When did your child become aware about race? (wife, girlfriend, school)
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It IS the norm for her area. She grew up with a HUGE mix of races and nationalities. Her generation of Southern Californian is the generation that no longer cares, much less notices, that the family next door is from Guatemala with a daughter who is dating the third-generation Chicano whose best friend's parents immigrated from Vietnam.
I know this because my generation of Southern Californians was the generation that started dating and marrying across racial and nationality barriers. OUR kids are now inter-marrying with each other. Does the Asian kid get noticed? Yep. But so does the white kid if he's the only blonde in his group of friends. Which is VERY common.
Again, diversity in and of itself does not end racism. Look at Hawaii, which is much more diverse than California.
And again, I believe you that was your experience, but racism is alive and well in California, just look at stuff coming out of UCI.
Now, I will readily admit I have only spent small amounts of time in So Cal with family, mostly Fresno, but my Asian family members have mentioned (and laughed about, it is the Pinoy way) racism they deal with on a daily basis. It was less than 100 years ago that white people went door to door in California killing Filipinos. Racial tensions are fueling the gang issues in So Cal. I don't get this notion that racism is gone and that those who experience it, even in SoCal, are the "abnormal" ones.
Again, diversity in and of itself does not end racism. Look at Hawaii, which is much more diverse than California.
And again, I believe you that was your experience, but racism is alive and well in California, just look at stuff coming out of UCI.
I haven't seen anyone claiming there is no racism is So Cal. We're simply trying to tell you that life and the culture in So Cal is not like life in Cleveland or Houston or Podunk.
BTW: I really hope you don't think all UCI students are represented by what you read in the press. Anteaters don't deserve that. Lots of great kids at UCI.
I haven't seen anyone claiming there is no racism is So Cal. We're simply trying to tell you that life and the culture in So Cal is not like life in Cleveland or Houston or Podunk.
BTW: I really hope you don't think all UCI students are represented by what you read in the press. Anteaters don't deserve that. Lots of great kids at UCI.
She claimed that of all the white people in her "area" or that she knows have experienced racism and Asians like her husband are not treated as different by anyone. Again, in her "area" she says this is the norm. If her area is SoCal, like you said, I think she is even farther off base than I thought.
And I have no idea if it is typical or not. I am not an Asian living in SoCal and I would never presume to speak for them. All I can say is despite psr's the racism is against whites in her "area", those Asians I know in that "area" claim that they too have faced it.
That is exactly the point, racism is still a problem, and talking about it takes its power away.
Life is stranger than fiction and I couldn't make this up in a million years. This was one of the oddest experiences I encountered during my four years as a kindergarten teacher:
Years ago, I taught kindergarten at an inner-city elementary school and 98% of my students were Black Americans. The school was closed the following day as it was MLK's birthday and we were drawing pictures of Dr. King to take home to their parents. One of my students asked why people couldn't choose what race they wanted to be. I asked him what race in particular he wanted to be other than his own and he said "I want to be a black person for a little while." When I pointed out that he was already a handsome black American little boy, his eyes goggled and he looked at me as if I had lost my mind and said "What? I thought I was Asian!" Than most of my class looked at me in horror and said, "Are we black too, we thought we were Asians!" I didn't immediately have a response, but I said "Anyone who thinks they are Asians, please raise your hands," and more than half of the class did! To this day, I don't know what their parents did, or obviously did not, tell them and I didn't want to step on any toes by discussing it in great detail without knowing their parents' wishes. I have no idea where they got the idea they were Asian unless they were confusing it with some people using the term "African American."
That's interesting because my son thought he was Chinese but there was no reason at all for him to have thought that. When I asked him why he was telling people he was Chinese, he strugged and said he didn't know and that he didn't know what he was.
Kids will notice skin tone and hair texture but the concept of "race" isn't there until someone tells them about it. I would guess many 5 year olds and under never considered or cared what their race is, it's something learned.
Exactly why ALL my daughter's dolls are black (except for the Monster High dolls.) And why I try to get books with black characters, black artwork, anything that portrays people that look like my dd. Because the rest of the world depicts white as the only kind of beautiful there is, and it's only natural for a child who sees white people all over TV, movies, books, white dolls, etc. to think there's something wrong with the black ones. For a black child, that thought is very detrimental.
I totally understand why you do that.Makes sense. When I was a little girl growing up in Sweden in the 80s I got a black doll in a blue dress. She had dark chocolate skin and long black hair.
That's because for a white child, their race is not likely to ever be an issue. I agree with this completely. I could never raise my black child as "colorblind" because however blind she might be, no one else is going to be blind to the fact that she's black. It's a subject that I broached carefully, but definitely one that had to be approached at a fairly young age.
I think that's probably true. Whites don't really identify with other whites by race the same way other groups might. You don't hear whites doing the "my people" thing, a black person might say "some day I want to help my people" but virtually never would a white person say something like that. Same with the "brother/sister" whites don't see other whites and nod like they know them or call them brother/sister unless they are actually siblings with the same parents. Same when a white person commits some crime, other whites don't think of how that might reflect on them somehow.
I can't imagine white parents sitting down with a child and discussing race as it pertains to that child. Whites don't grow up being told they're white, even when they get to college, there are no caucasian studies. It's like white is the default, there's nothing really to teach about it.
"I fully understand that my experience is not necessarily the norm outside of my area"
She is saying her experience is the norm for her area. Something she actually has no basis for stating. I have no idea if my experiences were the same for everyone in my town, as a matter of fact, I would state emphatically that it is highly unlikely that all the people in the same area have ever had the same experiences with regard to race and racism.
Was telling her that most people of color experience something different than her "marginalizing her experience"? Apparently, so.
It is also, apparently, the same thing as her speaking for literally all the people of all races in her "area". I am sure they are all super excited about that btw.
I've talked to people of different ages, different races, and from different parts of this area. Almost all of them have had the same experience I had. However, I understand that as a white person I have no right to talk about race in conversations with you as I obviously know nothing.
She claimed that of all the white people in her "area" or that she knows have experienced racism and Asians like her husband are not treated as different by anyone. Again, in her "area" she says this is the norm. If her area is SoCal, like you said, I think she is even farther off base than I thought.
And I have no idea if it is typical or not. I am not an Asian living in SoCal and I would never presume to speak for them. All I can say is despite psr's the racism is against whites in her "area", those Asians I know in that "area" claim that they too have faced it.
That is exactly the point, racism is still a problem, and talking about it takes its power away.
Last time I checked, this thread was about kids. We didn't experience racism until we were older.
Again, diversity in and of itself does not end racism. Look at Hawaii, which is much more diverse than California.
And again, I believe you that was your experience, but racism is alive and well in California, just look at stuff coming out of UCI.
Now, I will readily admit I have only spent small amounts of time in So Cal with family, mostly Fresno, but my Asian family members have mentioned (and laughed about, it is the Pinoy way) racism they deal with on a daily basis. It was less than 100 years ago that white people went door to door in California killing Filipinos. Racial tensions are fueling the gang issues in So Cal. I don't get this notion that racism is gone and that those who experience it, even in SoCal, are the "abnormal" ones.
Fresno is not, in any way ever, considered southern California.
A friend of mine told me about the first time her daughter (who was four or five years old) saw a little African American girl. She thought her skin was dirty and tried to wipe her off.
She wasn't being "racist", the community was and still is about 98 percent white, and she had never seen an African American before.
We lived in an urban area when my own kids were small, so they were exposed to a bit more diversity and knew about other races.
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We're simply trying to tell you that life and the culture in So Cal is not like life in Cleveland or Houston or Podunk. 
