Around the web

I have about three big posts brewing, but until I have time to finish them up, I did want to share some interesting things I’ve read over the past few days.

Michael Slackman of the New York Times has an article today about noise in Cairo. Don your ear mufflers, and read A City Where You Can’t Hear Yourself Scream.

A young Egyptian woman named Pakinam wrote a powerful blog entry on her decision to wear hijab: To Veil or Not to Veil.

Jae Ran at the great blog Harlow’s Monkey gives some great advice to parents on how we can be allies to our transracially adopted kids.

Dr. King

Last year about this time, I took Bug, then two years old, to the doctor. In January we had been to a fun and memorable Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade and had continued conversations about Dr. King. So, when I told Bug we’d see the doctor soon, he asked, “Dr. King?”

The nurse, a black woman, and I both smiled. No, not Dr. King.

The past few days, especially since I’ve been reading the comments on the Why are we here? post, I’ve been thinking a lot about racism. Racism manifests itself differently in different cultures and countries, but can we escape it anywhere? Of course I don’t have an answer for that.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King. I remember when King’s birthday first became a holiday, but I’m too young to remember Dr. King himself. I do know that it’s incredible to think that my family wouldn’t have been possible then, in 1968.

At the stroke of midnight

Today, while Mr. Four stayed home to catch up on some missed sleep from a very early morning with Bug, I took Bug and Giggle out for some swim and play time. Usually when we take a taxi, I sit in the back with the boys (car seats are not part of life here in Egypt, so the three of us fit easily). Today, I had so much stuff I decided to sit up front while the boys sat in the back. Perhaps this encouraged the taxi driver to be extra chatty (usually the conversation isn’t much more than a hello and how are you, if that).

He said, “Are they your children?”
I said, “Yes.”
He said, “But they are black.”
I said, “Yes, and they are my children.”
He said, “Is your husband black?”
I said, “No.”

He didn’t ask anything else. I’m sure that was all clear as mud to him, eh?

At the pool, I mentioned this story to my pal Cindy, who said someone here in Egypt, trying to understand her relationship with Maya, asked if Maya had been “born at the stroke of midnight.”

Who knew that pale skinned parents could have brown skinned children if they’re born at the right moment? Apparently, some Egyptians know this. I did not.

The other moral of this story is thank goodness for Maya’s family. We’d be lost in Egypt without them.

Questions from strangers

“Is that your son?”

“Is that your child?”

“Is that your baby? Really?”

“Where is your husband?”

“Is your husband from here?”

“Are those your kids?”

“Are they brothers?”

“Are you his mother?”

“Is your husband Egyptian?”

Yet more about the TV

Two days ago Mr. Four and I were joking that even after months without TV, it still seemed like nothing was on.

That was ’til last night. I did backflips down the hall when I realized that my team had a game on, a re-broadcast of the previous night’s game. I’m a one-team, one-sport gal, and being able to watch my alma mater coast to victory was an absolute and unexpected delight.

(By the way, I didn’t really do backflips, but I did run down the hall, arms flailing, to tell Mr. Four the news of the game. It was quite undignified.)

Bug skipped his nap yesterday, so he went to bed right on time, but I let Giggle stay up late so I could indoctrinate him in the ways of our team. I think it worked, too. You gotta start kids young on sports fanaticism, you know. I still have warm fuzzies for the Boston Red Sox after my earliest childhood years in New England (I think of Roger Clemons as a Red Sox and have fond memories of Oil Can Boyd).

Of course, another reason to teach Giggle now is that even though I’ve watched this team and this sport for years, I don’t have a mind or eye for sports, so if I’m going to teach him anything, it’s now or never. In another year he’ll know more than I do. And he’ll have to explain it to me. I was bummed that he kept talking about the black men and white men playing, until I realized he was talking about their uniforms (the men in white, the men in dark). Heh.

Another huge treat was watching Barack Obama’s Iowa caucus victory speech with the boys this morning. The satellite news channel re-broadcast the speech, and I’ll confess I teared up with the hope that my boys might know a world where a black man is the American president. I’m not usually such a cheeseball about TV or politics, but his caucus win was momentous. I’m aglow.

So hurray yet again for TV! And let’s hope I’m done talking about it, eh?

The Jena Six

Have you heard about this case from Louisana? Here’s a great video summary (thanks to Carmen at Racialicious for posting this, as well as links to other news about the Jena Sex):

The narrator makes a great point: with all the media saturation of the Duke Lacrosse case, why was there no press looking at the Jena Six?

Funny white man?

I regularly read a great blog called Racialicious. Carmen, the smart woman behind Racialicious, blogged about a YouTube video of a white comedian apologizing, on behalf of whites, for slavery and other atrocities. It’s funny and awful and hard to pinpoint.

Carmen’s readers and commentors are as compelling as her blog, so take a look, and let me know what you think, either here or on Carmen’s blog.

Anti-Racist Parent Meme

Carmen at Anti-Racist Parent offered up the following meme, which I’ve edited here for your reading pleasure:

 1. I am:
French/French Canadian, Irish, Polish, and German. But I identify more as a native New Englander. 

2. My kids are:
Ethiopian (Oromo, we think, and Hadiya) and American.

3. I first started thinking more about race, culture, and identity when:
In fifth grade when one of my good girl friends was first generation American, with parents from China.

4. People think my name is:
French. And they’re right! But they really don’t know what to do with Mr. Four’s last name. And it’ll seem particularly odd on my kids.

5. The family tradition I most want to pass on is:
A love for reading.

6. The family tradition I least want to pass on is:
Siblings who don’t stay close into adulthood. This goes back a generation or two on both sides of my family. And I really want my boys to look out for each other even when we’re no longer here to bring them together.

7. My child’s first word in English was:
Bug’s first English words were “water” and our dog’s name. We weren’t around to hear Giggle’s.  

8. My child’s first non-English word was:
Bug knew a few sounds in Amharic when we met him, but not really any words. So perhaps “shinte” it is, as learned from Giggle. Shinte means pee in Amharic.

9. The non-English word/phrase most used in my home is:
Ishi. It means “okay” in Amharic. Often used as a question.  The real answer to this is “shinte.” Even Bug uses it. Or perhaps “baca,” which means enough or finished, as in “baca orange juice” (the orange juice is all gone) or “baca water” (turn off the water before you flood the bathroom) or “baca TV” (turn off the TV before your brain rots).

10. One thing Two things I love about being a parent is are:
Laughing hysterically with my kids on a daily basis. Watching them together.

11. One thing I hate about being a parent is:
Never going to movies.

12. To me, being an anti-racist parent means:
Dealing with my own issues and being brave enough to deal with others’, to make the world a little bit easier for my kids and, more importantly, to start remedying some of the wrongs.