The Latest from Latteland

In the end, the LB’s class used some McCain supporter vs. Obama supporter name-calling as an example of bullying. LB got to be an Obama supporter, no one played either candidate. LB was quite pleased that she a) got to support Obama and b) didn’t mess up her lines.

 

We’ve been dealing with a serious round of asthma attacks-LB will be fine for a day or two, then end up sprawled on the couch hacking her lungs out. Usually a bad episode sets her back for a week or so, but we’re into week two, with three daily medicines and still having problems. Having her regular doc on sabbatical isn’t helping-we’ve seen three different doctors (if you count the nurse-practitioner), more nurses than I can count,  plus three pharmacists in the last 9 days.

 

A long phone consultation with the fill-in doc for our regular guy this morning gave me some really helpful information. Apparently LB’s minor cold has caused some serious lung inflammation and the cold is lingering as well. So some days LB can manage, others the slightest thing such as extra activity (yesterday it was dancing to “George Washington’s favorite song” in music class) will set her off. School work has taken a backseat to her asthma-I feel like I should apologize to her poor teacher!

 

We have new asthma management plan in place and I think that will help a lot, in addition to the fact that soon the long-acting meds should begin to take hold. It’s almost noon and so far the school hasn’t called with an asthma report, so I am cautiously optimistic.

 

Asthma is a huge problem among African Americans. Not only do they have a nearly 40% higher rate of asthma than whites, they have higher rates of hospitalization and death from it.  That is something always lurking in the back of my mind every time we  go through another bout with this horrible affliction.

 

Luckily, we have a very good insurance plan and have caregivers who seem well-educated in the treatment of asthma, in addition to being culturally sensitive. But having spent $200 on hospital and doctor visits and medications in the last week, and that’s ONLY co-pays, it’s easy to see why those in poverty have a hard time getting this illness under control.

 

We can afford it, though not if we had to hand over that kind of money every week. But what about those not quite at the government-subsidized level of health care, but who can’t fork over $100 for the ER and $30 for yet another medicine that may or may not work?

 

And we’re lucky regarding work too. Lee has a very flexible and forgiving job where he can often just leave at the drop of a hat, and I work only part-time. But what about those who can get docked or fired for missing work to pick up a sick child for the third time in three days? In the end, it’s no surprise that white, affluent people have better rates of asthma management and fewer hospitalizations and deaths.

 

Other than several partially missed days of school and consternation over the class play, LB continues to like school-enough that she recommended it to a white parent of a biracial child we met in the store yesterday. She did sigh and wish out loud that there were at least one other black or black/white biracial kid in her class, though. Sometimes you just want to see a familiar looking face, you know?

 

The school’s diversity committee met with the district’s head of the advanced learning programs last week, and we found time to attend in between asthma crisis. We got some hard facts on the number of black children identified for testing into the programs last year-some 30% higher than the previous year, although only a handful ended up qualifying and moving into those programs. LB is one of only two black children on her entire floor at school!

 

But the district is making and even greater outreach this year, along with making a more direct effort to open the programs up for review to all families of color. As the director said, it can be hard to even want to take a school tour when all the parents giving those tours is white and blond.  Our committee will be helping by being tour guides, even if it means setting up special tours. We’re also linking to the parent group that works on the entire spectrum of highly advanced learning from 1^st through 12^th grade.  Maybe by the time she’s in middle school, LB will have more brown faces in her classes.

 

On another subject, LB mentioned something over the weekend that I’d noticed as well. She had her third week of her beloved hip hop class on Saturday-we finally have a teacher almost as good as her original, beloved Coach T (it helps that she’s one of Coach T’s teen group members and the new group leader). Every session has started with a wide range of kids, from age 5 or so up to young teens, boys and girls, black and white and other ethnicities as well. BUT, by the third class or so, all the white kids have dropped out.

 

The area is changing, with more whites moving in every day, so it’s no surprise to see more well-off white parents and their kids turn up for this and other classes each season. But although the instructors have always been welcoming to kids of any ability and background, the Caucasian families never stick around. It’s not the music, it’s always kid-friendly. It’s not the parents-we welcome any chance to chat up our kids’ interest in dance.

 

What makes it even more baffling is that I’m rarely the only white mother there, but those of us who stay have the kids of color-it’s the all-white families who never stick it out. I wonder why-I’m not sure what the drop-out mothers and kids are expecting when they come-or why they leave.

 

All in all, this has been a week of reminders that life in a family with a child of color sees some things through a different lens. I suspect it will always be so.

“You Should be Obama”

LB’s class is writing a play as part of the school’s anti-bullying program. They’re doing it like a newscast, where there will be interviews with kids about bullying and a mock expert on what to do about it. And the end of the “broadcast” they want to say something like, “and coming up, the debate between Barak Obama and John McCain”

 

Two of LB’s classmates decided that she should be Obama, since after all, she is the only one in the class who is a mix of black and white like he is. Interestingly, one of the girls making this proposal is also biracial, but she doesn’t have any black heritage. LB thinks it’s just ludicrous.

 

“I suppose,” she said, yanking her hair back as tight as it would go, “that if I do THIS, then I MIGHT look like a boy.” Though she’s a fierce Obama supporter (she’s waiting with baited breath the next debate), she doesn’t want to BE him!

 

It reminds me of the time Lee was in high school and asked to be in the class play because the play had a black male character and he was, well, black. He’d never expressed an interest in drama, ever, and therefore, declined. A white student played that character. They also asked the sole black girl in the class to play the black female role, she also declined.

 

It’s a scenario that has simply never come up in LB’s schooling. In her previous schools, chances are that ANY play would have by definition been cast with primarily children of color. In her preschool through first grade classes, it wouldn’t have even been an option to have white kids in any roles, because there were none.

 

I suspect that the teacher will rule out the political segue altogether, since it really has nothing to do with bullying and there’s only so much time they have to write and produce this thing. But I wonder what LB will do if it comes down to her still being asked to play Obama, who is a BOY, biracial though she is.

 

On a related note, the teacher has been talking about upcoming subjects and mentioned that history will be starting soon. The class will cover colonial history, something LB isn’t too crazy about. “I think they should do civil rights,” she announced out of the clear blue sky the other day.

 

Luckily we just had a curriculum night with handouts and all, so I had a ready answer to that. According to the paper her teacher gave out, although colonial history will be included, so will civil rights and a bit on how various populations got to this country. I suggested that Ms. G appears to be planning more than just typical colonial history after all. And there’s something more LB can do if she wants to share some black history with her class.

 

The kids will all be doing a unit on family history which they will share with their classmates (I think this will be school-wide) and I told LB that she might take that opportunity to explore how her black ancestors lived as well as her Italian and Polish ones. She’s taking that under advisement.

 

Otherwise, school goes well. After a start that had LB thoroughly intimidated by all the new faces, she’s found some friends and is also enjoying the school work (with the exception of certain math assignments). She has a perfect record on her spelling tests (the teacher uses often misspelled words), and would rather pluck her eyelashes out than do cursive. She loves science and is enjoying the terrarium and aquarium at each set of tables.

 

The parent diversity committee continues its work to diversify the school and to bring cultural awareness to the parents and students. We have an event planned for December, which will focus on various cultures’ holiday customs. Things are good.

 

Now if we could get the buses to run on time…

Hot Seat Time

In about an hour and a half, Lee, I and several other parents will be meeting with the school district’s leader of the advanced learning programs along with the principal of the school where we’re sending LB next fall. In preparation for the meeting, I reread the report released last fall about the program. Once again, I was not encouraged.

Having now met some of the people staked with making the recommended changes, and having signed on to send LB into the fray, though, the report has a different feel. Because the meeting will focus on diversity issues, it gives Lee and I a specific focus for both statements and questions.

The essence of the statement I plan to make is this:I grew up in a middle-class white neighborhood, went to an all-white private school, and the closest I ever came to being bullied at the elementary level was being called a teacher’s pet. HOWEVER, I knew that if I had a real problem, I could go to the teachers, and certainly my parents knew that they could. This report makes it clear that children of color at the school in question are bullied because of their skin by both students and TEACHERS. Further, it says that neither they, nor their parents have found a “trustworthy” response from some teachers and administrators.

My question is: The report says that teachers, administrators and counselors  involved in this program should receive cultural sensitivity training to appropriately address this issue and formulate a proper response to racial bullying. WHAT IS BEING DONE so that my child won’t be on the receiving end of racial harassment? And, what are you doing so that parents like us feel HEARD?

I’ll let you know how it goes.

The Hair Thing – Part 1

LB was at “vacation camp” today, where she met up with a fourth grade boy, who is black, and who took exception to LB’s short, kink-free hair. He taunted her by saying that her hair must be a wig, and that it looked like something his grandmother would wear, only not as good.

LB took the opportunity to mention that he’d misspelled the word “stupid” in his note, but the words about her hair stung. Until July it was nearly 3 feet long. A seemingly never-ending battle with lice changed that, but even long, LB’s hair was merely wavy, never tightly kinked the way African hair grows. It was, as her father often said, the kind of hair some black women would kill for.  

Black hair has a long history fraught with meaning. A hair cut is never just hair cut, and LB’s radical change in style has provoked a lot of comments, both positive and negative. Some of her aunties cried. Some black friends gasped in horror. And the little girlfriends who loved to play hair salon with LB’s crowning glory felt cheated and complained.

It was all because of her long, sleek look, with no worries about needing to straighten it, braid it, or otherwise style it into submission. It could be put up, left down, braided, cornrowed, pigtailed or even put into a bun, the way some exclusive dance schools require. She didn’t cry when she saw a comb like her little cousin, and she didn’t leave a tub full of tiny black springs of hair when she took a bath. 

And yet, for all of the compliments LB got, she was also told more than once that her hair wasn’t “black”, but it wasn’t about the color.  The kids who commented meant hair that needed a flat iron to look like hers, that would never “flow”, even when it WAS straight, and that HERS didn’t look, and never would look, “African”.  And that’s what the boy this afternoon meant.

I can’t say I mind having 10 minutes extra every morning now that all LB needs to do is run a comb through her hair. But I miss the multitude of choices we had-barrettes or headband, ponytail or “zulu knots”, side part, middle part, or pulled straight back?

LB’s father is still in mourning. He grew up watching his mother and sisters flat iron, curl and chemically process their hair so that it looked less kinky, or cover it altogether with a wig. Even today, neither of his sisters living in the area “go natural”.  He loved LB’s long, wavy hair and knew that it was one way that to some extent, it would help her “fit in”. In an era where long, wavy hair is highly valued (just take a look in any magazine) he knew that would only be an asset.

But…it’s not that simple. What Lee’s mother and sisters, and thousands of others like them did and continue to do, is make their hair into something it is not, and yet-that’s the ideal for so many black women. LB, as she is so often, was in the middle of the debate.

I called this “Part 1” because there are other issues involving hair and ethnicity-hair care itself, for one thing.  Black hair (or biracial hair) needs different care than “white hair”, and that’s a whole post in itself.  And there’s the issue of hairstyles, and why some blacks AND whites still feel “nappy hair” isn’t ok. 

For now, LB will continue to grow her hair out-she’s thinking she’ll stop at about shoulder length. That way we can braid it, part it, and put it up or leave it down. And someone will still probably tell her it isn’t black.

A kid like me on TV

LB does not watch the television show Heroes, but it’s her new favorite show. She was leafing through the newest TV Guide magazine and discovered a picture of a family from the show in which the mother is white (much younger, prettier and blonder than I), the father is black (younger, etc. etc. than Lee), and the child is biracial, and about LB’s age.

“MOM! Look at this! This boy is MIXED! Look at the mom! Look at the dad! Can you tape the show for me? Please? Pleeeeaaaasssseeee?”

I don’t watch it myself, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t material for eight-year-olds. The five minutes I caught last year actually involved this family and the child was in serious jeopardy with the mother’s evil twin pretending to be the real mom, or something like that. LB gets nervous easily as it is. I don’t think she’d handle that too well.

But I can see why she got so excited. There aren’t many kids of color on TV, and if there’s another mixed-race family, I haven’t seen it. The Disney Channel seems to have realized that all families aren’t white and blond. That’s So Raven and Cory in the House, a spin off, both feature not only black families, but supporting actors of various ethnicities. I’m not surprised that they are among LB’s favorite shows. Some of the other hot ones like the Suite Life of Zack and Cody and Hannah Montana also have non-white cast members. She likes those too.

With television, movies, books and other media, it’s not always easy to find stories and characters that speak to children of color. Ask anyone for their list of “classics” and they will reel off title after title of Caucasian-centric media. They may very well BE classics, but they don’t speak to ALL kids.

Disney is one thing. They know kids. They know how to market to kids. But it’s nice to see a family in a mainstream show that doesn’t mirror the typical TV family, even if LB won’t be watching it soon. She knows it’s out there, and that’s the important thing.

LB settled into the car yesterday and huffed, “I am mad at Mr. M.” Mr. M is her literacy teacher, but is otherwise known as the librarian. Once a week the class files into his library and he reads a story to them, then they discuss it. Yesterday being Halloween, the topic was Halloween and Day of the Dead traditions around the world.  So why was LB mad?

 It seems that Mr. M read a passage about the Polish tradition for Halloween which somehow included a notation that Poles are white. LB pointed out to me, “I am part Polish, and anybody can see that I am NOT white!”

I explained to LB that most people in Poland are white, and that Polish Americans are usually white, like her grandfather and great-grandfather “S”. I added that Mr. M wasn’t trying to insult her, but that being biracial she has a unique mix of ethnicities that that might not be found in most books.

That seemed to satisfy her and she’s not mad at Mr. M any more.  But it underscored the fact that LB, like many biracial kids, has a sense that she straddles two camps and fits neatly in neither. There’s a strong sense of belonging for many who identify as Caucasian (or Polish, or Italian, etc.) or black, but biracial kids realize early on that they aren’t quite one or the other. 

LB has been sick, so we didn’t go Trick or Treating last night. She still dressed up, though, to help us hand out the candy. She chose, as she does every year, to be a princess. I pulled out some of my eye shadow and brushed her eyes with shades of purple, to match her dress. Then I added my blush, and all it did was make her look dusty. We went down to her room and found the deeper shade from a “black” line of makeup that I’d bought by mistake. It made me look clownish, but on LB it was just right.

There, in a nutshell, was an illustration of the biracial juggle that LB does daily-eyeshadow a white woman can wear, blush for black skin. She took a look in the mirror, and for last night at least, my Polish-Italian-German-African-American princess  was happy with the skin she’s in.