Race – Marilyn R. Gardner

Pondering Privilege – a Book Review

Published on July 13, 2016July 13, 2016 by Marilyn3 Comments

Pondering Privilege – Toward a Deeper Understanding of Whiteness, Race, and Faith* by Jody Wiley Fernando could not come to us at a better time. As media and newsfeeds fill with images and stories, many of us who are white really want to know how to do things better. Many of us, as uncomfortable as it is, are beginning to acknowledge a system that benefits people based on the color of their skin.

Into this conversation and thought process comes Jody’s thoughtful, challenging, and well-written book.

At the very beginning, Jody states that the book “was born out of my life’s circumstances.” Jody is white, raised in the midwest, the place that some describe as the “heartland” of the United States. She married a Sri Lankan and through marriage and being accepted into his entire family, continues to encounter a completely different view of the world, a completely different way of being and of seeing.

A couple of years ago, Jody wrote a blog post called When White People Don’t Know They’re Being White. The post went viral, a clear indication that there was a lot to discuss and a single blog post was not enough. This volume takes the idea of the blog post and expands it exponentially, giving us relatable experiences and stories coupled with questions that challenge and convict. This makes it ideal for a small group discussion.

Pondering Privilege begins with something the author believes is critical to the conversation – and that is cultural humility. She gives several examples: “Instead of ‘get over it!’ cultural humilty responds ‘I don’t understand. Can you help me understand more deeply?” or “Intstead of replying with some variation of ‘quit whining’ to someone who feels wronged, cultural humility responds ‘I’m so sorry this hurts you. How can I walk alongside you in this? What do I need to learn?'”

This first chapter sets the tone for the rest of the book. Jody gently but persistently challenges those of us who are white on how we are relating to those who don’t share the same skin color, and how we can do better. She addresses things like the reality of white privilege, why we need to talk about race, myths and emotions that prevent us from having these conversations.

Through out the book, Jody doesn’t cast stones, instead she walks the journey with us. She acknowledges the hard work involved and how inadequate and insecure we often feel. Significant in the book are the practical tips that she gives. They are invaluable, particularly the “21-day Race Challenge.” The challenge is a gold mine of resources, including films, books, articles, and practical steps toward further understanding.

I highlighted these words at the end of the chapter on Tips to Help White People Talk about Race, words that are deeply transformative when lived out:

“There’s a final tip that I’ve found the most transformative. It’s not so much a tip as it is a magnificent gift because it cannot be forced or created but rather arises organically and unplanned. By far, the most life-changing way I’ve learned to speak of race is under the umbrella of love…..When you love someone of a different race, part of the process is listening, learning, accepting, and affirming this part of their experience as well. When we love well, we offer the words I’m listening and I’m sorry to each other without reservation.”

Jody’s humility and heart are evident throughout the book. In a small section towards the end of the book, she writes about speaking from our scars instead of our wounds. Her words deeply moved me, and I offer them to you here:

“While the scars remain, the wounds no longer gape. In fact, as I speak from my scars, I find a strength within them born from the painful process of healing. If only more of Christ’s followers would understand the same from this broken racial road we walk – that when we admit weakness to one another, and walk toward each other in humility, Christ’s Kingdom grows stronger, and so do we.”

…understanding begins with learning and practicing a discipline of cultural humility and seeking to understand another’s experience without judgment. May more of us boldly begin to walk on this long and winding path.

Note: This book is written for a Christian audience with the hope of increasing productive conversations and action within largely white churches.

You can purchase Pondering Privilege here.

*I received and Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book for review.

Traveling While White

Published on February 24, 2016February 24, 2016 by Marilyn13 Comments

Blogger’s note: I have received some good feedback and pushback from this article – always good when you write a piece like this. Based on the feedback, I realize that it’s is not necessarily the simple black and white issue I have made it to be. I still hold to my original premise, that many, if not most of us, do benefit from the privilege of skin and perhaps passport color, but I welcome your feedback. It is important to note that this is in no way designed to be a political piece. It is an observation while traveling.

I arrive in Auckland, New Zealand at six in the morning, bleary-eyed with little sweaters on my teeth. It’s been a long flight from San Francisco.
I am tired but excited as I go through passport control. Exiting the desk, where uniformed women and men look down through glass windows from places of power, I see a family pulled aside. The family looks tired, exhausted really, travel weary and ready to settle.

Four kids of different ages and stages sit, stand, and lie across chairs. A man with passport control has their passports and is talking on the phone. I don’t recognize the color of their passports, but from the color of their skin I know they could be from any of a number of countries. The father is clearly worried, the mom looks resigned– resigned to wait, to be patient, to accept whatever will come.

In these brief moments, as I take in all that I see, I realize all over again what I’ve known all along: traveling while white is a privilege. This family is traveling while brown, while I travel while white.

In all my years of travel to over 30 countries, I have never been detained at an airport. I have never been subject to extensive searches. I have never been suspected or considered suspicious. I carry stamps in my passport from countries that are on the State Departments “no fly” list, I have been to places considered dangerous– yet I have never had any sort of difficulty going anywhere.

Because I travel while white. I have done nothing to deserve good treatment, but I do receive it. It is not my birthright to be able to walk out of and into countries freely, but I get to anyway.

I travel while white. I am part of the privileged minority of the white.

I can deny it all I want, but it is still the truth. Traveling while white is a privilege that I’ve done nothing to deserve.

This is part of what it means to be aware of one’s own privilege. I need to own that privilege and realize that it is not like this for everyone.
Traveling while white means:

1. I’m never detained

2. I am welcomed to almost everywhere I go

3. I am considered safe, not a threat

4. I am treated with respect

5. I can express anger without getting in trouble.

6. I can make a fuss and not be reprimanded.

7. I can treat others poorly and not be confronted.

8. I receive smiles and nods, rarely stares and auspicious glances.

9. I usually get my own way.

10. I receive apologies when things don’t go my way.

I sigh as I look back at the family, wishing I could help. But I’m a stranger to Aukland, I don’t really know what is going on. All I know, is that I’m white and I’m really tired.

Raccoons, Tigers, and Okapis and How Where You Live Matters

Published on May 5, 2015May 5, 2015 by Marilyn2 Comments

“Pooling people in race silos is akin to zoologists grouping raccoons, tigers, and okapis on the basis that they are all stripey.” from Genes Don’t Cause Racical Disparities, Society Does

An article from The Atlantic, as quoted above, says this “Researchers are looking in the wrong place: White people live longer not because of their DNA but because of inequality.”

It’s NOT about race people!

Basically, billions of dollars have gone into funding studies that look at race as a basis for health disparities when, in fact, it is far more about living conditions. For years conventional wisdom has argued that there is really nothing we can do about these health disparities, because it’s really about biology. But a review of the literature showed none of that. Jay Kaufman, lead author of the study “The Contribution of Genomic Research to Explaining Racial Disparities in Cardiovascular Disease: A Systematic Review” says this:

“If you show that this is a predisposition that is genetically determined—black people just have this gene, there’s nothing we can do about it, this is just nature—then society is completely absolved. We don’t have any responsibility to solve this problem….If you show that it is because of racism and injustice and people’s living conditions, well, then, there is some responsibility and we have to do something about this.”

One of the things that we pay a lot of attention to in public health is something called the “social determinants of health.” The social determinants of health are defined as “the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, including the health system.” This takes into account not only your genetic code, but also your zip code.

Here is an example: Four years ago I did some consulting work in Washington state for community health workers. One of the classes that I held was in a public housing space in Tacoma, Washington. The space was beautiful. It was a ‘mixed use housing’ area which means that some people owned their homes while others rented. There was a beautiful playground, a clinic, an assisted living space, and a school down the road. But when I asked someone who lived there where residents purchased food, she looked at me and said “It takes three different bus rides to get to a grocery store.” This is what we call a “food desert.” Right across the street you could buy 1500 calories of junk for a dollar and yet it took a major part of the day to buy good food.

A researcher who goes into that community, a community largely made up of “people of color,” may find high rates of heart disease. But it has little to do with the color of their skin, and perhaps a lot to do with the fact that healthy food is so far away.

All of us, regardless of our station in life, interact with the world around us. And it is in this world that our health is created. So if we live in a neighborhood that has clean air, wide sidewalks, well-lit streets and play grounds, along with affordable farmers markets for fruit and vegetables, we have a far better chance at health than the person who has none of these things. Turns out that person is far more likely to struggle with asthma, lack of physical activity, obesity and poor nutrition. It also turns out that most of “those people” end up being people of color.

Where we live matters!

In the PBS series “Is Inequality Making us Sick?” questions about the social determinants of health are asked. Like the article in The Atlantic, the answers are troubling, because it’s a lot more to do with our neighborhoods and zip codes than our genetic codes. And that means we can do something about it.

All of this is best summed up in this statement:

“When it comes to why many black people die earlier than white people in the U.S., Kaufman and his colleagues show we’ve been looking for answers in the wrong places: We shouldn’t be looking in the twists of the double helix, but the grinding inequality of the environment.”

But, like almost everything, it is far easier to write about it, then to take concrete action and actually do something about it.

Cultural Competency – Tools for the Trade

Published on April 2, 2015April 2, 2015 by Marilyn5 Comments

If you have not read the previous posts on Cultural Competency, you are welcome to take a look! Today is the last in my 3-part series on Cultural Competency.

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Building Bridges city

“It’s easy! All it takes is caring!”

“All you have to do is be sensitive!”

“I don’t know why this is such a big deal! In our [insert company name] we treat everyone the same!”

These are a few of the things a colleague and I have heard when we talk about cultural competency, specifically when we conduct workshops on cultural competency.

We always breathe deeply and slowly before we respond.

As normal as those phrases may sound, they are exactly the sort of phrases that create barriers to achieving cultural competency.

“It’s easy! All it takes is caring!” First off, let me say this: caring is good! Caring is essential. Caring is a great start. But, and this is a big but, it doesn’t give us what we need to communicate and function effectively across cultural boundaries. It’s a great and necessary first step but it is important to move beyond caring to offer culturally competent care and services. Here’s an example: For a long time I worked as a home care nurse. I would go to the homes of patients who had come out of the hospital but still needed nursing care. My patients ranged from new moms who were struggling postpartum, to oncology patients who were struggling with chemotherapy. The range of reasons for going to see patients was huge. The agency I worked with would always give me the “foreign” patients. It didn’t matter where they were from, it was assumed that because I had grown up overseas and then lived overseas as an adult with a lot of experience working across cultures that I would be the best one for the job. And sometimes I was, but not always. I remember a Japanese patient that I was caring for. I cared deeply for her, but I found it impossible to communicate. I felt loud and big in contrast to a woman who was quiet and small and lovely. One day with a shock I realized I would always put this patient at the end of the day, a time when I was busiest and had the least amount of time or energy. If I saw her then, I had a good excuse for a quick visit. I was not giving her good care. I was not communicating adequately and I didn’t know what was really going on with this patient. I cared – but caring wasn’t enough.

“All you have to do is be sensitive!” This is similar to caring. Sensitivity does not a culturally competent person make. Sensitivity means that an individual or organization responds to cultural differences and attempts to take them into consideration in their line of work. But if I don’t know what those cultural differences are, how can I take them into consideration? If I am unaware of the beliefs, values, and behavior of those I work with or serve, then sensitivity won’t take me very far. Again an example: Western biomedicine places high value on something called evidence-based medicine. Evidence-based medicine is a way of taking the best scientific evidence and linking it with a physician’s clinical expertise to better treat patients. What evidence-based medicine doesn’t do is recognize dual causality – the idea that the mind and body interact with each other and patients from different cultures and backgrounds believe there is both a scientific and a spiritual reason for their disease or ailment. A doctor needs to know their patients well enough to know if they believe in dual causality in order to give them the best care possible. They need to know that their patient believes that both chemotherapy and snake oil will cure their cancer. One of the best examples of collision of cultures when it comes to medicine is in the book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. I write about it here and highly recommend reading the book.

“I don’t know why this is such a big deal! In our [insert company name] we treat everyone the same!” There is so much wrong with this I don’t know where to begin. First off, it’s a huge deal. We wear culture like our skin – we don’t even think about it until it is bruised or torn or burned. We don’t realize that everything we do is based on our cultural beliefs, until we encounter someone with behaviour and beliefs completely different from our own. And it’s all very well to say we treat everyone the same, but the reality is that they might not want to be treated the same. Their cultural norm could be completely different, whether it’s around greeting people or modesty or any other number of things.

So what are tools for the trade? We looked at some of these in the story about the FBI. Here are others that I think are excellent. I originally posted them in this piece: Tips for Working Cross-culturally in Healthcare Settings and Beyond.

Be aware of your cultural values and the beliefs you hold. This is a first and critical step to being able to effectively communicate across cultures. If you don’t understand the importance of culture — why you value what you do, how you make decisions, essentially how you live all of life, then it will be difficult for you to understand how culture affects others.

Become a student of the culture and the community. Even if you’re an expert in a certain area it’s important to rethink your role and be willing to learn as a student.

Recognize differences in narrative styles and practical behaviors across cultures. Be willing to research these differences and ask questions.

Understand that limited language proficiency (whether your’s or another’s) does not mean limited intellectual ability. People with limited language skills are usually capable of communicating clearly and effectively in their native language.

Have a high tolerance of ambiguity.

Seek help from bilingual/bicultural co-workers and individuals – find those who can help explain cultural nuances, the complexity of culture, dual causality and more.

Know the role of interpreters and learn to use interpreters effectively.

Allow the use of story-telling and props when speaking with others – we learn so much more in a story than in a list of facts. For healthcare providers, realize the symptoms are often in the story.

Recognize the primary person you are working with may not be the decision maker in the family.

Use empathy, curiosity, and respect as you work across cultural boundaries. Empathic listening, curious questioning, respectful observing.

Learn to be capable of complexity.

Be able to laugh at yourself and potential mistakes — if you don’t laugh you’ll find yourself crying way too much.

Build bridges – just as a bridge connects two bodies of land together over a vast chasm or river, so it is with us. The chasm of cultural disconnect and misunderstanding can be bridged, but it takes humans to bridge it.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again and again and again. None of this is easy. It’s not easy to listen. It’s not easy to be reflective of our own cultural values and see where bias, both conscious and unconscious, is present. It takes time and effort. It means putting some, not all, but definitely some of our values temporarily to the side while we focus on what is important to those around us. But it can make a huge impact and change outcomes no matter what sphere we find ourselves.

“Building bridges means moving beyond my enclave of cultural comfort, moving to a place of cultural humility and willingness to learn” – Between Worlds, Essays on Culture and Belonging

“Ignorance of cultural differences is one of the chief causes of misunderstanding in a world that is getting more and more interdependent on the one hand and increasingly torn with strife on the other.” – Fali Chothia

I would love to hear from you through the comments! What would you add to this list?

Blogger’s note: Just this morning a friend of mine from Families in Global Transition wrote this piece: How to Build a Bridge for Mental Migration. I love how well it complements this series and wanted to link to it.

Forget Diversity! It’s Cultural Competency that We Need.

Published on March 30, 2015March 30, 2015 by Marilyn1 Comment

cultural competency

I live in a diverse neighborhood in a diverse area. Every day I ride the subway with people of many different backgrounds and ethnicities. I go to work and sit next to a man from Malawi and have friendships and work with women from Haiti, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Senegal, Portugal, Cameroon, and Roxbury – and that’s just naming a few.

But so what? Just because there is diversity in my life doesn’t mean I know how to navigate diversity. It doesn’t mean I exercise cultural humility in my interactions. It doesn’t mean that I don’t make mistakes and show my prejudice, sometimes well dressed and well hidden, other times more overt.

It’s not enough to recognize, and be sensitive toward, diversity. We need to learn how to navigate diversity.

In the 2012 census, census officials in the United States said that by the end of the decade “no single racial or ethnic group will dominate the majority of children under 18.” By the end of three decades, the same will hold true for the population at large.

More and more, the United States is seeing communities change from predominantly white, to a veritable ‘salad bowl’ of color. A place where people from many ethnic and racial backgrounds live, work, play, and fight together.

I’m tired of hearing about diversity. As long as we just talk diversity, nothing will change. Because diversity just means ‘difference.’

This is what the dictionary says when defining diversity:

the quality or state of having many different forms, types, ideas, etc.
the state of having people who are different races or who have different cultures in a group or organization

When it comes to a health care organization, a school, even a church, that definition is singularly unhelpful. Because all it gives you is the what – not the how. It gives you nothing about the good and the hard of a diverse population of people living, working, playing, and fighting together.

I think we need to stop talking ‘diversity’ and start talking about ‘navigating diversity.’ One of the ways to do this is by learning what it is to be culturally competent — learning how to function effectively across cultural differences.

As I think about the many tragedies that have affected the United States in the past few months, I am struck by the fact that no one has been talking about the importance of learning how to function effectively in the midst of difference – whether that difference be racial, socioeconomic, cultural, or physical. And that is just naming a couple of areas where we see diversity in our communities.

We can talk all day long about diversity, but if we don’t have tools on how to navigate this diversity, than the talk is empty and nothing will ever change.

So for a moment, I want to talk about cultural competency. A disclaimer here – when it comes to cultural competence I am most familiar with how this plays out in the world of health care. This is where I see difference and inability to navigate difference played out regularly. So the way I approach this is from that perspective. I want to talk about what it is, why we need it, and some tools for how to move forward in this area. I hope to do this in the next few blog posts so I would love it if you tracked with me.

Cultural competency is a field of study, a series of behavioral changes, and a strategy for working with and serving diverse populations. The term was born in the field of mental health but didn’t make its way into medical literature until the early 1990s. The words and ideas behind cultural competency began to get more recognition in 2002 when the Institute of Medicine published a report (now a book) called Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. This report highlighted extensive areas where racial and ethnic minorities receive lower quality health care, even when their income and insurance status were the same. Among several recommendations given at the end of the study was the need for systematic cultural competency trainings.

There are several different definitions for cultural competency.

A colleague and I use prefer this one, partly because it is simple and short:

A learning process that enables individuals and organizations to respect, value — and function effectively in the midst of — cultural difference.

The definition accurately portrays cultural competency as something that is ongoing, something that has to be learned and practiced. Cultural competency is a continuum and needs to be seen in stages.

Why do we need it?

We need cultural competency because there are overwhelming disparities in almost any area we could mention. In health care, everything from access to pain medication to being offered treatment for cancer shows overwhelming differences in quality of care. For example, in one study minority patients were more likely to be under-medicated for pain than white patients (65% vs. 50%), and more likely to have severity of pain underestimated by caregivers. Another study in the area of mental health indicated that 44% of White English speakers to 27.8% of Blacks received treatment after a diagnosis of depression. These disparities are well-documented in the book I cited above.

In an extensive survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights showed that racial disparities are well documented and pervasive in various areas of education. Here are some of the key findings from this survey:*

Access to preschool. About 40% of public school districts do not offer preschool, and where it is available, it is mostly part-day only. Of the school districts that operate public preschool programs, barely half are available to all students within the district.
Suspension of preschool children. Black students represent 18% of preschool enrollment but 42% of students suspended once, and 48% of the students suspended more than once.
Access to advanced courses. Eighty-one percent (81%) of Asian-American high school students and 71% of white high school students attend high schools where the full range of math and science courses are offered (Algebra I, geometry, Algebra II, calculus, biology, chemistry, physics). However, less than half of American Indian and Native-Alaskan high school students have access to the full range of math and science courses in their high school. Black students (57%), Latino students (67%), students with disabilities (63%), and English language learner students (65%) also have less access to the full range of courses.
Access to college counselors. Nationwide, one in five high schools lacks a school counselor; in Florida and Minnesota, more than two in five students lack access to a school counselor.
Retention of English learners in high school. English learners make up 5% of high school enrollment but 11% of high school students held back each year.

We need cultural competency in health care because it is one of the ways we can provide quality care. We need cultural competency in education because our schools have students of all colors, backgrounds, and religious beliefs. Cultural competency is one way to serve these diverse students and their families. Learning doesn’t take place in a vacuum and the student’s family and culture are critically important to their education. We need cultural competency in law enforcement because those in the field often encounter the challenges of interpreting and understanding the behavior and attitudes of those who are culturally and linguistically different than they are.

Talking about navigating effectively through difference is far more difficult than talking about being sensitive to, or appreciating difference. Navigating or functioning effectively in the midst of diversity is hard work. It is a learning process. It takes tremendous humility – recognizing that the way you view the world is not the only way. It takes guts. It takes a sense of humor. It takes willingness to say sorry, to admit we are wrong. It takes negotiation and communication.

In the next couple of blog posts I hope to discuss a fraction of how I think cultural competency can help us to work, serve, and form friendships more effectively as well as some tools that increase people’s ability to navigate across cultural differences. In the mean time, what do you think? Do you talk about cultural competency in your area of work? Why or why not?

*http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/expansive-survey-americas-public-schools-reveals-troubling-racial-disparities

Photo Credit: http://pixabay.com/en/photo-montage-faces-photo-album-556806/ word art by Marilyn R. Gardner

On Culture and Crayons

Published on March 9, 2015March 9, 2015 by Marilyn2 Comments

I have just returned from the Families in Global Transition conference held in Washington DC this past weekend. It will take some time to process all of the talks, quotes, and challenges that were given formally at the conference, and even longer to process the individual conversations. They were rich and meaningful at every level.

For three days I was with a group of people that get identity struggles of the person who lives between; that understand the paradox of place and home; that struggle at different times with belonging; that have said hundreds and hundreds of goodbyes.

I will be doing separate blog posts about the different sessions I attended but for now I want to leave you a quote.

This morning on social media I shared this quote from the conference key note speaker, Teja Arboleda: “the color of your skin has no bearing on your culture…there can be no multicultural crayon.” Teja gave an excellent talk called “The Ethnic Man.” His ethnicity and background are complicated, so he has used his experience to speak into issues of culture, race, and identity. He talked about finding out that Crayola had come up with the idea of marketing a box of “multicultural crayons” and his reaction to that. He also talked about his frustration when he first saw a ‘flesh-toned’ crayon. Because flesh is all kinds of colors, and with a simple child’s tool, the creators of those crayons dismissed a huge number of people who live in our world and also have flesh.

The quote resonates with a friend who responds within minutes:

“…here in Toronto, we’ve met a family from Jamaica who look Chinese…a family from Trinidad who look Indian…and another family from Zambia who look Indian! Meanwhile, my own 3 children could hail from any country in the world with their mixed-race skin color! I just wish there was a question on forms to allow them to claim “mixed race” status instead of ‘other’.”

My friend is living in a multicultural city, in a multicultural marriage, raising a multicultural family. And crayons won’t do it. The marketing of this small box of crayons, complete with eight ‘skin tone’ colors makes strong and incorrect assumptions about culture and race.

While I appreciate that companies want to be ‘inclusive’, there are ways to achieve this objective that are smart and true, and there are ways that just perpetuate division. Culture, in all its complexity, can never be reduced to a box of multicultural crayons. It’s too important.

What do you think?

Wrapping up Quite a Week…..

Published on April 20, 2013 by Marilyn5 Comments

Today’s wrap-up will be short and sweet. It was a long week beginning in Istanbul and ending in Cambridge lockdown. How different life looked for so many a week ago? Boston will slowly heal on the outside but I am of the unpopular opinion that to heal on the inside takes more than time and therapy; it takes a Saviour and the miracle of redemption.

So today I am primarily going to highlight posts on Communicating Across Boundaries that you may have missed. But first let me send you to the happiest, funnest, truest post that I read all week. I’ll include a few paragraphs so that you are drawn in and can’t wait to finish it over at Huffpost. It comes from my favorite blogger, Djibouti Jones and is called Turning Black and in this week of sorrow – you need to read this! Trust me!

“We’ll turn black pretty soon,” Maggie told Henry. They sat together on the front steps of our home in Somaliland. Henry tossed pebbles at the neighbor’s goats grazing on the weeds in our yard and Maggie brushed her dolly’s hair.

I was trying, unsuccessfully, to coax green bean plants from the rocky soil beside the house. I beat back locusts, fought off goats and sheep, drenched the soil with bottled water, anything for a bite of fresh green vegetable, but the plants would not grow. I leaned back on my heels, listening to the twins’ conversation.

“I know,” Henry said. “Probably on our birthday.” We had been in Somaliland for five months and they were six weeks away from turning 3.

“You won’t turn black,” I said. “You’re white, like Karisa.”

Karisa was another American girl living in our village. Her dad taught history at Amoud University and worked with my husband Tom, a physics professor.

“Karisa isn’t old enough to turn yet,” Maggie said. “She just turned 2.”

“White mommies and white daddies make white kids,” I said. “Black mommies and black daddies make black babies.” I pulled the skin of my forearm. “So you are white.”

Henry shook his head. “No. Jack and Negasti are black.”

Jack was Somali-Chinese and Negasti was Ethiopian and they lived two hours away, in the capital of northern Somalia, Hargeisa. They were adopted by Americans, a white mommy and a white daddy. Jack was 7 and Negasti was 5.

“They turned black on their birthdays,” Henry said. Be sure to read the rest here at Turning Black – Why My Kids See Race Differently.

For the rest of the wrap-up check out these posts from the week if you haven’t already – particularly the one on Loss by Robynn.

On Tragedy:In the midst of tragedy – A Call to Pray

On Loss: Robynn’s article on loss should not be missed so I am linking to it again to make sure you get it. Read it here

On Lockdown: Yesterday was spent in lockdown. Around 2:30 in the afternoon we phoned Trader Joe’s desperate for milk and eggs, but to no avail. The intrepid Dunkin’ Donuts was, however, open – making me proud of Boston! Here are my thoughts on lockdown.

May you rest today and through the weekend. I’m signing off until Monday. Thanks again – for caring enough to read in the midst all the other information online. I never take it for granted.

At cops’ request, Dunkin’ Donuts stays open (boston.com)

Wrapping Up the Week 2.23.13

Published on February 23, 2013 by Marilyn8 Comments

This was a great week on Communicating Across Boundaries. We went from wrinkled ladies to third culture kid arrogance to beautiful pottery to recognizing that many times our worst fears are never realized! And the wonderful thing about this? – you were able to hear voices other than my own. Thank you Cecily, Stef, and Robynn as well as all of you for your part in making the discussions rich and meaningful.

Today I sit with my niece Melanie, drinking a latte, and grateful for family. I don’t write as much as I should about my extraordinary family – but let’s just say that there are a lot of moving parts — personalities, passions, and people. Today one of those moving parts is across from me sharing a slice of life.

On to the week wrap-up….

On Global Health: I try to keep a pulse on what is going on in global health through a variety of sources. Some of those include Save the Children, Partners in Health, and World Vision. While the western world battles with diabetes, obesity, and a combination of the two, the developing world is still in a place of battling tropical diseases that cause malnutrition, anemia, serious developmental delays and more. These are present in communities that are largely neglected and unknown. They are Neglected Diseases of Neglected People. The article linked cites the case for responding to these and argues that the return on investment is well worth making this a public health priority. Take a look at the article and see what you think.

On Women: I will quote directly from an article that I think is a provocative, ‘must-read’ written by a woman who is African-American and in her words sees “where race and feminism collide in ways I can’t reconcile…”

First, the promotion and marketing of abortions in The United States of America was born out of an effort to control the population of African-Americans. Today, the largest majority of locations offering abortions are housed in African-American or Latino neighborhoods. One of every three abortions in the U.S. are African-American children. When numbers and statistics like these collide, I put it on the same level with Female Gendercide in China.

I understand that it’s convenient to go on promoting abortions as a ‘women’s rights issue’ without regard to the fact that abortion has cut into the African-American population by over 30 million lives, yet it’s appalling and reprehensible to ignore the facts.” [From A Deeper Story – Why I Respectfully Decline Feminism]. I urge you to read both the piece and the links within this quote in Why I Respectfully Decline Feminism.

On Friendship and Dialogue: Remember last year when the United States was divided not by Red and Blue, but by Support Chick-fil-A or Boycott Chick-fil-A? This year the anniversary of that day went by with barely a nod. Why? Why did something that caused such controversy not even come up? Largely because Dan Cathy, an older, white, avowed conservative Evangelical quietly began reaching out to the man who organized the boycott – a gay man who is married to his partner. It is an amazing story of reaching across ideological divide, not giving up your beliefs, but being willing to listen, to learn, and to forge an unlikely friendship. This is a story that should have been on the front page of every newspaper. As you read it, I believe you’ll be challenged to offer grace and friendship despite polar opposite beliefs. Read Dan and Me: My Coming Out as a Friend of Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A – you won’t be disappointed.

On Film: Finally – this weekend the Big Event of Hollywood is on. It’s the Oscars.We are a big film family so will be watching and texting family members with either shouts of triumph or groans of despair. Will you be watching this event?

On my Beside Stand: I’m finishing the book First They Killed My Father with tears in my eyes. So hard to read. Yet another reminder of the grace of human resilience. Another book has come on my stand and I’m already immersed. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo. I first learned of this book through this blog post and wish I was going on vacation so I could curl up and read this 24 hours straight. More on this book after I’ve read and digested all that it offers.