The Race To Raise My Kids

Source: kvknox.com

The technical term for an adoptive family like ours is transracial. We are white, white, white, black, and black. It confuses people when they first meet us.

“Excuse me, buddy, where are your parents?” A stranger kneels to address my son.

“I’m right here.” I wave, not ten feet from where the kids play.

“Oh, right.” The concerned dad smiles, his voice awkward, “Sorry, I didn’t…”

“No worries. Thank you.”

Nearly every day, I’m reminded our family–the Knoxes–isn’t normative. All-white families rarely become multiracial, not in the immediate sense, anyway. We did, though. And, four years into this new identity, I’ve learned a few things.

Everyone sees color.

Somehow, the guy at the park knows that people of color go with people of color, and my kid doesn’t have an appropriate person of color (POC) watching him go down the slide. If that sounds archaic, I assure you it’s not. Most instances of racial diversity in our culture require at least some mental arithmetic to process.

“Two of your kids are black, but you’re both white? Oh, you must have adopted.” Or “Wow, that board of directors is so diverse. Kudos to that company for being intentional about their leadership.” Or “Wait, we hired a new head coach, and he’s black? Our school is way more progressive than I thought!”

At the store, on the street, and every time we go for a walk, people see the colors of my family’s skin, and they give it a second thought. Black people see us and take note. White people do too. Everyone sees color.

For good and for bad, race is one way–perhaps the most prevalent way–society divides itself. Like gender, religion, sexuality, and class, race is a dominant form of social distinction in America today.

Seeing color isn’t racist. It’s honest.

My wife and I are white. Being white means we didn’t grow up understanding ourselves in terms of race. We never felt the pinch of racial socialization, so we never perceived its presence. Now, as a father of two black children, I can’t afford to be ignorant of race.

Maybe you don’t trust statistics, and you dismiss headlines that make you uncomfortable with a casual, “fake news.” But when it’s your kid (or yourself, POC), you pay attention. You read, and you ask questions.

As early as preschool, my two youngest children are more likely to experience implicit bias than their white older brother. They have a higher chance of being removed from the classroom than he does. They are four times more likely to be suspended than he is for the same infractions.

My kids live in a society where they are three times as likely to be pulled over while driving, twelve times more likely to be wrongly convicted of drug crimes, and disproportionately likely to be shot by a police officer–all because they are black and not white like their brother.

In my view, to say you don’t see color is to confess a lack of self-awareness, to lie, or to declare you’ve got few POC in your life. At best, it’s ignorant; at worst, it’s racist.

I can’t afford to be ‘colorblind.’ My kids don’t have time for me to be ignorant to or afraid of the challenges they face. They need me to do my best to understand and take action. Seeing color is one way we practice empathy and are responsible to our children, yours and mine alike.

There is a difference between being racial and being a racist.

It took me adopting two children of color to wake up to issues of race. I had a lot to learn and still do. But I will not let what I didn’t know keep me from becoming the father my children need me to be.

One distinction I didn’t understand was the difference between racialism and racism. Racialism is being conscious of the race of others. Racism is hostility toward others based on race.

Where racialism facilitates awareness of the many challenges and opportunities faced by a particular race, racism reinforces those challenges and opportunities. We live in a racial world. It’s not racist to admit it. What’s racist is refusing to try.

White people: POC drawing attention to issues of race isn’t racist.

If you’re pregnant and go to a doctor to receive care, but the doctor tells you to stop talking about it because he doesn’t experience the symptoms of pregnancy himself, you’d call him crazy. More than that, you’d immediately find a new doctor who’ll listen.

It doesn’t cause more division to highlight the realities of division. This is how we diagnose the problem. Race sensitivity isn’t an overreaction. Being more racial is how we become a society not so divided by race.

Confession isn’t telling a truth nobody knew. Confession is the practice of acknowledging that which was true the whole time. And acknowledging the forces of race in our society–having the courage to be racial–is the first step in confessing our societal sins.

I will never know the experience of being black in America.

At least 20% of the black community responds to my family with unease. In four years as a transracial family, we’ve been talked down to, yelled at, stared at, and, more than once, people have turned their heads sideways with a quizzical look, thinking: “What the what!?”

From housing, to surveillance, to wealth inequality, to policy bias, to incarceration, and on and on, my experience of America differs from that of the average black person. I’m a white male from Kansas. My parents raised me white, evangelical (once, America’s great slaveholder religion). I’m well aware that my experience has little to offer my children about being black.

I picture a man born blind. He does everything he can to experience the color yellow. He studies the science of color, he learns about light and wavelengths, and he can tell you every object in the world that appears as yellow. Still, that he can use his intellect to imagine it doesn’t mean he knows it.

I used to feel sad about this. Oh, the challenges my children already face because of their race. Add to that the reality their parents are white.

Today, I’m not sad. My kids don’t need sadness from me. They, like their brother, need a father who loves them. They need a mom who cares for them unconditionally. We also surround ourselves with POC at every turn. From childcare, to haircuts, to social outings, and close friends, our children not only interact with other POC, black people are family to us.

My wife and I are not black. That’s real. The reality of our family’s diversity will be a challenge for us all. But our longing is evidence of our love. The obstacles we face only increase our desire to navigate them well.

We are a transracial family. This isn’t the truest things about the Knoxes, but it is true. And raising my children well means seeing color. It means becoming more racial and, as much as we can, exposing them to other POC who know what it is to be black in America.