It's not just black and white

Meet Julianna, my newest beautiful granddaughter. Her mother wrote a post on her Blog about the adoption process, particularly biracial adoption and her search for information and help. I don't often pontificate about political or cultural issues, but in light of the historic inauguration of a biracial president and some recent books and articles I've read, I find my thought process has been in full gear. Let me share a few of those thoughts.

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This National Book Award winner is a well researched and written account of Thomas Jefferson's "other" family. His relationships with his probable children as well as their mother, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents are explored in a well drawn historical context. Sally Hemings, half-sister of Jefferson's wife who dies 10 years into her marriage, was with Jefferson and his daughters in Paris and then lived out her life at Monticello until Jefferson's death. She then lived in Charlottesville, Virginia until her death 10 years later. It is felt that she had six children with Jefferson. He provided for the freedom of those living upon his death. Three of them passed as "white" and were not to be found by the author/researcher, Annette Gordon-Reed, who provides valuable insight into the slavery issues of the time as well the cultural climate. Madison Hemings chose black and left written memoirs. DNA testing now proves his claim.

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My next read was this memoir by a woman who had grown up in Liberia. When requesting these books from the library, I had not a clue that they would connect together in such an interesting way. For all I knew, Sugar Beach was off the coast of South Carolina. Helene Cooper is a descendant of freed slaves who boarded ships on the eastern shores of the United States in the 1820's to return to the coast of Western Africa and a place which would be named Liberia in honor of liberty. Interestingly, this new country supposedly founded on the principles of the United States Constitution, had become largely divided between the wealthy descendants of those freed slaves and the indigenous people. The government was largely manned by loosely related people who watched out for each other. Helene's family lived in a new house on the beach, vacationed in their other home in Spain, and spent vacation time at the family farm where even the house was antebellum in its architecture. She most likely would have been sent abroad to college, but before that happens, the government is overthrown in a savage way by a young military leader and his cohorts in 1980 and Helene's father barely escapes with his life. Her family makes it way to the United States, but life will never be the same for them again.

The connection? A couple of Jefferson's freed sons contemplated just such a move to Africa upon Jefferson's death in 1826. They chose not to go. Both books explore the issues of black and white and degrees of black and white and the power of people over others to maintain their social and economic position.

Then today I read this Newsweek article, entitled "Beyond Black and White" by the black mother of a biracial son. She describes her feelings at his birth and beyond and then ends her piece this way:

"Our newly elected president ignored the racial stereotyping that seemed to limit what he could accomplish in this country—and he didn't do it by passively accepting society's assessment of his skin tone. Perhaps as the number of multiracial Americans continues to grow, there will be a plurality of golden people who are impossible to positively identify as one race or the other. And the rest of us who can be easily categorized will be forced to accept that color does not contribute to the content of one's character because we won't know which set of stereotypes to apply to whom. I want my son to grow up wearing his biracial heritage like an invisibility cloak, able to move unseen among people's prejudices—impervious to racial profiling. But I will prepare him for a world that may think he is black or white, even though he is golden."

As I ponder the historicity of this issue, I can only relate on a true personal level to things which have occurred in my own lifetime. I remember well the time in the 1960's when my uncle adopted the biracial daughter of his wife and the upsetting thing that was for my grandmother. Upon meeting her new granddaughter, she was smitten and changed. When my brother approached each of his siblings about adopting bi-racially in the 1980's I was surprised that he even felt he had to ask, but he did. My son didn't even think to ask any one's opinion when he and his wife chose to adopt Julianna. I think that is progress.

I felt great hope as a elementary school teacher and librarian. Each year as Martin Luther King's birthday and Black History Month in February approached, I would take some of our lesson time to explore this part of our nation's history. As we would discuss the civil rights movement and Jim Crow laws, it was beyond their comprehension that there could be such a thing as separate bathrooms, drinking fountains, schools and places on the bus for people with different colors of skin. "But why Mrs. Jensen? That doesn't make any sense!" Their incredulousness gave me pause and filled my heart with gratitude. Not just for these lovely children but for their parents and for my parents who refused to teach this hate. Parents who will not use racial slurs or portend to be better than others. Parents who accept that people are just people who mostly love their families and want the best for them; people who have hearts and feelings and desires that are mostly good and earnest.

As our world continues to shrink due to communication and travel opportunities, I hope for a love among all mankind that comes from familiarity and common respect. I hope for a world in which Julianna will always be just "golden."