Saving Our Daughters

For the last few years Black men have been getting slammed pretty hard in the black community for their absenteeism, misogyny, and all around solipsistic attitude.  And they have deserved it.

So when they do something good I have put them on.

A group of black male celebrities like rapper T.I and football player Sean Garrett talk about fathering (wow–I don’t think I’ve ever used that noun as a verb) in the book Saving Our Daughters.

Shirley Henderson, Associate Editor of EBONY Magazine, said, “Young women and girls are our most valuable asset in the African-American community. That’s precisely why Saving Our Daughters: From A Man’s Point Of View is a must read for anyone who is interested in preserving our treasure. With more than 70 percent of Black households without a father in the home, a staggering number of girls are growing up without daddy. The lack of a positive male influence means that our daughters are falling prey to a number of pitfalls—including early pregnancies, sexual abuse and drugs. Saving Our Daughters: From A Man’s Point Of View features the input of Black male leaders in film, television, music and sports. It confronts real issues in brutal honesty and without superficial hype. The book also serves as a beacon of hope for those of us who know better and who want better for our daughters. Our daughters who are so worthy of any and all efforts that we put forth to help save them. Take a step to that goal by reading Saving Our Daughters!”

Father’s Day is over two months away but you might want to think about giving this to the young fathers that you know.

Color Us Family

 When I was little it was hard to find Fisher Price families that were black.  I had a lot of little white families for my school house, trailer, and garage.  I played with them all the time up to the age of seven.  I think a year before I was tired of playing with them I finally got a black father (or was it a mother) so my family was complete with a Mom, Dad and son –but no sister.  But by the age of eight I was tired of playing with them and they were handed down to my little sister.  When my daughter was little the families came in a set.  You have white familes, black families, and I think there was an Asian family.  There were no mix and match families unless you wanted to buy a few sets and mix on your own.  For the most part that is the way America is anyway, with families of the same hues all together.

Except when it isn’t.  And although it’s still the exception and not the rule, rainbow families are growing especially in adoption.  Usually its a transracial adoptions the parents are white and the children can be of any shade, ethnicity or culture.  It’s a rarity that someone will see this:

The Riding Family with their adopted daughter

And no, she’s not cafe au lait, she’s white.  And I can see how some people might have a problem with a black family adopting a white child, throwing out the usual arguments (there are too many black kids in need of a home, black people should take care of their own) but when the hard to place toddler kept getting shuffled from home to home it was the family matriarch Phyllis Smith, who took the child in.  She gets help from her daughter Terri and son-in-law Mark who help to raise Katie O’Dea-Smith as their own, along with their sons.   To the Riding’s credit, they teach Katie about her Irish American heritage but by no means would Mark Riding paint things as easy.  When it’s just been him and his daughter out in public he has gotten looks from whites and Katie is given a hard time in school for having a black family. 

“All else being equal, I think she should be with people who look like her,” says Mark. “It’s not fair that she’s got to grow up feeling different when she’s going to feel different anyway. She wears glasses, her voice is a bit squeaky, and on top of that she has to deal with the fact that her mother is 70 and black.”

 Even though he expresses his apprehension I applaud the Riding family to step out of their comfort zone and opening up their hearts to a non-black child.  If you thought the Madonna’s failed adoption of Mercy divided people on into two lines,  check out the comments to the Riding family’s story.  Even in my own family, my husband and I are on different sides of the spectrum on this.  He, a product of transracial adoption, is vehemently against it while I feel otherwise.  The world is changing faster than our minds can conceive it.   It would be easier if we stayed in the Fisher Price family pack but then, just like when I was a kid, when you didn’t have the pieces that you needed others had to make do.

Not Trading This One In

This is a story that just keeps coming up and probably will keep popping up until the first Asian American president is elected.

Barack Obama made history as the first African-American president but in his first 100 days he has also shown himself to be America’s most Asian leader yet, community members say…

 “In a nutshell, he has done more in 100 days than the last administration has done in eight years,” said Representative Mike Honda, who heads the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

Yahoo News,  Mon Apr 27, 10:26 am ET

I will give them that, but still the man is black.  Let’s not do any racial recruitments because remember what happened last year when we had to disabuse someone else of their false sense of  racial inclusion?  Yeah, no repeats of that.

But it was pretty cool when he threw out his greeting to a South Korean student.

And, yeah, he might be able to speak a bit of Indonesian.

So, y’all need to fall back.  If you need to claim someone black we can let you have Chris Henry or William Jefferson, he’s been a racial nomad for a few months.

But if Obama should make any major faux pas, we’ll talk.

Michelle Obama Making a Difference for Colored Women Around the World

I know that some people outside the community like to think that Barack Obama had the black vote in the bag right from the beginning.  Maybe history will re-write it that way, but black folks know we aren’t a monolith.  Around this time last year some papers were still reporting how black women were torn about who to vote for: Obama because he’s black or H. Clinton because she’s a woman (and a Clinton, of course). 

But once everyone got on the Obama train it was plain that his wife Michelle and his beautiful daughters were going to be the darling of the US.  There are a few haters out there, a lot of the white women, but I’m sure one day they’ll come around.  Probably just in time to wax poetically to their grandchildren about this time in U.S history.  We’ll have Michelle Obama Watch.com to put the real perspective on it.

So, for those Michelle Obama haters out there here’s something else for you to tear your hair out over: Michelle is an inspiration to women around the globe.   Don’t believe me, read the CNN article. 

The women she meets in the squalid streets where “Slumdog Millionaire” was filmed are often treated with contempt, she says. They’re considered ugly if their skin and hair are too dark. They are deemed “cursed” if they only have daughters. Many would-be mothers even abort their children if they learn they’re female.

Yet lately she says Indian women are getting another message from the emergence of another woman thousands of miles away. This woman has dark skin and hair. She walks next to her husband in public, not behind. And she has two daughters. But no one calls her cursed. They call her Michelle Obama, the first lady.

“She could be a new face for India,” says Ferreira, program officer for an HIV-prevention program run by World Vision, an international humanitarian group. “She shows women that it’s OK to have dark skin and to not have a son. She’s quite real to us.”

Those who focus on Michelle Obama’s impact on America are underestimating her reach. The first lady is inspiring women of color around the globe to look at themselves, and America, in fresh ways.

California Thu Nguyen also looks up to Michelle Obama.  When M. Obama became first lady she called up her niece and told her she could achieve anything she wanted. “We have a yellow color because we’re Asian, so we felt a bond with [Michelle] Obama when she became the first black first lady”

M. Obama just evokes that sentiment from people.  Heck, when they visited England earlier this year the Queen was all up on her, starstruck –let’s not get it twisted folks, the Queen touched her first (and I am so glad she didn’t touch her hair).

Not exactly sure why M. Obama gets this type of attention as first lady.  The only one that comes close in my recent memory is Nancy Reagan, although even she had her detractors from her own party.  But whatever it is, I hope it and it’s effects last longer than the Obamas time in Washington.