As the future father of multiracial children (Lord willing), I can honestly say that neither my wife nor myself have ever felt that our children will be up against a rigged system or will be overwhelmingly disadvantaged simply due to their racial status or skin color. That said, I’m not trying to draw a comparison or make a case for how me and Brandi’s respective situations and backgrounds are the same or different from anyone else’s. I know those details could be picked apart and deliberated all day long, but that really isn’t the point of what I’m getting at.
What I am getting at is this. While I think everybody has seen (and many have experienced) instances of racism, just like any other evil in this world, I’ve never witnessed (nor has my wife ever experienced) anything that we felt was indicative to us of a present-day systemic permeation of racial injustice that is willfully or actively keeping minorities suppressed. We’ve always felt, and continue to feel, that it is WE as parents who will set the stage for what our child(ren) will experience, and it is WE who will form the lens through which they interpret both events and experiences. We will, in many ways, determine how they respond to every obstacle they face. Including hateful people of every kind.
If we teach our children that there is a systemic racial problem that will keep them suppressed and will hound them at every turn – guess what? That’s exactly what they’re going to feel any and every time they face a challenge (or a jerk) in life. They’ll be immediately defeated at worst, or become embittered at best. If instead, we teach them that, because of all that God has done in America over the last 150 years, they are free to pursue and achieve anything they want (with God’s help) – guess what? That is exactly how they’ll grow up thinking. And everything I’ve seen tells me that they will experience just that.
That said, I realize that many people of color are still experiencing and living with the consequences of disadvantages that span generations. As descendants from slaves or those who were otherwise oppressed in this nation, they’ve had a longer journey to make towards prosperity as family line, and less time in which to make it. This is a tragedy. I can see only one solution, though. To instill in our children a different mindset! To EMPOWER them with an attitude that looks ahead instead looking back, that works hard instead of casting blame. We know that people of color can achieve greatness in this nation. The most powerful man in our country right now (whether you agree with his policies and agenda or not) is living proof.
This isn’t to downplay how horrible racism can be, or to trivialize what so many have suffered in our nation’s history. Rather, it’s a strategy on how to once and for all defeat and move past those things. I say this having known and men and women of color (some very closely) who have lived their lives accordingly, and have walked completely outside the shadow of our nation’s racist history. It may not be a popular perspective, but this is how my wife and I plan to fight this battle – and this is how I believe we can win it. Let’s propel our children FORWARD, instead of instilling in them the same sense of injustice that perpetuates the cycle of poverty.