Of Mixed Babies and Racism

My niece, who will be two in March, is an incredibly funny little girl. When she gets upset, she puts her hands over her eyes, lies in the floor, sticks her butt in the air and cries. When she eats spaghetti, she giggles after every bite enters her mouth. So long as she is awake, she's walking around. My husband is only able to pick her up if he is standing; she refuses to cooperate otherwise (she identifies him by his height, I think). When she tells him bye, she kisses him. When it's time to tell me bye, she tries to punch me. Every time. She would rather play with a decorative bowl of rocks and a picture frame than any of the million or so toys she owns.

She's an amazingly sweet little girl as well. She loves to sing. And strangely, her two favorite songs are the Freddy Song (one, two Freddy's coming... etc) and The Gentlemen song from the Hush episode of Buffy (can't even shout, can't even cry, the Gentlemen are coming by, etc). She adores her big brothers. She laughs and giggles and smiles all day every day. She climbs into our laps every little while, rests her head against our chests, and then climbs down and continues her childish circuits of the room. Until very recently, she couldn't say Momma, so she called my sister Bubba.

She's a former preemie. A typical 19 month old child. A beautiful baby. She's independent, impatient, and sneaky. She's also mixed. It doesn't define who she is. It's merely one small part of the whole.

So when things such as this happen; I get irritated.

Growing up in the South, I've heard it before.

"The kids from interracial marriages suffer."
"Kids from interracial unions are teased more than other kids."

People who would never dream of being unkind to a black child and people that would never dream of being unkind to a white child didn't always feel the same about children of mixed races. Oddly enough though, it wasn't the other children and peers that treated the kids differently.

It was the very same people who didn't support interracial relationships because "the kids would suffer" that were so often the cause of the suffering. I grew up in a town in which the population was pretty evenly distributed between African Americans and Caucasians. There were quite a few kids in school who were mixed. They were never treated any differently by the other kids. They weren't teased for being mixed or called names or excluded in any way by the other kids.

Perhaps this is not the norm, but having watched my niece over the last year and a half... I rather suspect that it's a lot closer to the norm than most would like to believe. My niece was a year old before her cousin ever noticed her skin was a little darker than his.

"Aunt Courtney, Baby Aybra's hands are turning black!" He told my sister one day, truly alarmed that she might be sick like Alo. "Is she sick?"

Everyone in the room giggled and then my mom explained to him that Baby Aybra is black and white. He thought that was the most awesome thing ever.

He went to daycare the next morning and proudly told everyone he came into contact with that his sister (he claims her as is own) is black and white. The kids were as impressed as he was.

A few weeks later, Aybra's older brother, Kai, noticed for the first time that she was mixed.

"Mommy, why is Aybra brown?" He asked.

My sister explained to him, just as was explained to Jayden, that Aybra is black and white.

"Oh," he answered and went about his business. He's never asked about it or mentioned it since.

When other kids, of any race, come into contact with her, the story is much the same. They never really notice that she's mixed. And, if they do, it's simply a matter of curiosity. Once their questions are answered, they forget about it and continue playing; treating her no differently than any of the other children.

Adults, however, are a different matter. Many approach just to tell us how beautiful she is. Others keep their distance and just stare, first at Aybra and then at us. Back and forth. As if something they're seeing doesn't quite compute. I've become quite good at staring back. I always want to ask them what the hell they're staring at... but I don't because the sad fact is; it wouldn't do any good.

Many of these people who are so obviously taken aback by a mixed child would protest quite vocally that they are not and have never been racist. Maybe some of them aren't. But, anyone that treats a child differently or feels that said child is different simply because he or she is of mixed race, is just as guilty of racism as are those who don't like African Americans because they are African American or who don't like Caucasians because they are Caucasian or don't like Latinos because they are Latino.

Racism is racism, regardless of if it's directed at a mixed baby, a Caucasian baby, a Latino baby, an African American baby, a child of any race or combination thereof, or an adult of any race or combination of races.

Refusing to grant a marriage license to an interracial couple out of "concern for any children of the union" is just as discriminatory as refusing to grant a marriage license to an African American couple out of concern for any children of the union.

The simple fact is; the justice of the peace in the case linked above is not solving any problem for any children of interracial couples. He's contributing to the problem. Perhaps the children will, at times, be treated differently.

But guess what? Nine times out of ten... it's people like him that treat those mixed children differently because, to the peers of those children and to tolerant folks of all races... they're simply children. Their mixed race doesn't define who they are.

And it never will.