Member-only story
If You Have Black Or Mixed Kids, I Need You To Get Some Black Friends.
Dear white couples and single white women with black or mixed-race children:
I tell you this with love: you are not equipped to handle racism.
Why should you be? This is something that you have never had to confront. This is alien to you. It is more likely that any experience you have with racism is that you were the perpetrator. Nothing as sordid as driving past a black family and screaming nigger at them. Something subtle. Maybe you clutched your purse when a black person walked by. An awkward laugh at a racist joke while surrounded by a bunch of white people. The time when you spent less time on a black customer than a white customer because you felt they were not going to tip well. Perhaps you paid extra attention to a black customer than a white customer because you believed they were going to steal.
In love, if we are being honest, we must boldly and bravely confront our own innate racism if we are going to weather the winter that is on the horizon with its inhospitable frost and devastating whiteouts. We must address our own issues in love.
If you are open with yourself, you must admit that you have some internalized racial bias. Even black people harbor anti-black sentiments. So why would you, a white person, be immune from this fate? You…
