Madame Noire | Black Women's Lifestyle Guide | Black Hair | Black Love

Identity is something many biracial children and even adults struggle with. The issue of not being black enough, white enough, Latina, enough, etc., can weigh on a child’s self-esteem, especially when one parent fails to acknowledge one part of their child’s racial makeup.

That was Tiffany Rae Reid’s experience. She was raised by her Hungarian mother and because her African American father was absentee, her mother led her to believe her darker complexion and other black features resulted from darker completed Hungarian ancestors she was shown photos of as proof. When Reid eventually found out her real father was black and only lived 20 minutes away from her, she struggled to forgive her mother and the way she made her feel devalued by denying her black ancestry. The experience motivated her to write  “Color Blind — A Mixed Girl’s Perspective on Biracial Life,” as a guide to help parents of biracial children understand the struggles they deal with.

“Unless a child’s parents are both biracial, it will be hard to understand the life experiences that are going to be unique to their biracial children,” says Reid. “Halle Berry is not the end-all-be-all mixed chick. We come in all different sizes, all different colors and all different textures.”

Biracial children who are raised to be ignorant of certain parts of their heritage especially struggle with identity and develop feelings of alienation, anger, and powerlessness, as well as confusion about how they’re supposed to act, Reid says.

“By not seeing color, you’re not honoring my history, you’re not honoring my culture and heritage, you’re not honoring the challenges and obstacles I have because of the color of my skin that you will never face. For anybody raising biracial children, whether they’re adopted or naturally born, I get that it’s love and I absolutely honor that. But love is not enough.”

While Reid was eventually able to forgive her mother, she knows her story is not unique and she want to help other children and parents who are going through the same things that she did. “My life’s experiences — all the challenges, all the nights I was up crying, all the arguments with my mom — they were all for a reason. This book shows people that truth is freedom. Parents need to be that beacon of truth for their children so they can live their authentic lives.”

Can you relate to Tiffany’s experience growing up as a biracial child? Do you struggle as a parent of a biracial child to help them develop an identity?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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So the other day, I was on YouTube going down the rabbit hole of natural hair “how-to” styling videos when I came across this one gem called “Parents of Biracial Children Please Learn Hair Care Before Their Birth.” After I stopped laughing at the title, I was able to focus on the content of the video, which basically featured a black woman, with sunglasses (while indoors I might add) seated in front of a white man named Bob, who was destructively combing through her naps with a small-tooth comb (Yikes). The author of the video, which was posted by tag name Slapme77times a couple of years ago, was trying to make a point about the need for White parents to learn the hair texture of African American hair prior to birthing or adopting one into the family. However, watching Bob, who incidentally was holding the comb like one would a knife, painstakingly rake through her hair, I wondered if this was a big enough issue to warrant a tutorial video on the matter?

The short answer is: Yes.  It’s like the other taboos of interracial relationships that everyone thinks about but don’t want to discuss.  While folks may swoon over how Black and White people may make pretty babies, one thing that they can’t do is come together to achieve a decent head of hair for those kids.  And I’m not referring to the texture but the actual application or lack thereof of styling and maintenance.  You know, the real “good hair.”

I’m not saying that all non-black parents of mixed-race children are oblivious to hair maintenance but a large percentage of folks do have trouble. Look, I get it: doing somebody else’s hair, particularly someone of another or ethnicity, is not something most of us think about.

And yes, we do spend a great deal of time in our lives just getting to know our own hair. But when I’m out in the suburbs and see a mixed race child, maybe age six or seven, walking around with dry, brittle wiry hair or when I’m up in the richer part of the city watching a black child being scooted along in one of those older kid strollers by a couple of white parents, my first inclination is that the parents are just lazy or in some dire need of help – especially when the child’s hair has been hacked to the point that any attempts of gender identification are futile. It may not be the most politically correct thing to say but I don’t think we should sweep it under the rug.

(AJC) — When Evelyn Brown-Wilder was growing up in Tuscaloosa, Ala., in the 1950s, life was a matter of warring opposites. Though some of her ancestors were white and her face was pale, the law said she was black. She wrapped both arms around that identity.  Her daughter, Sonya Colvin-Boyd, lives in a different world and chooses a different identity. When it came time for Colvin-Boyd to indicate her race on her 2000 U.S. census form, she picked both white and black. “We’re all mixed,” said the Powder Springs resident.  Claiming both races puts her in one of the fastest-growing segments of America’s population. It’s a trend that reveals seismic shifts in both outward social and cultural relations and inward notions of individual identity.  Across metro Atlanta’s counties, the last decade saw a doubling or tripling of the number of people identifying themselves as being of more than one race, according to the Census Bureau. In Gwinnett County, the number of respondents checking two or more races rose from 12,673 in 2000 to 25,292 in 2010, a 99 percent jump. In Fulton County, the number rose from 11,853 to 20,279, a 71 percent increase. In Henry County, the numbers went up 269 percent.

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Another Obama address, another failed attempt at messaging by the White House communications team. Instead of using his address from the Oval Office to remind us that he displayed true leadership by going against the tide and opposing the Iraq war when everyone else was for it, Obama proudly asserted that he’d made a call to George W. Bush to inform him that the war was over. Obama had the opportunity to be nostalgic, and remind his base that the candidate of 2008 is still alive in the President of 2010, but he didn’t. To the contrary, Obama listened to Republicans who’d been chiding him all week to give at least a modicum of credit to the one man who deserves all the blame – George W. Bush. And since Obama was ill-prepared for a skirmish with the Right, he gave in once more.

The issue is not just that President Obama is unprepared for the present fight that he’s engaged in, but that he’s unprepared for all fights – period. Obama doesn’t use the bully pulpit because he’s not a bully. This is a hard pill for most African Americans to swallow.

White liberals want Obama to fight because it’s the right thing to do. While African-American liberals agree with that premise, we are also goading President Obama to do battle with Republicans because we’ve collectively adopted clashing with despotic regimes as our solemn oath. The spirit of David and Goliath is alive in the African-American experience.

When Obama declared himself African-American, and not mixed race or biracial as some had hoped, the African American community celebrated with jubilee. To us, Obama’s bold assertion meant that he identified with the African-American experience.  It was proof that he’d accepted the chivalrous invitation of the African-American community and would soon glide into our open arms to meet our soft far embrace.  So far, much to our dismay, he’s proven to be a bit of a playboy.

In classic Obama style, he’s adorned the costume which we’ve come to associate with all rebellious agitators. Unlike some who’ve compared his speaking style to MLK, I see more of Malcolm than Martin in Obama’s mettle performance.  Short, decisive, snappy comments, which linger with the listener by virtue of their verbosity and in your face intellectualism.  This was Malcolm’s marker.  In 21^st century America, Obama is Malcolm’s emulator, but not his heir apparent.

While African-Americans were busily working for change during Obama’s 2008 campaign, we absentmindedly forget that history often foretells future events.

Born to a white mother and a Kenyan father, young Obama’s world view was fashioned in Indonesia and Hawaii through the prism of his mother.  There is nothing unseemly about Obama’s upbringing, but it does belie the difficulty inherent in labeling President Obama as African-American.

Even if President Obama’s Kenyan father had been in his life, that wouldn’t have been enough to link Obama to an African-American experience which is uniquely different from that of Africans in the great vastness of the Diaspora. And to say that Obama is connected to the African-American experience by virtue of his Kenyan father is alarmingly simplistic.

The African-American experience is unique in the level of insight which it imprinted upon its members as well as the relative level of equality bestowed upon a previously enslaved minority group. We view life through a dual lens whereas for Obama, the lens is singular.

Truth be told, our collective defiance has negatively impacted us in a variety of scenarios. The mythology of the African American attitude heralds a people unafraid to speak truth to power.  Even in our day to day individual dealings, we are more apt than most groups to betray our own self interest by confronting our employer, government, or whomever else we feel may be engaged in double dealing. History has made us rebels.

Our expectation was that Obama would display some of the steeliness so overtly recognizable in the African American persona. But President Obama’s perspective is international, not African American.  It is time that the African-American community stops looking for its reflection in President Obama. He may be the first black President, but he’s certainly not the first African-American President.

Yvette Carnell is a former Capitol Hill Staffer turned political blogger. She currently publishes two blogs, Spatterblog.com and GoGirlGuide.com.

(AP) — There were 784,764 U.S. residents who described their race as white and black in the last census. But that number didn’t include Laura Martin, whose father is black and mother is white.

“I’ve always just checked black on my form,” said Martin, a 29-year-old university employee in Las Vegas. She grew up surrounded by black family and friends, listening to black music and active in black causes — “So I’m black.”

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