Philosophical Monday: Black and White is the New Gray

Betty's Baptism. From Left to Right: Betty's Grandma, CH, Betty's godmother (Monique from "Political Physics"), Me, Betty's godfather (Brian), and Betty's godbrother (Sekou).

So it’s been interesting having my BFF and her husband in town for Betty’s baptism. Quite frankly, I understand why community living was so popular in the 70s. It’s been really nice always having people around to pick up the extra slack. I ran around after by BFF’s 18-monther while she and her husband negotiated with Continental Airlines to get their seats together (btw, Continental said no and they officially suck hard for not having some kind of way to make sure that families with small children can sit together and then having Customer Service reps who are rude about it). And my BFF’s husband gave Betty a bottle while I helped my MIL unload the dishwasher and CH ran to the store.

Sekou and Betty are getting along so well that it’s making us both want to add second additions to our own families. But I will also say that this short visit hasn’t gotten me to wondering how Betty will feel about having parents that don’t look like most of her friends’ parents while growing up. So this seems like a particularly great week to talk about interracial relationships.

I want Betty to not just tolerate being different from her peers but proud of herself and her parents. And I think part of achieving that is to make sure that we give her a story about our interracial relationship before her peers do.

I will say that it was a nasty surprise to find out that I was “dark and therefore ugly” according to my peers when I got into first grade. It was like, “Wait, I’m dark? I’m ugly? I had no idea!” I hope that we’ll be able to somewhat avoid that with Betty by feeding her a script that she can work off of when her peers are trying to tell her a different story about herself and her parent. But of course as it is with all things, we’ll see…

Anyway, I hope that you all will feel free to weigh in on our Interracial Relationships week. I know this is a hot button topic, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Best!

etc