My three boys will check “other”.
Elaine Oyzon-Mast
Avondale Estates, GA
Filipino, German, English, Irish, supposedly with a touch of Cherokee and Iroquois. The melting pot serving up three beautiful boys.
Yes, those boys are my brothers.
Julia Guerra,
Austin, TX.
My brothers are very important figures in my life. They were born to a white mom and a white dad. They are blonde and red-haired, with blue and green eyes. When they were little babies, my white mom married my Mexican dad and he adopted both of them as his own. I am biracial, with brown skin and hispanic features. The majority of our small hometown almost refused to believe that we were siblings for the 16 years that we lived there. People would say to them, “that brown girl is your sister?” Even after leaving that small town, we are constantly mistaken as friends. People who meet us for the first time are baffled when we tell them that we are related. People who see them across the room say to me, “but they’re white.” We have been together all of our lives. We share a mother, a last name, and a lifetime of memories. Yes, those white boys are my brothers.
Stop seeing black boys as predators.
Sandra C. Seaton
East Lansing, MI
Listen to Sandra’s story from NPR’s Talk of the Nation
No other boy will date you.
Deborah Lewis
Oakland, CA
Howard had a girlfriend. But, we used to chat at work. He invited me to go get pizza with him. I asked my parents who were incredibly strict. My mom said that I could not go because Howard was black and if other boys saw me with him, they would never ask me out on a date. I was terrified of my parents and what they would do if they caught me sneaking in or out. I also lived 3 miles into the country in a rural town with no transportation. The next time I saw Howard at work, I had to tell him my parents would not let me go. I was so embarrassed. The older I get, the more embarrassed I am. By the tone of his voice, I knew he knew exactly what they had said. I wish I had found a way to do the right thing for me. Howard was sweet and nice, which is a lot more than I can say for a lot of men I have met.
Are those boys your biological children?
Wendy Allmendinger
North Attleboro, MA
I was asked this question far too many times to count when my children were little. I am white, my two beautiful boys are black. The question was often followed by, “Not that there is anything wrong with that.” Depending on my mood at the moment, my answers ranged from a terse “Yes” to a sarcastic “Thank you for your approval.” Once, after a particularly aggressive and obviously disapproving woman asked me the question, I asked her if she was asking me if I had sex with their father. She stammered something unintelligible and retreated. I should note that most of the people who asked me this question were white women, but not all. After my first son was born, a black woman asked me what my baby was mixed with. I was new to the question at the time and told her his father is black. What I was thinking was, “Sperm and egg. How do you mix your babies?” Children (boys and girls, black and white) asked the question almost as often but in a very different way. They asked if the boys were my sons or if I was their mother. One little girl asked me “How come you growed a brown one?” I was always more than happy to explain that they were my children, that I was their mother, and how I growed a brown one. The children had no judgment, no value and no opinion about my answer. They had a natural curiosity about a visible difference; not the apparent judgment, the underlying hostility or the obvious ignorance of the adults who asked. At some point the question stopped being asked. I think it was right around the time my boys were as tall as I was. It certainly hasn’t been asked since they both began shaving and tower over me. But the reasons for that may be a wb ole different rant…
I teach black boys–it hurts
Leslie Owen
Pensacola, FL
Submitted via: NPR’s Talk of the Nation
