I grew up in an all-white community in the 70s and 80s. It was surely a different time than now. No one was looking out for me or loving on me. This is before images of beautiful black and brown people were served up as part of the mainstream. Before Naomi Campbell, Alek Wek, Beyonce, and Rihanna. This is before anyone would speak of a black president without nervous laughter or fear that it could never happen. This is a time when blackness was still subversive and underground and though there were some bright spots that poked out, we had ours and they had theirs. I listened to WBLS and 92KTU which played disco and old school black music until it was more than apparent that this was not popular/pop music and that that sound was not going to help me fit in. I realized that the pink tights I wore for ballet were meant to simulate my pink legs and my pink slippers, my pink toes, except that my legs and toes were brown. I'm from Jersey and all that it entails, Springsteen, Bon Jovi, muscle cars, Jersey Freeze, the shore. Girls could fight here and did, while still looking awesome with feathered hair and satin jackets, combs tucked neatly into their back pockets. I watched from far away, hoping, wishing, praying, but that just wasn't me.
I never got to know "black culture" as it was known. Never got my hair did every Saturday and listened to the ladies talk smack and prep for Sunday's chuch. My church was white. I loved the Lord, but he was white and had us singing slow, wack songs . There were no drums or bass guitar played. I didn't get to get LIVE and feel the spirit coursing through me. I never heard people play the dozens or just groove to the cool sounds on a summer night sitting in the car blasting the radio. I never saw a black mayor, police chief, lawyers, doctors, television stars, beauty queens, anyone really. I saw it all on TV. I wanted it. There were other black kids in my community and I saw their longing just like mine. They each tried to fill that space somehow, somewhere.
I write this because I have, for the last four weeks, dropped my girls off at a camp filled with young, 3 to 13 year old African-American kids. I am thrilled for my people to be experiencing the black community in a way they just wouldn't where we live and yet I am highly disturbed by some of the things I see happening around them. Lily and Virginie are being adored like little princesses. It scares and confuses me. In a sea of beautiful black and brown faces, I see few who recognize their own loveliness, their own beauty, their own strength. But when Lily and Virginie enter the room, the girls run to them, want to touch them, brush their hair, hold them (mostly Virginie, but even girls from Lily's own group, which would make them the same age as she, want to carry her around). I have heard them tell my girls how pretty, lovely, whatever it is they are.
My children are young, three and almost six. While we have talked about differences in race, culture, experience, looks, identity, it has been rudimentary at best. They are not at a stage where they could possibly fathom that some people, based on these characteristics, could be and are treated differently. Lily believes everyone has something beautiful about them and I agree with her. She describes her friends by the things they like, the things they do, and the way they make her feel. She loves these little girls at camp and cannot see what I see when I watch the interaction.
My girls are black and French and they know it and feel proud to be both. Though I find them to be stunning, it is certainly not something we stress at home. How they look is surely not more important than the content of their character or that they have good manners and are kind and considerate girls. We stress their achievements and their accomplishments, encouraging them to try things they are afraid of and keep trying until they succeed. I have taught them to trust themselves in new situations and to find the good person, the kind person in the group and Lily has often done just that. Walked into unfamiliar territory and come out with a good, kind soul to befriend. Never has she chosen one or another based on their race or their background.
She has seen many examples of women, black, mixed, Hispanic, Asian, white, straight, lesbian in our community and through the little media she has access to and has accepted our strengths, our power, and our beauty in a way that took me more than half my life to discover. She has never told me that she wished she were white, quite the opposite, hoped that she could be more like me. I am so happy that she, thus far, seems to care little about the outside world's perception of her and yet, there she is. A cute, little, light-skinned baby girl with a bouncy ponytail. I would have adored her had we been contemporaries. Except for Kim Fields who played Tootie on the Facts of Life, there was no one else to show me or believe in my loveliness. That bouncy ponytail alone would have given me a thousand fantasies. But the braids, Afro puffs, twists, and low 'fros I see at camp are just as stunning. I want the girls who sport them to know this too.
This is a complicated issue, weighed heavily by the racism and perceptions of beauty, importance, and relevance of people of color that have marred this country from its inception. I don't have an answer here, don't know how to show these beautiful, intelligent brown girls their value. I know that since she was a baby, I used to sing the song, "Brown Girl in the Ring" to Lily and she knew that she was that brown girl. So did Virginie when I sang it to her. So do I feel the connection when I hear it now. It took a lifetime for me to learn to love myself, not to compare myself to a standard that wasn't even considering me, in which I had no chance of being beautiful or special.
I'd hoped these little brown girls had started to find role models, at least people who looked like them, talked like them, shared their dreams with them, to make them feel proud of who they are. I look into their warm, brown eyes and see my little self feeling less than and hope they feel, when I put my hand on their cheeks or cup their chins in my hand to tilt their heads to mine that I can see they are special. Don't get me wrong. I love, love, love my beautiful babies. Don't consider them less than or greater than, just beautiful brown babes navigating this craziness. They will have a guide through this mucky muck. But I pray the same for all the brown girls too.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
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