What About Race?

Considering how much I blog about race, I guess this post comes a bit late.

We're not doing much in this area right now.

My biggest fear was that Sunny might possibly have developed a fear or aversion to other black people. His entire foster family and his biological mother's family are all white, his therapist was white, all the other kids in his small school were white. He's only met his black father a few times as a very young child. As far as I can tell, the only other black person he knows from his home town is his caseworker, who worked out of the city center, not very close to Sunny's suburb.

I know he comprehends social differences, at least on a superficial physical level. His foster mom said that when he saw the picture of my niece, he said, "she looks like me!" She's also a shade of caramel-copper color.

Luckily, he seems to have made a great transition into a different environment. His day camp is about 80% black and almost all of the other kids he's associating with (such as his new friend with the games) are also black.

I made a parallel transition at just his age. I went from kindergarten in Japan to first grade in an almost totally white school in America. My family and family language stayed the same, but just about everything else changed. I remember the first couple years as being fine. At that age, I don't think kids easily internalize the message that different equals bad. All the other kids looked different to me, but I just accepted that fact. I wasn't scared of them. It was only when I entered third grade that the really bad times started, when it was made clear to me that the way I looked and the way I talked were very wrong and bad, and I started to develop some major anxiety and defensiveness. And then they started the racial slurs around 5th grade.

Sunny's experience is obviously not going to be the same as mine, but I think some stages are similar. I don't think he got explicit negative messages at his old school. He must be in a blissfully ignorant state when it comes to a lot of the rules of race. And I'd rather not bring it up at this stage if I don't have to. I would have had to if he'd already internalized some aversion, fear and anxiety, but I don't think he has.

At this stage in his life I just have two goals. One, make sure he starts to develop a healthy connection to African-American culture. Two, begin counteracting negative media messages. Living on the east side of Atlanta, goal one is not very difficult. It's also why my experience is very different than many other transracial parents of black children that I read from. For example, hair and African-American girls is a topic I've never spent more than a few minutes thinking about (in logistic terms, that is). I thought that if a girl was placed with us, we'd make plans then. And what's the worst that could happen? Oh no, I messed up the braiding, what an emergency, I guess I'll... I guess I'll... drag my lazy butt to the car and drive three blocks to the braiding place.

Right now, Sunny is developing cultural connections via osmosis from his day camp and from his friends. He has African-American adult role models too, such as his gym teacher, or friends of ours that visit. And when school starts up, I'd also like to put him in a dance class. I think capoeira would be perfect, because he naturally does those kinds of moves all day! If he ends up not liking dance, we'll find some other cultural activity.

I still have worries about roadblocks on the way to goal one (see one of my earlier posts for reasons). But overall, I think for the next couple years we can just let that connection establish and become stable.

Number two -- counteracting negative media or the absence of positive media -- is a lot harder. It's difficult no matter where you live. It's something that can be agonizingly difficult even for black parents living in black environments.

We have several books for him featuring black children, but he has not shown a lot of interest in them. I finally got to read him one last night -- "Bright Eyes, Brown Skin" -- and he liked it. Part of it could be that he's way more into cars and trucks and talking animals than books with other children in them. But I don't want to downplay it either. I'm going to get some more books.