dying.
These thoughts are too big for a child. She is too tender for such dark fears!
I remembered, then, a conversation we had when she pointed to a picture of my Aunt Mary. I told Maya then that Mary had been my cousin Ali’s mother, but she had died much too young. The conversation was brief, but, as I look back the deep fears she’s had are making more sense.
In addition to talking about my beloved Aunt Mary, my grandmother has been very seriously ill and we have talked to Maya about the possibility of Gramma Jean dying.
The topic is one I assumed a two-year-old would only take in what she could handle. I chose to be blunt about the truth (everyone/everything dies, death is permanent, etc.) because I was sure she simply wouldn’t get in to the heavy stuff.
“Mommy’s not going to die,” she asked as she sat in her car seat waiting to be brought upstairs after a trip to the market.
“Mommy’s not going to die,” she stated firmly as we lay in bed going to sleep last night.
“No, hunny, I promise I will never leave you.” I said. “If I ever leave you it will only be for a short, short time and I will always, always come back home safe. I will not die.”
I justify the lie by adding in my mind, “in the next ten minutes…” knowing it would be cruel to ask this sweet babe to understand that her Mother could and would one day die.
When she begged me not to leave her with a sitter, what if I had discarded her need for me? What if I had decided the other things were more important than her cries for me to stay? Can you imagine how frightened she might have been? Can you imagine trying to get a handle on death all alone as a 28-month-old child?
When we continue caring for Maya in this way – that her cries for us are real needs, not attempts at control or manipulation – Josh and I both know we are doing the right thing for her. What a world around us, though, when the strongest message to the general public is that people like us are being “controlled” by our child! When Maya looks up at me, caressing my cheek and says, with satisfaction just seconds before drifting off to a milky sleep, “You’re not going to go,” I know we are doing what is best for her.
“That’s right, sweet love,” I say to her, long after she breathes the heavy slow rhythm of sleep, “I’m staying. Mommy is staying with you. Daddy is staying with you. We will never leave you.”
And we never will.

“All Whites Are Racist!” screamed giant red letters on the yellow banner in the student center. It didn’t say much more than that, except to come to the theater at a certain time that day. I was outraged and I wondered what in the heck was going on, after all, that was total nonsense — I wasn’t racist and neither were my friends. We were good people, not scummy ignorant bigots. How dare someone imply otherwise?

What followed was a workshop with a man named Tony Harris. I don’t remember many details of the workshop but I walked out of there with a deeper understanding of my own racism and the impact it had on my life. Mr. Harris showed me that our tendency in looking at racism is to see how it negatively affects non-caucasians, when, in fact, caucasians are suffering great emotional pain because of racism, too. The workshop wasn’t a touchy-feely, “oh you white people have it so bad” kind of thing, but rather it was an experience that revealed painful truths: no matter our intentions, we white people are racist.

Defining “racist” must go beyond a dictionary definition. The way we use the term “racism” in this country is not simply “making decisions based on race.” The term “racism” as it is used today is about oppression and power. I define racism as “people with power oppressing people with less power, based on their apparent race.” Of course there are exceptions to “all whites are racist” but it is for the most part a true statement and the exceptions are fewer than most people like to think.

We white people grow up with advantages born unto us. For example, we are less likely to get stopped by the police and more likely to be hired for a job. Whether we like it or not, we have more power than people with darker skin. Because we have advantages based on our skin color, we are participating in a racist system and are therefore racist ourselves.

Through our families, through the media, through implicit and over messages we are taught stereotypes about people who aren’t white. Because we believe these stereotypes on some level, we’re afraid. Because we are afraid, we avoid people who don’t look like us so we can avoid feeling uncomfortable. Because we avoid people who don’t look like us, we have no opportunity to disprove the stereotypes we are taught.

Additionally, because so many of us are good, well-intentioned people, we feel guilty for our position, for our advantage, and for our country’s history of oppression. Because we feel guilty is one more reason we avoid anyone who isn’t white, so we don’t have to feel uncomfortable — so we can pretend it isn’t so.

Given this premise: all us white folks are racist, what can we do about it?

I have some ideas how on an individual level we can work towards breaking the bonds that have been holding us all down in this racist society.

I think of where I have lived. When I lived in a white suburban area of town I had rare occasion to interact with a non-white person. I had no idea the impact this had on me until I moved to an area of town where most people have dark skin — at first, I was literally afraid! All logic was out the window, and I just felt nervous and guilty and I felt I stuck out like a sore thumb being so white.

Well, it’s been some time (this happens each time I move in and out of neighborhoods where there are more dark skinned people than light skinned) and I love where I live. I no longer feel nervous and I no longer feel guilty most of the time. I haven’t escaped my racist background, but simple proximity to people who don’t look like me helps me recognize my biases and move beyond them.

Another thing I suggest is for you (if you’re white) is to be the minority for a while. Go to a bar filled with mostly Asian people, go to a Hispanic neighborhood association meeting, or go to a black church where you are one of the only white people around. The experience is terrifying and shocking when you realize this is what it must be like for so many dark skinned people in “your world” when they “visit.” It also helps to bring yourself into the reality that there is no “one” black person, Asian person, Latino person — among the darker skinned people there are tremendous varieties. There are fat and skinny, there are poor and wealthy, there are sloppy and neat.

It seems sad to suggest such things as “get next to a darker skinned person to get over your fear and your guilt” — it would be nice to believe that dialogue would be a first step. I think living in the same worlds is the first step, and I think it’s up to those of us who have the most power (the white people) to recognize our advantages and use our power to help make changes. We can choose to live in “black/Asian/Latino neighborhoods,” we can choose to attend churches and temples where not only white people worship, we can simply shop in supermarkets where not only white people shop. We can live our lives with conscious thought and with intent.

Since I don’t believe we can ever be entirely free of our racism as white people I believe educating our children is the most vital step we can take to changing our world. It’s our responsibility to guarantee our children grow up next door to people who don’t look like themselves, that they sit at school desks and work on homework assignments with children who don’t look just the same, and it is our responsibility that they are exposed to the richness and variety of the world’s cultures rather than just the white culture around them.
All whites may be racist, but it’s true that the children are our future and it’s up to us to teach them.

——————
Here’s a link to some information about Tony Harris, he’s connected on this website to a “show” called “American Pictures” which looks quite interesting, the site itself is well done:
http://www.american-pictures.com/english/show/tony.htm

Note: This essay was first published on my website in 1999.