Friday Finds: Race

Happy Friday, darling readers! I struggled through this week – a late night early in the week meant my schedule got all screwy and I ended up coming home from work exhausted a few days and taking a few accidental naps. I hate accidental naps. They mess with your sleep schedule altogether.

Since we loved our time in the city so much last weekend, we’ve planned another afternoon in the city tomorrow, complete with a museum trip and bikes. I’ll be sure to report back next week!

This Friday, I thought I’d share with you a few finds that made me think this week.

First, the thoughtful Mixed Race Project, which looks at multiracial families in America.

And second, an interesting New York Times article and video about a white couple who adopted mixed race children in the ’70’s, and the different struggles each generation has had.

I scrolled through photos on the Mixed Race Project, and watched the video on the New York Times website and they hung with me all week. Michael’s family is mixed race, his dad is African American, and his mom is white. When they got married, it was hard on both families in varying degrees.

I wasn’t around for Michael’s growing up years here in Dublin, but I often wonder how it would have been different for them if they grew up in America. Would it have been harder or easier?

In a way, it seems that being mixed race hasn’t affected them too much growing up in Ireland. Michael’s dad, Jerome, came here to play basketball, which made him somewhat famous, and somewhat novel. The only people in Ireland during that era who weren’t white were the basketball players. In fact, race was such an uncommon differentiation that a few of Michael’s friends even thought Michael’s mom was black for years!? To be fair, she does tan well!

I’m sure there were days and instances where race was an issue or wasn’t understood, but it doesn’t seem to be an everyday factor that affects my husband and his siblings. And I suppose that makes sense – the Irish didn’t have slaves or a civil war and the ensuing civil rights movement right on their doorstep leaving imprints through generations.

Michael and his siblings grew up confident and sure, and just like all the other kids. More than anything else, their identity seems to be that they’re Irish.

In the end, these stories of mixing races make me think of my own kids, as yet unborn, and unplanned. I worry a little that they won’t look like me, with altogether too many brown eyes on both sides for my blue eyes to come through. Michael had blond ringlets for a few years before they turned dark, dark brown, so I think there’s a hope of blond toddlers at least for a few years.

But however (and whenever) those kids come, I think one of the most important things will be making sure they know and feel all the pieces of their mixed-up heritage that makes them exactly who they are. One grandma who grew up on a farm and still hangs onto her German roots, a grandpa who grew up on the mean streets of South Chicago and lived to tell us all amazing tales, another grandma whose Lowell accent peeks through whenever she’s with her mother (or mutha, I should say), and one more grandpa born in Chicago and raised in Providence, who will hand my children my Maine on a plate, bird nests and forest creatures, loons and tree houses.

They’ll be a product of all that heritage and wherever they’re raised or educated or employed will just pile on top and add to the mix.

Looks like these kids will be busy, huh? And while I’ve still got time, I’d better get to perfecting that family fried chicken recipe.

Until Monday, sweets, hope you have a lovely weekend!

{photos from here}