Guest post from Renee, the editrix of Womanist Musings and my fave north of the border mommy blogger.
So, Saturday was the annual Santa Claus parade in Niagara Falls. I am
not a big believer in Santa, because I don't like the idea that this
benign White guy travels around and grants wishes. I think I would be
more amenable to the idea, if Santa was occasionally a person of
colour. I always think of Santa as just another manifestation of
Whiteness, and we all know that White men are not exactly lining up to
do people of colour any favours. At any rate, after writing their
letters to Santa, we headed off to the parade.
We have been going as a family for the last seven years, and so my kids
were super excited. We always have a big breakfast, watch the parade
and then go out to lunch. It's really a family day of fun for us. Each
year, the people participating in the parade hand out treats to the kids
lining the parade route. This year, my kids sat down on the sidewalk
next to two White kids, with their hot chocolate and blankets to watch
the parade. They were just brimming with excitement. As the parade got
going, we noticed that the participants would hand candy to the two
little White boys sitting next to the left my kids and the White girls
on the right, but not to my sons.
When they were skipped time and time again, my kids would look back at
us to ask what was going on. Neither of them could understand why they
didn't receive candy, while the White boys on their left did, and the
White girls on their right did. The unhusband finally asked me if I
thought race was a factor, and I told him of course it is. Despite the
bullshit lie that we tell ourselves about all children being special,
marginalized children are just seen as surplus population.
Finally, noticing that nothing was going to change, the unhusband encouraged
Mayhem to step further into the street and hold his hand out. It was not until the
Mayhem
pushed ahead, and held is hand out that parade participants deigned to
give him candy. At six years old, he is too young to figure out that
what he was experiencing was discrimination first hand, but as his
mother, I was absolutely enraged. Standing right next to them, I could
not protect them from the bigotry and privilege of others.
I am quite sure that the people participating were not actively thinking
about what they were doing, but their actions still amounted to
discrimination and ruined any form of fun I could have potentially had
at this event. Whiteness has been so ingrained socially, that racism
often happens without any premeditated thought. The sad truth of the
matter is that while White kids are being sheltered and taught to
believe that they are special, kids of colour are actively being torn
down and encouraged by the world to see themselves as "other". White
people may look at them as babies, and think that they are cute, but
shortly after getting out of diapers, they begin to see Black boys as
future rapists, thieves and gang bangers. They are systematically
written off as a matter of course. The childhood that White children
have, is denied to children of colour, in order to teach them their role
in the pecking order. Discrimination does not wait until adulthood.
If you read mommy blogs written by White women, they are full of things
like recipes, rainy day activities, coupon deals and pictures of their
smiling kids. White women may write about the stress of working and
raising their kids, but they will never have an experience like I did
this past Saturday. They will not have to cheer up their kids after
being passed over repeatedly. They will not have to teach their
children that they will have to be better than everyone else to succeed
in life, or that the world is happy to see them fail. They can afford to
have fluffy little blogs talking about nothing, but as a mother of
colour, I have to deal with the realities of White supremacy, as I
attempt to salvage some kind of childhood for my precious boys. I wonder
if on their
business cards, these women have the words only my kids matter.
I know that in years to come, my kids will look back and know exactly
what happened to them and why. I know this because there are plenty of
events from my childhood that I now understand to be racist. I know
that my parents attempted to shield me as much as possible from the
harshness of this, but one can only do so much, when society is
determined to undermine your every effort to invest your child with self
worth. Each act of racism will build upon the other, creating rage,
and in some cases outright depression. They will be told that they are
reading too much into things, and that they are just looking for a
reason to be upset, because it is easier to accept that the marginalized
person is wrong, rather than deal with the fact that the world has not
moved into this post racial utopia that we continue to hear so much
about.
I know that what happened to my kids is not an anomaly, and I also know
that they are going to have experiences that are far worse due directly
to the colour of their skin. This is the unavoidable future of children
of colour. Even as I am writing this, I am fully aware that this not
considered appropriate mommy blog conversation, because isms are
something that don't get discussed in parenting spaces. The generic
standard is Whiteness, just like everything else, and this simply
reinforces the idea that there is a monolithic experience that
constitutes childhood. I don't have the luxury of such vanilla
conversation, and this is why this why social justice is a priority here
at Womanist Musings. You can only afford to ignore race, if you are
never going to be a target of racism.
We have been going as a family for the last seven years, and so my kids
were super excited. We always have a big breakfast, watch the parade
and then go out to lunch. It's really a family day of fun for us. Each
year, the people participating in the parade hand out treats to the kids
lining the parade route. This year, my kids sat down on the sidewalk
next to two White kids, with their hot chocolate and blankets to watch
the parade. They were just brimming with excitement. As the parade got
going, we noticed that the participants would hand candy to the two
little White boys sitting next to the left my kids and the White girls
on the right, but not to my sons.
I know that what happened to my kids is not an anomaly, and I also know
that they are going to have experiences that are far worse due directly
to the colour of their skin. This is the unavoidable future of children
of colour. Even as I am writing this, I am fully aware that this not
considered appropriate mommy blog conversation, because isms are
something that don't get discussed in parenting spaces. The generic
standard is Whiteness, just like everything else, and this simply
reinforces the idea that there is a monolithic experience that
constitutes childhood. I don't have the luxury of such vanilla
conversation, and this is why this why social justice is a priority here
at Womanist Musings. You can only afford to ignore race, if you are
never going to be a target of racism.
