Many of us, whether we are White, of color, or Indigenous, are inhibited when conversing about race and racial issues. This is due in part to limited awareness of our own racial experience and the experience of others who have different racial backgrounds and perspectives. (Singleton, 2015).
I recently wrote my racial autobiography as an exercise for the All In! Allyship and Leadership Training I’m co-facilitating with Jenene Wooldridge. It was an exercise in reflecting on my awareness of my racial identity as a white person. When did I become aware of race? How has it impacted my life?
Have you ever thought about your Racial Autobiography?
I grew up in rural Nova Scotia in a family of three children, and a single mom. I don’t really remember knowing I was white, because everyone around me was white- my family, my teachers, my coaches… everyone. I felt different because I didn’t have a dad. I made up stories about him to fill in the gap of his absence. My mom worked part-time so she could also raise her young kids, so there wasn’t much money to go around.
In junior high and high school there were a handful of Black and Asian students. None of us talked about race. It wasn’t in any of the curriculum, and all the teachers and school administrators were white. I knew I was white, and the racialized kids were different, but I didn’t think much about their experiences, and I didn’t have any language to talk about our racial differences. Though I lived very close to Glooscap First Nation, I knew nothing about the Mi’kmaw culture. If there were Mi’kmaw students at school, it was not acknowledged. Or, at least, it wasn’t on my radar.
I left Nova Scotia at 18, because I knew I needed to experience a different world outside of the Maritimes. I went to Toronto to do my undergrad at the University of Toronto (U of T). I was shy, lacked confidence, but also wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone. There was a clear moment at the Scarborough Campus in my first month at U of T when I looked around the room and realized I was the only white person of dozens of other people. It felt shocking at the time. I had always been part of a dominant white culture. At 18 years old, I wasn’t just intellectualizing my whiteness, but feeling it in my body for the first time in my life. It shook my identity.
After that first year at U of T, I travelled to the South Pacific to the Solomon Islands, with Youth Challenge International, and other youth from Canada, Australia, and the Solomon Islands. We worked in small teams doing community development work. We walked through small, remote villages, and I remember my team leader saying, “We are likely the first white people they have seen”. I really began to question studying international development, and being in the “developed” (insert white) world thinking that we have the answers to support change.
I spent a lot of time travelling in my 20’s, mostly in Central America, in volunteer positions. I built clay ovens in Honduras, worked with women’s organizations in El Salvador, and led a delegation of Canadians learning about human rights in Guatemala. Each experience taught me more about myself, and broadened my perspective of race, privilege, and identity. I felt like “the other”, the “minority” at times, not speaking Spanish fluently, and being Canadian. I also experienced a lot of white privilege. For example, I could walk into fancy hotels to use the washroom without being questioned, people were friendly and open-minded, and wanted to learn more about me. It took me about a decade of similar experiences to realize that I didn’t quite feel comfortable with the power dynamics, often along racial lines, that exist in the international development sector. I decided to focus instead on working in community development in Canada.
Also in my 20’s I fell in love with a South Asian man whose family was from India. In the seven years we were together, his parents became my second set of parents. They are still my Amma and Appa, even though it’s been decades since their son and I were together. He was treated differently, because of his brown skin. People wouldn’t sit next to him on the subway or crossed the street if they met him on the sidewalk. We hitchhiked across Canada together and decided quickly in the trip that the strategy was to have me stand on the road alone with my thumb out until a car stopped. They wouldn’t stop for him alone, or for both of us. We didn’t talk about our racial differences much. He noticed a huge difference after 9/11. People assumed he was Middle Eastern, and all of the previous racial microaggressions were much more frequent and obvious.
Fast forward a decade, I’m back in rural Nova Scotia. My female partner and I decide to adopt children, after unsuccessfully attempting to have biological children. At the end of the adoption training, we were told it would be at least a 6-year wait. After years of infertility, and the prospect of years spent waiting for a phone call, I decided to be proactive. I drafted a cultural competence plan, speaking of our experience as queer people, our connection to racialized communities in NS, and our years spent travelling and learning from other cultures. That was in 2010. At the time (and still) systemic racism means that Black and racialized children were overrepresented in the child welfare system. Department of Community Services was just beginning to start more proactive work to support more racialized families to become foster and adoptive families. That work is ongoing.
My white partner and I ended up adopting three multiracial children. They present as Black but are also Mohawk and Caucasian. Two white parents, three Black kids. We had a lot of learning and unlearning to do, about race, privilege, heck, just about being parents, and that journey continues. We have now been parents of our kids for 11 years. Do I think that my kids’ lives would feel different if they had Black parents who looked like they do? Yes. No doubt about it. We do our best as white parents to talk very openly about race, about difference, about inclusion, and equity. I’m not sure it fills the gap that our whiteness creates. We were part of a group early in our parenting journey for white parents of Black kids. Wanda Thomas Bernard, now a Senator, spoke to us one week. She said, “For your kids to see people like them is as important as eating three meals a day”. I have never forgotten her words.
I have had to unlearn and learn many things as a white parent of Black children. For example, the need to have conversations about safety, in particular with my two Black sons. They know to always get a receipt when they buy something in a store, and to not run away from a potentially bad situation, even if their white friends run. They also know not to walk down the street with their hoodie over their head. By contrast, we also want them to feel a sense of pride in their race and culture. We connect with their birth parents, foster connections with African Nova Scotian communities, and take every opportunity presented to learn more about their Mohawk and Black ancestry.
My racial understanding continues to evolve. My lack of racial understanding through my formative years as a child and teenager is a product of white supremacy, and the education system that upholds it. As a dominant member in a whitewashed world, my job doesn’t end. To be the best parent to my Black children, to be an ally to my Black, Indigenous, and racialized family, friends, and colleagues, I have to reflect, act, and re-evaluate every single day.
