In the Middle

I opened the can of worms.
I have no idea if anyone is reading, and if so who - I don't know my audience. 4 people have talked about the blog in recent history, one of them being Daddy, so I may just be talking to myself. I don't know how to check. If there is a wider audience, I've been ruminating.

I don't want to defend myself. I believe my children needed a parent and I desperately wanted to be their parent. I do want to be introspective, because I can't afford to not try to understand the issue of race better.

My last post could alienate me to both sides. To the people who have lived their whole lives on the island of Caucasia, where travelers from other ethnicities visit but don't live, I'm almost a traitor to acknowledge that racism still exists.

To the people who live on some other islands - by trying to say "I've shared that experience." I've only proved that I don't understand part of the nitty-gritty of their life.

I'm never going to be African American. I'm never going to be Ethiopian. I can't even "pass" for having a gene tie to my children to people of African descent - if he or she says "mom" they say "So, you adopted" and not in the form of a question.

But as their mom I need to work on this gap between white privilege and racism. The disparity between the experiences and treatment. There is no guarantee what types of experiences my children will have, but the world is far from perfect. While I hope the balance is tipped towards the times they feel loved, accepted and included, I know there will be times when they feel left out, different and outside. I need to learn how to help them deal with the things that are unfair.

I don't know where to go with this one. Racism exists, my children will experience it in their lives in ways that I can't. I hope that some of my experiences can help them, but I also need the experiences of people who have experienced "walking in their skin" to help them. I'm a light-skinned woman who has a vested interest in race issues, who is aware of the color of my "world" and who spends time trying to understand race in dialogue and study. I'm also the mother of children with skin of deeper hues but I don't have the generations of knowledge of how to cope with and fight racism without being broken by it.

In the middle.