FINDING GRATITUDE IN 2020
Reflections on race and equality as I raise my toddler
“I want dark brown skin like you, Mommy!”
I was floored when I heard my son, age two-and-a-half at the time, say those words this past summer. Although technically I was already on the floor, sitting on the hard tile of our family room as he dragged me through the fluid rules of his latest made-up game called “Monsters” using figurines from last year’s Halloween party. (Naturally, it was July.)
In maybe nothing more than an attempt to regain some authority over a bossy toddler, I launched into mom-mode and began observing the different shades of the toys’ plastic faces and limbs: dark purple, light purple, dark green, etc. My son was super into learning his colors at the time and he latched right onto this new game. …
FINDING GRATITUDE IN 2020
Celebrating my family’s friendship with our beloved neighbor
From the day they first met him, my parents treated Barry as an equal. I was only a kid at the time but even today — especially today, in the midst of such an emotionally draining year — I feel hope for the future and gratitude for the lessons I learned when I think about the way my family formed an alliance with an individual whom much of society had always marginalized.
My parents saw Barry as an incredible person who was worth getting to know. They accepted him for who he was but challenged him to push himself to reach new limits. They modeled through basic actions the respect and kindness that they expected everyone to show to Barry. They didn’t give a hoot what other people thought of our family’s relationship with him. …
A conversation with my sister on her perspective as the only white sibling in our family of transracial adoptees
“This may sound silly, but there was the sunscreen,” my sister Cara said a few days ago during a FaceTime session that I had set up as an interview for my memoir about my racial identity journey. I was asking her to share her perspective on growing up as the only white sibling in our six-kid family.
“The sunscreen?” I repeated.
“Yeah! Every summer at the beach, Mom would literally chase me around the house to slather me up in sunscreen. …
An incidence of racism from twenty years ago that still haunts me today — because of what happened as well as my response to it.
“Hey! It’s Bushroot! In the flesh!”
My stomach plummeted to the floor as I stood outside of Blake*’s room on the third floor of Brewster Hall, my freshman dormitory at Syracuse University, and stared in shock and disbelief at a guy I did not recognize.
WHAT? I heard myself thinking amidst the pounding that had suddenly overtaken my head. Blake, the guy upon whom I had had a serious crush since the night of college when he initiated a hookup with me (my first below the neck!), appeared in the doorway and hurriedly said, “He’s just kidding. …
An open letter to the Silicon Valley geniuses behind the algorithm.
To the Facebook engineers or robots or gods or whoever manages your platform’s mysterious, earth-shattering algorithm:
I’ve watched The Social Dilemma. I lived in the Bay Area from 2013–2018, a.k.a. your heyday. I know y’all are geniuses and that I am your product. I know you know everything about me.*
*Almost everything. Because some of the Sponsored Ads that you have pumped into my feed this past week question this premise. Let’s review a few, a la screenshots from my phone.
The Getamusing Cry Baby
You recommended what appears to be a baby doll that cries real tears. Moreover, according to the ad, the crying sounds super realistic due to the doll being embedded with recordings of an actual infant crying. …
A peek into my lifelong history of obsessive, intrusive, and often illogical thoughts and fears
When I was twelve years old, I tearfully told my mom that I thought I might be pregnant. Never mind that I had not yet begun menstruating, and the most intimate I had ever been with a guy was an awkward peck on the lips at a middle school dance the year before. Never mind that I was a student in an academically elite magnet program who had paid perfect attention in health class and was therefore aware of the biological means through which a woman can become pregnant.
I also paid attention in church and was therefore aware of the Immaculate Conception. And voila, there was the “in” that my chemically imbalanced brain needed to be able to obsess about this traumatizing scenario, day and night, as I went about my life. I tried to preserve my high functionality on the outside while remaining sick with fear that I was feeling odd things inside of my abdomen that would eventually present themselves as a baby. I had vivid nightmares and daymares about my stomach undergoing the same freakish evolution (in my twelve-year-old eyes) as my science teacher’s, which I felt compelled to stare at as it ballooned up bigger and bigger by the day. …
It’s real. It’s different. And that’s okay.
Well, Sis, you sure just put the “rainbow” in our rainbow family.
I gave myself a nice little pat on the back for thinking up that witty response after my younger sister came out to our family back when we were in our twenties. I should add that I, along with the rest of my family, was thrilled for her. We were excited and relieved to see her so happy, so confident, finally so comfortable in her own skin. We were also totally unfazed by her announcement. We were no strangers to doing things a little differently from the norm. …
I spent three years at the (mostly White) institution known for producing renowned leaders — but I focused on being a follower
“Black sheep” is an idiom used to describe someone who acts differently from the expected norm.
Well, not this Black sheep. At least not when I was a student at Harvard Law School from 2009 to 2012. I was obsessed with my White HLS herd, and I would be damned if I did anything to stray from it.
And this herd was very White. In 2012, the year that I graduated, only 77 of the 912 total male students (8.4%) were Black, according to the American Bar Association’s database. Coincidentally, there were also 77 Black female students of the 815 total (9.4%). …
TLDR: Heads up, our baby’s dirty diapers could be coming your way.
Dear Backyard Neighbors,
I get it, we’re all bored in quarantine, and converting your cement backyard patio into a pool is a Hail Mary to get your two teenagers off of Youtube and Fortnite. Your words, by the way, as I remember from the day that you knocked on my door to get my sign-off under the HOA’s mandatory neighbor approval process for home improvement projects. Yes, I’ll be the first to acknowledge that I affirmatively consented to this installation.
However. For one, that was back in April, which feels like approximately 14 years ago. I had all but forgotten about that when the drilling began this past week in October. Furthermore, I was under the impression that my signature was required for aesthetic reasons, as our HOA is obsessed with ensuring that none of the stucco stamps in this little master-planned community deviate from what the neighbors consider acceptable. (We aren’t paying our lofty monthly premiums for nothing!) So, just like I signed off without second thought on our other neighbors repainting their shutters a slightly darker shade of blue, I was fine with allowing you to do what you so desired with your quaint little backyard plot. …
Brought to you from the grocery store checkout line.
It’s not always in the grocery store. But it often is. As a Millennial mom of young kids, I can rarely make it through an errand without some Susan coming out of nowhere to offer me her (and yes, it is almost always her) unsolicited, allegedly tried-and-true parenting advice.
I know, I know, these “Susans” are just trying to help. To feel useful. Maybe reminisce about their alleged “good old days.” Get some credit for all that thankless, selfless hard work from their bygone pasts. I know.
Here’s the thing about it, though, and I’ll say it right to your face, Susan (through the Internet that you don’t really know how to use): You’re cutting me deep! You deliver your cursory little tidbits of advice with a satisfied nod before sailing away to leave me standing there feeling like a failure, an idiot, and even more of a confused, anxious mess than I already was when you approached me. At least have the balls to stick around for a little back-and-forth. …
