Whenever J and I talk about our son's romantic future, we say things like "When you bring someone home, I hope he or she treats you well," or "You'd better grow out of that before you find a boyfriend or girlfriend!" We make a conscious effort to make sure that our child is growing up with fewer barriers to his own gender and sexual identity than either of his cis, heterosexual parents ever had to contend with. Excuse me while I go pat myself on the back for being so woke. It's a good start, to be sure, but the month of June isn't only about celebrating LGBTQIA+ pride. Today is also Juneteenth, the day that honors when the last slaves in Texas finally learned about their freedom two and a half years after Emancipation. Juneteenth is simultaneously a celebration of freedom for Black Americans and a stark reminder of how much work our country yet has to do to honor the freedom they were granted 155 years ago. So here I am in my cozy little duplex in my cute little suburb touching the edge of the most segregated city in America, cradling my blond haired, blue eyed baby and wondering: how do I make sure he is not just kind and open-minded, but a passionate defender of social equity? How do I raise an anti-racist? I want to be clear about what this post is and what it isn't. This is a look into the thoughts of a new mom who herself was raised in a white* family in an almost-exclusively white town. This is a reflection on where I am in my own learning, how I got here, and how much further I have yet to go. This is not a declaration of how to be, and certainly not an essay on how to raise a child. This is not proof to my black friends that I "get it" or to my white friends that I have attained some semblance of ally self-actualization. This is yet the beginning of a long journey and I wouldn't dare hold myself to the level of people who have been living and doing this work longer than I've even known it's existed. *A quick note on my whiteness: There is a debate about whether or not Jews, especially those of Eastern European (Ashkenazi) decent, are indeed white. For me personally, I consider myself white because I have benefited from all the privileges of whiteness my entire life. I have never been treated differently because of the color of my skin and I believe it would be an affront to all BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) if I were to deny that white privilege. For some reason, I did not know Juneteenth existed until my second year in New York when I saw the roadblocks for the Juneteenth parade in my neighborhood. I didn't know about it the first year because my apartment was at the intersection of an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, Chinatown, and a large Hispanic area. Much like in my small town in Wisconsin, Juneteenth didn't seem to exist in that corner of Brooklyn. But in the largely Black neighborhood filled with Caribbean restaurants where we spent the last five years of J's residency, Juneteenth was one of the biggest celebrations of the year. Even then, I only knew about it because the road was blocked and I had to find another way to drive to the grocery store. It took me even longer after learning that Juneteenth existed to find out what it was about, and still I didn't quite grasp the magnitude of the day. After all, I never learned about it in school, never noticed it among the holidays on my wall calendar, never witnessed it being celebrated. I figured it was someone else's holiday, like Cinco de Mayo or Mardi Gras. That's some serious white privilege right there. Meanwhile, the entire time I sat comfortably in my white, Jewish, liberal, upper-middle-class bubble, black people were being murdered before our eyes. Trayvon Martin. Slowly, slowly, the pieces started coming together to form a shaky mental image of this thing called systemic racism and its sibling, white privilege. For a while I watched the news but didn't see, I heard the reports but didn't listen. I thought it was enough to be a good person with good intentions, treat everybody with respect and call it a day. Other people were racist, not me. After all, I'm a Good Person™.
It took moving to a big city, living in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, going to graduate school, listening to more voices of BIPOC, and witnessing the election of a viciously racist, bigoted president for me to even begin to understand systemic racism and the very real toll it has been having on millions of people in this country for hundreds of years. It's shameful that it took so much to get me where I currently am but I am extremely thankful that I got as far as I did before my child was born. Had he been born five years ago I probably would not have asked the question that every white parent should be asking themselves today: "How can I make sure my child isn't just not racist, but anti-racist?" Here is what I think I know: 1. I need to make sure he sees the faces and hears the voices of BIPOC in our home through books, movies, music, and other media. 2. I need to actively seek spaces where he can play and learn with and from BIPOC children. 3. I need to recognize when the "classic" stories, songs, and movies I grew up with reinforce negative stereotypes, then either throw them out entirely or, if they truly are valuable for other reasons, help him think critically about what he sees. 4. I need to model anti-racism though how I speak, listen, act, and give of myself. There is a lot I think I know and plenty more that I have yet to learn, but the one thing I am certain of is this: I will get things wrong, but I can not stop striving to learn and grow. My child's life, and the lives of so many black children, depend on it.
3 Comments
Patrick Young
6/23/2020 09:22:47 pm
So beautifully said. This will affect many people.
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Jim and Susie Miller
6/23/2020 10:42:44 pm
Dear Nashira,
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Nashira
6/24/2020 08:33:42 am
You're just adding to the list of reasons why I admire you! I love how you model openness and self-awareness. What do you say to some piano duets when things are safe again? Missing you both <3
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AuthorNashira is a music teacher and proud Small-Town Jew who, after surthriving six years in Brooklyn for her husband's surgical residency, is finally back in Wisconsin where she belongs! At least until the end of the two-year surgical fellowship, that is. It's a wild ride, and she's ready to tell you all about it! Archives
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