(Sorry there was such a delay in posting the follow up to the last post. Summer got in the way.)
Over 4th of July, we were at my mom’s house and I saw M reading that book. The book was from a box of antique books my grandma had given my mom. I nudged Mr. A and we both rolled our eyes when we saw the cover, but we didn’t bother to stop M from reading it, since she was already more than half way through.
Once M said that her views on cheekbones came from that book, I expected the worst, but I hadn’t read the book so I didn’t know exactly what it said.* I was convinced that M was now harboring self-hatred because of the 1950s racism in that stupid book.
“Well, that book was written a long time ago.” I said as I was struggling to figure out how to handle this conversation, “Back in those days, some people thought that only white people could be attractive. They thought white people were better than people with ancestors from other places, so sometimes they might have said bad things about the way they look. But now we know that is silly, right? We know people with ancestors from anywhere can be beautiful.”
M looked thoughtful.
“Ooooh,” she said, “So that is why people think I am so pretty? Because I look so WHITE??”
Doh.
So, uh, that was not exactly the direction I was hoping our conversation was headed.
The first thing that popped into my head was ‘No, actually the reason people think you are so pretty is because our culture tends to fetishize mixed-race people.’ But that topic was a even more complicated than the one I was already mangling.
The second thing that popped into my head was ‘Well, at least she still has a positive self image, even though it is for a screwy reason. The book obviously didn’t totally ruin her self esteem.’
While I was thinking those things, M just waited for my answer.
“Uh, M, I know that you think you look white right now, but really, you look just like someone should look if they have ancestors from both Asia and Europe. I know people tell you you are pretty, but that is just because they like the way you look. I don’t know if what they think has anything to do with looking white or not. We know other people who are pretty who don’t have any European ancestors at all like _____ and ____ and ______, right? Things are very different now than they were 60 years ago when that book was published and they are still changing now.”
From there, I managed to clumsily steer the conversation to the civil rights movement, segregation, interracial marriages and race relations. It was not a coherent conversation and it was filled with dumb metaphors that M didn’t really seem to grasp. The whole time I was just wishing we could get to the Dairy Queen and get our ice cream so M would be distracted and drop the subject.
To be clear, this conversation was not well-packaged for an after school special. It was a mess.
During our conversation, I kept telling her “Well, it is complicated,” and “I am going to have to think about that question” and “Maybe we can get a book from the library so we can learn more about it.”
That’s life, you know? I wasn’t expecting that conversation. I struggled with it. I am embarrassed that I (of all people!) didn’t handle it better.
It is OK. We have talked about race in smaller, more manageable chunks in the few days since the original conversation. Now I know M is noticing and trying to figure things out. She is starting to think of herself and where she fits in the world. And even though I bungled that conversation, I will have many opportunities to do better.
We will just keep talking until we both figure it out.
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*I read the book this week and was quite relieved that it was really not too offensive, despite the weird cover. The main Bad Guy had “high cheekbones and a scar over his eye” and the description was repeated over and over, but there wasn’t much more too it. How M extrapolated that description into “ugly”, I don’t know.