WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE
Dear White Parents raising bi-racial children,
Bi-racial children can and do use racially offensive language with the intent to hurt Black children who are NOT bi-racial.
We, as a nation of thinking, active, race conscious beings, must understand that just because one parent is Black, it does not mean that the children have not picked up on the strategies used to demean and destroy Black people in U.S. society, and --when they feel they can get away with it-- they will use the word "nigger" against little Black children.
Bi-racial children can / may / will separate themselves from their Africaness, their Blackness, and embrace all / some things White to try to demonstrate that they are in some way, some how, 'better than' little Black children. This can happen because they are closer to some aspect of what it means to be 'White in America' based on their heritage, one parent being White. It seems they have a 'choice' to either get with 'this' or get with 'that', you can choose to be 'White', you can choose to be 'Black'.
When bi-racial children call Black children "nigger", they have decided that they are 'White' in that moment because history has demonstrated the power of that word to harm Black bodies when it is used by White people.
I am not mad at the children, everyone has either done that or have struggled with 'being White' at some point or another in this country, no matter their skin color-- because being 'white' seems to make life so much easier -- everything seems to be designed with White people in mind --to make their lives easier.
Perhaps this is a version of the "New Black" being played out. The space in which children who are bi-racial must navigate to find comfort and peace in being both Black and White in the United States. Whatever we want to call it, new, old, ancient, ethereal, it found its way into my space, via my Stepson #3. I had to protect and counsel my stepson and 5 other African children who really don't know what it means when someone calls you a "nigger" because their Black experience is Nigerian American and Ivorian American. They are bi-cultural.
I am Louisiana American so I had to step up to the plate to teach the history of the word "nigger", lynching, Emmet Till, inferiority, white supremacy, African Enslavement, American slavery, and the overall bad treatment against African people all over the world. The reasons for the horrific treatment received by Black people from White people historically is because we are believed to be less than human, due to the color of our skin and our place of ancestral origin -- Africa!
This is NOT 'pick on Bi-racial children day'. Here is what happened:
A young girl, about 10 years old, called my stepson a "nigger" today while we were visiting friends at their apartment complex, they were on the basketball court. My stepson lives in another city and is here visiting his father and his sister (my daughter).
He responded by calling the little girl a "bitch" and by telling her to "go suck a dick". He wanted to hit her, but knew it was "wrong to hit a girl". He is 11 years old. He is an African child, a Black child. The young girl, he claimed, was "a white girl".
Upon further investigation, I found that the young girl is actually, bi-racial. Her mother is White, her father is Black. I know this because I went to the child's apartment and asked to speak to her mother.
I explained to her what my stepson said and she seemed shocked. She sincerely felt and believed that her child would never have called my stepson a "nigger" because she is bi-racial, "her father is Black and we don't use that language in our home" she said.
I called my stepson into the conversation, she went into her apartment and brought her daughter outside into the conversation. Long story short, the girl blamed her little brother, then she confessed that it was 'all of them' that called my stepson a "nigger".
After acknowledging that "nigger" and "bitch" and "suck a dick" are not the way we 'should' address each other when hard feelings arise for what ever reasons, each child apologized for their offensive language toward each other -- the racial and gender slurs-- and I thanked the mother for engaging in an adult conversation to help the young people navigate racism and verbal gender abuse in 2015.
Funny thing, my stepson admitted that if he had known the little girl was bi-racial, that she was Black, he would not have snapped. He would have allowed her and her little brother to call him a "nigger" and squashed it on the playground instead of running to get Mama Jolivette.
I made each of them develop a response to being called a 'nigger' regardless of the color, race, ethnicity of the person who may call them that word in the future. I did not tell them to NOT use the word (that would make me a hypocrite). I gave them definitions, situations, examples of context the word has been and can be used.
This unexpected social studies lesson ended with my explaining, the little light we all have inside. Then my daughter sang 'A Change is Gonna Come' by Sam Cooke. I explained the connection of the song to the Black struggle for Civil Rights and spoke the lyrics as a poem. They got quiet for a few seconds and eventually went back to playing video games, eating snacks, and taking about who they like and don't like.
As "educated" as I am, I am still having a hard time with how all this shit went down.
Jolivette Anderson 'the poet warrior'
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