When Your Kid Says Something Racist

Elias was four years old when he didn’t fully comprehend the racial slurs thrown at him across the hospital room.

The teenage boy in traction on the other side of the curtain was in pain but had refused to take his pain medication. How did I know? The curtain wasn’t soundproof. We could hear him complaining, arguing with his parents, moaning in pain, asking for candy but refusing to eat the hospital food (who could blame him). I learned from his mother that he had been in a horrible car accident. The young man was lucky to be alive after a bowling ball left in the passenger area of the car became a pinball upon impact.

Our families didn’t interact much except for exchanging knowing looks as we passed each other in the room or the hallways. They were focused on getting their teenager healthy and stable. We were doing the same with our four-year-old. We simply exchanged stories and then went to our sides of the room until the teenager decided to call my son a chink and suggest our family go back to where we came from.

I had asked the other mother if they would turn down the television that was on at the same volume it had been on all day long. Elias was exhausted having started fasting for a round of tests the next day, and Peter & I were spent.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but would you mind turning down the television volume a little bit? Our son is a bit restless tonight and the noise is making it difficult for all of us to rest.”

The other mother asked her son if it would be OK to turn down the volume as I walked to our side of the curtain. His response?

“No. I can’t sleep when that baby’s whining and crying. Tell that chink to shut up. They should all go back to where they came from. What are they doing here anyway?”

I waited for the other mother to correct her son, but she didn’t. She said nothing. Instead her son continued to raise his voice. She said nothing. Nothing.

So I did.

I don’t think Tiger Mother is what you think it means.

I walked over to the other side of the curtain and said to no one in particular, “I can’t believe this.” I left the room and headed to the nurses’ station where I asked demanded to speak with the shift manager to request demand  a room change. As I was explaining the situation, including the racist slurs, the other mother came down the hall asking me to understand her son was in pain and is tired and didn’t know what he was saying and that she didn’t know where he learned to say those things.

Full stop.

We are two days away from Halloween, and there are adults in blackface thinking Trayvon Martin is the perfect costume. They are posting photos of themselves dressed up like bloodied Asiana flight attendants and pilots. And when we see these adults doing stupid, racist things I know I am not the only one wondering ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?! Don’t these people have friends who pull them aside and tell them in no uncertain terms, “THAT is NOT a good idea”?!?!?!?!?

But it isn’t just in that moment because those adults didn’t just decide a week before Halloween that blackface or wearing a name badge reading “Ho Lee Fuk” would be HILARIOUS. No, those adults learned long ago that those racist acts were OK, even funny.

Which is why I, as an adult, hearing racist slurs come out of the mouths of children, especially this particular 14-year-old boy’s mouth, and then NOT hearing his parent correct him bothered me so. I did understand the young man was in pain, which is why I was hoping he would take his pain meds. I did understand he was tired because my son was tired, too. I wanted to go back to where we came from – Libertyville, Illinois! But we were stuck in Ann Arbor because my four-year-old baby almost seized to death. I did understand. But I told the other mother that what I didn’t understand was how she could hear her son say things like “chink” and not correct him. I told her this wasn’t about the noise. It was about the racist slurs.

Again, she said nothing. It broke my heart because the other mother could no longer claim ignorance. She knew and said  nothing.

When your kids say something racist, you correct them or you stay silent and give them permission.

It’s not easy. Parenting isn’t easy. Talking about race and racism isn’t easy. But if parents and adults don’t say anything, don’t help lead and correct and answer questions, none of us should be surprised when adults show up at a Halloween party looking the part of a racist fool.

Urban Outfitters, Why? WHY???

The whole “hipster” thing is a bit fascinating and strange because new things made to look like old things are made to be cool and hip…and expensive. Which is odd to me because my old things rarely were expensive, and rarely were they cool. But now “vintage” is cool if its new, and you’re making a statement.

But what kind of statement are you making when you buy something like this:

According to the company website, Urban Outfitters offers "a lifestyle-specific shopping experience for the educated, urban-minded individual in the 18 to 30 year-old range". Why does an 18-year-old need these? Why does anyone need these?

According to the company website, Urban Outfitters offers “a lifestyle-specific shopping experience for the educated, urban-minded individual in the 18 to 30 year-old range”. Why does an 18-year-old need these? Why does anyone need these?

Better yet, what kind of brand statement are you trying to make when you sell stuff like this?

Last night I spent a few delightful hours with a few delightful women talking about  how this world is going to hell. Girls dressing like prostitutes. Grown women dressing like little girls. Pastors referring to their spouses as their “smokin’ hot wives” and honestly believing that is a compliment. (It really, really isn’t.) Some of those same pastors refusing to be taught by women because their God-given femininity gets in the way but books written by women are generally OK because the woman isn’t in the room.

And that rant actually has something to do with this ridiculous stuff Urban Outfitters is selling.

Bratz dolls. Baby doll dresses on grown women. White evangelical pastors talking about their “smokin’ hot wives”. John Piper and his stance on learning from women. None of it is OK. I am so tired of trying to keep a sense of humor in a world that has lost its marbles. I know there is at least a few others tired and outraged because a dear friend let me know about syringe shot shooters through another blog post.

Seriously. When did selling hipster drug paraphernalia become OK? This isn’t a Domo toaster (which I saw on the UA website and thought, “That would make breakfast awesome!”). This along with a few other items on the website make prescription drug abuse a tongue-in-cheek gag, and that is so wrong. The target audience might officially be 18-30 year olds, but as a mother of two teenagers I’m not stupid, even if UA thinks I am. The actual audience is younger. And even with parents hovering over them like helicopters they are soaking up images, messages, values, ideas faster than we can protect them because the grown-ups who care can’t keep up with this stuff, and the grown ups who don’t care will sell it to you.

Real drugs or hipster versions.

I am so tired of this kind of garbage. Are you? Please tell me some of you are.

E-mail the CEO and chairman of Urban Outfitters, Richard A. Hayne:
richard.hayne@urbanout.com

Or keep the US Postal Service busy and send snail mail to the company:
Urban Outfitters Inc.
5000 South Broad St.
Philadelphia, PA 19112-1495

Do you tweet? How about connecting @UrbanOutfitters

Or comment on Facebook.

E-mail Oona McCullough, their Director of Investor Relations at oona.mccullough@urbanout.com

No plans right now? How about emailing the board of directors and other important people who care about profits.

And by the way, the same company owns Anthropologie and Free People.

My parents still tell me that here in America the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Here in America, corporate America pays attention to the bottom line and they now also have to manage their social media presence. We have a voice…it gets louder when others join us.

(Credit goes to My Life as 3D for blogging about this first.)

How to Train a Kid & Thoughts After Career Day

This is a Smith-Corona portable manual typewriter. I remember using one of these when I was growing up. Clack, clack, clack. Ding.

This is a Smith-Corona portable manual typewriter. I remember using one of these when I was growing up. Clack, clack, clack. Ding.

Less than half of the 48 elementary school kids who sat in on my “writer/blogger” Career Day session recognized the photo of a manual typewriter, the writing tool I used in 1988 for “Basic Writing” – Medill School of Journalism’s freshman weed-out course for journalism majors.

A few of them had Instagram accounts. Many of them knew they were too young to be on Facebook, but a few of them had been promised an account for future birthdays. They all recognized my iPad and talked about typing on laptops.

Yet all of them were still thinking of writers in the more traditional sense – authors of books or writers of magazine or newspaper articles. Very few of them were thinking about writers in terms of web content, scripts for TV & movies, song lyrics, etc. The idea of writing a book or writing for a newspaper, both of which I have done, did not easily translate into the 21st century despite having been born into a fast-moving tech world.

My father had me keep a journal when I was young. I read the first entry from my yellow notebook to each Career Day group – Oct 13, 1978. It was journaling in the pre-blog decades – pencil and paper. Almost 30 years later, I’m still journaling – on paper and onto the internet.

I’m a parent now, and I am wondering what habits, skills, and values I am instilling and emphasizing in our day-to-day chaos that will serve my children well in the decades to come. It’s not just about jobs but about passions and the sweet spot when passions and vocation collide. My parents are immigrants, and I am the product of that pragmatism. Anderson Cooper could chase after his bliss. My job was to succeed. My parents didn’t leave a developing country on the verge of martial law so that I could follow my bliss. Bliss was a vocabulary word. My future depended on education and a job. The goal was to develop skills whether or not they were my gifts.

But life as the adult child of immigrants in this century continues to be that of navigating shifting sand. The kids at Career Day will most likely never know what a pension is, and who knows what will happen to Social Security. Kids today have parents who in earlier years may have expected companies and employees to live out loyalty in terms of job security instead of a punch card or plastic key fob for points. The job market, and the idea of a career continues to develop and change. It used to be who you knew. Now we add a touch of LinkedIn and Career.com. I thought I was ready, but I’m barely ready myself. I feel behind, and if I’m behind where are my kids?

So it got me thinking about Career Day and how the format has remained the same, but the careers and the idea of presenting options may have to change with the times as well as how we have conversations at dinner about school, grades, favorite subjects and “what do you want to do when you grow up?”.

That last question is a tough one because sometimes I feel like I’m still figuring that one out.

 

 

Our Christmas Stories

It’s December 3, and it’s 61 degrees in the northern burbs of Chicago. I have the urge to empty the compost bin and start planting carrot seeds and dreaming about tomatoes. But it’s December. Surely the ground will eventually freeze, and everything that triggers my seasonal allergies will die. Right?

It doesn’t “feel” like Christmas. I grew up in Chicagoland, which means it should be cold. Freezing cold. I should be able to use my walk-in freezer – my garage. I should be able to see my breath in the air, and I should be wearing my winter coat, mittens, hat and scarf. I feel like I’m in SoCal, my fake Uggs daring my feet to combine spring and winter into one.

Instead, we spent last night summoning all of our Christmas anticipation and decorated our Christmas tree. Through the years, Peter and I have tried to build in some traditions into our Christmas as part of our family’s story – the things, the smells, the tastes that will last beyond the five of us decorating a tree. Our ornaments have become one of my favorite parts.

The fake tree was fully decorated when Peter and I bought it from Menards. I didn’t come with a box but it came loaded with lights, glass globe ornaments and other sparkly, shiny things. As the years have passed, some faster than others, fewer glass globes make their way onto the tree, replaced by preschool creations, school photos placed into frames, ornaments based on family members’ favorite things, and now two mini trees with ornaments collected from places we have visited as a family.

We will hear and probably say over and over how commercialized this sacred season has become, and it’s true. When Christmas music and decorations of red and green get up in Halloween’s orange and black, and Black Friday takes over Thanksgiving night, it’s enough to do….what?

I’m certain my oldest’s journey towards college is making this mommy a bit sentimental, but it was a sight to see when each child (including me and Peter) unpacked each ornament and shared a sentence or two about their fondest memories and helped piece together our Christmas story.

For me, the tradition I most remember is going to church Christmas Eve where the Korean Santa came to give each kid a gift based on Sunday School class. We would head home late in the night, my parents transferring us from the car to our rooms. And then we would wake up to presents that the Korean Santa would leave under our tree. I remember the just-my-size African American Barbie. The Barbie Dream House and furniture. The flannel sheets.

Our kids don’t remember seeing a Korean Santa, but they did. Instead, I hope they will remember the bits and pieces of memory each ornament carries, because, as I tell them every year, when they move out and have a place of their own and a tree of their own my housewarming gift will be “their” ornaments wrapped with the love and expectation only a savior can bring to cover their trees and lives (“…while my tree stands all naked and lonely,” I tell them each year).

What traditions have you continued from your childhood or built new into your family?

Pro-life, Tea Party & Other Dinner Conversations With the Kids

Dear Readers,

How do you talk with your children or the children in your lives about politics? Or do you talk with your children about politics?

Honestly, it wasn’t an aspect of parenting I had thought much about until ‘becoming an American’. Personal opinions are one thing, and I have plenty of opinions. Engaging in conversations with friends, neighbors, church members, etc. have been enlightening, challenging, frustrating, and important. But as my children are growing up in an amped-up informational age and in a community where classmates come dressed up as political figures (I’m not joking. Four years ago there was a mini John McCain with mom dressed up as Sarah Palin.) or have parents running for local office, we are finding the need to address politics.

My two boys get an hour of screen time a night, with exceptions made because of the ink in my veins. I am a news junky, and this election season offers me a new outlet and responsibility. As a fairly recent naturalized citizen, this will be the first time I cast a vote in a presidential election. So the television has been on more often this fall. And the newspaper (an actual ink & paper newspaper) and news magazines linger a little longer.

Which has meant my kids are asking more questions, and dinner conversations are getting interesting. And difficult.

Tonight the 13 y.o. son parroted back a political ad that has been getting quite a bit of airplay out here: So and so candidate is pro-life without exception and has sided with the Tea Party.

“What does that mean? Pro-life without exception? And what is the Tea Party?’ he asked.

Peter and I did what I think was the best we could do. We answered the question (with thought bubbles in italics) and waited for C to ask for further explanation (which he didn’t):

Us: Pro-life in politics often focuses on abortion rights, but we also want you to think about the death penalty. (But I’m also thinking that if it’s really just about abortion it should be pro-abortion/anti-abortion.)

‘Without exception’ can mean a few things, but again in this political race it is addressing abortion in the case of rape. (Or for some the issue is really ‘legitimate rape’ and whether or not a woman can get pregnant as a result of a ‘legitimate rape’.)

The Tea Party is a group of folks who have common convictions about the role of the American government and were generally unhappy with how the Republican party addressed some of those issues. (Some of the Tea Party’s rhetoric scares me, and as a family of Asian Americans we should all be afraid. Can you pass the salt?)

There are still many political ads left to go before election day, and I am certain that our dinner conversations will circle back to politics in the next few days. So when the conversation circles around to politics, do you try to stay non-partisan? Do you engage? Any advice?

They’re not racist. They just don’t know.

My sons, ages 13 and 10, spend two evenings each week on a golf course because I parent out of my own personal brokenness, which includes an acute awareness of life experiences and skills I was not exposed to growing up. Tennis lessons. Skiing lessons. Swimming lessons. Golf lessons.

Check. Check. Check. Check. (My daughter got the first three. She escaped golf because she has immersed herself into the world of dance for the past few years though it’s not completely out of the picture yet.)

One of my goals has been to expose my children to things I didn’t do and at one point or another felt like I had missed out on. This all despite the fact that I also wrestle with my own personal prejudices against sports like tennis and golf because they have in one way or another represented privilege and access to opportunities and networks my parents and I did not have.

So it did not surprise me to see a very diverse group of participants on our first day at the course – diverse meaning White or Caucasian children were in the minority. Golf, whether you are in business or in medicine, more if you are male but increasingly so if you are female, is one of those “life skills” that also translates into opportunities and networks that non-White communities continue to learn about and enter into.

(And wouldn’t you know that in the crowd of parents one of the other Asian American parents and I recognized each other after having last met about seven years ago!)

But I was a bit annoyed when I found out my sons were asked the following question by a young Black boy on the putting green:

“Are you guys related to Bruce Lee?”

My sons know me, and they have had their many questions about race, ethnicity and culture answered even when they didn’t know there was a question to be asked. They have been encouraged to recognize and value both similarities and differences. So C quickly qualified the young boy’s question with his own response:

“Mom, don’t worry. He wasn’t being racist. He just didn’t know. Bruce Lee isn’t even Korean, right?”

C was correct. Bruce Lee isn’t Korean, and the question wasn’t racist. The young boy didn’t know, and because of what he has and hasn’t learned and been exposed to about Asian Americans through school, community, church, media or family, he tried to make a connection between what he knew (Bruce Lee) and what he was currently experiencing (two Asian American boys). The boy was doing what anyone trying to make small talk might do when you are young or older and trying to make a new friend – find common ground. It wasn’t racist. The boy isn’t a racist. He just didn’t know.

But as I have sat and walked around the course for the past few weeks I’ve been wondering at what point do we move from not knowing to being responsible for what we don’t know. I have been the receiver of much grace and the giver of the same as people of different races/ethnicities/gender/faith find themselves making mistakes as well as being stupid, prejudiced and racist. I have found extending grace easier when the offender acknowledges the offense. It really becomes extending grace when the offender sees no offense.

So I’m still mulling over C’s response to an innocent question that on another day would have made my tired blood boil had I been the one being asked about my relationship to say Lucy Liu, but was tempered and amazed by C’s response, which was to simply tell the boy he wasn’t related to Bruce Lee.

And then they proceeded to sink a few golf balls.

Fly On the Wall: Things You’d Hear in My House

In honor of Tom Lin’s (vp, director of Urbana, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and unrelated to basketball’s Jeremy Lin, though all three of us have ties to InterVarsity and also are Asian American) FB status, I thought I’d get off my soapbox for awhile and lighten up the mood.

Things you would hear coming out of my mouth if you were a fly on the wall at my house:

  1. You will be walking to school today because your legs work and I’m paying good money to live this close to the school.
  2. How is it that your legs work for dancing but not for walking?
  3. Did anyone see my coffee?
  4. If I knew where you left your iPod do you think I would tell you where it is?
  5. No, I do not have your allowance yet.
  6. If you don’t want to (fill in the blank with a household chore) then please pool your allowances together so that I can get a cleaning lady. No? OK. Let’s get back to work.
  7. Wait. Let me see the problem. I can’t do math in my head.
  8. Please chew and swallow before talking again.
  9. My keys are in my purse.
  10. I love you.

What would I hear if I was a fly on the wall in your house?

 

 

 

On the Doorframes (or Walls) of My House

Life rarely goes exactly as planned, which should serve as a reminder to me to ease up on the type-A tendencies. But I am a slow learner. The following post is actually a devotional I wrote recently for a contest. I didn’t win a chance at publication, but who needs to be published in a devotional when there are blogs! 😉

Here are some reflections on Deuteronomy 6:6-9

These are the commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. (TNIV)

There have been too many days where being a mom has felt like being the “bad cop” – a litany of “don’t do this” and “don’t do that”. Deep down inside I know rules are meant to provide healthy and sometimes godly boundaries so my children can experience the freedom of being loved unconditionally.

One rule in our house was you write (and draw) on paper. No stones. No floors. No walls. Love God by keeping your artistic creations limited to chalk on the driveway and crayons on paper.

But you can’t keep budding artists from exploring new media. It couldn’t have been more than a few moments, not even long enough for a load of laundry to be started, when the giggles went silent.

My son installed his new art directly onto the walls.

“Oh my God, Corban, what did you do?” Instantly I broke two of the commandments.

“You shall have no other gods before me.”

“You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God…”

Suddenly Sunday School seemed so very far away from my heart and from the example I was setting for my children. Teaching them to live godly lives meant I needed to be reminded about priorities.

White walls were not the priority. My house was a place God had provided to live our lives together, and my actions within the walls – the words I spoke, the love I expressed, the discipline I administered – were the ways my children would learn to love God. Not the walls.

I talked to Corban, my budding preschool artist, about his drawing and inspiration. And then we left the scribbles on the walls as a reminder to me.

“Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.”

Or in my case it would be the walls of our home.

Geishas, Wampanoag Indians and Rasta Hats With Dreadlocks. Why?

Would you let your teenaged daughter dance around dressed up like a geisha?

Or would you, as an adult, show up at a pilgrim feast dressed up in a generic Halloween “Indian” costume and let your “interpreter” speak stilted English to help portray a version of the first Thanksgiving feast?

Or would you be OK with your kid putting on a rasta hat complete with dreadlocks and say, “Give me all your money!” in an attempt to win a goofy group ice breaker?

These are the things Peter and I are discussing tonight as we have no stake in any of the amazing football games that were played earlier today. These are the things that keep me up at night because these are our realities as parents who are trying to raise three children in what some describe as a “post-racial” world.

Last week I saw a high school poms squad compete with all of their heart and dance skills dressed up like geishas. I snapped a photo, which I promptly posted on FB, and I sat there shaking my head. Their final pose was “hands meet at your heart in prayer” and bow. I expected a gong. They weren’t honoring the artistic skills and training of the geisha. They were demonstrating their modern dance team skills while perpetuating stereotypes and cultural appropriation.

But it wasn’t my daughter’s squad at the high school where my taxes go so what does it matter, right? Let it go, I tell myself. But I can’t. Or, I don’t think I should.

It made me think of our elementary school’s traditional pilgrim feast. I sat through two of those cringing at the construction paper feathered headbands the children had made for us parents, wishing I had the courage to say something appropriate after having experienced the first one, extending the benefit of the doubt and then having an even worse experience the second time. The man dressed up as the Wampanoag chief Massasoit wasn’t dressed as a Wampanoag chief. He was wearing a very nice Halloween costume. But I didn’t know what to say. I know it’s hard to believe I didn’t walk myself into the principal’s office two years ago, but it’s true. I don’t always know what or how to say things, especially when it’s clear this tradition was very, very old.

Let it go, I tell myself. Don’t ruin the tradition. But I’m having a tough time sitting here with myself.

And then Peter comes home after a fairly good weekend away at a retreat with our second child when he shares about an incident. The kids were asked to create commercials to promote their candidate (playing off this exciting election season), and one child put on a rasta hat with fake dreads and yelled out, “Give me all your money!” It was just enough to make Peter wince and talk to me about it at home…and show me the photo that he snapped.

Let it go, I tell myself. But maybe Peter and I shouldn’t.

Surely we aren’t the only ones who have seen things like this in our children’s schools and surrounding communities. What have you seen that made you uncomfortable, left you baffled, or made you angry?

What did you do or say?

Or, did you

just

let

it

go

?

 

That’s Not Fair! Too Bad, Kid. Chores Aren’t Meant to be Fair.

There are so many my children will quickly deem “unfair”. Sometimes the distribution of chores appears to be unequal, which they cry foul. Sometimes someone gets the last ice cream sandwich, which elicits similar cries. My response is a finessed version of “Life is not fair. My job isn’t to make life fair for you. It’s to give you tools to learn to deal with unfairness and to live lives that can help right the wrongs not just for yourself but for everyone.”

Usually it’s just: “Too bad. Life isn’t fair.”

But with summer vacation on hand (can someone explain to me why we can’t have year-round school?!?!?) there is more time at home, which means more opportunities to point out the inequities in life….such as chores.

I grew up with an understanding that “we” were responsible for keeping things orderly and clean. “We” mean the four of us – mom, dad, me and my sister. Rooms were clean. Shelves were dusted. Dishes put away. We weren’t perfect, but chores were just part of life, which is what I’m striving for.

There are many days when I wish I had a cleaning genie who would come weekly or bi-weekly to do what I hate doing – the bathrooms. Truth be told there are other things that I don’t want to give up that would allow me the luxury of hiring help. I don’t want to give up my gym membership, haircuts, etc.

And, I don’t want my kids missing out on important life lessons like learning to clean a bathroom or mowing the lawn. This is not a condemnation of those who have household help AT ALL! But I need all of the help I can get, and I am finding that chores is one of those things in the parenting tool kit that I don’t necessarily enjoy but can be very helpful. If chores are the most unfair things my kids experience in their young lives then they are still way ahead of the curve.

I’m trying to explain that in the best way possible, to tell them and show them and help them understand that they are blessed in different ways than most children of this world. They are not “better off” necessarily but they certainly have the material things. I’m afraid, I have been far more diligent in creating patterns and routines when it comes to the kids’ chores than I have in building in spiritual disciplines, which in the long run will help them wrestle with issues of injustice.

Everyone knows that every Saturday morning there will be a flurry of cleaning bathrooms and refreshing towels and linens, but I am realizing as my kids are getting older that the value for fairness and justice will have to come from a much deeper place and more intentional place than clean bathrooms. Right?

So help a mother out. Be the village it takes to help me and one another because someday my kids will grow up and may be in your path. What “chores” are your children responsible for and how have you built that into their value system versus their to-do list? What spiritual disciplines have you built in to their lives and how has that changed them and you?

And, what chore would you avoid all together if you could? 😉

 

 

 

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