no white girl will ever have her little boy look up at her and tell her she's yucky because she's brown.
:(
We were watching a show when a dark skinned person came on and Trey made a disgusted face and said "eww.." so I said "what's that ew?" and he said "cause her face is brown". I said "What color is Mommys face?" and he says ".. brown", and I said "So well is Mommy yucky too, or is mommy pretty?" and he said yucky, brown.
Broke my heart, and I have no way of knowing where he got it from. Not TV because I don't let him watch it, we took away cable when he was born for that reason, not home life, because 75% of his family is brown.
It shows that no matter how much I do to raise him otherwise, this shit still seeps in and it still seeps in at an age young enough to break your heart. I will slap the next person who tells me racism is dead.
I didn't get mad because he's too young to fully grasp it, he's repeating what he's heard from somewhere, but I am going to do massive unlearning over the next little bit, and talk to his daycare to see if he is getting it from there from another kid or something.
Wow, that really sucks. I'm sorry you had to go through that.
I think kids pick up on this once they start interacting more with the outside world.
Jackie used to tell me she was white and (if you've seen her pics) she's pretty freakin brown. I used to put her arm next to mine and ask what color we were and she'd say I was brown, but she was white.
It took a while before she finally admitted that she actually is brown. So sad. :(
But it's true, racism is so not dead and no matter how much we want to protect our kids from it, it's still here.
Anyway, good luck with the unlearning. I don't think it ever stops.
It's just so sad how early the message comes, you know? It's so fucking prevalent that it's already ingrained in my 3 YEAR OLD. And that's despite the amount of time I've sunk into trying to make sure that didn't happen. I don't have many white friends or people around T, most of our friends are native or from India, a lot of our books and movies are native, 95% of the people who are around T day to day are brown, the WHITE IS RIGHT message is NOT in our household and it's so sad that a small influence at daycare is more absorbed then what I've spent years trying to ingrain. That one small thing can unravel it all when I've tried so hard to make sure it never happens. It makes me sad thinking about the white children who's parents don't do much of anything in regards to anti racism growing up with this message with nothing to counteract it.
It reminds me of the clip A Girl Like Me , where black kids are asked to choose between a white doll or a black doll and the majority of them chose the black one, and just that one part of it where the girl asked the child to choose which one is the bad doll, and she chose the black one, and she was like "Well why is she bad?" and the little girl said "cause she's black", and the girl was like "well what color are you?" and the little girl pauses and slowly says ".. black"
It just pisses me off. I'm so sick of this. It's like, I grew up with this shit, I grew up with kids doing war dances around me and calling me browny and dirt, and it hurt me so bad inside, and I thought now that I was all grown I was over it, because even though it can still happen and sometimes still does, I'm old enough and strong enough to understand now, that the problem is not ME, something I couldn't understand back then, and I just thought I was done with it, you know? And now I'm starting to realize that it's never going to end, my children will face it, their children will face it, there's always going to be this message in our face that we are just WRONG and BAD because of who we are.
Like I knew it would be an opponent, but I never knew that it would be so hard to see or that it would happen this early. It just completely caught me off guard.
Oh wow, I'm sorry girl. I know that's rough.
But, as a black woman, I can tell you this. Racism was never a major thing for me growing up because it was always such a part of general life anyway. It was never shielded away from me as a kid. I mean, as soon as you wake up in the morning you are who you are, so might as well learn to love it as soon as possible. And know that there are a lot of people who will want you to hate yourself because they hate you. Racism is something you'll get to know as soon as you're able to understand anything (maybe age 2). You may not even know its racism, it might just be seen as "the way things are". Children get to know it early, no matter what you do. But, my family basically taught us to be very proud of who we are and that most other people just want to be like "us" in some way anyway. So own it. It was that attitude that my mother had, like "yeah...I know I'm the shit" that make the difference. She had that style and grace (like most women in my family), she made you want to be like her because she was so fly. It made me feel good about who I was. I think things like that rub off on children, like the way you feel about yourself can have a lot to do with the way they feel about themselves.
This is so true. My advice would be to teach him to really love everything about himself. It doesn't have to be done in a cocky sort of way. But, with all the people out there waiting to break his self-esteem it's good to have some really strong armor.
:( wow, I am really sorry.
It's sad how kids pick up on those things, like where do they even get that from? Lyric said a couple things before and I have really gotten her to understand more about different races and that racism is a true thing. My daughter has been around different races her whole life, too - my step-dad is from Muslim, Lyric's dad is Latino, her daycare provider was African American and although she loves them all and was acceptive, she said a few things about different skin. I was rather surprised ... :( I am really sorry you had to go through that.
I am so sorry mama. It is so hard doing the daycare thing. And not to mention Cae has like a total other family I have no control over every other weekend.
You are raising T the absolute best way you can. It is sad that even he will have a lot to deconstruct, but you are definitely giving him a strong foundation to do that.
That doll movie is heartbreaking.
It is really frustrating to me how people remark when they see Cae carrying a brown baby doll. What does that cause a second look? People always comment on it...
I hope that our children will see an end to racism. I really am heartbroken over the entire situation.
My son was hanging out with an older kid for a little while, they liked to play with their starwars guys together. He'd want Matt's Han Solo or whatever, and voluntarily fork over Mace Windu with the comment "you be him. He's brown, and I don't like brown people." He's the nephew of my sister's boyfriend, my sister who (like Matt) also happens to be brown and it opened up a dialogue between the three of them that aged Matt in a way I wasn't ready for. My sister, in order to get it through to this little kid, pointed out her own and Matt's "brownness" in comparison. When he got home it was the first time he'd ever talked about being brown compared to being "pink." In the end, he told me brown is just fine because Mace Windu is the better jedi, which I guess in three year old terms meant he's aware that skin doesn't mean anyone is better than anyone else. For the moment at least.
He still brings it up sometimes, for a while he was saying he wanted to be my "pink baby" and I keep telling him how wonderful it is to be brown, and how genuinely jealous I am that he's got such gorgeous skin. I keep a lot of focus on how everyone's different, lots of positive images of many other races, especially ours. I don't know what else I can do about it.
I'm going to take him to a powwow. I haven't been to anything since my dad died, and I think it's about time to heal and revive that part of my life. I'm sorry Trey said that to you. I was reminded by your post of that film too.
i'm so sorry that happened to you.
when i was growing up, i was the darkest kid in all of my elementary classes. i'm half white and half filipino, but i remember feeling so bad when my mom (who is white) would come help in my class and no one would believe me when i said she was my mom because we didn't look the same. for a long time i felt ashamed of how i looked and would wish i could be white and have blonde hair like all my friends. as i got older i learned to appreciate my difference, but when a boy made fun of me in front of class for being mexican and my parents working at taco bell, i called him "a dumb bigot bastard" and got in trouble, for trying to defend myself as 1) not being mexican, but Filipino and 2) making fun of mexicans too.
it breaks my heart to think that no matter how much we try to instill in our children that any color can be beautiful, there's always some hidden propaganda to sway their minds. i know my daughter will look more white than brown like me, and i'm afraid she'll be embarrassed some day of me.
you're doing the right thing, though, by teaching your son the best you can about his culture. don't give up! someday, he'll be able to fully understand all that you're doing for him.
awww, hun. I know firsthand that even some things that toddlers say can be hurtful. Mason told me the other day that he doesn't like me and wants a new mommy. Reduced me to tears. I'm sorry that someone or something put that nonsense into your son's head. You're not yucky... you're BEAUTIFUL. <3
I totally missed this post.
I understand 100% how you feel. Me, being aboriginal, and BD white, Cae is bound to pick up a bit of racism from BD's family. BD's mom doesn't like to acknowledge her grandson because his mom is native, and yet, her stepson, R, is Metis (BD's stepbrother), and his girlfriend just had a baby in January, and she ALWAYS takes in that little boy like he's her biological grandson, yet she has NO blood connection whatsoever. Me and BD had to go to Winnipeg to get some stuff at Costco one time, and when I came back, Cae was in tears, and he hasn't been so ecstatic to see me and BD because as soon as we walked into the door, he opened BD's room, because I guess BD's mom put him in there for punishment. BD asked her what he did, and she said "He wouldn't stop crying since you left", but I think she just got fed up with looking at her half native grandchild because Cae is used to me leaving him somewhere, whether it's with my friend, or my mom. He NEVER cried when we left him 2 days before that with BD's mom.
It pisses me off, because I KNOW she is racist, and cannot stand me or Caeolen. She is so fake. BD tells me the things she says behind my back when I'm not around. It bothers him to know his own son is a victim of his mother's discrimination.
It sucks.
I'm sorry you had to hear that from your son. I hope you are able to find out where he is getting that from.
Wow... Sometimes I have to pull back and remember they are three. When I show DS something that is odd or not normal to him he normally says it is yucky. He doesn't fully understand it so therefore it is yucky. Do you think T has the same line of thinking? (and sometimes they say things just to get a rise out of us. seeing it hurts us does something for them, ie "mommy i no love you." telling him again in a minute that i love him will get the "mama i love youuuuu." response i normally get. if i show him it hurts he continues to say it. i think its a power thing. but does it mean he means it? nah.)
Sadly the message is everywhere. It is underlined in many things. Not just TV or movies but the media. I think we are making progress that everyone is beautiful but it definatly isn't there yet. Look at models, actresses, singers all of that. Majority of them are white. And they aim at a target audience which isn't always white (go into some neighborhoods where the majority of the population is black or hispanic, i'm sure most of the ads there are of white people). Subtily it says something, even if it is something you have been trying not to teach T. It's not a failure of TV or daycare or more importantly you and your teachings but its a failure of all of it and mainly society.
I'm so sorry the world is so cruel Naivete...
Your beautiful!!! Your intelligent!!! You stand up for what you believe in!!! Youre a GREAT mama and a very important member of this board.
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3