{"id":48603,"date":"2016-08-09T18:19:39","date_gmt":"2016-08-09T18:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=48603"},"modified":"2016-10-26T22:36:51","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T22:36:51","slug":"white-kc-mom-of-mixed-family-on-why-she-constantly-checks-white-privilege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=48603","title":{"rendered":"White KC mom of mixed family on why she constantly checks white privilege"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kansascity.com\/living\/family\/article91255767.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>White KC mom of mixed family on why she constantly checks white privilege<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kansascity.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Kansas City Star<\/a><br \/>\n2016-07-24<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/aaronronel\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Aaron Randle<\/strong><\/a>, Culture Writer<\/p>\n<div class=\"mcclatchy-embed\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kansascity.com\/living\/family\/article91525877.html\/video-embed\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Amanda and Kenton Campbell have a mixed daughter and adopted son from Haiti<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>\u201cI\u2019m so past the warm and fuzzy point,\u201d the 36-year-old mom says<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Amanda Campbell is ready when you are.<\/p>\n<p>Ready to get uncomfortable. Ready to share that article on your Facebook feed about why \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Black_Lives_Matter\" target=\"_blank\">Black Lives Matter<\/a>\u201d is necessary. Ready to explain to you why \u201cAll Lives Matter\u201d is not. Ready to check you on your white privilege.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m so past the warm and fuzzy point,\u201d the 36-year-old mom says, exasperated, as she leans back in the sofa in her <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Brookside,_Kansas_City\" target=\"_blank\">Brookside<\/a> living room. Her husband, Kenton Campbell, 33, who is black, lounges his 6-foot-3 frame on a chaise to her right.<\/p>\n<p>Their mixed-race daughter, Jocelyn, 5, with cocoa butter skin and a head full of curls, lies across her lap fiddling with a baby doll. Isaac, 8, their dark-skinned, Haitian-born, adopted son, is in the sunroom around the corner toying with a video game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen people are like, \u2018I don\u2019t want to see (race), I don\u2019t want to hear about it,\u2019 that doesn\u2019t exist for me,\u201d Amanda says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPost-racial America\u201d can try to be as blithely colorblind as it\u2019d like. That isn\u2019t an option in the Campbell household. Race permeates the fabric of their existence.<\/p>\n<p>Amanda recalls the time her aunt, who\u2019s also white, told her \u201cshe doesn\u2019t see color.\u201d Amanda began to tell her that was a load of crap. \u201cWell actually, Aunty, being colorblind is \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s when Kenton, feeling his wife about to enter \u201cWhite Ally\u201d mode, tugged at her arm to reel her back in.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was like, \u2018Don\u2019t go there!\u2019 \u201d she says with a laugh. \u201cBut it\u2019s like, if I don\u2019t go there \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The sentiment is understood: If Amanda or any other white person who gets the complexities and struggles of black America doesn\u2019t take the opportunity to educate other whites in casual white-privilege moments, who else will?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m ready to talk about (racism). But overall I would say 90 percent of America is not open to it,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m not a percentage as vocal as I\u2019d like to be, but I know that if you are too much, and some people think that I am, that there\u2019s a wall that comes up. It\u2019s a constant balancing act.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For the Campbells, everyday life as an interracial couple raising both a mixed and black child requires skillful straddling. On one hand, Amanda gets weary of having to educate others. But then again, as the sole white member of the family, she feels an obligation to operate as an ally and advocate, to call out prejudice when she sees it&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kansascity.com\/living\/family\/article91255767.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>White KC mom of mixed family on why she constantly checks white privilege The Kansas City Star 2016-07-24 Aaron Randle, Culture Writer Amanda and Kenton Campbell have a mixed daughter and adopted son from Haiti \u201cI\u2019m so past the warm and fuzzy point,\u201d the 36-year-old mom says Amanda Campbell is ready when you are. Ready [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,414,8,23674,20],"tags":[24725,24724,22169,5059,24726,773,14660],"class_list":["post-48603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-family","category-media-archive","category-social-justice","category-usa","tag-aaron-randle","tag-amanda-campbell","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-star","tag-kenton-campbell","tag-missouri","tag-the-kansas-city-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48603","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=48603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48604,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48603\/revisions\/48604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}