creating a bye-racial world

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I want to share two articles published for Loving Day.  Not just any Loving Day, but the 50th Anniversary of the legalization of interracial marriage nationwide Loving Day.  Yay!  A lot has changed in 50 years.  And so much has not.  I think these two articles together embody that sentiment perfectly.  Sometimes it takes more than one thing 🙂

The NPR post has actual audio (short and worth hearing) from the Loving v. Virginia trial and gives more details about the arguments in the case than I’ve ever encountered.  The New York Times Opinion Editorial shares short stories from current day interracial couples.  Find excerpts from both below.  Please click the links for full articles. 

While “Illicit Cohabitation” is a great pull into the NPR mixed-media piece, the line from the trial that I find most fascinating is the one about psychological evils.  The pro anti-miscegenation law argument that “these statutes serve a legitimate, legislative objective of preventing sociological, psychological evils which attend interracial marriages” really got my attention.  I wish I could say the statement is entirely unfounded.  But that is not true.  The statement is true, as is what he said next: “Intermarried families are subjected to much greater pressures and problems than those of the intra-married and that the state’s prohibition of interracial marriage for this reason stands on the same footing as the prohibition of polygamous marriage, or incestuous marriage or the prescription of minimum ages at which people may marry.”  Ok, he totally lost me with polygamous and incestuous and statutory, but what came before that?  That is as true today as it was 50 years ago.  And with everything that’s going on around here these days, there is no denying that.  That’s just the way it is right now.  What I hope we will all do is realize it wasn’t the marriages that needed banning, it was the society who’s psychology told it that there was a hierarchy to maintain and a gulf so wide as to never fathom crossing it.  And I hope we will see where the vestiges of those beliefs and laws still live in us and in our communities and that we will speak up for what is right and just and true.  There is a lot of unraveling to be done.  It shouldn’t have been so hard. 

It shouldn’t be so hard still.  The New York Times gathered stories that are current and honest.  I’ll be honest and admit that I only read the black and white couples because, while I’m being honest, Anti-miscegenation laws were primarily put in place to prohibit black people from marrying white people.  In order to preserve the master race.  And to prevent tragic offspring like me from upsetting the system with our all-encompassing, theory-disproving, potentially-unifying selves by just, you know, existing.  But, I digress-

I think this can all be summed up with this quote from Jennifer, a white woman married to black man since 2001: “I have learned that not only is “driving while black” a real thing, but also that riding with a black male will get you pulled over.  I’ve learned to ignore disapproving looks from older white people in public places…I’ve learned that most people are tolerant, but that is different from being accepting.  While we may have come a long way from the days of the Lovings, there is still a long way to go.” 

To all the interracial couples before the Lovings and after the Lovings,

Thank you for your courage in the name of love while facing intense discrimination, judgement, adversity, and alienation.  Important steps toward waking us up out of the illusion of race. 

It’s difficult to imagine how much the country’s language around race and interracial marriage has changed in the past half century. 

But just 50 years ago, interracial marriage was prohibited in Virginia and 15 other states. 

The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Loving v. Virginia declared unconstitutional a Virginia law prohibiting mixed-race marriage.  The ruling also legalized interracial marriage in every state. 

Bernard Cohen and Philip Hirschkop, two young ACLU lawyers at the time, took the case of the Lovings — a black and Native American woman named Mildred and Richard Loving, her white husband — all the way to the high court. 

Listen to six standout moments from the trial below, transcribed by the Supreme Court in 1967:

1.  Cohen and Hirschkop asked the court to look closely at whether the Virginia law violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.  If the framers had intended to exclude anti-miscegenation status in the 14th Amendment, which assures equal protection under the law, they argued that it would have been easy for them to write a phrase excluding interracial marriage, but they didn’t Cohen argued:

“Equal protection for Negroes”

“The language was broad, the language was sweeping.  The language meant to include equal protection for Negroes that was at the very heart of it and that equal protection included the right to marry as any other human being had the right to marry subject to only the same limitations.” 

This week marks the 50th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, the landmark Supreme Court decision that invalidated state laws restricting interracial marriage.  Recently, we asked readers to share their experiences about being in a mixed-race relationship.  We received more than 2,000 stories in just a few days. 

Many people expressed profound ambivalence about the categories that drove antimiscegenation rules, while they described how their racial identity — or how others identified them — continued to shape their relationships and their social interactions.  Some wrote about the resistance they faced from family and society, while others celebrated the particular richness of their lives.  Here are some of those stories. 

BARB AND MATT ROOSE

Married: Medina, Ohio, July 18, 1992

‘Luckily we were young, bullheaded and foolish.’ 

BARB: I’m African-American and my husband is Caucasian.  We married when we were 19 and 20 years old and we’ll celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary this year.  We love that we get to celebrate such a milestone as the Supreme Court verdict celebrates a milestone too. 

After we got engaged (which was mainly because I was pregnant) my then-boyfriend was asked by one of his family members: “Do you really love her or are you just trying to tick your parents off?” 

We learned quickly that we couldn’t answer all of the questions that our families had.  Luckily we were young, bullheaded and foolish, so we decided not to let other people’s issues with our marriage become our own.  We had to focus on us.  This meant that my husband had to sacrifice some of his relationships for a short season in order to marry me.  Thankfully, they have since reconciled. 

We made it a priority to make sure that our kids had friends of all races.  Early on in our lives, we hung out with another biracial couple that looked like us, so that our kids saw black moms and white dads as normal. 

As a couple, we learned to be upfront with each other about race.  It didn’t start that way.  Attraction led to confusion.  Our life experience and cultural filters created a need for us to learn each other’s ways.  Like, letting him, when he was my boyfriend, into my dorm room while I was relaxing my hair.  I had to let him see me being fully me.  Another time when my father-in-law and I went to a country music concert with his favorite artist — that was culture shock!  But, it was the music of my husband’s experience and it helped me learn more about the people in my family. 

It’s taken a long time to learn this, but we believe that our relationship is more important than one of us being right.  We don’t want race to ever become a wall that divides us. 

I know we’ve added many names to THE list in the year that has passed since Sandra Bland did… but I ain’t been right since hers was added.  And I ain’t been blogging neither, so I’m gonna start back there although there is so much fresh heartbreak to explore.  Please don’t assume that the others didn’t get to me.  That I didn’t feel a punch in the gut when Trayvon went down, when Zimmerman went free, when the music stopped for Jordan, when Eric couldn’t breathe, a wrench in my heart when Tamir was ambushed while playing in the park, when Freddie’s spine was severed on the “joy” ride, when no on was held accountable, when Alton was pinned and gunned down, or when Diamond’s little girl witnessed that horror from just a few feet away in the backseat- just to name a few.  I did feel it.  I do. 

But Sandra Bland, man.  Sandra Bland was me.  And I ain’t been right since.  Sandra Bland was me, not only in the universal sense that because separation is an illusion and everyone is me and I am everyone, but because in the most practical, earthly, human, american way Sandra Bland was me. 

I love to drive.  Which is great because I drive a LOT for work.  I love to drive fast.  And safely.  Those things, too, are not mutually exclusive.  I am not reckless, I just like a little speed.  I like forward motion.  I like advancing toward a goal.  My dosha is clearly Pitta and once I have direction, I am off.  0-60 in no time flat.  That’s my approach in all things really for better or worse.  The way you do one thing is the way you do everything.  As a baby I ran first, then walked, then checked out the crawling thing.  I was born this way.  It’s my baseline.  Various life lessons and my kundalini yoga practice have taught me the art and joys of savoring, of taking time, of being still… but still, I love to GO. 

My anger has been tempered through these practices and experiences, too.  But, seeing as I am human and anger is a natural emotion inherently woven throughout the human experience, I still get angry.  And sometimes it happens quickly.  Especially in the face of perceived injustice.  In that intersection between speed and anger is exactly where Sandra Bland and I are one. 

I have been pulled over.  It seems to happen in spurts with me.  Thank God there usually are long intervals in between.  When I was a new driver I got pulled over a few times.  In the suburbs.  I always smiled sweetly and played dumb and drove away with a warning.  Maybe I really was dumb, not playing at anything, because I had no fear in those situations aside from “I hope I don’t get a ticket” and “I hope my parents don’t find out.”  That was some kind of biracial white privilege induced ignorance, I guess.  Or maybe it was the era.  In the mid-late 90s we didn’t have cell phones at the ready, social media, incessant news reels.  There were no images in my mind of police brutality.  None that seemed extremely relevant anyway.  Rodney King seemed like a terrible one off.  I’d seen black and white pictures from the 60s, heard my mother’s stories about the dogs being unleashed on the black people and any “uncolored” supporters, but as far as I knew that was then and this was now and we were living in a world where a black and a white person made me… and I was having a pretty good life so…

Fast forward to my next set of traffic stops.  Four years ago.  So much hadn’t happened yet, so I was more upset by being made late to work and any fines that would be incurred than I was afraid for my life…but I was angrier.  I’d had more experiences in the real world.  I knew my “place” in the minds of the general white public and I was easily angered by the slightest whiff of prejudice, racism, or arrogance of any kind.  Full of self-righteous indignation.  And one of those traffic stops in particular reeked of all of that.  But I’m pretty smart, and I needed to get to my appointment, so I kept my cool, took the uncalled for amount violations, points on my license, and the fines and I kept on going. 

But what if I hadn’t?  What if I had questioned why I was getting three tickets for a seemingly minor offense that was innocently fueled by a navigation system that kept changing it’s mind and suddenly called on me to exit the highway immediately from the far left lane?  What if I acknowledged what was really going on?  What if I allowed my bad attitude to match the officer’s?  What if I had “talked back”?  Thank God I’ll never know, but all I can think is: Sandra Bland.  Maybe that’s what would have happened.  And maybe it would have taken my white dad too long to get from the middle of the country to the east coast to come in and humanize me and validate my right to decent treatment as he was called on to do when I was in the emergency room with a broken neck.  And maybe I would be dead. 

So, I ain’t been right since Sandra Bland because Sandra Bland was me.  In the past year I have noticed that though I generally prefer to drive solo so I can chant mantras as loudly as I want and I don’t have to worry about making passengers uncomfortable with my confident driving (I live and drive in NYC for goodness sake, I have to be confident), I prefer to drive with white people in my car.  Cuz like maybe if I get pulled over they can vouch for my character, or their presence will validate my existence, or… anything… whatever will save me from whatever might happen.  Sometimes when I see police cars on the road, signs of physical distress manifest quickly.  Three months ago I got pulled over for speeding.  I was speeding.  No need for self righteous indignation there.  But the sheer terror I felt in anticipation of the experience as I was pulling onto the shoulder of the freeway…it’s as frightened as I can recall ever having been.  The self-admonition I doled out when I realized I forgot to take off the bandana I was wearing to keep the frizz down til I got to work was harsh.  I have since forgiven myself, even though I got a ticket and not a warning. 

It’s been exactly one year since Sandra Bland.  Looking around here I think, ain’t none of us been right since because look at how much is going wrong.  But I know that isn’t true.  That doesn’t feel true.  That’s the hurt and anger and fear talking.  And I hold space for all of that within myself, within us.  And I hold space also for the love and peace that can be found when tending to the aftermath of a broken heart.  A broken heart, is an open heart.  As a collective, we are not encouraged to have open hearts.  That takes courage and awareness.  And people who are brave and awake aren’t so easily influenced or scared into buying things. # consumerism. 

But here we are, a broken hearted nation.  A nation who repeatedly has broken it’s own heart.  And things have escalated to a point where more and more of us are unable to remain ignorant.  Or silent.  I’m hoping we can make the most of this opportunity to lean in and nurture our brokenness into openness into oneness. 

Anne Lamott said: “Hope is not about proving anything.  It’s about choosing to believe this one thing- that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us.” 

p.s. “ i ain’t been right” is kind of a figure of speech.  if there is such a thing as “(al)right”, i have been it all along 🙂

I love surprising intersections of the things I love the most.  Such as Volkswagen and Loving Day.  I’m not sure if I am more passionate about any other subjects.  That may be an exaggeration, but anyway I am super into VW as well as the progression of our society toward a more loving, open way of living.  Without Loving v. Virginia it is likely that there would be no me nor so many others.  This is inspiring and undeniable progress for which I am grateful. 

That being said, you can imagine my delight when the Volkswagen ad below hit the circuit just in time for Loving Day- commemoration of the day that the Supreme Court declared interracial marriage to be legal nation wide with their verdict in the Loving vs. Virginia case.  48 years ago.  That was basically yesterday folks.  And though we’ve come a long-ass way in the last 48 years, we still have a long-ass way to go before we’re free from the fears and limitations and separations of race.  And our addiction to perceived otherness.  Can you imagine how lovely things might be if we defaulted to perceived sameness?  Le sigh ❤

So here’s the Volkswagen commercial and here’s to normalizing blackness on the road to normalizing togetherness.  Baby steps. 

What we regularly see depicted in the media is often what we subconsciously regard as being normal.  It’s hard to deny the influence that television and movies has had on impacting the way that people of color are viewed by society.  As inconsequential as it seemed when the popular television series 24 featured a black man as the president, this depiction did undoubtedly condition a segment of the public to the idea that it was not inconceivable that a black man could be the President of the United States. 

Although inter-racial dating is widespread, television continues to shy away from featuring this reality.  That’s why it’s interesting to see Volkswagens choosing to promote this ad.  We will be watching to see if other major advertisers follow suit.  As any step to normalize how black families are depicted is a welcomed development. 

I was delighted to be interviewed by comedian Alex Barnett for his Multiracial Family Man podcast.  I met Alex and his wife during the Katie Couric debacle of 2014.  Not only do I like them because they are cool, funny people, but they remind me of my family of origin.  That doesn’t happen all that often. 

I think we had a great conversation about race, interracial relationships, and the ever evolving multiracial experience. 

The “Black and White” twins are all over everything I’m seeing on the internet.  The trending of the story brings the opportunity to gain more awareness of what we think race is, how we allow it to influence our identity, and (hopefully) how it all really just makes no sense. 

I can’t figure out what prompted the interest in this particular set of twins this week.  I’ve been hoarding articles about black and white twins for years.  It bothers me that when they say “Black and White twins”, they mean one of each.  Below is the actual title and opening sentence of an actual post about Lucy and Maria:

I’ve heard that the odds of having a set of biracial twins belonging to different races is one in a million.  One interracial couple somehow beat those odds…

Um, yeah… it is actually impossible to have a set of biological biracial twins who belong to two different races.  If we’re playing along with the notion that there is a race other than human to belong to in the first place, these biological fraternal twins are of the same race(s).  But, even the twins themselves seem to have adopted the skewed perspective:

Maria loves telling people at college that she has a white twin.  And I’m very proud of having a black twin. 

I may be analyzing too literally, but the simple truth is that these sisters look different.  They are of different phenotypes, not races.  Their skin color (which is real) is different.  Their race (which is not real) is the same.  Me being me, I read their title of “black and white twins” like: They are “biracial” so they are black AND white.  Both of them are both of them.  And both of them have mostly white genes if we’re gonna keep on fractionalizing people into halves or whatever. 

Let’s see what the way we talk about and consider these pairs can help us break our rigid notions of race and identity. 

First, the biology.  How does this happen?  Something that stood out to me when reading about most of these sets of twins is that in the case where one parent is biracial and the other is white, that is not clearly stated.  I think that’s because people are still unclear on how to process us realistically, but they can’t just say “black” because the half white part is a major detail in the equation. 

In the case of the Aylmers it is stated that:

The girls’ nearly opposite features can be traced back to their racially different parents.  Their mother, Donna, is half-Jamaican while father Vince is white. 

Ok, so Donna is half Jamaican and half white although they don’t make define the other half.  Leaving her even more un-whole.  Disappointing to me, but no surprise since most people still think of black and white as mutually exclusive.  Stories like these help us to shift those deeply ingrained tenets in ourselves.  If we’re gonna look at this truthfully, Donna is technically half white and half black.  Vince is white.  So how racially different are they?  Not very, I would argue. 

In most of the other cases the mother is white and the father is black. 

There’s one instance where both parents of the twins are biracial with white moms and black dads. 

Twins Kian and Remee with their parents Kylee Hodgson and Remi Horder who both have white mothers and black fathers. 

The odds against of a mixed race couple having twins of dramatically different colour are a million to one. 

Skin colour is believed to be determined by up to seven different genes working together. 

If a woman is of mixed race, her eggs will usually contain a mixture of genes coding for both black and white skin. 

Similarly, a man of mixed race will have a variety of different genes in his sperm.  When these eggs and sperm come together, they will create a baby of mixed race. 

But, very occasionally, the egg or sperm might contain genes coding for one skin colour.  If both the egg and sperm contain all white genes, the baby will be white.  And if both contain just the versions necessary for black skin, the baby will be black. 

For a mixed-race couple, the odds of either of these scenarios is around 100 to one.  But both scenarios can occur at the same time if the woman conceives non-identical twins, another 100 to one chance. 

This involves two eggs being fertilised by two sperm at the same time, which also has odds of around 100 to one. 

If a sperm containing all-white genes fuses with a similar egg and a sperm coding for purely black skin fuses with a similar egg, two babies of dramatically different colours will be born. 

The odds of this happening are 100 x 100 x 100 – a million to one. 

Taking all of those maths into account, this family is super duper special:

Big sisters Hayleigh, left, and Lauren Durrant, right, hold their new siblings Leah, left, and Miya, right.  Scientists say the odds of their parents, Dean Durrant and Alison Spooner, having two sets of fraternal twins with strikingly different skin tones and eye colors is ‘one in millions.’ 

Now on to the sociology.  Honestly, I’ve always been a little worried about the darker twin when I contemplate how they experience the world.  Because the world will experience each of them differently and sometimes that must manifest in drastic ways.  As a child I was frequently in all white environments and I know first hand how it feels to be valued less than your fairer complected peers.  Frankly, as an adult I am frequently in mostly white environments and sometimes the same vibes are flowing.  But as an adult I know better than to take that personally.  As a child not so much.  That might sound sad, and sometimes I was, but because of those circumstances I learned to see beauty and value in places generally thought to have none.  That is a gift. 

So anyway, I was worried about the “black” twin because I thought they’d be having similar experiences to mine and thinking, “But I’m really just the same.  We’re TWINS for God’s sake.  Why are we exempt from the same regard as all the other twins in the world?  And why am I getting the short end of the stick.  Unfair.”  I was also concerned that it could cause a rift between the twins and rob them of the twin bond which I always thought would be so fun to have. 

Turns out I was wrong.  According to the interviews it seems that the lighter twin struggles more and there are no traces of a lasting breach between them. 

(Of her childhood) Red-haired Lucy said her pale complexion had prompted speculation that she’d been adopted: ‘My classmates used to ask if I was adopted because my siblings are all quite dark. 

‘It was pretty hard, it went on in secondary school and it wasn’t very nice.’ 

The impact this has had may be gleaned from this recent post on her Facebook page:

…thank you so much for all your lovely comments about the way I… look.  I’ve never had so much confidence.  I’ve gone from spending 3 hours covering up every inch of what I naturally look like before I left the house for as little as 2 minutes.  To now wearing next to no make up with my natural red hair…

James (left) and Daniel Kelly, twin brothers

When Daniel and James went to nursery aged three, the twins’ skin colour plunged the family into controversy. “ They were at this very politically correct nursery, and the staff told us that when Daniel drew a picture of himself, he had to make himself look black – because he was mixed-race,” says Alyson. “ And I said, that’s ridiculous.  Why does Daniel have to draw himself as black, when a white face looks back at him in the mirror?  Daniel had one white parent and one black, so why couldn’t he call himself white?  Why does a child who is half-white and half-black have to be black?  Especially when his skin colour is quite clearly white!” 

Primary school passed without colour being an issue: but…everything changed when they went to secondary school… the racism they encountered there had a huge effect on them. 

It all started well, says Alyson. “ The school was almost all-white, so James was unusual.  But it wasn’t a problem for James – it was a problem for Daniel. 

“The boys were in different classes, so for a while no one realised they were related.  Then someone found out, and the story went round that this white boy, Daniel, was actually black, and the evidence was that he had a black twin brother, James, who was right here in the school.  And then Daniel started being picked on and it got really ugly and racist, and there were lots of physical attacks.  Daniel was only a little kid, and he was being called names and being beaten up by much older children – it was really horrible.  We even called the police.” 

“I was really bullied,” cuts in Daniel, his face hardening at the memory. “ People couldn’t believe James and I were brothers, and they didn’t like the fact that I looked white, but was – as they saw it – black.” 

It is interesting that it was the white twin, Daniel, and not the black twin who was on the receiving end of racism…”Those kids couldn’t stand the fact that, as they saw it, this white kid was actually black.  It was as though they wanted to punish him for daring to call himself white,” she says. 

“I started to notice how angry Daniel was getting at school, how people were provoking him and how he was getting hurt,” says James. “ And when he got pulled in fights, I went in too, to help him.  I didn’t want to see my brother being treated like that.”  James does not look like a kid who would end up in any fight: but, when his brother was up against it, he weighed in – and, says Alyson, the bruises and cuts they both came home with told their own tale. 

They’re a straightforward, outspoken family, the Kellys: all they’ve ever wanted for their children is a fair chance in life.  And if their youngest twins have made anyone think twice about their preconceptions about race and colour, they don’t mind that in the least. “ It’s good to challenge people on race and sexuality and other issues where there’s prejudice,” says Alyson. “ If knowing my boys encourages anyone to think a bit more deeply about how we label people, then that’s just great as far as I’m concerned.” 

Amen to that Alyson.  And thank you! 

In terms of the impact on the family in general, in every interview both the twins and their parents recount that they had many experiences in which in one way or another (sibling to sibling/parent to child) no one could believe they were related and they had to prove it and other similar nonsense.  I’m a big believer in “a family should be something you can see just by looking at it” because I know how it feels when that is not the case.  I don’t know how to describe the feeling.  It’s jarring I guess.  It disturbs the foundation of a person.  Of a family.  And for what?  By what merit?  At the expense of whom? 

I say: For nothing.  Based on no true merit.  At the expense of all of us. 

besides hoarding articles, traveling too much for work, and evolving into a more holistic version of myself I had a fantastic time chatting with Heidi and Jennifer on the Mixed Experience podcast while I wasn’t blogging over here.  Y’all know I love me some Heidi Durrow.  She’s not only been a wonderful friend to me, but an inspiration as well!  Oh yeah, there’s also that riveting novel she wrote called “The Girl Who Fell From the Sky.”  Such an important novel.  Period.  And in terms of the mixed experience it, like Heidi, is a true gem.  Here’s the interview if you’d like to listen.  I’ve been told it’s pretty good.  I also further explain why I had to take a break…again. 

I was gonna let this whole Columbus Day thing slide, but listening to the holiday hype on news radio this morning irritated me into this.  Apparently my willingness to ignore it was based on my assumption that everyone else would do the same.  In all fairness, I do not know one person who celebrates or observes Columbus Day.  But hearing reports from the parade in Manhattan and seeing a few posts in various places with glowing reverence for the explorer was jarring.  It feels like irrefutable truth to me that people were living on this continent before Columbus arrived, so this whole notion of discovery is beyond absurd- it is simply incredible.  There is no credibility in that hypothesis.  Zero.  And yet, it’s the story that gets told as fact.  This is very bold, seeing as the lies are exposed in the most basic telling of the story. 

What I find when I investigate my agitated response to a silly parade is that it speaks to a larger issue.  That even when the truth is right before our eyes, it’s easy to be lulled by the institutional illusion that has been handed down as historical fact.  It’s easy to just accept what we’re told even when it contradicts what we know and/or feel to be true.  Maybe that’s the price of the American Dream.  You have to adhere and become blind to so much bullshit while chasing it, that once you get there (if you get there) you’re likely to have lost touch with your inner compass along the way.  In Tiffany-speak “inner compass” = your authentic self, your divinity, your soul. 

However, although, and all at the same time… What happened, happened.  We are where we are.  And there is a perfection in that.  There is beauty in it somewhere.  There is probably beauty in it everywhere.  The great Amy Grant wrote “In the year of 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue had he landed on India’s shore you might never have come to knock on my door.”  So, like, everything has been leading up to this perfect(ly imperfect) moment.  I see now that the true source of my upset is not about what actually happened, but is connected to the deceptions that led to the delusions that keep us from genuinely knowing ourselves and each other.  Of course there is a racial component to this topic.  The things that happened then are still happening now in varying degrees.  Patterns are repeated.  History is repeated.  We each have a responsibility to wake up out of those cycles.  To un-become who the world has taught us to be, so we can be who we really are.  This requires being able to discern the difference between what the world has taught us and what is true. 

Click here for the rest of the comic which inspired Seattle to rename Columbus Day Indigenous People’s Day.  Yes, Seattle!  Hawaii, Alaska, Oregon, and South Dakota so not observe Columbus Day.  Xo to them! 

From Instagram:

And from that time when I wasn’t blogging, but was saving all of these articles about things I would blog about when I started blogging again:

At some point in their adolescence, most people will come to learn that the oft-taught grade school tidbit that Christopher Columbus “discovered” the Americas is, at best, a significant stretching of the truth.  They’ll also soon realize that Columbus’ claim to fame is only one example in a long historical pattern of white people taking credit for uncovering “new” things that actually existed long before they were aware of them. 

And so it’s only logical that someone would put two and two together and finally coin the perfect term for this infuriating habit: “Columbusing.”  The folks at College Humor have created a great video to help you understand the exact way to employ it—so the next time someone credits Miley Cyrus for twerking, you’ll be ready. 

-A mental illness is a medical condition that disrupts a person’s thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others and daily functioning.  Just as diabetes is a disorder of the pancreas, mental illnesses are medical conditions that often result in a diminished capacity for coping with the ordinary demands of life. 

-Mental illnesses can affect persons of any age, race, religion or income.  Mental illnesses are not the result of personal weakness, lack of character or poor upbringing.  Mental illnesses are treatable.  Most people diagnosed with a serious mental illness can experience relief from their symptoms by actively participating in an individual treatment plan. 

-During the first full week of October, NAMI and participants across the country are bringing awareness to mental illness.  Each year we fight stigma, provide support, educate the public and advocate for equal care.  Each year, the movement grows stronger. 

I wouldn’t dare deny the truth in the above statements.  Nothing I’m about to say here is meant to diminish the significance of the condition, to deny the need for medication, or to boil it all down to some woo woo “just meditate and open your heart” mantra….. but I guess maybe because of the general lack of holistic perspective used to treat medical conditions by traditional medical professionals, the above definition of mental illness strikes me as kind of surfacey or too clinical or… something. 

It’s my understanding that at it’s core this medical condition, these mental illnesses, are mental imbalances born out of our dis-ease at being in the body, in the world.  We’re born free and wide open, and then life starts to happen.  And it keeps on happening.  In one way or another, by major traumas or minor incidents, our authentic self is misunderstood or rejected or betrayed, and we create defense mechanisms to protect us from again feeling unloved, unaccepted, unworthy, inferior.  When the authentic self (basically your heart) has been rejected or hurt in some way, it seems to be the natural human response to protect oneself from having that happen again.  So we may build walls around that self to keep the pain out, or become hyper vigilant- always on the lookout for the red flags that danger is imminent then planning escape routes or attack plans.  These become our patterns.  They’re the operating system running the whole program.  And because our society teaches us to look without for relief, for fulfillment and love and peace and joy, our chances of looking within to identify the dysfunction and then consciously choose to upgrade to the operating system effortlessly running the preferred programs are slim. 

These imbalances may be great or small, but I believe we all have them to a certain extent.  I don’t think anyone is impervious to the precarious nature of the human condition.  It must be part of the journey, part of the point of it all.  We’re individual expressions of the infinite intelligence of the universe.  We incarnate here and we forget that.  We believe that we are who we have been conditioned to become, separate from everything else.  All of the experiences laid before us we have chosen to help wake us up to remember our authentic self.  I guess that means that we choose the experiences that go into the forgetting, too. 

Certainly, I digress.  I just mean to say that to a certain extent, we’ve all gotten out of alignment with who we really are, identifying instead with the mind and the chaotic thoughts swirling around it.  Since our thoughts influence our feelings and create our reality, this incongruence manifests with the imbalances in the mind affecting the ways in which we relate to ourselves and each other.  And that’s what it’s all about.  How we relate to ourselves and each other.  Which is really the same thing.  Ideally we’d have a balanced mind and an open heart to freely engage with both the world around and inside of us. 

So be aware of your mental health.  Be aware of your self.  This special day is for mental health education, awareness and advocacy.  I am aware that I am prone to depression and anxiety.  Perhaps more so than your average bear.  I have taken medication, it wasn’t for me.  I am a big fan of therapy.  All I know for sure though is that the biggest relief has come through the act of allowing, loving…well, simply feeling the feelings.  They come and they go.  And no feeling ever killed me, even though I was scared to death it might.  That’s just it.  The fear of the feeling is deadly.  If you can courageously choose love over fear as the foundation to stand on as you feel the feeling… that’s when the magic happens.  I know this first hand.  And I have to remind myself daily. 

It’s true that depression is just one of many on the list of mental illnesses, but it’s prevalent so this is relevant. 

Depression is symptomatic of feeling isolated and cut off.  In our drive to live the good life, we typically isolate ourselves from relationships that might nourish us.- Mel Schwartz Waking Times

Orson: The report, Mork. Mork: This week I discovered a terrible disease called loneliness. Orson: Do many people on Earth suffer from this disease?Mork: Oh yes sir, and how they suffer.  One man I know suffers so much he has to take a medication called bourbon, even that doesn’t help very much because then he can hear paint dry. Orson: Does bed rest help?Mork: No because I’ve heard that sleeping alone is part of the problem.  You see, Orson, loneliness is a disease of the spirit.  People who have it think that no one cares about them. Orson: Do you have any idea why?Mork: Yes sir you can count on me.  You see, when children are young, they’re told not to talk to strangers.  When they go to school, they’re told not to talk to the person next to them.  Finally when they’re very old, they’re told not to talk to themselves, who’s left?Orson: Are you saying Earthlings make each other lonely?Mork: No sir I’m saying just the opposite.  They make themeslves lonely, they’re so busy looking out for number one that there’s not enough room for two. Orson: It’s too bad everybody down there can’t get together and find a cure. Mork: Here’s the paradox sir because if they did get together, they wouldn’t need one. 

I knew this, like on the inside of me, however reading it was profoundly gratifying.  Of course we are most likely to suffer…from many things.  You see, we’re not just invisible in the realm of public services and policy, but one could argue that we’re invisible everywhere we go.  Even at home to a certain extent.  Depending on circumstances of course.  And not only can we be misunderstood by teachers and health care professionals, we may very well be misunderstood by our parent(s), friends, and extended family.  Seeing as the truth of our experience has been ignored and denied, we’re also invisible in history.  Seeing yourself reflected back to you in a way that is congruent with your self-image is a “luxury” we are not often afforded.  And though there is no written rule on the subject, the feeling that our story is not valid and our voice is not wanted unless we surrender to societal expectations is palpable. 

How about everybody just let us be and take us for who we say and show that we are?  Which means acknowledging, listening, hearing and imagining into some level of empathy.  Doesn’t seem like many people are interested in doing that.  Perhaps because if they did, the entire illusion would crumble.  Lots of identities are tightly wound in that illusion.  So, then who would you all be?  You’d be like me.  Untethered from out-dated classifications and free to be whoever your heart tells you you are.  My heart has never mentioned race to me.  Has yours (to you)? 

The fastest growing ethnic group in Britain is still being treated as if it is only integrated into black culture, says report

Children of mixed race are at greater risk of suffering from mental health problems and are not getting the support they need, says a report. 

Despite mixed-race children belonging to the fastest-growing ethnic group, the research, backed by the National Children’s Bureau, found that they faced “unrealistic” expectations from teachers and other adults who did not understand their backgrounds. 

While mixed-race young people are over represented in the care, youth justice and child protection systems, the authors said they were “invisible” in public service practice and policy. 

The report – Mixed Experiences – growing up mixed race: mental health and wellbeing – drew on several studies and interviews with 21 people about their experiences as children. 

Co-author Dinah Morley was concerned at the lack of understanding over what it meant to be mixed race, a group most likely to suffer racism. “ I was surprised at how much racism, from black and white people, had come their way,” she said. “ A lot of children were seen as black when they might be being raised by a white single parent and had no understanding of the black culture.  The default position for a child of mixed race is that they are black.” 

The report found that those with mixed-race backgrounds were more at risk of mental health issues because of their struggle to develop an identity.  Morley said the strongest common experience was the “too white to be black, too black to be white”. 

The 2011 census showed that the mixed-race population was the fastest growing ethnic group in Britain, amounting to 2.2% of the population of England and Wales. 

In 2012, research by the thinktank British Future found that prejudice towards mixed-race relationships was fading.  The report, The Melting Pot Generation – How Britain Became More Relaxed About Race, talked about the “Jessica Ennis generation”, crediting the London Olympics 2012 athlete with changing attitudes towards mixed race. “ That positive role model is also seen as something very important,” said Morley. 

Jessica Ennis is a positive role model for people of mixed race Photograph: Shaun Botterill/Getty Image