{"id":40083,"date":"2015-02-23T19:33:04","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T19:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=40083"},"modified":"2016-10-26T22:29:54","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T22:29:54","slug":"an-open-letter-to-the-white-fathers-of-black-daughters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=40083","title":{"rendered":"An Open Letter to the White Fathers of Black Daughters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bluestockingsmag.com\/2015\/02\/23\/an-open-letter-to-the-white-fathers-of-black-daughters\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>An Open Letter to the White Fathers of Black Daughters<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bluestockingsmag.com\" target=\"_blank\">bluestockings magazine<\/a><br \/>\n2015-02-23<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kelsey Henry<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I have been drafting this letter since I was ten. I am twenty and tonight is the first night I will write these words outside of me. I don\u2019t know what they will look like here. Honestly, I am scared to see them uncoiled and still damp from the sweaty palms that have enclosed them for a decade. I am so accustomed to holding fistfuls of aching, rambunctious words around you, Dad. More than anything, I wish you would ask me to open my hands, and actually listen to what you see, what I say, what you hear.<\/p>\n<p>But that is not how we work, is it? I give you the words you don\u2019t know how to ask for. We know all our scripted prompts for loving cautiously. We are used to trafficking in glass blown conversations. I will not, I cannot, do this with you anymore. I love you too much for this, so listen.<\/p>\n<p>Dad, you are a white man. I know this might come as a shock because people do not tell you this too often. You are not approached on the street, in the movies, at the workplace, and ordered to explain your race so strangers can \u201cread\u201d you properly and treat you accordingly. You have both the privilege and the curse of living in the unmarked, white blind spot of the American racial imaginary. If you have enjoyed living there, departing only to return comfortably home to White every night, I\u2019m afraid you have a problem.<\/p>\n<p>Me. I am your problem&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;Dad, since then you have flickered. You are swallowed by whiteness and become racially inaccessible to me the moment my race comes to the fore. When I become Black Girl you become White Man and we are not each other\u2019s anymore&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/bluestockingsmag.com\/2015\/02\/23\/an-open-letter-to-the-white-fathers-of-black-daughters\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Open Letter to the White Fathers of Black Daughters bluestockings magazine 2015-02-23 Kelsey Henry I have been drafting this letter since I was ten. I am twenty and tonight is the first night I will write these words outside of me. I don\u2019t know what they will look like here. Honestly, I am scared [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,395,414,20,25],"tags":[17006,19384],"class_list":["post-40083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-family","category-usa","category-women","tag-bluestockings-magazine","tag-kelsey-henry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43485,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40083\/revisions\/43485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}