Dear Rachel Dolezal: Family Is More Than Race
(Photo: Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review via AP)
On Tuesday, Rachel Dolezal, the controversial former president of the Spokane, Wash., branch of the NAACP, told the Today show’s Matt Lauer that her adopted brother-turned adopted son Izaiah, now 21, cannot plausibly see her as his “real mom” if she is “seen as white.”
Of the many statements said by Dolezal that have set off a media maelstrom, her unapologetic stance on race and parenting is a deeply personal affront to many.
“My whole family is predicated on my belief that a white mother can have black children,” Trista Schroeder, the white mother of a black daughter, tells Yahoo Health.
Kids Must Have Their Own Identities
Trista Schroeder’s first meeting with her daughter, who she adopted in Ethiopia. (Photo: Trista Schroeder)
What many parents miss — and what any mixed race family must take seriously and think critically about — is that “as a parent your job is to be an emotional coach for your child while they navigate the business of becoming a fully formed, independent, aware, and confident individual,” Schroeder says. “I think this is a parent’s highest calling. So in that respect, my daughter must have her own identity, and I must nurture that at all times and not treat her as an extension of me. All parents must do this for their children.”
Experts – and America – agree.
“It’s a murky statement,” says Dr. Gail Saltz, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, regarding Dolezal’s comments regarding race and parenting, “In light of the fact that [Dolezal] knows she was born Caucasian and so she is sort of saying this as an explanation of why she feels the need to culturally identify as black.”
And yet, Saltz adds, “There are many examples of white parents who have adopted black children — and both parties feel very much that there are parent and child. There is not any evidence to support [what Dolezal claims].”
Today’s Family Identity Is Based on Pride — Not Race
Saltz points to a the #HowWeFamily study she is presenting with Tylenol, a survey of American families of all different demographics — religious, ethnic, gender, number of parents in the household, etc. — which found that “the issue of family identity is hugely important no matter what kind of family constellation we are talking about. It’s about feeling pride about your family — not based on because you’re a Caucasian family or an African-American family — but just because of that’s how you feel about your family.”
“I’m a white woman married to a black man,” Kate Tuttle shares with Yahoo Health, “I have two kids — the older is white, from my first marriage. My younger child is biracial and black — we like to use both terms, because both are possible ways he can identify himself and connect himself to a community. I like to point out to him that President Obama is also black and biracial!”
An early picture of President Barak Obama and his mother Ann Dunham. (Photo: Corbis)
The #HowWeFamily study found that families today — no matter the constellation or diversity — feel a strong sense of pride for everyone within the family unit and for the family’s identity. And everyone within a family group can have an identity that isn’t singularly defined by a single characteristic such as race or religion — since indeed, many American households are now comprised of families that blend backgrounds of all kinds — and still have a family sense of pride and identity.
Extolling the Virtues of Difference and Acceptance
“I was just talking with my white friend’s teenage son, who is black, just last week about this very thing,” Kera Bolonik, a white mother to a black son, tells Yahoo Health, “He said I will have to accept, but not overthink about, the fact that my son, who is now three and a half, will likely go through a period where he may struggle with an identity crisis, as he tries to find his place in the world. Perhaps even more than he did (my friend’s son has a white mother and a black father) because my son is adopted by two white parents. And he may feel deracinated. And because I’m a worrier — a worry driven by my deep crazy love of my child — I think about this all the time, and did well before I spoke with my friend’s son.
Related: Can Rachel Dolezal Really Be ‘Transracial’ — Or Is White Privilege to Blame?
“Our child is still very young and is aware that he’s black and we’re white, but doesn’t really appreciate yet what that means beyond skin color. But what we must do for him is to acknowledge difference, and extol the virtues of difference. And embrace it and present and set great examples for him. I’d be dishonest if I said I don’t worry that he may go through a period of feeling like an ‘other’ in his own family. But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe white mothers can’t have black children. I have known many white mothers of black children throughout my life, and I know many now, and they’re amazing parents.”
The #HowWeFamily study echoes this sentiment, with seventy-five percent of families saying that teaching acceptance is an essential family value. “And that’s definitely different in 2015 than it was decades ago,” says Saltz of this finding. “On the one hand, that’s terrific,” she says, “but then the issue becomes — can families be tolerant and accepting of families that are different than their [own] family….If you’re teaching acceptance, that means teaching [your children] to be accepting of individuals different than yourself.”
How Can Parents Speak to Their Kids About Understanding Diversity?
“In our family, it’s important to talk about race and identity all the time — not in a super-serious or academic way, but just as a part of what makes life interesting and what makes us all human,” says Tuttle, “I think it’s a mistake when white parents have children of color (whether through birth or adoption) and don’t address race with them, or convey a sense of caution or embarrassment about race. Color-blindness is often assumed by white people to be a great way to deal with race — research and real-life experience proves that it’s not.”
The same can and should be asked of white parents and educators: “How can white parents speak to their children about understanding the diversity of skintones and appearances that comprise the white community and the white experience?”,” says Mikhail Lyubansky, PhD, and a member of the teaching faculty in the department of psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “We tend to do this thing in this country where we racialize (i.e., treat as racial beings) those who are non-white but treat white Americans as though they are human beings but not racial beings.”
Related: Rachel Dolezal Says “Caitlyn Jenner’s Story ‘Resonated’ With Me”
So, for example, we ask African-American families and Asian families and Latino families: How do you help your kids navigate race and racism, but we are less likely to ask white families the same question. “It’s hardly surprising then that people of color are often much better at recognizing the racial subtext of an interaction and negotiating it with intentionality,” says Lyubansky. “But the social construction of race impacts white folks too (usually in a positive way) and, whether we want to find ways to live with other racial groups peacefully and equitably or find ways to move beyond a racialized society, we have to get much better at seeing race dynamics and negotiating them with sensitivity for all involved.”
It’s Every Parent’s Responsibility to Have Conversations on Race
“People think that just because they have a child of color that they have to have these conversations, but it is every parent’s responsibility,” says Bolonik, “I believe that the fact that white people place the burden on people of color to educate us on how not to be a racist is that our parents didn’t prioritize this aspect of our education. …We introduced the conversation about race when our son was young — through conversation and books and cultural exposure.”
Over the course of many years, Rachel Dolezal changed her appearance, beginning with darkening her skin and hair. (Photos: Nicholas K. Geranios/AP, Dolezel family/Corbis)
Rachel Dolezal equates through her behavior and word choice, Saltz says, that there is a value judgment attached to race. “For her to be black is important or good or better for being a parent or partner or representative,” notes Saltz, a behavior that shows Dolezal placing “a value judgment not only on race, but of degree of race. I’m not using a pun — but there are all shades of tolerance and acceptance. And part of being not intolerant has to do with not putting a value judgment — good or bad — on race, religion, sexuality, and degree of these things.”
Related: Rachel Dolezal Says “I Identify as Black”
“Before my son was born, I did sometimes worry that our different racial identities would somehow make us less close, but that has never been the case,” says Tuttle. “I think it’s been helpful that he has a black parent, and also that he knows his white parent will listen to him and talk to him about race, as openly and honestly as I can. I think in general kids and parents have a lot to learn from each other, and when we address each other across the color line, it’s really up to us white parents to listen to our kids of color.
Saltz points to the #HowWeFamily study as a tide change in the psyche of the American family, a collective recognition and ability to say “That family is different than us — but that’s fine!” Furthermore, she notes, communities are increasingly being created between families not because of shared racial make-up but because they may have children in the same school or soccer program. “They are different — but we seek out and find similarities and values we agree upon,” says Saltz of this community building.
“What we don’t do is presume to know more than we do,” concludes Bolonik of the challenges of being a white woman raising a black child — and seeking to instill that child with a secure sense of racial identity. “We do assume we’ll make mistakes —like any parent, and then some. We have to accept that, hard as it is. And it is hard, and it’s harder still when there are profound differences as race, which is so loaded in this country that to deny it is criminal. But he’s our son. We love him like crazy — and he loves us like crazy too.”
Read This Next: Can Rachel Dolezal Really Be ‘Transracial’ — Or Is White Privilege to Blame?
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