unintentional does not mean unharmful

My mom sent a birthday card in the mail to Brett last month.  It had a Caucasian figure on the front that my mom had colored brown.  We all giggled about it, but at the same time, appreciated the gesture.  Not that we would have taken offence to the Caucasian figure, but we thought it was endearing that she noticed and recognize that representation matters. 

We participated in a couple of virtual events in honor of Martin Luther King Jr Day yesterday and I have been reflecting on the wisdom of these black leaders in our community. Often, when I have brought attention to situations where there was the likelihood that there a racial slight, my well-meaning white friends or family have said something like "Oh, it probably wasn't meant that way" or "I'm sure it was unintentional."  This is where us white people need to be careful.  I didn't understand, and am seriously just learning with my feet on the ground, that intention really has nothing to do with impact.  Being slighted based on your race over and over again has an erosive effect on a person's well-being.

Here is a sample of perceived racial slights we have experienced in our thirteen years on this journey. It's entirely possible that some of these were not based on race and I'm not saying that each, separately, is a big deal.  I'm just putting them out there as food for thought.

1. When my kids were toddlers, I had them all in my shopping cart at a craft store.  The cashier asked me if I ran out of chocolate milk.

2. When any combination of our kids were in a double stroller, we would regularly get asked if they were twins.

3.  Now that my kids are older, the boys still regularly get asked if they are twins, even though they don't look anything alike except for height and skin color (kind of like brothers would look😏).

4. I was a counselor at a new school one year and while chatting with one of the teachers, we learned that we were both adoptive mothers.  She had adopted her child through international adoption.  When I told her I adopted a baby domestically, she responded with surprise, "Wow, a white baby?"  Boy, did she eat her words! And we became good friends.

5. When I took Reggie to a new clinic, the doctor came in the room and rudely asked me to identify myself.  It was the last time we went to that clinic.

6. When Brett was about five and Reggie was about three, I had to use the bathroom at a gas station.  They were too young to leave by themselves, but still I wanted a little privacy, so I told them to stand by the sink while I went in one of the stalls.  I don't know for sure what happened next, but shortly after, a lady came out of the stall next to me and yelled at Brett, calling him a "sick peeper".

7. When my son was in first grade, he reportedly said something to a classmate that sounded like "I have a gun in my backpack." The school went into full crisis-response mode, his backpack was searched and they found nothing, and he was suspended.  When I went to the school to get him, I was told he "confessed and expressed remorse".  No one took into account that he had an articulation disorder and a language processing disorder.  Nor did they know that, being opposed to violence and aware of the dangers of black boys with toy guns, we had always used the words shooter or squirter to describe water or nerf toys.  Until that day when we had to talk about guns.

7. My boys are constantly met with high of expectations on the field and low of expectations in the classroom.  Both are harmful. 

8. This one is more related to adoption, but still applies.  When we were going through a special education reevaluation, the school psychologist repeated told us how "lucky" our son was to have us for parents, the implication being his birthparents wouldn't have advocated for him.

9. When Reggie was about six or seven and playing flag football, I arrived late to a game and accidently sat with the wrong set of parents.  When there was a break in the play, I overheard the dad next to me tell his white son to get the "big black dude."

10. Have you ever received a hand-written letter from your white kid's guest teacher gushing about how well-behaved she was? Neither have I.🙄

11. This fall, Reggie and I went in to get his glasses adjusted and the gentleman helping us guessed out loud that Reggie was 15 years old.

12.  It's true.  People assume it's okay and normal to put their hands on black hair out of curiosity. (It's not.)

13. Here I'm going to be vague on purpose for privacy.  One time I was home alone with one of my boys and I needed immediate help to keep him safe.  Bryan was a thirty minute drive away and my neighbor wasn't answering the door.  So I did what most white parents would do.  I called the police for help.  When the officers arrived, I was told not to bother them with domestic issues.  

14. Have you ever noticed that the curtain on the school stage behind the concert risers is a dark color?  I have, because I can never get a good picture of my tall kids on the top riser.

15.  It feels like our boys get picked as a "representative" more than what would happen in a random draw.  Okay, so sometimes this works in their favor.  But not always.  Recently, Reggie's ballclub was given a charity donation of expensive baseball gloves with the intention that the gloves would be given to "impoverished inner-city youth". To keep this story brief, it was Reggie's picture that was posted all over social media to promote the company and their generous donation.  Reggie was the only black kid at practice the night the president of our ballclub decided to take pictures.

16. Our kids are old enough to explore the neighborhood on their own.  But there's a neighbor that concerns me.  She tends to interrogate them unnecessarily. 

17. Picture an NBA player in your head.  Odds are, he's black.  But up until a recent edition of an NBA video game my kids like to play, when you created your own player, you were randomly given a skin color that was usually white.

18. Admittedly, wrestling is a more white-dominated sport.  But it's pretty easy to make wrestlers on awards, publications, or t-shirts race-neutral. Make it a silhouette! 

I might need to borrow my mom's crayon.