Why do people do this?

Question

I am a black girl married to a white man. We have two kids. All the older people in my family goes NUTS over my children, saying how beautiful they are. I think they they are beautiful too (I'm their mother, lol), but so are my full black nieces and nephews too. Just as beautiful as my kids in their own ways. It makes the other kids in the family resent my kids, and my cousins my age say behind my back "Oh, she just married that white boy to be different" and "She think them mixed breed kids of hers is the $hit, they ugly anyways". It hurts me to hear these things. I didn't choose whom i fell in love with. It hurts when half your family seems so racist and the rest seems too smitten with your kids, that they ignore the others.

Answer 1

My son is mixed, too - asian and white and I do also get more comments about his looks than my sister ever did with her all white kids. On my side of the family it is the novelty of it that is attractive. On my husband's side - I do not see or hear any different reactions to any of the kids.

Answer 2

As a Black woman you probably already understand where the comments and jealousy are coming from. Some Black people think that being biracial automatically makes one more attractive or better than Black people. Hopefully you are not unconsciously displaying this attitude around your relatives. Make sure that you don't try and put your biracial kids above your Black nieces and nephews. You don't want your kids to get an overinflated sense of their beauty; I'm also sure that you don't want your nieces and nephews to think that they're ugly because they're not biracial. Praise ALL of the children for their unique qualities and traits. When you hear your relatives making negative comments about being Black, call them on it. We as Black people have to start changing our negative attitudes about being Black and celebrating it; you cannot expect the society to do it anytime soon.

Answer 3

I'm mixed and I always found that I had a harder time with black children (at least in the burbs) because I'm light with curly hair. I was actually lucky enough to grow up in a neighborhood where a gppd amount of my community had mixed children of all kinds. But in my family me, my brother, and two cousins were the ones that stuck out on our white side. Our cousin's friends and neighbors would make racist remarks. It sucked and the only thing that will change peoples attitudes is time ane education. We aren't better- I always hated the "good hair" comment. O think it is unfortunate that many people in the black community think light is better.

Answer 4

yeah racism is something that will take a long time to overcome - no matter what your race is someone will find fault in you because you are different - in the meantime just ignor those mouthy cousins and hold tight to your lovd ones