Can we have a real race talk for a moment?

Question

I would like advice from all my mamas here. I was raised to be biased, or maybe boarderline racist, but fortunately it didn,t stick. I worry for my son as my exs family is biased as well, so I do my best to help him lesrn equality (for woman too!) yet he has beem bringing home.biased from.school as well. Example he was afraid to tell me.he was dating (lol sharing lunches and holding nhands) Angie becuase she was brown skinned and the kids said he shoildnt date someone with brown skin.. So how are you, pr advice for my two babies, going to prepare kids for what they will encounter and how to make face these situatuons? how to be better than ourngenerstion.

Answer

I was always given:
An anatomy lesson: We all have two eyes, a nose, lips, arms, legs, etc. 
A biology lesson: Skin pigment is determined by melanin in the skin, which helps us adapt to our geographic regions of origin, and it’s passed down. Some people have skin that tans in the sun.
A civility lesson: judge each person based on their behaviors and actions, not the way they look, the music they choose, the foods they eat. We all have different cultural backgrounds, and that’s what makes life so interesting.

Answer

I have always told my daughter not to be mean to people based on their colors, physical qualities or anything of that nature. She is mixed, black and white and her dad used to tell her she wasn't allowed to date white boys and I always used to remind him that I was white. Lol. I hope that whoever she is attracted to weather he/she is blue/black/purple she isnt afraid to express that. I teach her to treat everyone equally. If that answers your question.

Answer

I received very confusing messages as well. My parents would act all holier-than-thou and tell me how everybody was equal, and racism was bad. But the moment I mentioned a black actor that was hot, you could see their true colors come out. Clearly it was fine for friendships, but not for THEIR daughter, not for THEIR potential grandchildren to be mixed if I liked black men (also dude I was like 10 and definitely not having children with Will Smith so wtf). They used the opportunity to tell me things like “if you marry a boy like that, their skin won’t look like yours, their hair will be kinky”. 
My family is Puerto Rican and islanders have a very complicated racist dynamic. The school of thought was if you were light skinned Puerto Rican, your family probably came from Spain and didn’t make a family with the native islanders or slaves. So the lighter skinned people carry some weird sense of pride or protection of their supposed bloodline. My step mom is Dominican and husband is Cuban, both say it’s similar there as well. There has to be some kind of anthropology study about the inter-islander racism and how aggressive it is.

Answer

Well my parents never really openly talked about race, I mean they did joke about me dating my boyfriend (who is white) but he makes jokes about himself too! But they always knew I wouldn’t date in my race. But, how I look at it as is were all the same people just because your skins white and mines is black doesn’t make us any different when we die or like if we needed each other’s organs as a transplant due to have some type of condition 🤷‍♀️

Answer

I know the feeling. My fiancé’s family is extremely racist. Luckily it didn’t stick to him either. They literally think that people with any skin that isn’t white are that way because they are descendants of Noah’s son who saw him naked and now are all spiritually “unclean” and will all go to hell. I’m not even kidding, when I first heard it I had to go to the car and laugh my ass off because the stupidity was too much for me. I didn’t even find it funny! It was just so ridiculous and shocking my body reacted in a way I still cannot understand. The N-word is their favorite word and they yell it at people in the streets. They live in Idaho, go figure 🙄. We refuse to bring our children around them and I refuse to bring myself around them after hearing that. That’s really the best way to do it and also have an open conversation with your child about it. Answer their questions as best as you can.

Can we have a real race talk for a moment?

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