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One of the great mysteries of our modern society is the race of my children. Well, maybe not my children – but children, like mine, whose parents come from differing racial backgrounds. (I am black and my wife is white.)
In my parents’ generation, an attempt to answer this question resulted in two unhelpful extremes. On one hand, the children of parents of differing races were defined as: mixed or multi-racial. However, these categories were unhelpful because in reality my children’s life experiences will be more than simply a mix of two individuals ancestries. On the other hand, the children of parents of differing races were defined as a super-race that epitomized “the best of what it means to be human.” However, no one can ever live up to the challenge of being a super-human – ask any of the crazy rich kids in boarding schools trying to live underneath the shadow of their perfect fathers/mothers.
When my first child is born, it will not be an unimportant moment in human history nor will it will be our greatest moment. The birth of my multi-raced child will bear in her body the burdens of how far Americans have come as a people and how much farther we still have to grow. As amazing as it may sound, in my parents’ generation it was illegal for people of differing races to marry. The Supreme Court ruled you could marry people of differing races, in the ironically titled Loving v. State of Virginia in 1967.
So the fact that we try to play down the importance of mixed race children should not be all that surprising. Just as Americans have frequently attempted to downplay the negative aspects of our history, we now find it important to play down the importance of my children not being attacked for being multi-raced. Because, if America celebrates the birth of interracial children as an accomplishment, America must also admit the existence of broken, beaten, and dead bodies of men and women (black & white) who were in interracial relationships prior to this moment that were killed simply for loving. Moreover, the definition of our future children as superhuman comes dangerously close to making a similar mistake. A super-race of light-skinned or easy-tan children that all look like Hallie Berry and Barak Obama distracts from the current race struggles America faces today. In our modern generation, there exists an entire generation of young people who believe speaking in clear English and wearing neckties is what “white people do”. Likewise, there also remains a generation that believes dancing and basketball are for “black people”.
So what does the birth of my multi-raced children mean? It means that Americans have aspects of our history that are both brutal and unimpressive as well as wonderful and inspiring. And, it means that we are still growing as a people. And that, we have even more great accomplishments to look forward to in our future. It means that Martin Luther King wasn’t crazy for having a Dream that a day would come when "little black boys and little white girls" would hold hands and sing together. It also means that King got the song they would be singing wrong, and maybe Marvin Gaye got it right. My children will not be magical. They will be human. Because their parents are human, I will treat them special, but that has little to do with their race. That may not solve the mystery of what to call them, but hopefully it will clarify what not to call them.
joe jones
co-founder epic-leadership.com
blogging @ iagreewithjoe.com
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