The Color Wheel of My Life

As a woman of biracial decent and mother of a young seven year old boy, I wonder – along with many other mothers – if I will see a day when racial profiling seizes to exist.  Before Trayvon, my son was only 4 when his “friend” Joshua at his preschool told him he was not allowed to play with him because his skin was “brown”.  Where else would a 4 year old white boy learn such hate other than from his home?  Yes, at the young age of only four years old, my son was racially profiled and that one single incident on the playground has made him aware of how our differences in skin color can be a negative and very hurtful thing. Before Trayvon, when my son was only 5 and we lay on the sofa that Thanksgiving weekend watching TV, he broke a long silence and asked me why he hardly saw “brown” people on TV.  As my throat sank into my gut, and I scurried through the channels to find “brown” people just so I could say that wasn’t the case, I realized much deeper than before that the playground incident only a year before would continue to have ripple effects for him forever. My family is truly a color wheel.  My mother is East Indian and father a biracial man both born in Jamaica.  Her many siblings also married other ethnic backgrounds that run the gamut from Columbian to Irish to Haitian and Puerto Rican...almost forgot Chinese.  My cousins and I have every shade represented.  Oh, how my grandma hoped her daughters and granddaughters would find a “nice Indian boy” to marry.  I can’t blame her, can I?  That’s what she is and that’s who she married.  This was my norm. Today, in 2013, post THE non-guilty verdict, I find solace in the continued uproar, protests, sit-ins, and boycotts that have spawned.  My son is at an age where he now pays attention to the nature of the conversations his father and I have in our home, he asks questions and is rightfully confused.  When I think back on his playground experience, I have to face the ugly truth that racial profiling will not die in my generation because younger generations are being raised and taught the same exact ugliness.  No doubt it’s my job to educate my son of this ugliness that is subtly all around us, but I have to also teach him to be strong and take a stand against that ugliness…..and, my continued hope is that the greater of our younger generations would also choose to take a stand in the name of humanity and equality as well. ~ Sincerely All Things Taj