Yes, he really is my brother.
Angalina Taylor,
Muscatine, IA
I come from a white family but I have an African brother. we adopted him when her was a year old and since than I have to constantly remind people he is my brother.
Not my boyfriend, he’s my brother…
Denee,
USA.
#thatadoptedlife
Tight Black curls line the tub
Jan Landis,
Portland, OR
Our family raised a Black boy, along with our own 5 children. It always amused me when I cleaned the tub to see tiny black curls alongside all of our straight hairs:) We had a wonderful time getting to know him.
Wait… how is he your brother?
Brenna,
France.
When my brother was born, my mom told my sister and I that she hated the word “half.” She didn’t believe that the tiny little baby boy who looked like an Eskimo was half anything– he deserved our full love no matter what our relationship was. She didn’t like the idea of half a family. Since then, I have never once considered calling him my half-brother. We were raised together, after all. That said, I am constantly forced to call him my half-brother in order to explain our relationship to people. You see, my brother is dark-skinned. His father is from the French island of Mayotte, which is just off the coast of Madagascar. My father is British and I am blonde and light-skinned. When people see photos of us, they immediately feel compelled to ask: wait… how is he your brother? Recently, I went to a lecture at the American Library in Paris given by Ta-Nehisi Coates, the famed African-American writer for The Atlantic. During his speech, Ta-Nehisi spoke about the Trayvon Martin case, which touches me personally because my brother, who is now ten, is quickly approaching his teenage years and the reality of being a black man in America. After the lecture, I got the opportunity a question. I asked Ta-Nehesi about the future for young, black Americans– like his twelve-year-old son or my brother. After the lecture, four different strangers approached me to ask me, not about the question I had asked, but how I happened to have a sibling who is black. Each of those four times, I was forced to call my brother my half-brother in order to explain. “Ahhhh,” they said, as if the light had dawned on a particularly disturbing question. One particularly insensitive women called over to her husband “HALF, Charles, he’s her HALF brother!” The women then told me that I must feel kinship with Ta-Nehisi because he has half-siblings, too. It was strange and rather inappropriate, but I am used to it. People have even corrected me when I am speaking about my brother– “you mean your half-brother?” I guess in some ways he is. But in my heart and in my family, half doesn’t exist.
Trust the brother, distrust the other.
Bert Olson,
San Jose, CA.
This is an observation on human nature, not confined to race. Humans tend to bond with people of similar appearance and background. It takes effort to understand the other.
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.
Just because I’m brown, I’m different
Jessica Hernandez,
San Juan Capistrano, CA.
My little sister were born light skinned versus me who was born brown. My parents like to bring that up all the time, saying that because she is light skinned, she’s going to get all the guys. Because she is light skinned, she will be beautiful. So what about me?
Mixed heritage. Feeling strange growing up
Katie Moore
New Echota, GA
I used to hate the way I looked growing up. My mom & brother had fair skin & freckles & I had darker skin & hair. I like the way I look now. I’m proud of my heritage. I am of cherokee, creek, German,& African decent. I stand taller than most women & my hair is almost to my knees & very straight with several shades of auburn & browns. I have a daughter now that took after her father more; wavy hair, fair skin, & blue eyes.
My brother doesn’t look like me
Caroline Foster,
Brooklyn, NY
I’m white, my younger brother was adopted from South Korea when I was five. I forget that we don’t look related because although I remember picking him up from the airport with my family, we’ve been siblings since before I understood that his experience being adopted by a white family in America would be different than mine. Sometimes I need to clarify that he’s my brother to friends or acquaintances because it’s not immediately obvious. I used to have a picture of him as my lock screen on my phone. People would always ask me if he was my boyfriend. I always wonder how he feels about it. We don’t talk about it much as a family.
Do y’all have the same father
Darrell Langley Jr.,
Dallas, TX
My brothers and I have been asked this question several times, or too many to count growing up. My twin brother and I are a lighter shade than our little brother, but yes we all have the same father.
“He’s not your son? Oh good!”
Amber Halverson,
Eugene, OR.
“Oh good! He doesn’t look like he has any white in him at all!”
My first real encounter with my own race that I can remember was when I was in middle school. My white godparents had just adopted a black baby. They “kept his black name”, DiMario, as his middle name and changed his first name to the “biblical” (aka: white) name Joshua.
We were in the store and my godmother took her oldest daughter to the bathroom so I was with the baby waiting outside. An older white woman came up to me and asked if he was my son. I exclaimed, “Oh, no no no. He’s my brother”. In my mind it was a crazy thing to ask because I was obviously too young to have a baby. Her response was “Oh good. Because he doesn’t look like he has any white in him at all!” and then she just walked away like what she said didn’t mean anything.
I was raised in a diverse city with many different races and cultures, but my own race was not acknowledged to me until it was compared to someone else’s.
His was acknowledged right away and was immediately looked down upon, all before he could talk.
I often wonder if his parents have ever talked with him about his race and what it means to him or if they teach him colorblindness.
Brother played Cowboy, never the Indian.
Bonni Hamilton,
Eliot, ME.
I grew up with two Native American siblings who my parents adopted when we were very small. When he was young, my Lakota brother always wanted to be the cowboy in Cowboys and Indians. He knew from personal experience the Indians always lost. The memory still breaks my heart.
“He’s not heavy. He’s my brother”
Anonymous,
Spokane, WA.
Playing on the radio when my 16-year-old friend in high school came back to school after her brother was murdered someone playing Russian Roulette while drunk in her home. Native American Family.
He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother
The Hollies
The road is long
With many a winding turn
That leads us to who knows where
Who knows where
But I’m strong
Strong enough to carry him
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother
So on we go
His welfare is of my concern
No burden is he to bear
We’ll get there
For I know
He would not encumber me
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother
If I’m laden at all
I’m laden with sadness
That everyone’s heart
Isn’t filled with the gladness
Of love for one another
It’s a long, long road
From which…
Source: LyricFind
Lights flipped, pulled over, relax brother
JC Ousley
Houston, TX
In 1998 I bought a new red corvette despite my mother’s plea, she said the car was trouble for a black man. On the day the car was delivered, I was driving to my parent’s home to show off my new vette when I was pulled over by three Chicago police cars, the officers, all white, had their guns drawn as they approached me. There was a black officer who arrived later and remained in his vehicle, I looked directly at him and he looked away. The officers asked me where I was going and what I did for a living (I’m a medical professional). I politely told them and asked why I was pulled over. I never got an explanation. While I waited for them to check my plates and registration, I took the opportunity to have the “talk” with my 6 yr.old son who was in the car with me. The officers returned my drivers license and registration and told me to have a nice evening. Shaken, I continued on to see my parents and I never told of the incident. My son who is now 20, never forgot it.
Made-up, fear, love, in, out, together
Dev Michel Luthra,
Jamaica Plain, MA.
I am the child of an Indian (Asian) father and a European mother, both of whom were raised in Africa. I have spent most of my life here in the US. My brother and children were born here. I still struggle with how entitled the white elite is in terms of language, everyday life. Most white Americans struggle with any name that is not Joe or Betty. Small things I suppose but revealing: we struggle with difference. I don’t understand why. This country was founded on difference, no? But then it was also founded on the death of difference….
Not just a spoiled white girl
Cassidy-Rae Bastarache,
Gardner, MA
I’m white and some people assume that I am privileged and have money based on some of the expensive things that I own and the vacations that I have taken. The truth is that my parents are hard working middle class people who work lots of overtime to give me and my brother all the things in life they never had.
