{"id":57067,"date":"2018-11-21T21:18:39","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T21:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=57067"},"modified":"2018-11-21T21:18:39","modified_gmt":"2018-11-21T21:18:39","slug":"what-it-took-to-finally-confront-my-family-about-race-and-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=57067","title":{"rendered":"What it took to finally confront my family about race and politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

What it took to finally confront my family about race and politics<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a>
\n2018-11-21<\/p>\n

Sarah Menkedick<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\u2018It<\/a>
\n\u2018It is not about politics. It is about saying, \u2018This is my life, and this is what I care about.\u2019 Illustration: Grace Helmer<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

As the mother of a mixed-race daughter, I was troubled by my white relatives\u2019 views. Why was I terrified to speak up?<\/em><\/p>\n

My four-year-old daughter has recently started to notice skin color. \u201cMommy,\u201d she points out when we take a shower, \u201cyour skin is white, and my skin is brown, and Papi\u2019s skin is brown!\u201d With a four-year-old\u2019s mania for classification, she lines up our arms in order of deepening darkness. She counts: \u201cTwo browns, and one white!\u201d<\/p>\n

The other day in the car when I said a curse word, she asked me why, and I said it was because Donald Trump<\/a> was taking children away from their mothers at the border. \u201cWhy?\u201d she asked. I tried to distill immigration down to a child\u2019s logic: \u201cBecause where they live is not safe. So they come here to have a safer life. But some people get mad that they come here. They don\u2019t want them here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he takes their kids away?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n

Her lip trembled. I once made the mistake of reading a library book about a hippo that lost its mother and she cried so hard I finally had to bust out a hidden stash of M&Ms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I reiterated that some people don\u2019t want these families here, and want to punish them. She did what she does with any situation that is incomprehensible: she just kept asking why, assuming there has to be an explanation that will make sense to her. Finally I said, \u201cBecause they have brown skin, like you and Papi. Donald Trump doesn\u2019t like brown skin.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t like brown skin?\u201d she asked. I nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t like me?\u201d she asked…<\/p>\n

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

As the mother of a mixed-race daughter, I was troubled by my white relatives\u2019 views. Why was I terrified to speak up?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,414,8,26,23674,20],"tags":[29106,2103],"class_list":["post-57067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-family","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-social-justice","category-usa","tag-sarah-menkedick","tag-the-guardian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57067","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=57067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57068,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57067\/revisions\/57068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}