I’m Black. My Parents Are White. Here’s What I’ve Learned About Racism in America.
My parents are white. And I don’t just mean of European descent. I mean, everything they do is WHITE.
Growing up, my mom drove a minivan and worked at a health food store while my dad worked as a traveling salesman by day and an amateur bowler by night.
They both wore fanny packs to my little league baseball games, and even wore these little bandanas with attached rubber visors to block the sun. At a young age, I knew my parents were aggressively white.
I’m Not Black, I’m Ian.
Growing up in the suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin as an adopted child of two white parents, I never knew what it meant to be black.
I had a pretty solid mix of friends growing up, and though several were black, I felt I had more in common with my white friends.
It was almost as if the black kids were speaking a different language than me.
I remember the first time someone called me ‘ashy’. It was 4th grade and a black friend and schoolmate came up to me and said
“Damn Ian, you’re ashy as hell”.
My first thought was, OK, a little intense on the approach there Danielle, I thought we were here to learn. She came in…
