I Have a Secret… I Hope My Biracial Children Don’t Partner With White People.

Or if not partner with white people, I hope they don’t choose to be in mostly white spaces surrounded by predominately white people.

Photo by krakenimages on Unsplash

Yes, I know that I’m white and it’s not because of self hate. It’s also not because I hate other white people. I don’t.

I know too that I just wrote a piece a short time ago about how I can’t give up on white people. What I’m trying to do here in sharing my secret, is express that the thoughts and feelings that I have about race are convoluted. It’s really complicated and that’s ok.

I’m also being open about race. I’m trying to do the thing that I learned as a white person you should never do - be in touch with and convey to others my thoughts, feelings, and fears related to race. So, please if you share some hard truths with me - keep this in mind.

I’m not saying my thoughts and feelings here are right. I’m not making an argument for why I should feel this way or laying out my justification and reasons. I’m putting it out here to resist the practice of keeping these things bottled up. I’m trying to disrupt the norms of whiteness and the ways my racial group doesn’t meaningfully examine race, racism, and how our lives inevitably intersect with these things. In writing here, I’m opposing how whiteness taught me to not acknowledge or recognize that we white people can’t escape being caught up in racism. I’m challenging the way whiteness tells us we aren’t a part of it. I’m saying, it’s unavoidable for everyone because we live in a social system where it’s the air we breathe.

My first thought, as to why I held my secret fear, is because I know my people. We white people have a really hard time with race. In general, we aren’t good with confronting the racial harm we’ve caused and we’re really bad at supporting structural transformation that could create equity. I know that whiteness devalues all that it considers not white. I know that whiteness makes the world less safe for my kids - that it threatens their very breath. I do truly believe in the capacity of white people to grow and change. But I don’t want it to come at the expense of my kids, their safety, and their wholeness.

But that wasn’t it. There was something deeper. What about me and my connection to whiteness made me feel this way?

I’ve really had to sit with this fear. I knew - because of the shame that it brought and the way I kept it secret - I needed to try and understand it. You see, one thing I’ve learned in my journey thinking, talking, and writing about race is that whiteness often uses shame to silence us. Shame around race and racism is a tool of whiteness - it taught me to avoid the shameful things so that I maintain the status quo.

If I’m being really honest, this worry I have about my kids it’s not about other white people. It’s about me. I worry, because I lack experience and knowledge attending to race and resisting racial oppression, that I’ll fail them.

Because whiteness has long been my norm and invisible to me, I’m afraid that I won’t see where and when the toxicity of our racial structure is harming them or when whiteness is besetting them. I’m worried that my biracial children choosing a white partner could reflect an embrace of whiteness because I didn’t do a good job at helping them refuse the message prevalent in US culture that white is best. I’m really, truly frightened that they could feel the need to reject their blackness in order to be accepted by whiteness. I recognize that having me - a white mom - makes it hard for them in ways I’ll never understand, that’s why I’m afraid.

I know myself. I know the struggles I’ve had to overcome around race. I know that I’m no where near done the work I’m meant to do. Loving my black partner well and pursuing wholeness, health, and well-being for my mixed race family, whiteness did nothing to prepare me for this. In fact, my white socialization taught me how to fail miserably at it. I know that, though I resist it everyday, whiteness still has influence over me.

I know some of the most gracious, kind, generous, and loving white people. But I also know whiteness and the impact it has on us. I know the struggles that I face with my own white loved ones. I know about how difficult it is for us to truly understand fear and pain associated with being in relationship and with loving people who do not get to share in the privilege and safety that whiteness affords us.

I don’t have the answers. But I choose love. To love myself and my family well, those of color and those who are white, I have to do something. I also choose wholeness and justice and desire to show up in ways that reinforce these values. I’m learning that, part of the complexity here is doing inner work, so that the outer work of resisting injustice and healing brokenness is possible.

To promote equity, I must unlearn the ways I uphold inequity. I have to listen, pay attention, and counter the temptation to look away from racial imbalance. To be whole, I must overcome fear, resist violence, and sit with shame. For healing, I need to slow down, practice humility, learn to reflect, and speak with intention and care. I won’t allow whiteness to keep me silent, fearful, and broken. Please, my white friends, join me.