This is a food blog so I try not to get too deep into my life and such, but I was watching a youtube video that a friend of mine put up and I was instantly so irritated I had to tell someone! So I will tell it to the vast pit of the world wide web. First of all, I am not irritated at my friend, she is awesome. It was what happened to her. Long story short, a mixed race woman took offense when my white friend commented on a video of hers, and the woman said she does not get along with white people.
Two things about this bothered me, and both have to do with the fact that I am due to give birth to a mixed race baby. First of all, the video my friend commented on was one where this mixed race woman had basically said she was ashamed of her race and the fact that she felt she was faking being one race or the other.
I am a "mutt" and by that I mean that I do not know for sure exactly what my race is. And in case you are wondering, I am fine with that. I know I look white for the most part, and my dark hair and dark eyes and ferociously bushy eyebrows that I have to tame with tweezers once a week are from the Mexican or Spanish blood on my father's side. I also know that somewhere in there I have some Czechoslovakian blood, which I think I only remember because it is such a long and difficult to spell name. But if someone were to look at me, they either say "wow you look exotic!" or else they assume I am white/Italian. (the funny part of that is that I don't think I have any Italian relatives, but I get it all the time!) But even though I don't have a specific heritage, this has never affected my life and now that I am going to have this baby, I suddenly am afraid that race is going to mean a lot to her. I don't know why, but with mixed race people, it seems they like to pick one or the other rather than embrace both of their parents' races, and I am horribly afraid it will be my confusing ancestory that she chooses to dismiss. Even though I don't know what my race is, I want my baby to love and embrace the mutt side of her! I can only imagine that if she chooses to dismiss the "white" side of her, that I will feel personally dismissed as well.
The second thing that bothered me so much about this was the more obvious, "I can't be friends with a white person." Racism has become a little bit more of a part of my life since I have gotten pregnant, but not in the way I had expected. It shows me how much hatred there is in this world for white people when I had never noticed it before, and unfortunately I have gotten to taste a little bit of that hatred, and more than anything I am afraid of raising a child who would do something so awful as to isolate a person because of their race. What is it about white people that makes other races hate us? To be honest I haven't the slightest clue, but it leaves me with that feeling you get at recess in grade school when you can hear the other girls talking about you but you don't dare try to confront them. I joined a bi-racial bulletin board website to try to learn more about the child growing inside me, but tolerance seemed to be only spared for those who are "colored" (as they called themselves) and going to have mixed babies- not a white girl. I guess us white girls are stealing all the good black men, doing our bi-racial babies hair wrong and causing racism... excuse me, but isn't excluding someone for their race the very definition of racism? I just can't understand it, and I don't know if I have the strength to try. I get dirty looks from black women who see me with Beau, and I have gotten comments. None of it bothers me as much as it bothers me to think that maybe someday, God forbid, my little girl would grow up to have this same attitude toward white people. And I just keep thinking, what is going on?
I can only hope and pray that good parenting and lessons in being kind to ALL people will make my little girl a tolerant and well-rounded human being. I just can't imagine how racism is ever going to die when people put so much weight on race! Aren't we all mutts by now anyway? Who here is really just one pure-bred human of one particular race. And who gives a crap???
...
since this is a food blog, I have to put at least one recipe. This is one that Beau taught me and we had it with lunch today. When you are broke and running out of food, cook some rigatoni pasta and toss it with Italian salad dressing. I can taste that it would be awesome with some cherry tomatoes, green onions, feta cheese and some other pasta salad things, but for a quickie side, this is pretty yummy!
No comments:
Post a Comment