I was very upset recently about the news that an interracial couple was denied a marriage license in Louisiana.  I won’t go into details, since I am sure you all have read about this ad infinitum.   How such a blatant bigot, a man who unapologetically enables hatred and breaks the law himself could be sitting in judgment over others in a public courtroom or anywhere for that matter is very troubling.

Stewing about this incident brought to mind another upsetting issue.  Even though the government cannot tell people who they can and cannot marry, some states, including my own state of California, make an exception for gays, who have been denied that right. 

In turn, pondering this issue made me think about the many discussions I have had with my brother about the right of homosexuals to marry.  We used to think alike about most social and politically issues but, in the past few years, his views on many things have changed.  We love each other dearly but our “talks” can be quite frustrating.

From news stories, family, friends, colleagues, and seemingly everywhere else I turn – on the radio, television and even in my beloved dad blog community, I am confronted with things that upset me more often than not.  Sometimes it’s sensationalized news, spun facts and opinion passing as truth.  Sometimes it’s the genuine real life problems of this world or just people looking at different sides of the coin.

Subsequently and inevitably, I involve myself in confrontations filled with misinformation (on both sides), disagreement and eventually, touches of vitriol and a few exclamation points that leave me frustrated and depressed.  Even when it’s a respectful conversation between people of different viewpoints which there are plenty of, I am left a little despondent when I can’t seem to convince people of certain things that I know are true (I have been wrong on occasion ;-)  I know there are others who feel the same.

Maybe in the current political and social climate, with media having evolved into  a major lobbying force for one side or the other, people’s views are much more polarized then they have ever been in my lifetime.  Maybe it’s because I am more aware of the world around me, not just as a consequence of maturity, but because I am a parent and much more concerned about the future for my kids’ sakes.

Whatever the reason, I find my “panties in a wad” much of the time nowadays.  I don’t know how much this affects the way I interact with my children, but I know it does.  Further, I know they see my behavior with others and sense my moods, which I know affects them as well.

Why am I writing the obvious?  Because, as a parent, I need to be clear about what I teach my children about confrontation, frustration and how to always be respectful.  I must give them tools to take care of their own mental and emotional health and to keep anger in check.  This is often harder than it seems, since much of what they learn is not from what they are told but what they witness.  I can preach to them all day about right and wrong but, if I don’t set the proper example, they are possibly learning the wrong lesson. 

Further, my children are bi-racial and, the reality is that they have been born into a country and a world that may, at times, be more hostile to them than it is to me, being white.  They will especially need to have the tools to deal with hate, anger and frustration, and to be able to talk about what they believe with others who disagree and to remain happy through it all.  And, that is what my point is (finally) or my question, rather.  How do we, amongst the furor, remain happy and calm?

I have come up with a few suggestions I would like to share, if you’ll indulge me.

The first advice was indirectly from one of my daughters.  She loves to repeat her teacher’s dictum when kids speak out of turn, “Zip it.  Lock it.  Put it in your pocket.”  I’ll leave you to imagine the hand choreography that goes along with this.  I was recently participating in numerous blog comment streams with random people with whom I disagreed and an email exchange with my brother that was approaching 100 printed pages!  Then, I would rant to my wife and friends on Facebook, Twitter, at home at work and wherever else I could find sympathetic ears.  I was doing so much research, writing and talking, you would have thought I was running for office.  But, what I was really doing was neglecting things that actually matter, not the least of which was my own sanity and happiness.

I decided to stop it all – Zip it, lock it, put it in my pocket - at least for a while, in order to re-group.  For the time being, I’m not going to have the last word, put someone in their place or show them how wrong their argument is.  I made a commitment to look at all things from a positive angle, and talk about nice things.  This is tough.  Even just in this post, I had paragraphs filled with angry words about the aforementioned judge and the anti-gay forces.  At first, I couldn’t delete the paragraphs, I just hid them.  But, I finally forced myself to actually delete them and I really felt calmer.

Secondly, I changed the focus of my research and looked into happiness.  I found the “happiest man in the world”, Matthieu Ricard to see how he does it.  He was a French molecular geneticist at the Institut Pasteur who moved to Tibet and became a Buddhist monk.  A side note – this may not be the most solid science but he actually received his title by volunteering for a University of Wisconsin–Madison study, which tested levels of happiness, where scores ranged between +0.3 indicating depression and -0.3 denoting great happiness.  He scored -0.45 which was off the scale compared to hundreds of other volunteers.

I read his book, Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill.  Basically, his “secret” to happiness is meditation or mindfulness, as it is called in Buddhist practice.   I won’t go into specifics but you can hear all about it from him here or go to TED.com and find Matthieu Ricard.

So, I am putting a temporary moratorium on political conversation, turning off the talk radio and tuning out the news for a while.  That, in conjunction with my beginning the practice of meditation has made me so much happier.

Don’t worry bloggers; I’m will be back.  You won’t lose this liberal-progressive voice.  And, I’m not cutting myself off from the news of the world permanently either.  But, hopefully, stepping back for a moment will allow me to step back in as an even more open-minded, rational and calm voice.  More importantly, I think it will help me teach my children how to effectively and respectfully participate in an argument and even how to remain happy in the face of hate and hate-enabling from the likes of soon-to-be former Judge Keith Bardwell of Louisiana.  Or maybe we’ll all just meditate the hate away before they have to deal with it.

What do you do, if anything, to find happiness?

In a previous post I wrote about Disney’s upcoming animated movie featuring its first black princess, The Princess and The Frog. As the father of biracial children, I am excited about the movie and about the interracial relationship it depicts.  Since I brought it up, I didn’t want to drop the ball so, here is a little follow-up.

I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I can’t make any judgments but I do want to pass on some interesting tidbits. You read all kinds of things on the internet and often, can’t tell rumor from truth but here are some things that I have culled that have sufficient verisimilitude along with some facts and useful resources from Disney itself.

First, the controversy…apparently, information leaked early on about the movie started a firestorm of criticism.  The original title was “The Frog Princess” rather than “The Princess and The Frog.” The princess’ name was going to be Maddy, which sounded too much like a slave name for some and she was depicted as a chambermaid as was her mother. The story takes place in New Orleans, the site of one of the worst natural disasters in recent history that affected, disproportionately, New Orleans’ black population. The creative team behind the movie is Ron Clements and Ron Musker (who have did brilliant work on Aladdin and The Little Mermaid) and the movie was scored by Randy Newman (who is also brilliant).  However, these are all white men. Some of the other characters in the story include practitioners of Voodoo and a singing Alligator. I could probably go on listing things that offended people if I looked hard enough and I am not personally convinced that all of these things are offensive, although I can see how some might take them that way.

Disney quickly responded to the outcry.  I don’t know how much they changed but certainly the name of the movie, the princess and her depiction have been altered. Disney spokesperson Heidi Trotta told A-List Magzine the following,

“While it is a Studio policy that we do not comment on our animated films while they are in the early stages of production due to the nature of our evolving development process, it has come to our attention that there is incorrect information being circulated about Disney’s 2009 motion picture The Princess and the Frog.

The central character is a young girl named Princess Tiana. The story takes place in the charming elegance and grandeur of New Orleans’ fabled French Quarter during the Jazz Age. She is the newest addition to the Studio’s royal family of Disney Princesses. Princess Tiana will be a heroine in the great tradition of Disney’s rich animated fairy tale legacy, and all other characters and aspects of the story will be treated with the greatest respect and sensitivity.

This American fairy tale is several years away from completion and the creative process is ongoing. No other details regarding the film have been released at this point, and unfortunately much of the information that has surfaced, including the casting breakdown . . . is inaccurate. When we do casting calls we frequently use substitute information as we don’t want details out about the movies. Therefore that information you have is incorrect.”

So  it became The Princess and The Frog featuring Princess Tiana. She is a great “heroine” and it takes place in the New Orleans fabled French Quarter. Certainly sounds better.

Enough of the controversy…. Disney responded to criticism and seems to be making every attempt to please all while still staying true to their artistic vision, which is a positive thing.

Further, it is incredibly exciting that this movie is the first in 4 years to return to 2D hand-drawn cel animation. And the stills I have seen are amazing!

It is confirmed that the lead character Tiana will be voiced by Anika Noni Rose, who most of you probably remember from Dreamgirls but I had the privilege of seeing live on Broadway in her Tony Award winning role in Caroline, or Change. She is a superb actress and has a voice beyond compare.

Disney has set the movie in the Jazz Age and has provided, on it’s web site, some excellent educational resources for anyone interested in hearing or learning more about Jazz and it’s history.  On their web site, click on the tab that says “Community.”

The movie opens in limited release in Los Angeles and New York on November 25 and then everywhere December 11.  And, for those lucky enough to be New York or Los Angeles from November 25 through December 13, Disney is offering an The Ultimate Disney Experience which includes a screening of the movie, meeting ALL the princesses, including Tiana, a lesson in drawing from a real Disney animator, a display of original props and costumes, a Bayou adventure featuring rope swinging and tree climbing and Kodak Photo booths that put you in the movie.

The link above is for regular tickets or you can go to Goldstar, through which you may be able to get discount tickets.

I know what some of you may be thinking and no, I do not work for Disney. However, I may be updating you occasionally with any new news as the release of the film approaches. 

I used to do stand up comedy as a hobby. (I know you couldn’t guess that by the seriousness of my posts but it’s true). In one of my bits, I proposed that my wife and I (she is black and I am white) walk into a restaurant in a particularly racist pocket of America; she dressed in traditional African clothing and I in a Klan robe. We would sit in a booth and just start making out heavily - just to get a reaction.

Racism exists all over this country and the world. The seemingly unanswerable question is “how do we fight it?”

In my previous post (Unintentional Prejudice) I pointed out a relatively innocuous example of a questionable situation at my daughter’s school where there may or may not have been racism involved. In that post I expressed frustration with a lack of recourse or action that might shed light on it without having adverse consequences for my daughter. Since then I have been thinking quite a bit about the subject. Certainly, in some ways racism has been quite diluted today compared to the levels it once was and this should be celebrated as we move to eradicate it further. However, in other ways is has become even more concentrated and harmful. One example of this is something I came across recently that illustrated how prejudice and hatred of all kinds (racism, homophobia, sexism, etc.) has evolved into the insidious and extremely dangerous bigotry that masquerades as honest scientific inquiry. This convinced me that I really must do something.

I was going to write about a particular study and how it was totally twisted by a white supremacist group to try and show, scientifically, that mixed-race people are biologically inferior. I had dissected their argument and provided proof and statistics to show how idiotic their bastardization of the study was. But, the community to whom this post is directed is one of intelligent individuals who don’t need the case made for equality and mutual respect. Plus, to argue with nonsense would be to give it validity it does not deserve. So, I decided I wanted to focus on the question I asked above; what can be done?

One reason hatred continues to exist is because it is instilled in us as youth and humans have trouble extricating ourselves from what we are taught when we are young, nonsense or not. It is the same reason that if you are brought up in a certain religion, you will most likely follow that religion as an adult, logical or not. This is why it is SO important that kids be taught tolerance for all. We need to not necessarily always write letters to teachers or argue with hate groups. We need to personally inculcate our youth with ideals that teach love and acceptance so that future generations will not experience prejudice and, supremacists of any color or ilk, hate as they may, will be rendered impotent.

I finally realized what I should be doing is what I am already doing, talking to my kids rather than just writing to their teachers. But, I also concluded that I must take a step further and communicate with my daughter’s teachers about what I expect to be taught in school and even go into the classroom and participate in discussions. To that end, I would like to provide a great resource to parents who are interested in helping their kids’ schools build tolerance curriculum. There is an amazing group called the Southern Poverty Law Center that fights all forms of discrimination. They have a teaching arm called Teaching Tolerance which provides award winning resources to educators, including a magazine, DVDs, curriculum, books and much more. I recently contacted the principal of Sosie’s school about introducing their yearly Mix It Up at Lunch program that helps develop inclusive school communities.

I am not going to complain about Sosie being moved to a different class in what may or may not have been a decision motivated even unintentionally by racism. I am going to talk to my kids even more about what I believe and make sure their school has the resources and is using them to teach kids acceptance of and respect for all.

Being in a mixed-race relationship and the father of biracial daughters, you would think I have experienced prejudice many times. However, I spent most of my life as a single white male and so am not really that accustomed to prejudice directed at me. Also, because I live in a very progressive part of the country, I still don’t experience it overtly all that often. So, when it does happen, even in subtle unintentional ways, it really shakes me up.

My eldest daughter started kindergarten recently. Two weeks after she began, I got a call from her school principal saying she was sorry but they were going to have to move Sosie from her morning class to an afternoon class with another teacher. All of the parents were informed that they would shuffle the classes at two weeks due to restrictions on class sizes dictated by the district. However, since we got our application in quite early, we didn’t think we had to worry about Sosie being moved. Therefore, when I got the call, I was quite surprised. I asked the principal why my daughter had been chosen and she explained that some kids had to stay for behavioral reasons, others because they were second language learners or because they were twins. They then looked at the remaining kids and chose Sosie. She said the move would be immediate and the next day Sosie would have to be in her new class in the afternoon. This was not OK with me. Sosie had bonded with her teacher. We were told by other parents that her teacher was the best there is and had won a teacher-of-the-year award. My wife and daughters had a routine that hinged on Sosie being in the morning class. Plus, I think people function better and are more alert in the morning. So I asked my wife to join me in a meeting with the principal.

When I told my wife what happened, being black and having experienced prejudice much more, she immediately thought race could be playing a factor. I asked her not to jump to conclusion and, honestly, wasn’t sold on the idea that race was a factor in this case. When we got to the school, we bumped into a white friend who also has a child in the school and told her what happened. She was obviously not nearly as upset about it as we were, and when my wife mentioned the race issue, she immediately jumped to denying that had anything to do with it even though she had no way of knowing.

So, we walked into the principal’s office with an open mind and ready to understand but also ready to make our case if need be. The principal explained that three kids who were here from another district were moved to another school and that meant only one other child had to be moved to a different class and she had to decide who. Because of the things she mentioned early – language, behavior, twins, etc., she chose to move Sosie. I was hoping to get a reason for each remaining child who stayed in the class but she said some of the reasons were confidential. So, I asked her why, specifically, she chose Sosie from the remaining children.

You could tell she has dealt with parents before because she gave the nicest answer. She said that even though she doesn’t really know Sosie, she looked over Sosie’s application that I filled out and judging by my description of her personality, she seemed the best able to adapt to the move. How could we question or challenge this? Plus, if we balked, another kid would have to move. Ultimately, all the kindergarten teachers were top notch and Sosie would adapt. There was still the inconvenience to my wife – having to switch her schedule to take Sosie in the afternoon – and the fact that Sosie would have to each lunch very early. But, with the Principal’s reasoning, we started to feel that the change would be OK. I left the office feeling a little steamrolled because I was so ready to put up a fight and because this was so quick. But I also felt somewhat more comfortable…until I got to the new classroom.

I went to pick up Sosie from her last morning class and introduce her to her new afternoon teacher. It didn’t escape my notice that the majority of this school was white and Sosie’s morning class had its share of mostly tow-headed white children but no black ones except Sosie. So when I entered the afternoon class to see other black children as well as some mixed-race and kids of different ethnicities, I started to think maybe there was something going on.

This seemed more than a coincidence. I wanted to know if there were any children of color in the other morning kindergarten and if the kids that were moved to a different school were the three Hispanic boys I had seen in the morning class. Certainly, this could be a coincidence but I was starting to feel the uncertainty that I am sure minority races have felt many times when confronted with questionable coincidences.

It was actually my wife that attempted to put my mind at ease. She explained that since we all are racist to some degree, many times it is an automatic and unintentional thing – that if the school did this for race reasons, it was not planned that way but some sort of pre-programmed unconscious action. Or maybe it was purposeful because they wanted a class with more diversity – after all, there are white children in Sosie’s new class too. She told me she didn’t get a sense that school had anything but the kids’ best interest at heart. Since the new teacher seemed nice and we were told she was very good as well, we should just leave it alone.

I really felt cornered because I wanted to say or do something but, what could I do? I had no proof of anything and I didn’t want to upset Sosie’s school experience by putting her in the middle of something. It is my nature to think that any injustice, even the smallest and most unintentional should be pointed out so that we can learn from it. I believe racism is fought one little step at a time and I really wanted to stick to my principles. But, as my wife asked me, would taking action really achieve the result I wanted? I racked my brain trying to think of what I could do that would achieve a desired result and came up with nothing. So, I let it go.

Which battles are worth fighting? What is the level of offense necessary to warrant contention? What response is the right one to achieve a desired result? Prejudiced minorities confront these questions all the time and I have seldom had to. But, as my children age, I think I will have to more and more.

Is Obama black or biracial? Obviously he is both of these things. However, he is usually referred to as our first black president, not our first biracial president. Certainly, it is monumental that we have a black president and it should be celebrated and highlighted. I only ask the question because, after my last post, where I began a discussion by asking why race exists and looking at how the government classifies race, many people responded by explaining how they identify themselves and their children. So, why and how do we identify ourselves and how are we defined by others? For instance, is Keanu Reeves white even though his father is Chinese/Hawaiian? Is Tiger Woods black because of his skin color and certain features, even thought he identifies as “Cablinasian?” Frida Kahlo is a Mexican Painter but is she also a painter of Hungarian Jewish ancestry?

My daughters, although they have kinky hair and their mother’s features, are lighter skinned. It is pretty obvious that their parents are of different races, but how will they self-identify? My wife and I teach them that everyone is a human being first but they should be proud of their heritages, their ancestry on both sides and their unique physical appearance. We also prepare them to understand that humans seem to have a need for categorizing. And, the obvious way to do this is by physical traits. Therefore, many people will make assumptions about race. People with black features will be called black; those with Asian features will be called Asian and if you look white, you’ll be called white, regardless of actual racial make-up.

Since identification has so many ramifications in everything from health care to education, before I even start to break down these complicated issues further, I thought it would be good to see how other mixed-race people identify themselves in the 21st century. To that end I would like to take this post to share a resource I found. It is called the The Mavin Foundation and it is a foundation that raises awareness about the experiences of mixed heritage people and families. They recently started a project called “What are YouTube?” which challenges mixed people to self-identify on their own terms. I encourage you to take a look at the many ways people of multiple heritages see themselves and to contribute a video if you are so inspired.

When my wife and I were first together we visited one of those computerized photo booths where they can combine your photos to give you an idea of what your child might look like. It’s completely scientific, I’m sure. You have to select the race of the child in the morphed image and I believe the options were black, white, Hispanic or Asian. Since I am white and my wife is black and you couldn’t choose two races or biracial, we decided to choose a Hispanic girl. I won’t go into what the photo looked like, especially with the wisp of a goatee she apparently would inherit from my side. But, it struck me that if we had kids, there would be these types of issues we would have to address.

In fact, whenever I bring up raising mixed-race children, the first question that comes up is, “which box do I check?” So, I did a little research. I started my investigation with the obvious and timely – the U.S. census. United States census 2010 is quickly approaching and with it, controversy regarding how we count our citizenry. In 1997 the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced revised standards for federal data on race and ethnicity. The categories are now American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, White and Some Other race. Included on the census are two categories for ethnicity, Hispanic or Latino and Not Hispanic or Latino since Hispanics/Latinos may be of any race. Also under consideration was a multiracial category but the OMB decided instead to allow people to check more than one category. So, there’s your answer as far as the United States government is concerned, check all that apply.

When I brought this up to my wife, she asked me how race was defined by the United States government, what the difference between race and ethnicity is and why it matters when the constitution dictates merely “enumeration shall be made….” I realized then that the discussion needs to encompass how and why we define our race and how and why others might.

So, in order to be more exhaustive, here is the exact wording of the U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 Census of Population, Public Law 94-171 Redistricting Data File, Appendix B, page 2.

“The concept of race as used by the Census Bureau reflects self-identification by people according to the race or races with which they most closely identify. These categories are sociopolitical constructs and should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature. Furthermore, the race categories include both racial and national-origin groups.” They break down each category specifically as well (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_68178.htm). As far as the only choice for ethnicity on the Census, The Census Bureau defines Hispanic or Latino as “a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race.” To be all-inclusive, there is also write-in space for tribe affiliation and other races that one may choose to define themselves.

So, basically race is what we, the people, say it is. In fact, it is proven scientifically that race cannot be determined biologically. Biologically, human beings are greater than 99% similar and any genetic differences between “races” are fewer than between people of the same “race.” There are obvious physical similarities between, for instance, geological groupings of people but they are trivial in the scope of overall genetic make-up. Certainly, I am not saying we are clones of each other but the differences between us are significant only at the individual level, making each one of us a unique member of the human race.

I could go into the complicated formulae the government or anthropologists use to determine the various race categories but a blog entry should probably not be 100,000 words. The obvious and more important question is the one my wife asked – Why does race matter? Why do we even need these categories and classifications if everyone is so similar? The answer simply is that race exists because racism exists. We classify people so that data can be tracked and the problem of prejudice can be illustrated so it can be overcome.

Although so many are working to eradicate it and progress is slow but positive, racism is still everywhere in our society. Health care, housing, employment, education, congressional redistricting (the issue du jour) and other societal resources and benefits are affected by past and current, personal and institutional prejudice. This needs to be made as visible as possible in order to combat it. That is why racial classifications exist, at least for the time being.

As far as checking more than one box, the NAACP complained that it dilutes their racial representation and thereby whitewashes their issues (please excuse the unintentional pun). But, at least where the census is concerned, when you check multiple boxes, the data represents you as each of those races independently and as multiple races. So, specific races are not losing people that associate with multiple races. Others may feel that identifying racial data benefits groups by reverse racism or that by associating with groups that are “stereotyped” in a positive light; a mixed-race person will gain greater privileges. But, without identifying racial data, none of this can be analyzed and the playing field may never approach even. As the world becomes a smaller place with knowledge sharing and as generations mix more and more, I believe we will focus more on our similarities and not our differences, prejudice will dissipate and eventually it won’t matter because we will all check human race.

My name is Joshua Berg. I am white, my wife is black and we have two biracial daughters. My extended family includes members from almost every continent on Earth and represents multiple ethnic identities. In short, we are representative of what is gradually becoming the typical American family. Welcome to my column about raising mixed race children.

The numbers of interracial marriages and unions resulting in mixed heritage traditions are numerous and increasing exponentially. If Norman Rockwell were alive today, he’d need a more complex palette indeed. But, the issues of these families are often overlooked, as this country and the world cling to outmoded ideas of race wherein concerns, legitimate as they may be, of exclusively whites, blacks, Asians, Hispanics and any other homogeneous groups fill the spotlight.

Even as we have started a new and exciting chapter in American history with the election of a bi-racial president, we still confront and discuss race in this country from a very bilateral perspective – your race or mine. I would like to open a discourse from the point of view of one human race first. In fact, most of us, even though we identify with a single race, are not “purebred.” Maybe looking at ourselves as more similar than different while still recognizing and respecting our differences will bring us closer together as human beings.

Shifting the outlook and mindset of people is best accomplished through the education of children. That is why I am so excited to start a conversation about raising children of multiple backgrounds. I will bring to the table my experience from the perspective of a father of biracial children by addressing issues like racial identity, stereotyping, portrayal of race in children’s media, definitions of beauty, health, education and much more.

It wasn’t until 1967 that people of different races were allowed to marry in this country, which we should celebrate as we continue to work toward the right to marry for all. And, it was a mere nine years ago that the census allowed for Americans to check multiple race boxes to describe their heritage (and my kids think there should be an alien race box for me). At that time, it was reported that over seven million people identified as mixed race. However, the issues of this now much larger and rapidly growing community are still not a significant part of the national or international dialogue. As my children grow up a part of what is referred to as “Generation Mix,” I hope to do my small part to engage people to participate in what I know will be a lively discussion of issues facing families like yours and mine. Let’s get in the mix!