At least Moira has wavy hair

I have no problem talking about race...which is probably a strange thing living in the US. Well probably not for a person of color in the US...but alas that's kind of the point.

i don't shy away from the discussions. and really until i moved to the west coast i never really thought about it. probably growing up in a more diverse environment made it less necessary to discuss things that were more obvious. Since having Sunny I've really started noticing some things.

For example - Sunny's dad is half black and half central american. For our entire relationship I  just thought of him as black. (the whole American one drop rule, etc.) but once i was pregnant suddenly there was a big distinction between black and everything else. I started hearing stories..

about how "dark and ugly" he was at birth.

              Or a Puerto Rican man who realized who realized his wife had "bad hair" on their honeymoon when she came out of the ocean...

                            or if i went to Portugal I wouldn't be black. i'd be colored and that'd better...

                                               or that i should pray that my children had hair like his family

and after Sunny was born how they would examine her on each visit - strip her down and examine every inch of her to try to determine if her color would change...

well...I'm kind of passive aggressive...just a tad anyway...

So i chopped my relaxed hair off and went natural. I dressed Solana in a watermelon dress when she first met her great grandmother. and demanded how she could have two black parents but some how she everyone declared her to be central american instead...

When I approached X about it. His response was - 

well she looks black...so she's black. 

As if we were to have another who looked less black they could fit into another category...

then i moved here...where there are no black people at all...and realized that everything i went through was just a prequel.

Not that the west coast is like racist...its just kind of...


                               ignorant?        passively ignorant?      colorblind (what does that mean anyway)

I feel like that's too harsh a word. But it's like when my mom tells a story about one of her fellow teachers who puts halloween pictures on facebook of her in black face as a 'babymama' and then doesn't want to hear about how offensive that is...and she refers to them as "being silly"

but maybe "being silly" is just a nicer way of saying "blatantly ignorant"

Either way...I'm getting more and more used to being the only black person in the room. Or the town...or the city...


I haven't quite gotten used to Sunny being the only one though...


Now when I'm looking for schools or classes or activities i look first for diversity. And i'm not that picky. I would be ok with curly hair at this point.

oh how the mighty have fallen.

I went from demanding justice and equality and inclusion...

and now i'm like "eh...Moira's red hair is wavy...that'll do.."

all because of when she was 2 she came home crying over not having hair like her blonde classmates and having to explain our hair is different...

that christmas she got

and then since we started we also got:

etc...

so anywhoo...the reason for this post...

so we're switching schools since we're moving. Its kind of the ideal time since most of her classmates are going to kindergarten in a few months so everyone will be going in different direction anyway. And because of that parents are all looking for schools. We're in an area where you can petition for different districts, apply for charter schools, join churches to get into private schools, etc....Well some parents and teachers and I had started talking about schools in the area. 

Of course i look for schools with high college attrition, great extra curricular, before and after care, and diversity. A friend of mine looks for religion. It makes sense, he's a minister. Our children go to school together and skate together and so we spend a lot of time discussing parenting and culture and america as a whole. 

He's Canadian - and while he's been in America for ten years he has these moments where he doesn't understand how backwards things are. Like he couldn't understand why everyone was so afraid to discuss race. Why there were such clear distinction between people because of skin color. 

And when I told him about my search for diversity in Sunny's schools - he couldn't understand why I was putting myself "in a box"

he said that it was like I was trying to separate myself. that I was going around and searching for little pockets of races in communities instead of just letting her go to school wherever regardless of how other children looked

and we had one of our many conversations, this time in the middle of a daycare playroom, about race, and history, and instilling confidence in a child that doesn't look like anyone else...

We discussed how excited Sunny was the first time she saw a student who looked like her. How she cried about her hair being different. About how everyone (including teachers) claim they're colorblind one second and then mention how dangerous someone looks or how some students act a certain way because of their culture - and 

how hard it is to instill this belief that you're beautiful, and different, and wonderful, 

and 

don't let anyone else tell you differently

              and 

show that you're smart because people won't believe it unless you show them

                                         and 

You have to be twice as good as everyone else

                                                              and 

I know it's not fair, but life isn't fair

                                                                                 and

well i never told him about the time when Sunny asked me "well mommy, if i listen really well and do everything right, can i not be black anymore..." 

i thought that was a too soon. hell, that was too soon for me.

But, my friend, he looked at me and said,

"wow...you know I never thought about it. Like There's never a moment when my daughter doesn't have someone who looks like her school so I just never considered it.."

this was when her teacher popped up with that "i don't even see color" nonsense...

and I had to respond with.."well you've never had to...and before I moved here I didn't either. But just like you look for religion in your school because you can't always find it...i look for familiar faces in mine...

because then if someone isn't acting right and they get disciplined I won't have to wonder if it's because of their skin color. Or if Sunny comes home saying someone wasn't nice, I won't have to think it has to be race related...because then when somone asks her about her hair, or her skin, or who she looks like, i don't have to worry about her crying...

and well...that's America"

and it's not always fair. 

Well it rarely is...

but most life lessons aren't. 

so I tried to explain everything in a way that would be perceived as angry...because being black and assertive always ends of being considered angry and aggressive. 

but...I dunno...