News Flash: Buttercup is Actually Black

On Saturday, I took Buttercup with me to catch up on all the errands I hadn't been able to get done with Daddy out of town -- or at least some of them!  We went to six or eight different places around town, which I guess is good practice for Being A Trans-racial Family In America.

We were looking for something specific in Toys R Us, so I went up to the main desk to ask if they had it.  She said they did, and could describe the general area but not right where it was, so she said she would call someone to help me within the Imaginarium area.  I didn't hear her on the radio, but when we were in that section someone came up to us, and hesitantly asked if I was looking for what I had mentioned, obviously somewhat confused about whom to help.  I said I was, and she helped us, and that was fine.

When we were done with our shopping, we happened to go back to the same register where I had asked for help.  The clerk cheerily asked if I had found the item, talked about what I was buying, and then started talking about our request for help.

"When you went back to Imaginarium area, I didn't know how to describe you so the associate could find you," she chatted.  "The only thing I could think of, was to say 'look for the lady with a REALLY BEAUTIFUL baby,' but then I realized that could describe just about anyone in the store!  Haha!"  And then she went on in the same vein.


I was absolutely stunned.  Point A: you have GOT to be kidding me; that doesn't even make any sense.  Point B: why on earth are you even telling me this?

Regarding Point A, we had to be the absolutely most distinctive pair in the store.  I had been wandering around for a while; I knew this.  Buttercup was the only Black person in the entire place, and I am one of the few White women with a Black baby in the entire state.  Race is something we humans instinctively recognize, so there is not the slightest chance that describing this characteristic would be misunderstood by any listener.

But even if one felt too squeamish about talking about race to use these words, we are still pretty easy.  One could just say "look for the woman carrying her toddler on her back," and you would have ruled out every single other person in Toys R Us, and probably everyone else to come into Toys R Us that week.  Everyone else had their toddler in the cart, from which they leaned out and grabbed things, or running around, which gave the toddler the opportunity to grab things and the parent the opportunity to say "no, leave that alone! come on!" seven million times in a row.  (I love toddler-wearing!)

Frankly, I think this second characteristic would have occurred immediately to anyone, unless their brain was completely spazzing from trying so hard to ignore what colors we were.

Or, you know, one could say something like "look for the mom in a blue shirt," which would not be as distinctive, but would have clearly been more information than the associate actually received.


Regarding Point B, if for some reason you have a brain freeze and couldn't think of how to perform your basic job of communicating to your co-workers, why would you explain that in great detail to your customer?

One possibility is that she was one of those people who does not have an "edit" function for her mouth, and just talked about whatever came to her mind.  Working with us had made her slightly uncomfortable, so it was on her mind, so she nattered on and on about it.

Another possibility was that she thought she was giving us a compliment, and didn't have the sense to remove the complimentary part from the rest of the nonsense she was saying.

But it was also likely that she was trying to prove how un-racist she was, by going out of her way to bring up an incident to prove that she didn't even SEE race, so she couldn't care less if I didn't match my baby.  As long as the baby is beautiful, I guess.




My friends, I have a public service announcement.  Black people know that they are Black.

Even Black 2-year-olds know that they are Black, and they know that other people are not Black.  And in this case, they know that their mother is not Black.  Toddlers may still be in the developmental stage when they think that if you put lots of white lotion on, your skin color will change color, but they do understand the current situation perfectly well.

Furthermore, mothers know when their children are Black.  I am 100% Northern European in descent, with blond hair and sunburns to prove it.  There are only two ways for me to end up with a Black child.  I could have adopted her, which is an involved enough process that I probably noticed that it happened.  Or her biological father could be very Black, and the child ended up a kind of middling color, favoring that side of her family.  In which case, I would have had sex with the fellow, and I would have noticed THAT at some point too.


What is more, everyone else notices what color everyone else is, too.  (There are a few people who are mixed enough in race, or have unusual characteristics, that it might actually be confusing, but in this case we are all pretty distinct.)  Science has proven that race is one of the things that we notice within milliseconds of seeing someone, and in milliseconds more we have made assumptions about the person as we insert them into a category.  Just like gender, or generation.

And friends, this is NOT a bad thing!  If we had to figure out everything about every person every time we met them, we would be paralyzed with trying to decipher why everyone was acting the way they were, and how to treat them.  One of the reasons that humans are able to have such complex societies is that we are really good at figuring out basic information about other people really quickly, before our conscious brain even starts working.  This gives us the ability to relate to people appropriately: we might use simpler language with a young child; wait to go through a doorway when we see an older person or some struggling to move pass through; speak respectfully to someone in an official uniform; or use business language to someone in a business setting and more informal language to a laughing barista in a coffee shop.  It means that I, as a mother of young children, might make a wry smile to another mother and comment on what a difficult time one of us is having, and we'd both share a laugh; that would come off as inappropriate if I were speaking to an older man in a suit, or be completely insulting to her if *I* were an older man in a suit.  It means that when we are in a familiar environment, we can recognize someone who doesn't "fit" into that environment and offer them extra welcome.  It means that most of us, by adulthood, can move seamlessly from one kind of human interaction to another: with friends, with people of different social status, in a business setting, ordering food, with children, solving a problem, being at work or being at the swimming pool.  This is the exact same part of the brain that tells us whether what race someone is -- except that the "race" identification happens even earlier in our mental process.

So when a human sees another human, they identify their basic characteristics -- including gender, race, and age -- and then the brain puts that information in a box, and spits out the analysis of how to treat the new human in front of oneself.  And THAT is where the danger can come in; not in identifying the race by itself.  The assumptions we make can help us relate to new people appropriately, or they can get in the way of appropriate interaction.

For instance, if a cashier sees that her customer is a child, she might automatically switch into simpler language or praise the child for saving her money.  But if she sees that her customer is a Black person and switches to the same kind of phrasing, that is not going to help their relationship.


In our own personal case, here is an example of an inappropriate mental thought process:
1. This lady has a Black child, but she's not Black ---> I wonder if the child is adopted ----> maybe she couldn't have her own babies ----> I wonder what fertility treatments she went through ----> she probably feels really bad that she ended up with a baby who doesn't look anything like her ---> I'll say how pretty the baby is, to make her feel better.

Here is an example of an appropriate mental thought process:
2. This lady has a Black child, but she's not Black ----> I wonder if the child is adopted ----> people who go through all the trouble of adopting usually really enjoy children ---> I'll ask her something about what the child enjoys doing, because she probably likes to talk about her kid.

Or here's an alternate appropriate example:
3. This lady has a Black child, but she's not Black ----> I wonder if the child is adopted ----> I don't really know anything about their situation, so I'm going to make a conscious effort to treat them just like every other customer, even though I'm kind of curious.

Here is an example of an imaginary mental thought process that is actually impossible:
4. I cannot tell any difference between the mother and child in front of me, compared to other mother-child pairs.


The first example results in an action that is nice on the surface, but other human beings -- equally adept at making instant judgements on very little information -- can sense that there's something "off" or condescending about the comment.  The second example results in an action that would be appropriate for almost everyone.  The last example is going to result in something awkward.

The third example really cannot go wrong.  That is the really great part about being human -- instead of, say, dogs, who often also can gain a lot of information about someone new almost instantly.  We have the mental capability to OVER-RIDE our instinctual information.  We can decide whether the information we have received is actually germane to the situation.  In our case, what was germane to the situation was that I had money to pay for my purchase, and I was acting appropriately for the context.  Usually, in modern America, especially within a business context, what race the person is should have nothing to do with the way we treat them.

Some of us may have so many positive or neutral impressions of a particular race (or people with tattoos, or in wheelchairs, or Down's syndrome, or wearing cowboy hats, or whatever jumps out at us), that their natural thought process will lead them to acting calmly and appropriately.  For instance, after living in a fully Black society as a young child, Emerson will probably have a more neutral impression of Black people than most of us can manage.

But when we do not have enough neutral impressions to create a neutral space for interaction, we each need to find the "over-ride" button until we are able to gather more information.  Denial does not work, and it doesn't fool anyone.

Trying to cut off the information our brain already has given us results in:
5. This lady has a Black child, but she is not Black ---> AGH!! EMERGENCY!!  I just thought about race ---> I must unthink this thought ---> black child! black child!! ---> but the harder I try to unthink it, that now becomes all I can see! ---> maybe I'll do something COMPLETELY RANDOM to fool everyone into thinking I'm not thinking what I'm thinking about ----> black black black black black!!!

There are a lot of possibilities for action after that thought process, but there really is no graceful way out!

I will see what I think after I have had more chance to gather information as a Surprising Person, and I would be interested to hear from other minorities as well.  However, my impression so far, is that if you can't manage the ideal #3 (over-ride), that #4 (ignorance) is impossible and we all know it, it is best to veer in another direction than aim for #5 (pretend I'm not thinking what I'm thinking).  For instance, it will be more graceful to acknowledge the internal debate and say, "oh, is she adopted?" than suddenly start chattering about how we look exactly the same, or stare at a corner of the ceiling and mention how beautiful she is.  Make sure you can manage to stop talking before you come out with something like "how much did she cost?", but a simple acknowledgement of the situation that everyone knows exists is unlikely to offend.

Unless you really aren't sure, and think she might be my biological child with a Black father.

In which case, "is that cash or credit?" and "would you like a bag today?" is a really appropriate conversation for the check-out lane.