{"id":59818,"date":"2020-06-26T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-26T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=59818"},"modified":"2020-06-26T02:00:02","modified_gmt":"2020-06-26T02:00:02","slug":"my-grandparents-were-racist-heres-how-i-moved-on-with-my-head-held-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=59818","title":{"rendered":"My grandparents were racist. Here\u2019s how I moved on with my head held high."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/2020\/06\/23\/my-grandparents-were-racist-heres-how-i-moved-with-my-head-held-high\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em><strong>My grandparents were racist. Here\u2019s how I moved on with my head held high.<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Washington Post<\/a><br \/>\n2020-06-23<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Carolyn_Copes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Carolyn Copeland<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"550\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/2020\/06\/23\/my-grandparents-were-racist-heres-how-i-moved-with-my-head-held-high\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-apps\/imrs.php?src=https:\/\/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/LJTQQ2ZKKREQ7BZ5TOT44UOOJU.png&amp;w=916\" width=\"550\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<small>The author, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Carolyn_Copes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carolyn Copeland<\/a>, circa 1998, when she was about 7, with her father, Brian Copeland, her mother, Mary Copeland, and her brothers Casey, left, and Adam. (Carolyn Copeland)<\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>My grandparents loved to take photos, but there are no pictures of them holding me as a baby. They weren\u2019t in attendance at my birth, my baptism or any of my birthdays. That\u2019s because for the first few years of my life, my grandparents rejected me and my two brothers because we are black.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve hesitated over the years to share my story publicly out of fear that I would embarrass or hurt the people in my extended family, but with the demonstrations taking place around the country after the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Killing_of_George_Floyd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">police killing of George Floyd<\/a>, I feel it has never been a more important time to reveal my personal experience with racism and explain the different ways it has shown its face within my family. The age of \u201cgoing along to get along\u201d is over.<\/p>\n<p>From the moment my white mother started dating my black father in the late 1980s, her father disowned her. From that point forward, on my grandfather\u2019s orders, my parents were disinvited from all family gatherings. My grandmother \u2014 who said from the beginning that she was against the idea \u2014 still complied. Neither attended my parents\u2019 wedding&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/2020\/06\/23\/my-grandparents-were-racist-heres-how-i-moved-with-my-head-held-high\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My grandparents loved to take photos, but there are no pictures of them holding me as a baby. They weren\u2019t in attendance at my birth, my baptism or any of my birthdays. That\u2019s because for the first few years of my life, my grandparents rejected me and my two brothers because we are black.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,395,1245,414,8,20],"tags":[30931,30928,30926,30930,30929,2875,2581],"class_list":["post-59818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-biography","category-family","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-adam-copeland","tag-brian-copeland","tag-carolyn-copeland","tag-casey-copeland","tag-mary-copeland","tag-the-washington-post","tag-washington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59818","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=59818"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59820,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59818\/revisions\/59820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}