Mixed Race Studies

Raising Multiracial Children, Part 2: Anti-Blackness in Multiracial Families

EmbraceRace
2020-07-24

Hosted By:

Andrew Grant-Thomas, Co-Founder
Melissa Giraud, Co-Founder

Guest Speakers:

Dr. Victoria K. Malaney Brown, Director of Academic Integrity
Columbia University, New York, New York

Dr. Marcella Runell Hall, Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students
Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts

Dr. Kelly Faye Jackson, Associate Professor of Social Work
Arizona State University

In Part 2 of this conversation about raising multiracial kids, our guests – Drs. Victoria Malaney Brown, Marcella Runell Hall and Kelly Faye Jackson – return to discuss anti-Blackness and how anti-Black messaging shows up in multiracial families (including non-Black families). Referencing recent examples from social media, our guests breakdown three common myths that perpetuate anti-Blackness within multiracial families, and describe how these myths negatively impact the identity development of multiracial Black children specifically. We also talk about concrete steps that parents and caregivers can take now to actively reject White supremacy and anti-Blackness and build resilience as a multiracial family.

Be sure to check out the previous conversation in this pair, Raising Multiracial Children, Part 1: Examining Multiracial Identity.

Watch the video and read the transcript here.

Raising Multiracial Children, Part 1: Examining Multiracial Identity

EmbraceRace
2020-07-24

Hosted By:

Andrew Grant-Thomas, Co-Founder
Melissa Giraud, Co-Founder

Guest Speakers:

Dr. Victoria K. Malaney Brown, Director of Academic Integrity
Columbia University, New York, New York

Dr. Marcella Runell Hall, Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students
Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts

Dr. Kelly Faye Jackson, Associate Professor of Social Work
Arizona State University

Roughly one in seven U.S. infants (14%) are multiracial or multiethnic (Pew, 2017), but what does it mean to be multiracial? It’s complicated!

In Part 1 in this conversation about raising multiracial kids we speak with our guests – Drs. Victoria Malaney Brown, Marcella Runell Hall and Kelly Faye Jackson – about some of the complexities of identifying with more than one race, and about the pivotal role families play in shaping how multiracial children come to understand themselves and the world around them. This dynamic is especially complex in this historical moment as the United States comes to terms with its own White supremacist roots.

Our guests describe the challenges and strengths of identifying with more than one racial group, highlighting examples from recent research, and draw from their own personal experiences as multiracial individuals and parents of multiracial children. As always we end with your questions and comments.

Watch the video and read the transcript here.

Got something to say about race and kids?

Medium
2017-07-15

Andrew Grant-Thomas, Co-Founder
EmbraceRace

Let’s have it.

What do these pieces have in common?

“But Daddy, I’m a scientist, too!”

Why are all the white dolls sitting together on the Target shelf?

Muslim in Trump’s America…

Read the entire article here.

Yes, I’m Black! Here’s why.

Medium
2016-06-16

Megan Madison, Doris Duke Fellow
School for Social Policy and Management
Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts

Part of an EmbraceRace series on “mixed-race” identity.

Based on how people identify themselves, and accounting for their parents’ and grandparents’ identities, the Pew Research Center recently found that 7% of US adults are “mixed-race.” Mixed-race kids are at least double that proportion of all children.

The mixed-race population is the fastest-growing racial group in the country and, although most people who could identify as multiracial do not, they are a fast-growing political force as well.

EmbraceRace invited members of our community to talk about their experiences as mixed-race people. We provided Dr. Maria Root’s 1993 Bill of Rights for People of Mixed Heritage as a prompt, which several writers identified as crucial to their own early development as multiracial/mixed- race people. We asked them to use it in any way they wished, or not at all.

Below you’ll find “Yes, I’m Black! Here’s Why,” by Megan Madison.

It was Passover. And as an anti-bias educator, I couldn’t help using the Exodus story as an opportunity to talk about civil disobedience, to talk about the difference between just laws and unjust laws. And just as we were discussing the bravery it must have taken Moshe to stand up to Pharaoh, the GPS interrupted, instructing us to turn left onto MLK Blvd.

“Do you know who Martin Luther King Jr. was?” I asked.

“Yeah. I know already.” My white 8-year-old nephew in the backseat rolled his eyes. “The busses and everything.”

We talked for a while longer about risk, and courage, and sticking up for what we believe in. And then came the question that triggered in me a familiar warm wash of shame and panic: “You’re black?” he asked.

I glanced up at my reflection in the rearview mirror.

“Yep. I’m Black,” I replied, doing my best to convey the assuredness that I’ve learned can sometimes protect me from further interrogation. The air of confidence that might just save me from having to justify my existence one more time, spare me from having to trot out version #7,280 (5 times per week x 52 weeks per year x 28 years — rough estimate) of the speech I’ve given since childhood…

Read the entire article here.