Comments on: Taye Diggs on Race, MLK Day and Fatherhood http://spanglishbaby.com/finds/taye-diggs-on-race-mlk-day-and-fatherhood/ Raising bilingual and bicultural kids Thu, 26 Jul 2018 07:12:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.2 By: Beth Ortuño http://spanglishbaby.com/finds/taye-diggs-on-race-mlk-day-and-fatherhood/#comment-65841 Beth Ortuño Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:30:31 +0000 http://spanglishbaby.com/?p=18742#comment-65841 I can remember feeling badly for the 3 black children who arrived at my elementary school in the 1970′s. Yes, there were just those 3, in the entire school. And no other diversity either. These 3 kids were siblings adopted by a white family– everyone knew their whole story within 5 minutes. I remember questions being asked by the other children that seemed to bother them, and I did not understand why it did, but I well remember the looks on their faces. I can also tell you that as a child I was told all sorts of things about “them” which my parents never intended to be hateful. Any direct experience I had was limited to my parents telling us to lock the car doors when we drove through that area of town. When I was fresh out of high school my boyfriend and I decided to get an apartment, and “N*****ville” was cheap. Yes, people called it that. We were certainly the only white couple anywhere around there. My father installed burglar bars on our windows. I had a hard time understanding my neighbors speaking to me for the first few months. This was 8 miles from my mother’s house but almost a different world. And I am not from the South. In fact my hometown was one of the important areas in the Underground Railroad network and important in the abolitionist movement, and we are proud of that history. But people can be clueless without intending to be. Please don’t get the wrong idea about my folks. My parents are very good people and tried to teach us that every person is a child of God. It is easy to be misinformed when people are separated.
Having that experience as a young adult has informed me I hope somewhat. I give my first husband credit for supporting that our daughter was interacting in or out of school with the kids in our neighborhood, although being the only white kid was not always easy. And she is now 20 years old & is comfortable interacting with any kind of people. Nowadays I’m very often the only white person (besides her!) in a family gathering, on the playground or at school functions, as I’m now married to a Mexican and we live in a “diverse” neighborhood (diverse, somehow, in every color except white). I am still to this day constantly noticing the grace of people allowing me “in” when sometimes they themselves are not always allowed “in” among other circles, among people who wouldn’t hesitate to consider me as their own.
I’m always interested in hearing stories from people who lived through dealing with these concepts as children. Both my husband in very-small-town rural Mexico and me in my segregated world had much experience at all of the realities of this, before adulthood, and even as an adult it kind of blew our minds. Neither my husband nor I have really an idea of what it might feel like for our son being “mixed”. Or being classified as one or the other.
I like the way Taye expressed the rationale for going “overboard with the blackness”. I think we kind of know this in the back of our minds and it’s great to hear it expressed so well… something I may have to memorize in order to repeat it when questioned…
Definitely will be checking out this book! Thank you for sharing this information!

]]> By: Chelsea Kyle http://spanglishbaby.com/finds/taye-diggs-on-race-mlk-day-and-fatherhood/#comment-65435 Chelsea Kyle Mon, 23 Jan 2012 01:31:58 +0000 http://spanglishbaby.com/?p=18742#comment-65435 Monica,
I do not view the portrayal of the white children in the book as intentionally negative, only as real. Taye had these experiences when he moved to a white neighborhood around age five. He is 40 years old, so this would’ve been in the 1970′s. The types of comments the children made about his hair and skin are not far-fetched.

As far as the mother’s role, it gets the message across in a quick and simple way. If the book had gone into depth about racial intricacies, it would not be age-appropriate (decipherable) for its audience.

Instead of interpreting any creative expression with a racial bent as disparaging to other races, we should try to understand the reality of individual experiences.

]]> By: Monica http://spanglishbaby.com/finds/taye-diggs-on-race-mlk-day-and-fatherhood/#comment-65374 Monica Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:18:35 +0000 http://spanglishbaby.com/?p=18742#comment-65374 I recently read Chocolate Me and found it lacking. After the white children call out the chocolate boy’s differences (using racial stereotypes I thought), his mother lovingly explains the boy’s specialness then sends him off to his friends w/ cupcakes and it’s all ok.
So while a service to the child of color the book does nothing for the white children, it stereotypes them as being the name callers.
A good thing is that this book will allow discourse if read to children. I felt the story could have also addressed the group of boys, especially since they’re all friends; and we’re all a part of the human race.
I think the story could have had more of the mother’s loving words.
That said I am curious what others think.

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