Obama's election has made me think more about black and white than I usually do. For one thing, I was confused about why people kept calling him "black." He's got one white parent and one black parent, right? So why don't we call him "white" half the time?
It appears that the way you look becomes your ethnicity, in today's America. It wasn't always that way. I remember being a kid and watching the movie "Showboat" on TV. I was completely confused. The plot made no sense. Well, no, it doesn't make sense, unless you realize that it's partly about a woman who looks white but has some black heritage, and if anyone finds out she has black ancestors, her career and her marriage are over, because legally, that drop of "black blood" makes her black.
There exist photographs of slave children from pre-Civil war times--children who look white. They had moms who were black slaves and dads who were white plantation owners. Some of the kids of these unions looked as white as their dads, but were slaves because their moms were slaves. I read a quote from the journal of a plantation lady of the time, something about the slave children running around the house looking "exactly" like the children of the plantation owners. Apparently the tactful thing for the lady of the house to do was to pretend she hadn't noticed that some of the slave children looked an awful lot like her own kids.
So, what you were once depended on what your ancestors were, not on how you looked. Now, I think we pay more attention to how you look, and Obama does look more "black" than "white." I am pleased to be able to say to Francie, "Look, our new president is brown like you, and so are his kids."
I am also, however, rather pleased to see old photos of Obama with his white grandparents. I haven't pointed out to Francie that the new president-elect has white family members just like she does, but maybe this is something that will become more acceptable in the public mind, just because those photos are out there. I figure it can't hurt Francie's feelings of acceptance that Obama is both half black AND half white.
Really, I prefer not to think about all of this too much. In the midst of the fuss surrounding the election of the country's first "black" president, I find it peaceful to listen to Lillie, age seven and white, born to us, and Francie, age six and black, adopted from Haiti but home with us from her second birthday. No, they do not discuss race relations. They don't even seem to know there is such a thing. (That's an actual photo of them at the top of the blog. I used to avoid using real names or any real photos, but I decided no one reads this anyway, so I posted a real photo. The names are still pseudonyms, though.)
Here's how a recent discussion went. Lillie made some comment about her friend Azalea. Now, Azalea is what most people would probably refer to as black (I think she has a white parent and a black one, but like Obama, she would probably be called "black" by most people).
I couldn't remember which school friend Azalea was. Thus:
Mom: "Which one is Azalea? Did she come to your birthday party?"
Lillie: "Oh, you know, she's, well, she's sort of tan, not so much as Francie though. And her hair is long, and it's kind of curly."
Francie: "Yeah, she has hair kind of like mine, only mine isn't long. And she's sort of tan."
They went on like this for several minutes, trying to explain to me who Azalea was. I remembered pretty quickly who Azalea was. What I found interesting, was the fact that never did either girl use the word "white" or the word "black." They genuinely tried to describe this kid in terms of exact shade of tanness or beigeness, exact level of curliness to the hair. It never seemed to occur to them to describe her in any other way.
I'm not sure what this means. Does growing up as half of a black/white "twin" combo make people blind to race? Will they always be like this? Or, do all kids of this age ignore race, they are being perfectly normal, and I'm overreacting?
Whatever it is, I think it's nice. It would certainly have made the whole Obama election thing simpler if everyone in the country just said, "Hey look, he's kinda dark tan," and then went on to other subjects. Such as, I dunno, maybe his ability to run the country or something.
