As Not Seen on TV: Interracial Families Being All Normal And Stuff

There are a whole lot more interracial families in the real world than television and movies would have us believe. Many of you probably know this because you are part of one, or you know one, or you just have a general sense that what you see onscreen isn’t always an accurate reflection of reality. The lack of interracial visibility has a ton of causes, but one unfortunate effect is that people who enjoy keeping their heads in the sand are encouraged to do so. Another effect is that people like me often end up feeling marginalized, as if we and our families are some sort of shameful national secret.

During the past decade or so, I have begun to see interracial families and mixed race people pop up more and more, but it’s still a rarity in the mainstream media — DESPITE THE FACT THAT OUR FIRST FAMILY IS INTERRACIAL — oh, the irony. To make matters worse, we are represented in carefully chosen, stereotypical ways — for instance you’ll see a black man with a white woman a lot more often than a white man with a black woman. And many times, directors choose light-skinned or clearly biracial people to fill “black” roles. (Oh look, it’s Halle Berry again!) Yes, a biracial partner still makes the couple interracial, but then… we always do. (I like to say I’m in an interracial relationship with myself.) You might see an interracial queer family more often than a straight one, but how often do you see queer families at all? Ok, sometimes you’ll see an actual, semi-realistic interracial couple, but that’s usually code for, “This Is Going To Be Totally About Race.”

The pattern feeds almost exclusively on stereotypes and is artfully arranged to support this whole complex, post-racist system, where people are encouraged to keep their racism to themselves (in public) and pretend that we’re all equal. Until…. dun, dun, dunnnnnnnnn… CHEERIOS.

Yes, something as innocuous as a Cheerios commercial has brought to light a level of ignorance that makes my head spin more than Small Wonder. Let me break it down for you:

1 . Cheerios commercial airs on national television, featuring a white woman, a black man, and a biracial girl who are all… ready for this… related to each other! In fact, they’re a typical little American family where the mom sits at the kitchen table making, you know, womanly notes, the dad takes naps on the sofa and the kid runs around causing a ruckus.

2. Concerned cereal lovers take to the Internets to let it be known that they refuse to be subjected to real life. They inundate Cheerios’ YouTube and facebook pages with so much racist vitriol that General Mills disables comments.

3. Atlanta couple Michael David Murphy and Alyson West see all this, and decide to start the tumblr project We Are The 15 Percent, a collection of crowd-sourced portraits of interracial families like themselves. They draw the site name from census data showing that 15% of new marriages are interracial.

4. I send in a photo for inclusion on We Are The 15 Percent and they post it. The Daily News runs an article on the project the same day which happens to feature me and my wife’s picture. And the awesome Melissa Harris-Perry (also featured on the site) runs a segment, as do a bunch of other venues which you can see here.

REAL LIFE INTERRACIAL FAMILY: Michael Murray and Alyson West – creators of We Are The 15 Percent – with their daughter, Alexandra.

So, check out the project and send in a photo! Mixed race people and families lend an important and much needed perspective to the conversation, and it’s up to us to make sure we are seen and heard. Thanks to Michael and Alyson for contributing in such a simple and beautiful way.

Only Black Kid

Story of my life!

Here I am at Sunny Acres Day Camp outside of Albany, NY in 1980. I’m not sure how much I noticed, or minded, being the only kid of color in so many situations for so much of my childhood, but I didn’t really vocalize my feelings about it until years later. Looking back at pictures like this one though, I wonder what impact it had on me in the moment. Did it affect my personality? My confidence? My comfort? Were the camp counselors ever tempted to call in the authorities on suspicion of kidnapping when my white mom came to pick me up (as happened to this Virginia family recently)?

Of course, my use of the term “only black kid” is, on the surface, in contrast to my usual “I’m mixed, not black” perspective. It’s true, I normally rant about how mixed is not the same as black, and have used a whole heap of web space exploring all the ways my experience is unique. But there is overlap too. It’s obvious that “black” is the way us mixed kids are often seen, and in turn the way we sometimes see ourselves. Regardless of how I understood race at the time (probably something like, Race? Ready, set, go!), here I am – the only caramel-skinned camper who didn’t owe it to a tan. It was a situation typical of my life as a child.

Ok, now you’re it!

Was this the story of your life too? If so, send me a picture of you as the only black kid to newmeadow@gmail.com or tweet me at @newmeadow #onlyblackkid and I’ll post it here! Please tell me your name and the city/state/country where the picture was taken. If you’d like, you can also include a brief paragraph describing your memories regarding the picture, or your general feelings about being the “only black kid.” I think these photos are really meaningful in remembering, and relating, what it’s like to be a kid of color.

Register This

In case you haven’t heard, it’s been two months since my girlfriend proposed to me and just one month since I proposed to her. We’ve already settled into engaged life, chosen a wedding date, a venue, a caterer and someone to marry us. It’s amazing what two underemployed lesbians can do with google, an excel chart and two Macs. We even started a couple of wedding registries because apparently when you get hitched, people want to give you stuff. I’m not arguing.

So last night my now fiancée and I stopped by Crate and Barrel to check out some items for our registry in person. It wasn’t until we left that we took a closer look at the brochure and noticed something that caused us to shake our heads vigorously, make strange wounded animal noises and question whether we wanted to register there at all.

Ok, first of all their brochure is filled with images of nothing but young, skinny, straight, heterosexual hipsters. Fine. Not a shocker. But on top of that, each pair of models — I mean, engaged couple — matched each other exactly in skin color and (perceived) ethnicity. A perfectly trendy Asian couple stood hand-in-hand amidst the bedding items. A guy with a goatee and a Fedora wrapped his arm around a dark-haired beauty between potholders and dishcloths. An olive-skinned pair was caught mid-romantic moment in the decor section and a medium brown couple grinned from ear to ear between pasta cookers and double boilers.

This last couple irked me the most because I am so sick of seeing mixed race people clearly used to satisfy the black quota in advertising. I think we all know that if a person’s skin resembles a cup of coffee with about twenty tablespoons of cream, and that person is not an albino, they are probably not one hundred percent black. So if you’re gonna go this tired route, why not throw a couple of espresso-skinned people in there? What are you trying to say, Crate and Barrel? Black people don’t get married? You don’t think their families can afford your sixteen dollar water pitchers?

The best — I mean, worst — part of the whole thing was the cover. In an astounding nod to conventional, mainstream, imperialist, commercial conformity, they slapped a preppy, white couple on the front page. But they decided that it was ok for white couples to have different hair colors, as long as the girl was blonde.

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that C&B had a few meetings about how to make money off — I mean, appeal to — every race, color and ethnicity in their registry pamphlet. I just can’t believe THIS is what they came up with. Last time I checked interracial marriage was legal, and not that uncommon. And news alert, same sex marriage is now a thing.

When we realized the extent of the distance between C&B’s worldview and ours, we decided that we couldn’t ask our family and friends to spend their money there, nor did we want those artisanal, robin’s egg blue, hand-antiqued plates that badly. No matter how well they matched each other, they didn’t match us.

We are aware that almost every gigantic, national chain store is more interested in profits than people, but here’s a clue: try to fake it. And if your ads look anything like this: try harder.

Double Chai

Dear awesome, conscious, inquisitive, diverse, and thoughtful readers,

First of all, you look great today. Really. Are you doing something new with your hair? Maybe it’s just the early spring light, but there’s a glow about you this morning. Whatever you’re doing, keep it up.

Secondly, I have a surprise for you. I’m turning 36 today! Ok, I guess it’s not really a surprise, but it feels that way to me since just a few years ago I was heading out to a hot night at the bowling alley looking like this:

 

Also, it’s surprising because as a kid, I kind of pictured it all differently.

Here are some of the things I thought I’d be doing when I was 36:

• Living next door to my best friend and sharing a backyard with our tall, gorgeous husbands and children
• Dropping my 6 year old son Shane and 8 year old daughter Rosa off at school (Shane? Really?)
• Pounding a gavel and demanding order in my courtroom
• Wrapping wounds in the ER where news of my skill and grace would travel far and wide making me a world famous nurse (my mother said this was possible because of Florence Nightingale so it was a dream I held onto for many years)
• Teaching social studies to calm and attentive students
• Fronting a famous all girl rock band on vocals and guitar

Even though most of these dreams haven’t manifested in their precisely imagined forms, I’m still the feeling special meaning of this year.

WARNING: you might want to sit down and slap on your yarmulke ’cause i’m about to get Jewish on you. 

(no, not THAT jewish.)

You’ve probably heard the Hebrew phrase l’chaim, meaning to life.  It’s often used as a toast. Well, the root word, chai, is made up of the letters het and yod.  And since Hebrew letters are also numbers, every word has a numerical equivalent (based on ancient gematria and mystical numerology).  In simple terms, chai = 18… and 18 = life!

Because of its lucky number status, monetary gifts are often given in multiples of 18. I remember my short stint as a tele-fundraiser for United Jewish Appeal. The handbook directed me to ask for a thousand dollars, then five hundred, on down to a hundred, and if they still wouldn’t give in, I was supposed to hit them with, “How about 54 dollars? That would be triple chai! That would be great!”  Our calls were monitored and if the word chai wasn’t delivered with the authentic phlem clearing inflection, we were in trouble. I lasted one afternoon. Not because I couldn’t pronounce chai, but because I couldn’t bear cold calling people and reading to them from a script. The UJA has never recovered from my absence and this is why we see continued unrest in the middle east today.

Anyway, you may have gathered that the number 36 is 2×18, which makes it double chai. And double chai is extra special because it equals two lives!

Now, I don’t believe in a god who invented us, spies on us, and adds us to the guest list at Club Heaven if we’ve been good. But I do believe that the natural order of things is beautiful and that it can be found in an oil painting, the smile of a stranger, the smell of a sweet potato in the oven or an algebraic equation. I figure if god is anywhere, she’s in the numbers.

Thanks for all your support and I hope you’ll keep reading. In the meantime, if you haven’t subscribed to receive my new posts by email, do it now by clicking the subscribe link on the upper right! If you already have, pass it on to a friend, or 36. Consider it my birthday gift.

L’chaim!

Meadow

Mixed Race Friend

I’m sorry I haven’t posted lately. I’ve been busy renting myself out as a mixed race friend. I’m working on an exciting new piece, but I can’t share it here because I’m hoping to get it published. You know, by a person whose name isn’t Meadow Braun. Stay tuned. And if you’re in need of a mixed race friend, I’m available weekday afternoons.

What’s Your Polygram?

As I discussed in my very first blog post, the U.S. Census now allows respondents to check more than one box when reporting their race. Inclusive as it is, that tactic can only go so far. What if a Hawaiian-Nigerian-Swede has a child with a French-Canadian-Jew? Which boxes will their daughter check? And what if that young girl grows up to fall in love and have twins with an adopted Chinese-Indonesian-Pakistani raised by WASPs? What boxes will those adorable little WASPy-Nigerian-Swedish-French-Canadian-Jewish-Chinese-Indonesian-Pakistani identical twins check?

The only way to accurately gather racial data from U.S. citizens will be to move to a more color/culture-based, self-identification system. In this new collection system (a draft of which Obama has been kind enough to share with all certified biracial Americans), each person will be identified by a unique polygram. That shape, along with their lip measurement, will be utilized by the government to determine how to best address the economic, social and educational needs of our nation.

A sneak peak is below. Please let me know your thoughts in the comment section. I’ll be sure to pass them along to the committee.

Click for a larger version:

Shit People Say To Mixed Girls

Like many of you, I have enjoyed watching the recent Shit Girls Say video and the videos that it inspired. When Shit White Girls Say To Black Girls took the meme in a racial direction, I knew it was time to add my two cents.

My college friend, actress Linnea Peery, also wanted to make a video that explored the things that are said to people like us — young women whose appearance evokes statements of curiosity and confusion, from the ignorant to the derogatory. So we took a few of the items from my June 2011 blog post and expanded on them in order to expose some of the irony that reveals itself when they are heard back to back. I hoped that our video would offer mixed girls a sense of community and give viewers a chance to see things from our perspective.

Making the video also got me thinking… what makes these little movies so funny? While hearing one remark individually can be upsetting, there is something inherently humorous about placing a whole bunch of them one after the other. Their impact is exaggerated for comic effect, but it also touches on the reality for those of us who field these comments and questions throughout our lives.

What people say reflects how they feel. And how they feel reflects the society and culture they live in. By shining a light on the things that people say across city and state, time and place, Shit People Say videos help clarify the beliefs, attitudes and structures on which so many of our interactions are based. By themselves, these remarks can be dismissed as innocent or harmless, but all together they highlight the bonds and divisions between us and reveal broader truths.

Ultimately, these videos can lead to discussion and greater understanding. Maybe even change. Or maybe just a good deal of water being spit out of people’s mouths.

Please view, comment, like and share!

I Don’t Give A Crap About Race.

I’m sorry, but I don’t give a crap about race right now. I don’t care about my identity or my sexuality or my childhood. I don’t care about where I fit in or how I talk or whether or not people think I look Jewish.

Right now, I care about rent and management companies and applications. About co-ops and apartments and landlords. I care about inexpensive food and healthy meals. I care about exercise and physical therapy and healing from surgery. I care about root canals and crowns and Medicaid and medication.

Right now, I couldn’t care less about the shade of my skin or the tightness of my curl. My living room wall is covered with calendars, receipts and poetry. Each day when I get up my goal is to get at least one thing done that moves me forward, that brings me one step closer to my goals or pulls them closer to me. Each day when I get up my goal is to heal a little more, to settle a little further into this new body that is mine, that will always now be missing a chunk of the disc that used to cushion the space between L4 and L5. To guard against laziness, but give myself time. To listen and know when to say yes and when to say no. To do only what matters.

When I face my computer, my blog, my book, my thoughts blur. I see a jumble of past and present. I see fears and conflicting intentions. I see faces of strangers asking, “What is your memoir about?,” and faces of loved ones saying, “Good for you,” as their faces scrunch up wondering how they’ll be depicted. I see myself failing, receiving rejection after rejection. I see you waiting for a new post, thinking I have already failed. I see my once-a-week, Wednesday schedule disintegrating into dust as I languish on the sofa, painfully turning from the left to the right, straightening carefully as I stand, reluctantly, to go pee. I see my future children, becoming more of a dream and less of a reality.

So you see, right now I don’t care about race. I don’t care about gender. I don’t care about how and when and why I came out.

Right now I care about craigslist ads and temp agencies, savings accounts and credit unions. I care about Occupy Wall Street and police brutality. I care about freelance work and staying open to possibilities. I care about my mental health, calling the doctor, and being where I’m supposed to be when I’m supposed to be there.

Right now I care about the changing leaves. About peaceful mornings and good nights sleep. I care about music and breath. Right now I care about love. I care about the fact that somehow, in the midst of chaos, I found out that there was love all around me. I care about concentrating on love and giving it room to multiply. I care about loving back.

Right now I care about focusing on what’s good and not on what’s missing. I care about coming through this very difficult year in one piece. Still black. Still white. Still mixed. Still female. Still queer. Still a writer.

Intact.

Thanks for stopping by, and don’t forget:
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White Girl in Black Face T-shirts Now For Sale!

It’s been a long time coming, but WGiBF T-shirts are now for sale! Finally you can wear your irreverence with pride, in my 100% cotton, comfy fitting T’s.

Each shirt comes in either a women’s cut or a roomier, unisex style. To purchase, click on the appropriate Add to Cart button and you will be directed to Paypal to complete your transaction. Orders should typically go out within 48 hours, however depending on response and inventory, could take up to two weeks. But have no fear… I will get you your shirt and soon you will be best dressed on casual Friday.

*Please check out the notes on sizing at the bottom before choosing your t-shirt. They run a little wonky (why wouldn’t they!?).

……………………………………………………

You don’t have to keep Kosher to wear this cheeky T-shirt; you just need a torso and a bit of chutzpah. Although it doesn’t hurt if you are full on Jewish, half Jewish, one eighteenth Jewish or adopted by Jews, sympathetic to Israelis, irresistibly attracted to side curls or if you just generally have a great sense of humor about meat and dairy.

Kosher Pussy makes a great Chanukah gift! Wear it to a taping of The Daily Show! Wear it in your profile photo on JDate! Throw it on with a silk scarf and a cardigan for Friday night services and you’ll be the talk of the shul! Or do like me and wear it to the bodega to pick up a carton of Schweddy Balls.

* handmade silver ring by Jenn B Jewelry.

Straight, gay, queer, lesbian, questioning, bi, sexually fluid… Defining your sexuality is more difficult than choosing your privacy settings on Facebook! Luckily, WGiBF has simplified things.

Up until my early 30s, I was straight. It wasn’t until I acknowledged my interest in women that I learned how complex sexuality really is. People would ask me, “So, are you a lesbian now? Are you bi? What are you?” It was reminiscent of the pressure to define myself racially and I found that bisexuality is often doubted just like biracial identity.

Being post-straight offers us room to grow and change without denying our past or defining our future. This shirt can be worn by folks anywhere on the spectrum of sexuality, including those who are straight, but not narrow! Remember, not everyone can be gay, but we can all be fashionable.

Order below!

For those who don’t know, Jungle Fever is not just a Spike Lee joint, it’s a term used for interracial relationships (namely, black/white) and implies that a white person attracted to a black person has some sort of illness (aside from sickeningly good taste).

Folks travel around the world and bring back “stupid T-shirts” for their loved ones. And in a sense, interracial unions are like traveling. They allow people to see themselves through new eyes, question their beliefs and look beyond the superficial. The irony is that we children of these unions are often born into a job. We carry the scars and the dreams of two (or more) groups, and our bodies and minds become a battleground. Although I feel blessed, being mixed has sometimes felt like a burden. This shirt reminds us that it’s all quite silly. The truth is, I got way more than a T-shirt. I got curly hair, an appreciation for bluegrass, and the privilege of being mistaken for Moroccan.

The things that make us most alike are often the least obvious. Be just like me and get a Jungle Fever T-shirt today!

SIZING: For some reason, the women’s Ts that I ordered run really small which is why I noted the sizes I am wearing in the photos. The unisex style (pictured at left), is fuller in the body and the sleeve and runs pretty true to size. I like the medium in that one, but I did my best to rock the XL because that’s the only one I had at the time of the photo! Do keep in mind they are 100% cotton. I recommend hanging to dry.

More styles will be available in the near future. If you have any questions, please email me at newmeadow@gmail.com before ordering and I’ll make sure you get what you need!

PS: I apologize that each time you click on a different shirt it will open in a new window. You’ll get it, you’re savvy. That’s just where my patience wore out in the battle of WordPress vs. Paypal.

White Girl in Black Face counts down and adds up.

97: books on my To Read list
48: times I say “Ouch” daily
35: years it took me to realize I was better off alone than in a bad relationship
30: chapters in my memoir
24: lost lip balms I’ve replaced and then found later
13: weeks since my back surgery
12: tampons I’ve received via overnight Fed Ex from an ex
12: tampons I would have rather not received via overnight Fed Ex from an ex
10: times I’ve redefined my sexuality
9: countries I’ve been blessed to visit
8: glasses of water I should drink each day
7: the only two syllable, one digit number other than zero
6: weekly blog posts I missed this summer
5: pillows on my bed
4: drug dealers I have to ask to get off the mailbox to mail my Netflix movies
3: children I’ve hugged this week
2: natural disasters since my last post
1: race too many to believe in race
0: times I have immaculately conceived a baby

+
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= 326: opportunities to practice grace