"Mommy, I want blue eyes like Parker." So it begins...

 

When I was pregnant with my son "J" (will not use his first name because I'm a paranoid mom, :-P ) , I was excited because I thought of how much EASIER, or at least in my mind, raising a boy would be than a girl.  I thought about the obvious things like not having any hair issues, or not having to buy tights and changing diapers with tights, not having to purchase bras and have your mom have you try them on in the middle of the store (just saying ma), or the dreaded period conversation.  Then, as much as I hate to admit it now, I thought I wouldn't have to have the "mommy am I pretty" conversation with my potential daughter over body image, skin color (yes, black women are still under pressure to fit a Eurocentric standard of beauty...Beyonce's blonde weave ring a bell) or eye color.  I was happy... with a boy, I wouldn't have to have these conversations.  Boys are accepting of their bodies, right?  Boys don't think about this, right?  Boys just worry about being boys... and as they get older, dating, peer approval, wearing cool clothes, competition, right?  

WRONG!!!!!!

This morning.  My son, "J", who is almost three years old said to me "Mommy, I have two arms." Let me explain something to all the people reading this with no children.  At the age of almost three, my son knows colors,shapes, ABC's, and has an expanded vocabulary.  We are still working on number sense (Knowing the number 2 means you have 1,2 of something, etc...).  We've been working with this kid all summer.  We say to him "J", pass your brother three strawberries" or "Count how many books there are."  We try.  So when he says "Mommy, I have two arms."  I was excited because he is making sense of it.  Then he says to me "Mommy, I have two legs, I have two feet, I have two eyes."  I praise him by telling him he's absolutely right and ask him for a "high five." Then he says something that stops me cold and immediately wipes the smile off my face: "Mommy, I want blue eyes like Parker." 

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Wait, Wait, Wait.  I know my son, MY SON, a boy, did not just say he wanted blue eyes like his good friend Parker, did he?  * sigh * So it begins. 

Let me take you back for a second.  

Apologies for the second picture being so blurry. The pics above are me as a baby and wee lass. I think in the second picture I am a little younger than my son is now.  As I got older, my hair grew to be quite long. My pigtails were down to my waist. I was constantly told by adults (which I know find quite sad), that I was pretty because I had light skin and long hair.  I was also constantly told to NEVER cut my hair, for if I did, boys would not like me... I would not be special.  Sad right?  Well even in my most brainwashed of days, having long hair and light skin wasn't enough.  I wanted straighter hair or "good hair".  I went to Catholic school during my elementary years.  I didn't have to worry about wearing cool clothes but I did want to be like three girls: Ashley, Fonna, and Rashida.  They were all bi-racial and all had hair, just as long as me, but their hair was shiny, curly, and straighter than mine.  I was at the bottom of the long hair totem pole.  (This is really sad that a fourth grader would think this, right)?  AND I wanted "pretty eyes".  Pretty eyes in the Black community are eyes that are not the standard issue brown color.  So any variation or deviation from the standard issue brown eye is usually more pleasing in terms of standards of beauty: light brown, hazel, green, grey, blue, or a combination of any of the aforementioned.  

So there I was... wishing, wanting, praying for my hair to get straighter and my eyes to get lighter.... all at the age of nine or so. 

So when my son tells me this morning he wants "Blue eyes like Parker" I cringe. Not because blue eyes are bad... because I am not racist as I have been accused of being, LOL!  But because my son is Black and he will never genetically have "Blue eyes like Parker." 

So I take my son in our bathroom, tell him to look in the mirror and I tell him "J, you have brown eyes, and brown eyes are pretty."  I realize that the term pretty is not something men would prefer to hear but he's two, give me a break.  He knows what the word means, LOL!

I tell him to look in the mirror.  I say "Daddy has brown eyes, mommy has brown eyes, brother has brown eyes, and 'J' has brown eyes.  Brown eyes are pretty. 

Do you think brown eyes are pretty?  He nods yes.  Then its time to finish our regular morning routine to get him ready for pre-school so he can go play with his "friends." 

As my husband put our son in our car to take him to pre-school, I began thinking about two things: all the times in my youth where boys told me they wanted longer hair or lighter eyes or lighter skin and why doesn't my son's pre-school have multi-cultural celebrations?

I remember a boy in middle school named Marcus.  Marcus had green eyes.  All the girls in my middle school liked Marcus.  I remember a conversation once with Marcus where he told me about a TV ad he saw with a Caucasian guy with blond hair and a baseball cap he'd whip off revealing his beautiful hair. Thanks to this shampoo, the guy's blonde hair was now bouncy, shiny, and clean.  Marcus told me that he would do the same move with a baseball cap that was in the TV ad, over and over again... but the blonde hair never materialized.  Its amazing the things from your childhood that your children can make you remember. 

Then I thought to myself, as a Secondary Educator, I am hard on teachers for not practicing cultural proficiency.  Not recognizing beauty and brains from all shades, abilities, ethnicities and genders.  Then I felt bad because I failed to demand this same culturally competent practice from my son's pre-school. 

Why? 

I recall some months back twittering furiously over the lack of black super heroes for my son to look up to, other than his dad of course :-)  In his room you will find Buzz Lightyear EVERYWHERE. He loves Buzz. My husband and I prefer cartoon movies with animals or cars, trains, ANYTHING except replicas of actual people for our son to like because we don't have to discuss if Spiderman is white, black, Asian, or whatever because he wears a mask (until he saw the movie, thanks Hollywood.)

I was so disappointed that my son couldn't find a likeness of himself to imagine being a hero. The one person he hangs on to is this guy 

Meet "Kevin" the Black Power Ranger from "Power Ranger Samurai" on Nickelodeon. 

If we happen to catch this on tv, "J" will say "mommy, that's me, I'm Kevin on Powah Rangeah Sama-rai" (he's two, he still has a cute Bugs Bunny voice.)

Then I thought to myself, Wow, Kevin is the ONLY dude holding it down for all black boys in the super hero division. What a heavy role Kevin... Samurai away dude. 

But back to my connection to school.  Teachers, this is why culturally competent, all inclusive Education is needed: to counter the lack of diversity in the media that will ultimately affect a child's self esteem.  Believe me, the examples of me wanting straighter hair, or Marcus wanting blonde hair, or my son wanting blue eyes, are few of the millions of examples any person of color who is now secure with their identity will share with you.  If this weren't true, why would Asian people undergo eye flap surgery to go from this to this: 

Or why would darker hued people all over the world bleach their skin to go from this to this: 

And let us not forget hair straightening to go from this to this: 

Why? I wont say something as harsh as self-hatred, because that isn't productive.  Although I do think that's a small part of it... I'll say assimilation, or blending in.  But who sets the standard? Bigger eyes, lighter skin, straighter hair? Please don't take this as me saying white people are evil or are oppressive on an individual basis... it just shows that there is a marked lack of diversity in mass media.  Any race is able to do this, it just so happens that History, television ads, magazine ads, sports reports, local news channels, etc... all focus on Eurocentric standards of beauty. 

As a teacher, just remember that this is the often unspoken monster you are fighting.  You became a teacher not only to educate but to uplift, right?  You want your students to feel good about themselves, right? 

Then please remember to celebrate how EVERYONE looks... not just one.  Stories about "Goldilocks" or "Susie with the blonde hair" or "Parker with the Blue eyes" really do touch a young child in hurtful ways that they are not able to process yet. All they know is that they aren't that character, they don't look like the person in the story you described. This is true in examples of class too by the way. If all the heroes you depict are white or rich... what does that say to a child who isn't and will never be? 

This is yet another reason why you can't say "I don't see color" because the issues mentioned above are what children hold with them. I'd like to recommend a book if I could. 

Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" is a very touching story about a little girl named Peacola who wants blue eyes... if she gets them, she deeply, pathologically believes that her life will be better.  While the story is fiction, sadly, for many children of color, it hits very close to home...

Just never thought it would be my son too.