English Woman feels mixed-race daughter is alien to her

[AZN MAN]

I came across this article from a UK site:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=467787&in_page_id=1879&in_page_id=1879&expand=true#StartComments

Xenophobia perhaps?

[DONKEY]

\ thats awful
no matter how much she might be confused or pained right now it will never be as bad for her as it will be for her daughter. hopefully the kid grows up and writes an article about how dumb and clueless her mom was.

[Presto]

The relationship this English woman is in with this Indian man is not really an interracial relationship, but more so an "interracist" relationship. She probably fears due to her child's mixed heritage that she will not be able to reap the full benefits of white privilege.

[atlasien]

I can empathize with the basic position she's in. It's hard to comprehend the fact that a child that's coming out of your body is going to be seen by society as a different race than you are. You may know it on an intellectual level but still not fully comprehend it. I don't think this confined to white women at all. Here's a very interesting piece by a multiracial mother whose child was born a lot lighter than she expected... (http://www.antiracistparent.com/2007/05/25/revisiting-desiree%e2%80%99s-baby/)

Getting back to the article, on one hand it's good for white people to examine their own internalized racism... but I think when they do it so super-publicly it can contribute to normalizing and excusing racism. Ultimately, I don't think she should have written this piece. The presentation is too disturbing. It feels like something she should have talked about with a therapist, not aired in public for money. As others here noted, her child is probably going to read it some day.

[Presto]

Getting back to the article, on one hand it's good for white people to examine their own internalized racism... but I think when they do it so super-publicly it can contribute to normalizing and excusing racism. Ultimately, I don't think she should have written this piece. The presentation is too disturbing. It feels like something she should have talked about with a therapist, not aired in public for money. As others here noted, her child is probably going to read it some day.

Well, I'm glad this English woman wrote this piece because it'll show white apologists that white supremacy is very much real in this present day and age and not the figment of an Asian person's imagination.

[nightshade]

The following paragraphs from the article made me bang my head against my desk:

At the more frothy end of the scale, mixed-race children are regarded as pretty dolls — white kids with a nice tan.

When I was pregnant and people asked me about the child I was having, and I explained her father was Indian, they would often coo something along the lines of: "Ooh, she's going to be beautiful!" as if I was discussing a new rose, made from an exotic cross-breeding programme.

On a less benevolent level, mixed-race children can receive a hostile welcome from both white and black communities. Being neither one thing nor another may get you on the cover of Vogue, but it isn't an easy way to make friends.

On one hand, it seems like she's dimly aware that it's fucked up to talk about her child like it's some sort of exotic designer thing. But then in the next paragraph she affirms all the colonial-minded bullshit about how being mixed-race makes someone beautiful by saying "Being neither one one nor another may get you on the cover of Vogue..."

Also, I had no idea that being of Indian descent made someone black. Perhaps this is a British thing. Or that the discourse about ethnicity and being biracial is always a black and white thing. Well, I guess the writer has never had to think about these issues until now. I love that the newspaper decided to post a giant, smiling picture of her to go with the article.

[cattygurl]

I've read posts about women in interracial marriages where the feelings toward subsequent children confused their moms, and even dads. There used to be a tiny internet forum where moms in interracial marriages could chat amongst themselves, but it got overrun by racist troll men of the stormfront ilk along with other stupid people and the forum went the way of the dodo.

It's just culturally considered abhorrent for any woman to have any reservations about their kids, but mothers are human beings and as human beings, we often end up with conflicting feelings. I know same-race marriages where moms were disappointed that their kids resembled someone in their family they didn't like in appearance, for example. In that regard, this is nothing new- there's just a taboo against expression.

[jaehwan]

People sometimes go batty right after they have children. Postpartum is pretty common. AT 12 weeks, maybe this is post-post-partum.

Anyway, I thought it was a pretty strange read. I never thought about racism against one's own children, but I guess it makes sense, especially when one has been white in a white dominated society for so long.

By the way, did anyone else notice that she genderized it?

Do black fathers who marry white women and then have paler-skinned children feel my sense of loss? Or maybe Chinese mothers or Middle-Eastern grandparents grieve when they see a child they know to be their own, but whose features don't reflect that?

[kalbi]

^ Can you blame her? She's just a product of her Caucasian environment, like like all white sheep she's just bleating out the same formualic stuff.


In a "multi-cultural utopia" (within the mind of your average Caucasian) there are:


white men, white women, Asian women, and black men.


The End.

[cattygurl]

Did you even read the article? She married an Indian man.

I've seen people get distressed that their kids don't resemble *them* in same-race couplings. I think race definitely plays a role, but I think this is also reflective of the expectation that a lot of people have regarding their kids. A lot of people don't realize the physical expectations the have for kids until their kids don't meet them. People like to spout the "if it's your kids, you love them no matter what..." and really refuse to discuss any subject divergent of it. The reality is that people have expectations for others- whether they're your kids or requirements for a spouse. With some people, it's a smooth transition. With others, it can be a bumpy ride.

This isn't strictly a female thing, either. Men have similar feelings, but they're even less likely to admit it. I'm friendly with several marriage/family therapists, and we've had discussions about this subject because it's not uncommon for people in both interracial and intraracial marriages to be disappointed over their children's appearance.

[Dialectic]

Well I'm glad she's being honest with herself, and the world, about her feelings. I would think most light-skinned people would have similar reactions in this situation.

[Ike]

While honesty is good, it is not enough. As the mother of said child, she needs to examine her (possibly) racist attitudes and consciously get rid of them. Recently there have been some papers written by white women who honestly admit their racism and expect pats on the back, but are unwilling to take the necessary step to eliminate their racism. (See http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=1852 and http://www.sptimes.com/2007/06/21/Features/One_woman_s_lament__M.shtml)

[theme]

I came across this article from a UK site:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=467787&in_page_id=1879&in_page_id=1879&expand=true#StartComments

Xenophobia perhaps?

Ummm...no. Try contrasting her attitude with Asian women who have hapa children. Asian women are practically tripping over themselves to get pregnant by white males but that hardly makes them non-xenophobic.

The conflicting attitudes of Asian women and White women are tell tale of the kind of world we live in. I can imagine and understand the confusion white women who have mixed children are going through. Asian women by virtue of having hapas kids are essentially 'moving up' and they feel like it's the most right thing in the world, whereas white women who are with colored men belong to a subgroup very different from other white women and Asian women.

I just don't understand all the negative comments flying her way. White women just like pretty much all women live in an environment where they are taught that white is right. Unlike Asian women, some of these white women actually break away from that mainstream thinking. It just seems to make sense that she would have confused feelings as her children are growing up because the whole world are telling her that she's doing something very wrong and going against the grain whereas Asian women feel like they are fulfilling their destiny.

If that isn't enough proof that she might not be xenophobic then how about the fact she has an Indian husband?

I think people really need to give this white woman a break. I think it's a huge ordeal that not many of us will ever go through. Imagine all the hypocritical Asian women who have mixed children looking down on her like they are so much better because they're proud of having mixed children. I mean give me a fucking break already.

I followed a blog ring that featured Asian women with hapa children. The ring weren't meant to be exclusive to Asian women in IR but rather just for Asian women in general. It was just a 'coincidence'(wink-wink)that they ALL had white husbands. None of them had reservations about having mixed kids. To them it's pretty much status quo.

Therefore, alot of white women who have mixed children and who show any signs other than absolute unconditional love are condemned for the dumbest reasons. Call me a white apologist, I don't care, but the comments I'm seeing here are just ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

[theme]

Well I'm glad she's being honest with herself, and the world, about her feelings. I would think most light-skinned people would have similar reactions in this situation.

Exactly what i'm talking about. People are condemning her but if you look around pretty much the only women who are proud of their mixed kids are Asian women. And that's not a compliment to Asian women either.

[cattygurl]

I think people won't work through the issues unless they admit to it first, so I do think the mom's taking a step in the right direction. I do think I agree with atlasien- that this is probably best discussed with a therapist. At the same time, I think it's healthy to have open discussions about these types of things, and IMHO, I don't think it happens enough. So I do commend the mom for having the guts to do this, because I'm sure she knew she would get mostly angry people responding in a "you're a terrible mother" fashion.

I've actually known a few of my mother's asian friends who's had mixed kids have conflict over time over their kids' appearance. In so-cal, I've noticed a lot of ppl assume asian mixed kids to be hispanic (some can look very hispanic to my eyes) and get the racism that comes with that. A lot ofpeople expect their mixed kids to come out looking a certain way, and when they don't, it does cause internal conflict.

[cattygurl]

if you look around pretty much the only women who are proud of their mixed kids are Asian women.

Theme, that a real generalization there. I've met several african-american women/men that wanted lighter skin/light eyed kids and would seek out partners that reflectedthose traits. What the hell is up with your asian-women/hapa bashing? Seriously.

[jaehwan]

While honesty is good, it is not enough. As the mother of said child, she needs to examine her (possibly) racist attitudes and consciously get rid of them. Recently there have been some papers written by white women who honestly admit their racism and expect pats on the back, but are unwilling to take the necessary step to eliminate their racism. (See http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=1852 and http://www.sptimes.com/2007/06/21/Features/One_woman_s_lament__M.shtml)

Interesting stories. Thanks for the links.

[kalbi]

Did you even read the article? She married an Indian man.


Yeah, I always , always, ALWAYS talk about articles I've never read. It's just how I do.

Drop the 'tude.

Now, if only you had the presence of mind to realize that the author is looking at this issue through the context of dark vs. light skin color (which is why she calls her half Indian baby "black"). Then you wouldn't be asking me such irrelevant and vapid questions. Hence - my slightly sarcastic post about how your average Caucasian sees the world - through neat little color-coded cubbyholes.

Next.

[Kuroyama]

I came across this article from a UK site:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=467787&in_page_id=1879&in_page_id=1879&expand=true#StartComments

Xenophobia perhaps?


I dunno brah, she wasnt afraid to take that black dick, now was she? ...or maybe that part wasnt so "alien" to her?

All levity aside, the way she describes the child with nothing but negative adjectives (color aside), its clear that she in no way "loves" the child as she so many times claims to.

I have a mixed friend of Black/white heritage who claims his white mother has no love for the kids... I just thought he came from a uniquely bad environment. A skank of a woman who saw fit to take black semen into herself but didnt have any love for the resulting children. How does a thing like that happen? At what point (from penetration) does she fail to understand that this will result in a dark skinned child and all that entails?

With any luck the mother will get run over by a cement mixer and die slowly before she gets a chance to pass on any of her clearly racist ideas to her sons.

[DONKEY]

oh whatever.. ive got a white mother and honestly she was never able to prepare us for racism or other problems in society but she NEVER made us feel alien to her, even when she and my dad seemed to be competing in who would influence us more. she showed nothing but love for us and never made us feel like inferior because we were mixed. obviously she was proud of us or else she wouldnt have given birth to 3 of us.
so from my perspective, just being white is no excuse for this lady. even my own mother is slightly conservative in grew up in an all-white catholic segregated world but blood means more than all of that, especially when they came out of your own body.

[ChÈ]

Check out some of the other stupid fucking things she's had to say (at $1.00 per word, I might add):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/race/story/0,,2120604,00.html

http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/columnists/tm_objectid=16632855&method=full&siteid=50082-name_page.html

[Vetrean]

Why do some people have all the luck?

[theme]

Check out some of the other stupid fucking things she's had to say (at $1.00 per word, I might add):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/race/story/0,,2120604,00.html

http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/columnists/tm_objectid=16632855&method=full&siteid=50082-name_page.html

What exactly is wrong about those articles? All people from all walks of life would rather not have a homosexual run the country but unlike most people she actually has 'some' valid reasons.

[theme]

What the hell is up with your asian-women/hapa bashing? Seriously.

Because bashing needs to go both ways.

[kalbi]

Because bashing needs to go both ways.

hahahah :D

[little mixed girl]

people seem to think that "looks like me" means "looks the same race as me".
even in familes where kids are the same race, there are kids that look like their dads, ones that look like their moms, and ones that look like both.

she needs to get a grip.

[ninajoy]

yeah i agree...she's needs to get a grip big time. my extended family is a range of hues but just because siblings and parents are different skin tones, doesn't mean they don't resemble each other. for example 3 of my cousins (2 sisters and a brother) are mixed (black father/white mom) and they are as light as the mom but actually look like the dad (my uncle). anyone can tell by looking at them together, that they are related simply because there's such a strong family resemblance moreso to the father who is like 8X darker than the kids.
2 of my cousins have kids that are mixed. one cousin is the brother from the previous example who married a non-mixed black woman who is much darker than him. their oldest daughter is dark like the mom, the two younger ones are light like the dad but each of them look like they're related to the other despite color differences.
another cousin is really really dark and he has a baby girl with a really really pale white girl. the baby is just as pale as the mom...but she doesn't really strongly resemble either parent. she actually is a perfect blend of both parents' features....so everytime i see her i think she resembles my cousin more then other times i think she looks more like her mom. but it never has to do with her skin color...
and just to really drive the point home...in elementary school, i was friends with twin girls. fraternal twins b/c one was light skinned and the other was dark skinned. the crazy thing is, if they were the same skin color, they would look identical. it was pretty amusing...they sounded the same, had the same face, finished each others' sentences, had the same expressions and quirks, exact same height...everything was identical but their skin color and there was no one moronic enough to believe they were not related.

family resemblance isn't the same as sharing the same skin tone/color...this woman seems to get that a bit confused.

[Ike]

Yesterday I saw two women who had very similar facial features. One looked mixed black/Asian and the other looked monoracial Asian, but I was pretty sure they were sisters. Now that I think about it, they could have been mother and daughter, but they looked really close in age.

[Harangue]

Don't give her too much credit for marrying an Indian man. Apparently, she didn't know he was Indian at the time due to his pale skin and Glasgow upbringing. Since much of our stereotypes and racial prejudices are based solely on looks, the "great scientific boundaries of human races" are completely dependent on a few insignificant factors such as skin hue, eye shape, and nose structure. Yep, we're all just so different, like apples and oranges we are.

Nevertheless, I applaud her willingness to confront her own prejudices and bravely reveal them to what will undoubtedly be a hypocritical and self-righteous public. For every castigator who lambasts this "cruel" mother, how many will be disappointed when their own child looks more ethnic than White? Lowri Turner is simply a product of a racist society that has a strict racial caste that largely depends on a few ethno-variable features like hair colour, eye colour, skin colour, etc. Maybe her bluntness discomforts many people because she reminds them too much of themselves, and how much they too would be crushed if their child got the "bad draw" in the mixed race sweepstakes.

I despise it when would-be parents with a zeal for racial purity try and justify their backward ways by saying that they want their children to look like them.

Firstly, no child ever looks exactly like their parents, so what these people need are clones, not unique children.

Secondly, many same-race children barely resemble their parents (for a famous example, see Prince Harry and his father, Prince Charles).

Thirdly, the notion of "looking alike" is steeped in contemporary biases. Back in Nazi Germany, would Hitler have considered the children of Aryan-Jewish or Aryan-Slavic unions as "looking alike"? Nah. He probably would've rounded up the miscreants and machine gunned them all in a ditch somewhere in the outskirts of Poland. And instead of focusing on the differences like eye colour, why not appreciate the many similarities? Do not your mixed race children have two eyes, one nose, one mouth, two arms, two legs, and 10 fingers/10 toes? Is that not alike enough for you? Humans of "different races" are so similar to one another that if an alien race visited us, they'd probably be astounded that we spend so much time and effort trying to fabricate all these imagined differences amongst us.

Imagine all the hypocritical Asian women who have mixed children looking down on her like they are so much better because they're proud of having mixed children.

This is a good point brought up by Theme. To understand the blatantly racist context these children of mixed race unions are brought into, how many are willing to bet that Asian women are much happier to bear Eurasian children than White women? How many Asian women would be devastated if their children had pale skin and blonde hair, and how many White women would be ecstatic if their children had brown skin and brown eyes? These are not just individual cases of innocent personal biases, but a widespread caste system of racial hierarchies.

But, to be fair, White people tend to go gaga for Hapas almost as much as Asians do. Some very distinctly "multicultural" celebrities like Kristin Kreuk, Jessica Alba, Vin Diesel, and Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) are held up by the American media as some of the most beautiful people in their society. The only difference is that when American/White media adores Hapas, they will never be accused of being self-haters, whereas when Asian media does the same thing, they WILL be accused of having some kind of inferiority complex. It's the natural conclusion from an entrenched racist mistruth that all races should, and do, strive to be White.

Anyway, back to the main issue at hand. Boo for Ms. Turner for letting such racist thoughts seep into her consciousness, but kudos for confronting it and presumably working to change it. Remember that the goal of a race-blind society is not for everybody to suddenly become ignorant, like morons, of race and its issues, but for everybody to acknowledge their daily prejudices and work at fixing them.

[Scowl]

But, to be fair, White people tend to go gaga for Hapas almost as much as Asians do. Some very distinctly "multicultural" celebrities like Kristin Kreuk, Jessica Alba, Vin Diesel, and Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) are held up by the American media as some of the most beautiful people in their society. The only difference is that when American/White media adores Hapas, they will never be accused of being self-haters, whereas when Asian media does the same thing, they WILL be accused of having some kind of inferiority complex.

I think there's a much bigger difference than that.

The vast majority of Asia has some kind of history of being colonized by Western nations, and Asians of mixed-blood are a part of that. This context doesn't exist in the same way in America. And, of course, there's the power differential. I mean, white Americans will never be accused of self-hate at all for reasons that I'm sure we're all aware of.

So, while this certainly exists:

an entrenched racist mistruth that all races should, and do, strive to be White.

... it is only a part of it and an incomplete explanation when left by itself. I see what you're saying about internalized racism, and for the most part I can agree with it. I don't think that it necessarily overshadows external factors.