About 6 months ago, one of the dreaded yet inevitable realities of having young children occurred: we got the stomach bug.
It started with our youngest child, then hit our older child and then, just for fun, I got it, too. My husband somehow escaped it, for which I am bitter happy.
After I was well enough to get off the bathroom floor but not well enough to get out of bed, I productively spent many, many hours binge watching Netflix’s Grace and Frankie.
The show is hilarious, and I could write a lot about it, but as I’ve been thinking a lot lately about race, I remembered one thing that made an impression on me. Frankie, one of the two 70-ish female protagonists, dates a farmer named Jacob. I’m a little apprehensive to say this but I was surprised to find out that Jacob was black.
Their relationship didn’t surprise me. What surprised me was that Jacob, a black man, was a farmer. When I asked myself why, I realized I don’t think I had ever seen a black farmer in the United States. Somehow in my 34 years on earth, this had not occurred.
Off topic, again
I never thought I would be writing blog posts about pandemics and racism but the events taking place this year, particularly in the country where I am raising my children, demand some sort of response. A break from the usual.
So while the last post was about surviving the pandemic, this post, with the unrest over the murder of innocent black citizens still palpable, is about trying to do something to address the reality of racism while living my very white life.
During the days and weeks following George Floyd’s murder, there was a back and forth in our home between wanting to know what was going on and simultaneously wishing we were not watching the news. Racial injustice is nothing new and, honestly, we should have taken a stronger stand against it earlier.
We finally did do something. And choosing to do something has led to doing a few things.
1. Telling my kids (and myself) the truth
Sometimes being a parent forces you into unpleasant conversations (like when your 4 year old asks you, within ear shot of your neighbor, if you have a baby in your tummy and you say loudly: “no, mommy does not have a baby in her tummy. That is just her food”).
But sometimes you have to have unpleasant conversations for a good cause. Like when you tell your kids about racism for the first time.
Shortly after George Floyd was murdered, our oldest daughter asked about the sidewalk chalk writing in front of our neighbor’s home where they had written Black Lives Matter. The first time we walked by it I honestly tried to ignore the writing so she wouldn’t ask questions. I didn’t know what to say to her.
The next time she walked by it, with my husband Ryan, she asked him about it. He explained that sometimes people are treated differently/badly because of the color of their skin. Since she is only 4 and very sensitive, he didn’t get into too many more details.
A few days later we hosted a candlelit vigil with some neighbors to acknowledge George Floyd and systemic racism. A few hours before the vigil started, as we drove home from an errand, I decided I needed to explain what the vigil was about. I reiterated what Ryan had already told her and explained that this is why we would be lighting candles. To acknowledge that this happens. To say it’s not OK and that Jesus doesn’t like it, either.
2. Educating myself
Plenty of resources will tell you that if you want to do something about systemic racism, you should educate yourself.
Since my Netflix binging revealed that I clearly didn’t know anything about black farmers in the United States, I decided to start there, thinking it would be a straightforward mission. I would find a statistic citing the number of black farmers in the country, plop it into my blog and then (quietly) congratulate myself on being enlightened.
Instead, I learned that the history of black farmers in this country is complicated, unjust and often disheartening.
In fact, the main reason it took me so long to finish this blog post is because this education I was trying to give myself was difficult to digest (and scrolling Facebook, in comparison, was so easy). I realized I had been biased with some of the sources I trusted. I found a statistic from the United States Department of Agriculture that seemed trustworthy, only to later read about how this same department had been sued because of a history of discrimination against the very population I was researching.
National Public Radio’s Black Farmers in America, a great article on the subject, states: “the Agriculture Department’s own records show that black farmers’ requests for help generally received scant consideration. Instead, the white southerners in charge gave first priority to helping white farmers, especially those who held large farms and were politically connected.”
In case you’re wondering, yes, it is depressing to discover that there are even more stories of discrimination out there than you realized. But I think it also makes me realize more the breadth of systemic racism. It puts the pieces together, if that makes sense. It was naive of me to think that this topic wouldn’t include discrimination.
3. Trying to diversify
My husband jokes that there is nothing spicier than marrying a Canadian. And while it’s true that most of the time my citizenship does technically make me a minority, my being a minority has nothing to do with how I look. In fact, most of the time when people find out I am Canadian they are surprised. They say I don’t sound Canadian and then proceed to make a joke in what is actually a Minnesotan accent.
Our family is white, our neighborhood is predominantly white, so is our friend group and our church. Our dog is even white.
We have to be very intentional about showing our kids (and reminding ourselves) that our skin color is not the only skin color there is. There are a lot of resources, like this one, that give suggestions on how to do this.
During this time of limbo lockdown, here’s a few things we’ve been doing:
- Reading stories about characters who are not white
My favorite book right now is Corduroy (not just my favorite kids’ book, my actual favorite overall book. It has pictures, I can usually finish it without my kids interrupting me 5,000 times, need I say more?). I love how the book is about a little girl who wants a teddy bear. That little girl happens to be black. The book doesn’t openly talk about diversity—it just lets the story and pictures do the teaching. While books that address racism and diversity more directly are great too, this one has a special spot in my heart. - Not assuming skin color while coloring
This is a bit embarrassing but Ryan and I have started being intentional about not always choosing “peach” as a skin color when coloring pictures with our kids. Sometimes we ask the kids for their input about what color we should use. And sometimes they suggest blue, showing me that their idea of diversity is more expansive than ours.
- Asking myself how
I’ve been wrestling with the article Mom, Why Don’t You Have Any Black Friends? I know a lot of my friends look like me and honestly, I don’t know how to change this, especially during a time when a pandemic has made it almost impossible to make new friends.
And while I don’t think I should beat myself over the head about this reality, I also shouldn’t dismiss it either. I need to keep asking myself how I could diversify my friend group. Your suggestions are welcome!
When you think you’re not effective
Ryan and I talked about getting a Black Lives Matter sign for our yard for several weeks. Then a neighbor ordered a stash and gave us one. We decided to put it up as a family one night, after dinner. We explained to the kids again why we were doing this. Their reaction? To climb through the bottom part of the sign as if it were a jungle gym.
I am clearly dismantling systemic racism in my front yard.
But I have a feeling that our 4 year old is processing this information.
It’s like the first time I had to tell her about death. Our neighbor had died and since I didn’t know how to tell a then-2-year-old about it, I called the family counseling line at Focus on the Family. They told me to just be honest and frank about the situation and that she might just take in the information and then go on with her day. That’s exactly what she did.
But, in the almost 2 years since then, I can’t count the number of times she has brought it up. She is clearly thinking about and processing the topic. And I think that’s what she’s doing now with the concept of racism.
A start, not an end
Nothing we have done has been earth shattering or, arguably, even very effective yet, so please don’t think this post was written to brag. It’s more the re-telling of our attempts, sometimes failed, of addressing this huge topic.
Ryan has reminded me the reason we are doing these things. These things are not the answer nor does doing them get us some sort of check mark on an anti-racist checklist. They are baby steps to the end goal of racial equality.
Hopefully these actions will remind ourselves and our children that all people are people and everyone is created in the image of God, whether they’re black, brown or white, like us. This universal truth should inform the decisions we make, the way we treat others and the policies and candidates we choose to support.