When babies come in blue...

Few things get to me as strongly as those that show oversights on attitudes about race, culture, and privilege. So when I read an article that was published in 2007 about a woman of Scandinavian descent who's moping about how her European-Indian daughter is tipping the social status scale on the wrong side for her lifestyle, it really gets my blood coursing.

Lowri Turner, who I am assuming is a freelance journalist, coo's to the tune of colorblindness until she discovers that her infant has blue eyes that will not stay blue for very long. Or that her dark curly hair will not turn silky, wavy, blonde, like everyone else in her "positively" Scandinavian family. Her second husband was of eastern Indian descent, and through the course of the article, she seems nothing short of being partial to damning him for not having blue eyes, blonde hair, and white skin himself. Indeed, it must have been shocking to give birth to a child who has a darker skin tone than her own, who she expresses "looks nothing like me", who by her own admission will cause her social status relegated to a "'Tracy Towerblocks' living on benefits, most of which they spend on lager and fags" by strangers and peers, who was (above all things) fathered by a man of color. Her mixed race daughter causes her to lose all hope of ever projecting a healthy, stable, European family stating "If I wanted to pass us off as a nice, neat nuclear family, she would blow my cover at once." A nice aryan prop would do the trick though, wouldn't it? Or maybe you can lock her in the basement so you can attend events and outings with the two sons that look just like you. You know, the two from your prior marriage? Perhaps this idea you have in your head of a "nice, neat nuclear family" was already skewed before you decided your daughter was a terrible backdrop for the wholesome family image you wanted to create.

She goes on in this article to lament about having to create an environment for the Indian culture that her daughter should naturally be every bit as much apart of as her own Scandinavian side.

"Part of me thinks I should be playing sitar music to her in her cot, mastering pakoras, and serving them dressed in sari, but that would be fantastically fake coming from me." In other words, whitewashing her daughters cultural ties would be totally not-fake, or so I'm assuming. In fact, any culture outside of the "positively" Scandinavian corner of the world Lowri lives in must be a dangerous haven of heathen gods whose names are spelled too funny to pronounce and who wear even funnier clothing.

So her own daughter is relegating Lowri to a social status that is implied she had no problem relegating other white women to with children of color. She's become the iconoclast of the traditional Scandinavian families. And she can't be bothered divulging in the child's other half of ethnic culture because it's too awkward and far easier to just erase and forget about half of her ethnic identity all together.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-467787/I-love-mixed-race-baby--does-feel-alien.html#ixzz1UBgLTd3E


The most important thing that I believe this article points out is a grim and sneaking suspicion that privilege is something that comes only to her ideal blonde haired, blue eyed baby. She may not realize it, but these confessions are her own prejudice and racist ideas that are being imposed not only onto and into her daughter, but many other children, teenagers, and adults who don't have blue eyes or blonde hair. It is truly disenfranchising. Hopefully she can empower her child to have confidence in her identity, her culture, and her self-esteem. I would love to see an article update on what attitude changes have been made for the better or the worse of her family since 4-5 years ago.