When You Are The Girl A Shade Lighter, You Aren't Black Enough to be "Black"..

How do you raise mixed race children? Do you raise them to know their two, or in my case 3 cultures. Or do you raise them to identify with how they appear?  What happens when their own race excludes them? This may see like an odd question but look at the picture of my lovees.

My oldest on the left is much darker than her sister next to her and my daughter to the right of me is a shade darker than my light skinned lovelie. Then there is my grandson who is more African American than my daughters are and he is completely not African American looking. I call my girls the Neopolitan sisters, chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. My lovelies are 1/4 African American, 1/4 Native American, from their father and 1/2 Mexican American from me. I have blogged about this before, how when I was pregnant with my first daughter I was terrified she would be born with locks I did not know how to comb. Nevermind that my hair is supercurly and tends to have a kitchen that is quite nappy...no I worried too that she would be really dark and people would not believe she was mine. She was born and was born perfect, and a beautiful cinnamon color. She looked just like her Dad. After that it did not concern me when I became pregnant with my other children. I have raised all of my girls with a knowledge of all of their cultures, raised them to be proud of being who they are.

As they grew and went to school I realized that for my oldest she had problems with black girls liking her. Probably because their boyfriends liked her. Thats the conclusion I drew. Was it her lighter skin, her "good" hair that she could toss from side to side. What was it that the black girls disliked about her?  I never thought my children would experience exclusion from their own races. My other daughters pass as Mexicans, and really dont have a lot of issues with their friends until they announce their racial makeup, and then they get the "yeah rights!" when people learn they are black too. My middle daughter Vanilla, I will call her..has had a best friend that is black since third grade, her friends don't like my daughter, she does not "look black enough, or act black enough", these are my daughters words, they are 15 and 16 now. So how do you look and act black enough anyway?  That does not stop them from continuing their friendship. They have just grown up and gone different ways but still to this day hang out and call eachother sisters. 

In talking to friends that have mixed race or biracial children I have often hear the same complaint. The black girls don't like their daughters either....the sons they have no problem with, but the daughters a different story.  I do and don't get it I know a lot of Mexicans that did not like me, because to them I was whitewashed. I was also very fair skinned as far as Mexicans go. I did not grow up speaking Spanish and my Mom did not make tripas or homemade tortillas, she did make lots of other great food. I never worked in the fields and neither did my parents. So I was deemed "too good" to hang out with certain people.

What goes in in the mind of a dark complected girl when they are growing up that makes them dislike a girl the shade or two lighter. Does she grow up feeling inferior? Having less self esteem?  Did someone make her learn to feel threatened by a white woman? Or is it that age old don't let no white woman take your black man Sistas! Aint no Barbie doll lookin bitch gonna be with him! Oh noooah! This is for lack of a better description reverse discrimination.

So I get that some people don't think mixing races is right or not for them. Personally it was not a race thing for me. My Dad swears it was, that I had sex with a black man to spite him....hah. Actually I only ever had two Mexican boyfriends, before I was 13, after that they were white. I was an equal opportunity dater. I actually don't like (ughh I know I will get flack for this) Mexican men. Go figure. I don't get how a person is supposed to control who they fall in love with? Guess whos coming to dinner? Jungle Fever... I hate that stereotyping thing we are all guilty of it, besides it is not always a white woman with a black man... there are plenty of white men with black women.

All I can say is love who you love, and love yourself enought to not hate my lightskinned daughters before you take the time to truly know them. They aren't here to compete with you, embrace the beauty within. If we all had no skin and could only be judged by our words, or our actions then we would genuinely "know" a person. Besides I dont think blood comes a lighter shade and we all bleed dont we?