Blended Families

What does it mean to call a family blended? The term still refers to families formed after divorce and remarriage—step-parents and step-children and step-siblings pieced together in new patterns. The term can also encompass families that are interracial; in these families, blending takes on additional permutations that certainly have puzzled some throughout history.

Like other interracial families, those that are also blended through remarriage contend with external assumptions and judgments—the confused looks and questioning glances, the “ah-ha” moments or oblivious denial. When I was married to my daughter’s father—who, like me, has both a black and a white parent—I slipped into the ease of relative inconspicuousness for the first time in my life. Raised with my white mother, I had experienced the questions about whether I was adopted and had felt defensive about my own belonging. In my marriage, though, I was able to take for granted that others saw and accepted where I belonged. Releasing the guardedness I felt when I needed to defend my familial place, I nevertheless felt an alternative defensiveness that many “blended” families and people of color feel in mainly white communities.

Now that I’m divorced and partnered with a white man, I feel the return of my childhood alertness to others’ assumptions about my family. Blessedly, our society in general and our community in particular do seem to have come a long way since Loving v. Virginia, but none of us can believe that racism is eradicated or that interracial unions are always accepted with open arms and open minds. My partner and I have had only one obviously racist experience in our two years together, and thankfully it was subtle, but I don’t kid myself that the obvious incident we experienced was all we’ll ever encounter.

As we slowly blend our families, I’m watchful of additional experiences we might have—of hostile or benign racism—and how our children might be affected. Of course, I also must ask myself if my very watchfulness amplifies negative experiences or even turns neutral ones into negative. On one occasion when my partner took my daughter out for ice cream, a woman asked him if my daughter was his, noting his whiteness and her brownness. “Sadly, no,” he replied smiling, meaning that he would be proud to be her biological father in addition to feeling like a parent to her. The woman then proceeded to comment on how lovely my daughter looks, how “Indian.” Hmm.

I wonder, too, the experiences I might have on occasions when I’m with his twins, one of whom is a freckled, blue-eyed, red-headed beauty and the other an as-yet smaller version of his imposing father. Will people assume I’m a nanny? Hmm.

I wonder in which configurations we’ll have our familial status silently questioned or vocally challenged. When David is with my daughter, will his belonging somehow be allowed, if not assumed, due to his whiteness and maleness? Will my belonging be overlooked when I’m with his children because of my brown femaleness? And when the five of us are together, what will people see? What, if anything, will they say?

Ever the optimist, I’m hoping people will see a happy family, not unlike most other families, regardless of race or marital history. It’s a utopian vision, surely, but I also hope people will allow us to reflect back to them a certain level of social awareness, acceptance, growth. Blended families really aren’t such a novelty, and ultimately it’s that simple fact I hope people see.


IMG_4147_2Tru Leverette works as an Associate Professor of English at the University of North Florida where she teaches African-American literature and serves as director of African-American/African Diaspora Studies. Her research interests broadly include race and gender in literature and culture, and she focuses specifically on critical mixed race studies. Her most recent work has been published in Obsidian: Literature in the African Diaspora and the edited collections Other Tongues: Mixed Race Women Speaking Out and The Search for Wholeness and Diaspora Literacy in Contemporary African-American Literature. She served as a Fulbright Scholar at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, during the Winter 2013 term.


Loving Day Mixed Media Collage Project

Happy Memorial Day Weekend Friends and Followers!

This weekend the MXRS team got together in preparation for our commemoration of Loving Day 2015: Visualizing Loving Day. This year we thought it would be fun to celebrate the radical love of Richard and Mildred Loving, as well as the pivotal Supreme Court Ruling allowing interracial couples to marry by creating a mixed-media collage. Check out what we did and share your own Visualizing Loving Day projects, activities, and stories!

Materials:

Printed Copy of The Loving’s Story (Print story from www.lovingday.org : here)

Small Canvas

1 Pack of Sticker Numbers & Letters

1 Tube of Paint in a Color of Your Choice (acrylic works best, but tempora will work too!)

Sponge brush or old dish sponge

Decoupage or Mod-Podge

Glue Stick

Scissors

Old Magazine

How to:

Step 1: Read the Loving’s Story. If you are doing the project with friends and family members, discuss what this story means for you and why learning their story is important. If you are doing the project with children consider “The Case for Loving: The Fight for Interracial Marriage” by Selina Alko.

 

Step 2: Cut or tear images, colors, interesting words, and/or textures from the magazine. Collage pieces together with quotes from the Loving’s story and adhere to your canvas using the glue stick. TIP: Concentrate color and meaningful text in the center of the canvas. Bright colors and unique textures work best.

                     

Step 3: Once you are satisfied with your collage, use the Mod-Podge to seal your design. Let this dry completely (at least 20 minutes).

 

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Step 4: Once your collage has dried use the sticker letters to spell “Loving 1967,” or “Loving Day 1967”.

            

After the stickers are secured to your collage in a place of your choosing, use sponge to dab paint over your collage, covering the letters completely. Let dry.


            

Step 5: After the paint has completely dried, carefully peel the letters off of the canvas.

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That’s it! Now display your collage momento for friends, family, and guests to see in order to continue the conversation year round!

 

Happy Loving Day from MXRS!

Be sure to send us pictures of your Loving Day Mixed Media Collages!

 


Visualizing Loving Day

Loving Day is celebrated every year around June 12th. This year we celebrate 48 years since the Supreme Court’s landmark decision.  Mixed Roots Stories wants to celebrate with YOU!

We are seeking visual submissions that commemorate and celebrate the history of the Lovings and show a vision of what we have learned from the Loving’s that can help us move towards justice today!

It is time to get creative!  Draw, paint, collage, record, build….

Get the kids involved. Read “The Case for Loving: The Fight for Interracial Marriage” by Selina Alko with them and let them celebrate by creating too!

Craft with New Friends. Have a gathering at your house with people you have been wanting to get to know better. The new neighbors. The person at work.  Tell them the Loving Story and create a group collage or painting. Check out this Mixed Media Loving Day collage activity that the Mixed Roots Team did.

Explore Expression with Technology. Create a short video, animation. Get creative digitally.

Send your Visualizing Loving Day submissions to info@mixedrootsstories.org.  We need the name of the artist, the medium (i.e. ink drawing, water painting), the title of the piece, and any bio information of the artist you would like us to include. You can submit in the following formats: JPEG, TIFF, GIF, .mov, link, etc .

We will post your Visualizing Loving Day submissions to our gallery in the month of June!

Happy Loving Day!

 


1st there was Johnson

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Before Bill de Blasio became mayor of New York with his interracial marriage and mixed family supporting him.  Kevin Johnson, mayor of Sacramento, married his supporting bride, Michelle Rhee (former chancellor of the District of Columbia School Systems) in September 2011.