{"id":43752,"date":"2015-11-04T21:06:53","date_gmt":"2015-11-04T21:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=43752"},"modified":"2015-11-04T21:08:25","modified_gmt":"2015-11-04T21:08:25","slug":"the-day-my-daughter-realized-she-isnt-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=43752","title":{"rendered":"The day my daughter realized she isn\u2019t white"},"content":{"rendered":"

The day my daughter realized she isn\u2019t white<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/a>
\n2015-11-03<\/p>\n

Lisa Papademetriou<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMama,\u201d my 4-year-old daughter said. \u201cDid you know that darks and lights didn\u2019t used to be able to go to the same places?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d I asked. It was bedtime, and I was tired. I wondered vaguely how Zara knew so much about laundry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some people who have dark skin color,\u201d she said. \u201cLights would go one place, and darks would go another,\u201d Zara went on, indignant. \u201cThere were signs saying the darks couldn\u2019t go into where the lights were!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho told you about that?\u201d I asked, and she explained that a special visitor had come to her classroom to talk about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.<\/a> She very earnestly explained the Civil Rights movement<\/a> and Dr. King\u2019s message to me. \u201cHe said that everyone should be able to go into the same places. He said people should take down the signs that kept the darks out.\u201d Growing more passionate, Zara cried, \u201cKylie and I agreed that we wouldn\u2019t go anywhere if there was a sign that said, \u2018Lights Only!\u2019 We would rip up that sign and say, \u2018Everyone can go here!\u2019\u201d Kylie has blue eyes and curly blond hair.<\/p>\n

\u201cZara, honey, I\u2019m so glad you feel that way,\u201d I told her. \u201cBut do you realize that you\u2019re not white?\u201d<\/p>\n

Stunned silence.<\/p>\n

And then: rage. \u201cI am<\/em> white!\u201d she shouted. \u201cYou\u2019re<\/em> white!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d I told her. \u201cI\u2019m white, so you are part white. But Daddy is from Pakistan<\/a>. He\u2019s brown. And that means that, in those times, you would have been considered brown, not white.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am<\/em> white!\u201d Zara wailed. \u201cI\u2019m everything<\/em>!\u201d And she burst into tears…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The day my daughter realized she isn\u2019t white The Washington Post 2015-11-03 Lisa Papademetriou \u201cMama,\u201d my 4-year-old daughter said. \u201cDid you know that darks and lights didn\u2019t used to be able to go to the same places?\u201d \u201cWhat?\u201d I asked. It was bedtime, and I was tired. I wondered vaguely how Zara knew so much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16,414,125,8,20],"tags":[21763,2875,2581],"class_list":["post-43752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-asia","category-family","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-lisa-papademetriou","tag-the-washington-post","tag-washington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43752","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=43752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43753,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43752\/revisions\/43753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}