Raising a Biracial Child

Are you raising a mixed-race child? Join our conversation with Nicole Doyley, a biracial woman raising biracial kids, and the author of What About the Children: 5 Values for Multiracial Families.

• Terminology: what is preferred-biracial, mixed race, multi-racial, mixed?
• Biracial includes Black/White, Black/Asian, White/Asian, Hispanic/Black, Indigenous/Black/Hispanic. In this interview, we are talking about mixed-race, but families can also be mixed culturally.
• Is it true that mixed-race is the fastest-growing group in the US?
• Issues facing biracial people in the US. Based on personal experience as well as a 2020 Vox Survey of Mixed Americans.
  • No man’s land of racelessness
  • Having to always answer the question “What are you?”
  • Not fully accepted by either race
  • Wanting to ditch one race so as to be fully the other race
  • Feeling isolated
  • Confused identity
  • Rejecting the idea of having to fit into just one box 
• As a child, you didn’t like the ambiguity that biracial brought to your life. You say you felt a “two-ness”. But you came to view being of mixed race as a blessing rather than a curse. Why, as a child did it feel uncomfortable to you and how did you grow to accept it?
• Do you think a mixed-race adopted or foster child being raised by parents of a different race from them but the same shared race with each other will face different challenges? 
• In the past, it was common to tell adoptive/foster/grandparents that the world was going to treat their child as Black (or another race), so you should focus your efforts on raising a Black child and not emphasize their other race. People in the US see race first. How should parents handle it?
• Does it matter if the child’s dominant features make her look like she fits more squarely in one race?
• 5 values for raising a biracial child:
  • Awareness
  • Humility
  • Diversity
  • Honesty
  • Exploration
• Benefits/advantages to being mixed-race:
  • Can function in both majority and minority environments
• Tips for Raising a Mixed-Race Child

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Unknown Speaker  0:00  
Welcome everyone to Creating a Family. Let's talk about foster, adoptive and kinship care. I'm Dawn Davenport, and I am the director of the nonprofit creatingafamily.org but I am also the host of this show, and in case you have not heard, I will soon be retiring, so I get to share the hosting for a while now with Tracy Whitney. Tracy has been with creating a family for nine years. She is our content manager, and she is also the heart of our large online Facebook support group, which you can find if you aren't part of it, you should be. It's facebook.com/groups

Unknown Speaker  0:42  
slash creating a family. So you'll be getting to hear Tracy's voice, and after a while, she will become the host of this show. And I cannot feel better about turning the podcast over to Tracy. And another little piece of news I want to share before we jump in is that we are now on YouTube. YouTube is the fastest growing podcast app for people actually using YouTube to listen to podcasts. And now, not only can you listen, but you can see me. You can see Tracy. Tracy usually has a wonderful assortment of mugs. I've noticed that right now she has a boring mug, but usually Tracy is the one who has all the interesting mugs. I, on the other hand, have just my steady, boring, thermal mug. You can also see us interact with each other, so jump over to YouTube and check us out. It's the channel is creating a family easy to find over there. Also make sure you stick around towards the end of this podcast, because we'll be giving you practical tips. Today, we're going to be talking about raising a biracial child. We'll be talking with Nicole Doyley. She is a biracial woman raising biracial kids, and she is the author of, what about the children? Five values for multiracial families. She is a writer, a speaker and a podcast host herself, and her goal is to inspire productive conversations about race. Welcome Nicole to creating a family. I am intrigued with the distinctions we're going to make about raising biracial kids. So welcome. Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here. You know, I want to start with terminology, as we so often do. So what is preferred? Do we want to say biracial? Do we want to say mixed race? Multiracial, mixed? What is the preferred term? Or does anybody care?

Unknown Speaker  2:40  
Well, you know biracial obviously means two. So if you know somebody is is two races, then biracial is perfectly fine. If you don't know, you might want to say mixed race and a family would be multiracial if, if there's multi races in the family, so if parents and kids are all different colors, then then the family is multiracial. So I also hear people say, Are you mixed or I don't know if is that A is that a slur? Is that okay to say? I think that's perfectly fine to say. In the past, there was a little controversy about that sort of, is that dehumanizing? But now I have never heard that somebody who's mixed minds being mixed. Now, the preferred thing if you're writing it is to capitalize mixed, just like you capitalize black, interesting, yeah, yeah. So, so when I wrote my book, I learned that funny things you learn when you're writing a book, right? Yes, yeah. But, okay, all good. Well, let me say it's the onset that biracial or multiracial can include any mixture of races or ethnicities. Could be black, white, black, Asian, white, Asian, Hispanic, Black, indigenous, black or indigenous, black and Hispanic. In this interview, we're going to be talking about mixed race, but families can also be mixed culturally, we're going to focus more on the mixed race. However, in this conversation, I have a question for you, Nicole, is it true that mixed race is the fastest growing group in the United States? It is yes. So just a little bit of numbers. In 2010 there were 9 million of us, and by 2020, there were almost 34 million. Wow, so that's a 276%

Unknown Speaker  4:30  
increase. So, yes, some of it is more more mixed race people are identifying as such on the censuses. So some of it is they were always here, but just didn't identify that way. We could talk about that later. Why more are identifying that way? Yeah, a lot of it is there are more interracial relationships. Great. Thank you. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  4:54  
Let me interrupt briefly to ask a favor we need your.

Unknown Speaker  5:00  
Ratings for this podcast and your reviews. It's important to us. It's how the apps know how to recommend podcasts. So do us a favor and please give us a either a star rating or a review. This will take seconds of your time, if you're listening on Apple to leave a rating and a review. You go to our page, the creating a family podcast page. That's where all the list of all of our past shows are, and you scroll to the bottom of the page, right there allows you to give a star rating, and then if you scroll slightly further, you can then click on write a review on Spotify. To leave a rating, you select the highlighted rating on the podcast page, and you can leave a that's our general podcast page, creating a family page and give a star rating. You could also rate this specific episode or make a comment on this specific episode in the show notes that's on Spotify. And for our YouTube listeners, you could give us a thumbs up and please, please subscribe to our channel. You can also leave a comment, and we read every single one of them. Now back to the interview.

Unknown Speaker  6:05  
So Nicole, our audience is adoptive and foster parents, as well as grandparents, I should add, and other relatives raising a family member's child, and many of them will be raising a child of mixed race in adoption, especially in the past, we see prospective adoptive parents saying that they would be open to a mixed race child, but not open to a full black child or a full Hispanic or a full Asian child. And as adoption educators, this was troubling to me and others on so many different levels. Would this be troubling to you? And if so, why it would be very troubling to me. And I would even be so bold as to say, if you feel that way, you should just adopt a white child. So, you know, I'm a little hesitant to go too deep, too quick, but I'm just going to go for it. You know, go for it. Okay, jump right in there. Okay. You know, our country has a lot of wonderful things about it and some terrible things about it. And one of the terrible things is that there is a root system of white supremacy, basically that white is better, white culture is better. White people are more attractive, white people are more intelligent, white people are more moral. White people are less prone to crime. So there is very much in our root system, white supremacy. So much so that psychologist Dr Beverly Tatum says that white supremacy is like smog in the air. You breathe it in without even knowing it. And so if I heard that, if I heard prospective parents saying that, I would think instantly, okay. So you think that if a child is partially white, they're going to blend in better with your own family, they might be less troubled or, I mean, there might be some legitimate thoughts, like this child will likely experience racism less, and that is true, and we could talk about that too later. So there is privilege in having lighter skin. I have lighter skin than somebody who is fully black, and I am sure I have experienced less racism, and that's because of the white supremacy. There's this assumption that the close if you can't be white, then the closer you could be, at least you could be partially white, the closer to whiteness you could be, the better. I actually saw an interview with somebody, a racist, who was very honest, and he said that he thought White people were more intelligent. And the person interviewing him said, Well, what about this person and what about that person? And one of the people that she held up was biracial, somebody who had done something really great, and he said, Well, that's the white in him that makes him intelligent.

Unknown Speaker  8:53  
So yeah, even though lighter skinned people experience less racism, we still do experience racism. So if parents aren't ready to tackle that and deal with that, then they should just adopt a white child. I'm glad you talk about some of the issues that biracial or mixed racial people face in the US. In addition to racism, I think there are some unique issues that your book has talked about, both from your personal experience, but also with others. And also, there was a 2020, Vox survey of mixed Americans. And I thought it was really interesting. Some of the, I would say, unique issues that somebody who is mixed race might feel. One of them is kind of being in a no man's land or a racelessness. Not really fitting either. Either way, have you experienced that? And do you see that other mixed race people that you talk with do 100%

Unknown Speaker  9:47  
I mean, that really marked my childhood. And even though I won't give away my age, that was, you know, a few decades ago, because, like you said, brought up that 2020 Vox survey. It is.

Unknown Speaker  10:00  
Still true today. And I think one of the reasons why it's still true is that a lot of parents think, well, love will be enough as long as I love my child, you know, and almost take the sort of colorblind approach to raising a child of color. And you know, especially since we're talking about adoption, and 90% of trans racial adoptions are white families adopting kids of color, and that's not because black and brown families don't adopt. It's because black and brown families tend to not spend $20,000 to do so. You know, they tend to take in family members or a cousin's child a sister's child. So they tend to take in family members. But anyway, 90% of transracial adoptions are white families adopting kids of color. And so if that white couple is not intentional about teaching that child about their their ethnic heritage, you know, if the child is black, for example, here is what Africa was like before. It was, before it was conquered and colonized. You know, here are the rich, wealthy empires that were in Africa. And here are some famous Africans. And then, you know, here's what people withstood in the Middle Passage, in the transAtlantic slaves trade, and what they what they went through, and they persevered and taught themselves to read, and basically teaching that child pride in their blackness, and also having that child around black people often, so that they are comfortable around black People, they understand the nuances, the sort of macro culture as well as the sort of micro culture, you know, all the unspoken nuances. If that kind of intentionality isn't there, then you could have a child who is black on the outside, but white on the inside, in that they don't understand black people. They don't appreciate black culture kind of subliminally they wish they were white, like their parents, like their adoptive parents, so they're not comfortable around black people, but they're not white. So who am I? Then, right? Yeah, and we'll talk more about that later. And again, we're going to focus a lot more today, not on transracial adoption, because we've covered that a lot here creating a family. There are so many resources on our website as well creating a family.org, as well as podcast. But I really want to focus on the experience of being mixed race in the context of adoption and much and we'll come back to much of what you have just much of what you just said is directly applicable to mixed race kids as well. But before we get there, I want to go back to talking about some of the issues that mixed race people in the US might find, and that some of this is coming again from the Vox survey in 2020 we talked about that kind of feeling in a no man's land of not really, who am I? But also having to answer the question, what are you? Because you don't fit into a box that's so easily identified, which I thought was interesting. Did you feel the struggle of, I'm not black enough to be black and not white enough to be white, so where do I fit and I'm not really accepted by either race, was that something that you personally felt? Yes, very much. So, until I was in my early 20s, so and part of the motivation for my book is because I feel like kids can get that breakthrough sooner. They don't have to wait till they're an adult to like themselves,

Unknown Speaker  13:38  
but there has to be intentionality. Yeah, very much. So, you know, growing up, you know, I grew up in a working class apartment building in Brooklyn, surrounded by those multi million dollar brownstones, and the kids in our apartment building were mostly kids of color, and then the kids in the multi million dollar brownstones were mostly white kids. And so when I, you know, when I was little and sort of playing outside with the black and brown kids. It was very much like, you know, my mother didn't understand how to do our hair. My mother was white. Didn't understand to do our hair. I liked classical music. And the kids were like, you think you're white, you're not, you know, I didn't, I wasn't good at jumping ropes, sort of all these kind of classic, you know, black girl little activities, and, you know, my father wasn't really in a lot of ways, wasn't involved, and my mother didn't really see the need to help us to understand blackness, to instill in us all those sort of cultural shibboleths, meaning things that help you to feel like you belong. And didn't instill that in us. My My father didn't instill that in us. And so as soon as I was old enough, I sort of started walking to my white friend's house in one of those multi million dollar brownstones, and there, you know, she and her family and her friends on her block were nicer. It's almost like, almost like.

Unknown Speaker  15:00  
They were colorblind, like they didn't bring it up. I always felt like I didn't belong because they were wealthy and I wasn't. But it worked until we hit adolescence, and we all sort of went boy crazy and start liking boys. And the boys enter the scene, and the boy, these white boys, made it very clear, like, I'm not gonna date you, you know, so all of a sudden it was like, when I was little, playing with these black kids, I'm not black enough, and now, at 12, 1314,

Unknown Speaker  15:31  
I'm not white enough. And so that really, I had already felt like an imposter with black people, and now I feel like an imposter with white people, and so where do I belong? Did you feel the temptation to have to deny one race in order to fit with the other? Yes, certainly, and that I sort of felt more when I went to college. And you know, college was really a watershed moment for me, because I met black students who had a much broader sense of what it means to be black, like you. Like classical music. No big deal. I like classical music too. You know, it wasn't this sort of monolithic. This is what it means to be black, and if you're not that, you're not black. So it was much broader and much more generous, and I made black friends who just liked me for me. So it was then that I began to feel like, okay, I have to deny that I'm white, not because they made me feel that way, but because I I like I fit in with black people. Now I don't want to be white anymore.

Unknown Speaker  16:38  
So So I went from wishing I were white when I was in early adolescence, so that white boys would like me to now wishing that I weren't white, so that black people would keep liking me.

Unknown Speaker  16:52  
Yeah, that makes sense.

Unknown Speaker  16:57  
Let me interrupt quickly to thank hopscotch adoptions. Hopscotch has been with us for such a long time and is such a believer in our mission of education and support, we can't thank them enough. They are a Hague accredited international adoption agency placing kiddos from Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Ghana, guayata, Morocco, Pakistan, Serbia and Ukraine. They specialize in the placement of kids with special needs, including Down Syndrome kids. And they do a lot of kinship adoptions. They place kiddos throughout the US, and they offer home study and post adoption services to residents of North Carolina and New York. And now back to the show.

Unknown Speaker  17:41  
So as a child, you mentioned in the book that you didn't really like the ambiguity that being biracial brought to your life. You say that you felt a twoness, which I like, that phrase that seems to capture it well, but you came to the view of being mixed race as a blessing rather than a curse, and maybe tell us, like, around what age were you able to identify that, and then why, as a child, was it uncomfortable to you, and then you could later accept it?

Unknown Speaker  18:13  
Well, I think it was uncomfortable for me for what we just talked about like, I'm not black enough, and then I'm not white enough, and wishing I could be fully black, and then wishing I could be fully white, especially towards my later teens, just being very aware that I don't fit in, in anywhere. You know, I think human beings. You think about a preschooler, and one of the activities you do is sorting. You sort the blue blocks and the red blocks and that, you know, that's that you help. Maybe you help teach them to help you put away the cutlery and the the forks go here, and the spoons go here. Nice knives go here. So that's a very early stage of development. So when you see somebody walking down the street, the very first thing you notice is their color and other ethnic features, even before you notice their gender, like in a split second of time. And so they want you to be either black or white or Asian or Hispanic, like I know who you are. I've got you categorized. I've got you sorted. And if they can't, then that question is very much there on the tip of their tongue. They want to ask so bad. So what are you? I just need to categorize you so that I feel like I could go on, you know? Yeah. So if you answer, well, I look more black than white, so I'm just gonna say I'm black. That creates issues, because you're actually denying one of your parents, or in this case, one of your birth parents. So you might say that because it's just easier, but after a while, that creates the sort of emotional dissonance. So I in terms of, when did I start feeling like it was an asset instead of a liability? Like I said, in college and in my early 20s, really embracing blackness because I began to read black authors, I had black friends all.

Unknown Speaker  20:00  
These late night conversations, I fell in love with black culture and black people, and for the first time, you know, saw all these beautiful black women I sang in a gospel choir, and they were just so beautiful. And I'm like, feeling, for the first time, feeling proud of the way I look and, you know, black features and stuff like that. And so really just began to sort of push away, and I identified as somebody said, What are you I'd say I'm black. So I think that was getting more healthy than not wishing I was black, but but still not 100% healthy. And it really took until, you know, well into my adulthood, you know, probably my 30s when I realized, you know, there's a lot of my mom in me, and that's a good thing. It's a good thing, you know, just just getting to the place where I was

Unknown Speaker  20:54  
mature enough and humble enough to embrace my mom in me and not be kind of ashamed of those things. So yeah, it was, it was very much not until, and I, like I said, I wrote the book because I it should happen earlier, but for me, it was sort of bumping around in the dark until I found self acceptance, because I didn't have there was not intentionality in my home growing up, right? Do you think that it would be different for a an adopted or foster mixed race child who is being raised by parents who are the same race? In your case, your mom and you are not adopted or foster you have a black dad and a white mom. But a lot of our audience, and as you point out, it's the majority would be white parents raising a child of color, and in this case, a mixed race child, since that's what we're talking about, are the issues different? Do you think for that that mixed race child than for a child who is being raised by a black dad and a white mom, or a black mom and a white dad.

Unknown Speaker  22:03  
Yeah, I you know, one of the values I talk about in the book is, is the value of diversity, and how even if, even if you're growing up with like a white mom and a black dad, or white and Asian or whatever, even if you have parents, you're growing up with your biological parents, you still need a diverse community. You know your kid still can't be your kid and your spouse can't be the only people of color in your life, but that is even more true when both parents are white. So when that's the case, diverse community is not optional. I mean, let's say it's a mixed race, white and Asian child. Okay, the parents are white, so they're gonna get the white culture, you know, they're gonna have the white grandparents. But what about the Asian side? And so they don't have any Asian grandparents whom they see or cousins, so those parents have to be incredibly intentional about building deep community. And by deep community, I don't just mean the one Asian down the block that you see sometimes, or the one Asian at work, or the one Asian kid at school that maybe you do play dates with when the kids are little. There has to be a rich Asian community that you become a part of. So, you know, if you're church goers, maybe that's the church if you're not church goers, maybe that's finding something. I have a some friends who adopted an Asian girl. She was fully Asian, but, you know, they immersed her in Chinese language classes when she was growing up. Or, you know, they found places with Chinese people. So in the same way, if she if the child is Chinese and white, the white part is taken care of, you know, their parents are there in school. 90% of the heroes that they're going to learn about are white, and the authors they read are going to be white. So white culture will just happen without even trying, but the Asian culture will not happen. So she or he could sort of wish, I wish that I were fully white so I didn't have these Asian eyes, or so I had lighter hair, or whatever her features are, sort of wish that they weren't there unless she's around Asian people who are beautiful and good and accepting and experiences the richness of that culture, so that she could be proud to be both. Yeah, so the community has to and our country is still largely segregated. There are more Asians in white communities and somewhat more Hispanics in white communities, but it's still very few black people in white communities. So if the child is black and white, it's going to take effort.

Unknown Speaker  25:00  
And I've, I've heard of people who have moved, who have moved when they realize they're, they're about to adopt, and their school district is like 99% white, right, right? And they realize this is not going to be healthy.

Unknown Speaker  25:15  
And I always say, you know, people are willing to pack up and move for a higher paying job. So are you willing to pack up and move for the health of your kids? Yeah, yeah, which is a great segue. In the past, it was very common that we prepared prospective adoptive or prospective foster parents or even grandparents and extended family that the world was going to treat their child as black or Asian or Hispanic, and so we should focus our efforts on raising that child as black or Hispanic or Asian, and not really emphasize their other race. And as you said earlier in your comments, people in the US see race first. Can you give us some specific ideas for, in addition to moving, if that's necessary, specific ideas for how parents can prepare, first of all, for that, before they even are bringing home a mixed race child. But then, once the child is in their home, what are some additional practical things parents can do?

Unknown Speaker  26:18  
Well, you know, I love books and to be interactive with books, you know, so that, you know, there's some, there's still not a lot of adult books, but there's so many children's books now, where? Where their picture books and all different colored children, and you're intentionally pointing out, like, look how beautiful that child isn't her hair beautiful. I mean, look at those. And Dylan, don't you think she would make a great friend? You know, what do you think her name is? And wouldn't she make a great friend? And just really, and the same thing with dolls or action figures, making sure that they're not all white, that they're beautiful, that you have books,

Unknown Speaker  26:59  
the art on your wall is showing black and brown beauty,

Unknown Speaker  27:04  
that it's not all Renoir, you know.

Unknown Speaker  27:08  
And then, like I said, the intentionally diversifying your community so that you know your backyard Fourth of July barbecue is not all white. If it was that's a problem, do something about it. So I think that the broadening of community going to different kinds of restaurants, you know, we went to an Ethiopian restaurant for one of my son's birthdays. He's a foodie. And, you know, just all the art on the wall of this restaurant and all the waiters were Ethiopian. And, you know, we asked one of the waiters about Ethiopia. And, you know, just so, just those rich cultural experiences, the music, the folklore, the people so very specifically. Then, if an adoptive parent is raising a child of mixed race. Should they focus on raising them with both races and how? I think, yes, like you sit down with them and you say, you know, do you know why your skin is kind of light brown? Well, it's because your bio, your bio mom is black and your bio dad is white. And just when, just like when you have those conversations about explaining that you're adopted, you know this is why, and your skin is a beautiful combination of both, or, you know, your your features are a beautiful combination of both. And I know sometimes adoptive parents don't know. They might know that one is white and one is black, but they don't necessarily know, you know, it was Dad Italian or Irish or, you know, you don't necessarily know that, but you could certainly talk about contribution like, again, they're gonna, they're gonna learn this in school by default, but contributions of white people and and immigrants, white immigrants who came from Europe at different times, and then intentionally the the non white side too. And saying, you know, your non white side is just as beautiful and just as good and just as excellent as your white side, because, again, the culture's pull is to valuing the white side more, right? But the answer isn't to deny that I'm partially white, right, right? Because maybe my hair is straight because I'm partially white, or maybe I'm even lighter than I am, you know, because I'm partially white. So you can't deny that is as if it's shameful. Sometimes I feel like there's an overcorrection, like, because there is so much racism, let's not talk about your white side at all, yes, but you have white features in you, so let's, let's understand that and understand, yeah, yeah. We hear that we do, and honestly, that's part of the reason.

Unknown Speaker  30:00  
I wanted to do this show on mixed race because I was beginning to realize that the advice that we gave in the past, which was, your child is going to be viewed as the race that is non white, and let's say that your child's mixed black and white, we would say your child's going to be viewed as black. Therefore you need to realize that you are raising, and your goal should be to raise a proud black man or a proud black woman. And yet, if they're mixed, is that doing a disservice? Now, your point was so well taken that being proud of the white part is going to almost be, as you say, like it's like breathing. I mean, that's our society. Is that surrounding, but it's also important It sounds like from what you are saying, I mean, we certainly have to go out and be more intentional in finding the connections with their the race that we do not share with them. If I'm white and I adopt a black child, the pride in being white is going to, hopefully come from their grandparents and from school and from everything else. So I will have to go out and be far more intentional in finding the black role models and finding the these are the wonderful things that the black race has brought to the world, et cetera. But I think that perhaps I'm hearing you say that our advice, which is really basically you're black or treat you as if Black is a little short sighted as well. Yeah, I think, I think it's more complex. I think it's, yes, complex is a good word. Teach them both. It's the world is going to perceive you as black because your skin is not white, you know, the world is going to see you as black, and that's fine. Black is beautiful, you know, but you are not fully black. You also have white ancestry, and there's nothing wrong with that, and that is good, too. So you teach them, yes, the world is going to perceive you this way. Therefore, you know, when you have the talk the If a policeman stops you, he's going to see you as non white. A teacher is going to see you as non white. This is the reality, and this is how you deal with that reality. But you are also white, and you could be proud of that too. And I think that's that maturity that you alluded to earlier in your own journey of learning how to hold space for both and not internally, not valuing one more than the other, because both of those make up who you are as a whole. Yeah? And just helping our kids, modeling it for our kids that we can hold space for both, and then helping them learn how to hold space, even if their ratios of of space look different than ours. Yeah, I think, I think sort of teaching them that they're black, because people will perceive them as black. I think that subconsciously, you know, there's something called the one drop rule, and that was that was put in place in the 1920s where, you know, deep segregation and the only way to be white is if you are purely white. I don't know what that means, because I don't even think white people are purely white in this country. But anyway, the only way to be white is if you're purely white, and if you're not purely white, then you can't be white. You have to be

Unknown Speaker  33:18  
you get the lower social status. Right? So if you have one drop you know, if anybody knows about any black relative, or Asian or Hispanic relative, if anybody knows or if you have any non european features, then you are not white. You are the lower status. And so if we're basically teaching our kids that, it's sort of upholding a white supremacist we're not doing that consciously, of course, but we're sort of upholding a white supremacist idea that you can't be white because you're not purely white. And really, as much as there's beautiful picture books and stuff showing different color children, there's also wonderful books explaining in children's terms, explaining DNA. This is the DNA that made you you. You know you have those green eyes because your mother, your bio Mom, is white, and you have that kinky hair, you know, because your bio dad is black, and you're just such a beautiful combination of both. And don't let the world tell you that your white side is better than your black side, because it isn't right.

Unknown Speaker  34:27  
A short break right here to thank the jockey being Family Foundation for their support both of this podcast, but also of the free education courses that we offer because of their support, these are really focused on parenting, so check it out at Bitly, slash J B F, support. That's B, i, t, dot, l, y, slash, J B F, support. And now back to this great interview.

Unknown Speaker  34:55  
All right, in the in the book, what about the children? Five values for multi.

Unknown Speaker  35:00  
Racial families, that would be the subtitle. So I'm going to talk about the five values in the subtitle, five values for raising, and I'm shifting it a little bit because the five values were for a multiracial family. I want to talk about the five values for raising a biracial child, which I think they fit equally as well too. So the first value is awareness. And you talk about, and you've already alluded to some of this, but cultural racism, and that's, you know, Hollywood's portrayal the model minority when we're referring to Asians. So let's talk what. What do you mean by cultural racism, and then what can we as parents do to combat it, yeah, well, that sort of is the swung in the air that you're breathing in without even realizing it. You know, I was watching a police show with one of my sons, and after about six or seven episodes, I said, So what color is the bad guy? Usually? And he was like, black or Hispanic. And I said, Yeah. And what is his crime? Usually?

Unknown Speaker  36:04  
He's usually a drug dealer or something. And I said, Well, do you know that white people use and sell drugs at the same rate as black people? And he was like, Really, and actually, numerically speaking, because there are more white people in this country, numerically speaking, they do more, yeah, exactly, yeah, so, so. And he was just so surprised, and it was so eye opening to me, because it's like, okay, subconsciously, he was believing that black people are the drug problem in this country. And I told him about the huge rate of opioid use in New Hampshire, which is like 98% white,

Unknown Speaker  36:40  
but just watching that police show and, and I also said to both my sons one day, I said, Do you know that there are more poor whites than poor blacks in this country? And they were like, really, you know?

Unknown Speaker  36:53  
And, and it's because, again, Hollywood and the media is always showing us inner city poverty and inner cities are mostly black and brown, and you rarely see rural poverty, and rural poverty is usually white, and rural white poverty there, numerically, is is bigger, but it's sort of spread out. You don't really notice it until you need to stop for the bathroom on the highway and you don't want to stop there, you know, right? And when things are spread out, they're also watered down a little bit. You know, when things are concentrated, when people are packed together, you tend to get more crime, or more obvious crime. But we talked about some of the crimes that tend to happen in poor white communities, so without even trying, just by movies, by the media, black mug shots are shown more often on the radio, the person's race is mentioned more often if they're not white, the black suspect, you know, again, you know I touched on in school. You know, I could count on one hand the number of black authors or non white authors My children have read in school, and so subliminally, that's communicating the important authors are white, the important people in general and the important people, right? Because in history classes, right? So these are things where you don't have to be using racial slurs and saying disgusting, racial, racist things. But just by living here, you're sort of, it's like a magnet. You're just sort of picking up these ideas that white is better than black, and so to combat it, it has to be like educating yourself. You know, I think we sort of think kids don't notice things. But of course, kids notice if you're driving through, if you're driving through a rough neighborhood, and it happens to be a black and brown neighborhood, and you sort of instantly, kind of make sure the doors are locked. You don't think your kids realize that. See that, but they do see it. They do see if you live in a mostly white suburb with beautiful lawns, and they're comparing the two in their heads. So to do the work, find out. Don't be afraid to look at that in the face and say, yeah, why are suburbs mostly white, and why is the inner city mostly black and brown? And interrogate that. Am I seeing that black people, for example, have the same opportunities as white people, and they just can't figure out how to take advantage of those opportunities. So that's white supremacy, that there's something inherently wrong with black people. Or do I believe that in systemic racism, that something systemically has shut them out of opportunities. So interrogate your assumptions and then teach those to your kids. Why are why does the inner city exist in the first place? You know it has to do with with when black people came up from the south, where they were put in in northern cities.

Unknown Speaker  40:00  
So I think looking disparity in the face and finding out why disparity exists, and then teaching that to your kids, you know also under the value of awareness you talk about colorism, and it seems like that could be even more important for biracial kids. So let's talk about, what do you mean by colorism, and how would that impact a biracial child, or, more importantly, a parent raising a biracial child. Well, colorism is sort of like a like the natural outgrowth of white supremacy, which is basically the lighter the better. And you know, in this country, it came to be when white enslavers raped black slaves, and then there were biracial children born on plantations, and these biracial children were lighter, and they were given lighter work than the hard field life of darker slaves. So they were still slaves, these biracial kids, but they maybe worked inside cooking meals or taking care of kids, and it was easier lighter work. And so all of a sudden, there's sort of this pecking order that if you're lighter, you get treated better. So darker slaves resented the lighter slaves. So fast forward to today. That is still like I talked about before. That is still true. Where the lighter you are, or the more Eurocentric features you have, the more beautiful you can sit if you just look at movies and who the love interest is, if the love interest happens to be a person of color, they're rarely dark, you know, they're usually they look usually racially ambiguous, you know? So colorism is the preference for lighter skin or more Eurocentric features. And so for mixed race kids to understand, again, the complexity you have privilege because you have lighter skin, people will assume more noble things about you. You might be considered more beautiful than darker people. If it's a boy, you might be considered more handsome, less dangerous, more intelligent. So you will have more noble assumptions made about you, so I want you to realize that and be humbled by that fact. But the fact that you're lighter is not the reason why you're more beautiful. This darker your darker friend in school is just as beautiful, or in picture in this book is just as beautiful, and they're just as good and just as intelligent. So helping mixed race kids to realize, yes, you're going to be treated better, but you are not better.

Unknown Speaker  42:51  
And if you are better, and it's not because of your skin color, right? Yes, yes, right, yes, right, exactly, yeah. So if somebody is, you know, a terrible kid in class, and he happens to be darker. He's not terrible because he's darker. He's just, you know, he's just misbehaving for whatever reason.

Unknown Speaker  43:10  
All right, so now we're talking about the values for raising a biracial child or a multiracial child. I'm going to go through some of the others we've already hit on. One is humility, and that is from the parents perspective, to learn and appreciate and to stress the importance of both cultures. And then we've talked a lot about the third value, which is diversity and the fourth value, honesty. Just briefly. What do you mean by that? I mean being honest with yourself. So what did you grow up hearing about different races? Did your parents use racial slurs? Did they say things like those animals in the inner city? You know, I can't live there, you know, did you hear overt or covert racial things? Because if you grew up with that, it is in you, you might reject it consciously, but you have to interrogate that and be honest with yourself. What did I grow up learning about black or brown people? And so what do I need to undo? Did I grow up learning that black people were, you know, statistically, white people have 10 times more wealth than black people, did I grow up learning that that's because black people are lazy, and going back to the colorism, did I grow up? You were talking about how blacks adopted colorism, but so whites as well, a lighter skinned which is so my my biracial adopted child or foster child is light skinned, so that makes them less black, or that makes them so being honest with that, you also perhaps have accepted genetic superiority of colorism too, that the skin color alone is, yeah, yeah. Interesting. Genetically, my child is better because they have some Europe.

Unknown Speaker  45:00  
And genes, yeah, yeah. And the last of the five values, it's exploration. And that's something that I appreciated. In the book, you talked about your journey and and you say, to give your kids the room to explore their racial identity, and this is what I thought was so important, and to allow and acknowledge that racial identity is fluid, and your life is a good example of the fluidity and the dynamic nature of how we identify. Let's talk a little bit about the exploration before we move on to our tips section. Well, yeah, like I said, I never identified as white because my brown skin makes that ridiculous. But I did go from being confused, you know, on the on any kind of form I grew up checking other. So I went from sort of feeling like I'm an other to swinging to I'm black, and I'm proud of it, you know. And, and that was an important. It was important for me to be proud of being black. It was important, yeah, that's an important part of the journey, and then coming around to but my mom is very much in me. So I'm I am proudly both and having people around me, my husband, my friends who allow me to be both and don't expect me to be all one or all the other. So for kids, if they don't look white, then they'll probably never identify as white, although they might feel like they might culturally be more white. We talked about that. So going from that confusion of being culturally white, but in my face I look Asian, to being like, Oh, I'm happy to be Asian to but I'm Asian and white, you know. So it will likely not be an all at once awakening. It will likely be a slow awakening to I am both and and for parents to allow that, to allow and not try to over control it, because, as you said, it needs to be dynamic. So I thought that was, I thought that was such a good point and a good warning for parents, yeah, if your kids are developing Yeah. And let's be honest, anytime we try to over control anything that our kids do that's just a big fail, right? Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think we can have our ears open, like if they're sort of settling in on something that's unhealthy. So if they're saying, if they're saying, I don't like my eyes or I don't like my hair, I wish I had hair like hers, or whatever. I think, then that's sort of a signal. We need to have our ears open and we and that's a signal. And we shouldn't let our kids stay there, because that's sort of self deprecating. So we should say, No, you have beautiful hair, you know, and talk about that. And similarly, as they enter adolescence, if they start, you know, having interest like, let's say they're Asian and white, and they have no interest in Asian boys. They're like, Ooh, you know, okay, why? Why are you only having crushes on white boys? And that should be our our ears open to something that needs to be adjusted. So I'm not saying to ignore unhealthy parts of the journey that that's sort of a signal to us that maybe we need to bring some adjustment there point out some really cute Asian boys,

Unknown Speaker  48:30  
make sure that they're Asian boys in their orbit. Yeah, yeah. I was just going to ask if there were benefits or advantages that you now find to being mixed race? Yeah, I totally do. I feel like I can, I was in a room of all black women last weekend, and I'm, like, totally comfortable there, you know, I and then often I'm in a room of all white women, totally comfortable there. Like I really can jump from one to the other. I really know how to be. I know I know the jokes, I know the I know the nuances you know I know how to be. It sort of reminds me of I talked about this in the book. You know, when Barack Obama ran for president, he recognized that he was comfortable in a room of white farmers and trade unionists, because he grew up with his white grandparents, and so he didn't have to try. He just was comfortable. Yeah, and you know, he got a lot of their vote in 2008 because there was just a disarming that he was so relaxed there, and that's something that you could only have, and I think kids adopted could have that too, because they're being raised by white parents. So they know white people intimately. They're loved. They feel loved by white people. Now the work is okay. What a.

Unknown Speaker  50:00  
Out, can they be in a room full of black or Hispanic or Asian people? Right? Exactly. So we try to wrap up every show, or as many shows as we can with very practical, actionable tips for foster and adoptive parents who are facing the issues that we've just spent the last hour talking about. We have covered some of them already, but in a quick summary, kind of bullet list, thing would you be willing to give us tips for foster and adoptive parents, kinship parents who are raising a mixed race child?

Unknown Speaker  50:31  
Education, education, education. Yep, we, you know, so many white people shy away from books by non white authors like I said, Start reading, start watching the youtubes. Why is there a wealth disparity? Why? Why are there's more black men and disproportionately incarcerated than white men? Why don't be afraid to find that out, because you're going to have to tell your kids that. Because, you know, one of my sons came home from school a few months ago and said, Mom, why are there more disproportionately black men in prison, you know? And he was wrestling with it. He didn't want to think that black men are there's something wrong. They're criminals, you know. But he couldn't ignore the statistics to find out why, so that you have an answer. So, you know, education, watching those hard movies, finding out which movies can I watch with my kids, and which movies should I watch by myself, because they're really too rough. Yeah, education community, having authentic friends that you could ask. You know, it's going to take time to build those friendships, but authentic friendships, where you could ask the questions without feel you have to do the work yourself so that you're right now your educator, but if you're doing the work, you could also ask the questions. Yeah, yeah. Doing self work is one of our biggest recommendations for parents as they're preparing but also as they're going through the ages and stages with their kids. Because every age and stage of understanding requires not just a new level of parenting and a different kind of parenting, but it also requires a new level of self awareness, and that comes only from that self work. So I appreciate that, that Tim in particular, yeah, you know. And one of the things I'd like to end on, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and I wanted to end the book is written in the book is, what about the children? Five values for multiracial families. The book is written from a Christian perspective, but I want to absolutely recommend it, regardless of your faith or lack thereof, because it's not a it's written for anyone. I highly recommend it, and I recommend it specifically. If you're a white family raising a child of color, then I recommend it, but, but I do think it's one of the few resources that are out there for raising a biracial child. We don't have a lot of resources for that so, or a mixed race child. So for all those reasons, thank you so much. Nicole Doyle for being with us today to talk about raising a mixed race child. I truly appreciate it. Thank you. It's been lovely. It's been a pleasure. I love talking about this stuff, and you guys made it easy.

Unknown Speaker  53:17  
Well, good. All right. Thank you. You