The Future Starts Now
As a brand new mother, it’s hard not to filter everything in my life through the lens of my daughter and her future. Her birth has me reflecting back to when I was challenged early on in my time with LoR to consider my cross-racial, cross-cultural marriage in light of my own white privilege. To recognize what it truly means for my husband, his family, his community to be building a life with me instead of someone from his village. Not to say that it’s wrong what we’re doing but to recognize the deep responsibility we have – *I* have – in our relationship back to him, his family, his community, and his culture. Now, with Ary, that responsibility deepens immeasurably.
I find that same deep responsibility to the Lace on Race community. This community has been accused of being self-help for white women; at a shallow glance, I suppose that’s true but it’s only half the story. In a world swimming in white supremacist culture, we require that individual change in order to affect system change. I find both in Lace on Race. And that’s why my fervor for this community has increased since holding Ary for the first time. Because my hope for her is the same as my hope for myself and my hope for all of us in community here:
That we will cleave together in radical change in the immediate and in the long-term. That we will all invest in learning these tools of the North Star both to lessen and mitigate the immediate harm perpetuated by white people and white supremacy as well as to raise a less harmful generation.
Because, honestly, ever since we found out we were pregnant I’ve been wrestling with fears for her future, fears that my own parents didn’t need to carry as white parents of a white child in a majority white community. Fear that if we stay in Cambodia, our daughter is going to be held apart and be constantly told by family and strangers how much more beautiful she is simply because she’s half white. That we’re going to be constantly balancing how to care for her while not “spoiling” her, particularly in comparison with her cousins, a fear of the balance between giving our child opportunities while also working to uproot the system and personal reality that we have the resources to do so that are denied to so many. That, whether we stay here or go to the US, we’re going to be constantly working on keeping two cultures alive for her and either Sambat or I may end up on the outside depending on how she grows and if she decides to choose one over the other. That, if we move to the US, Sambat will be a brown immigrant. That she is light-skinned and biracial and may never be fully accepted by either community. So that’s why I need this vision and this hope. Because the way the world is right now, I see so much pain and rejection in her future unless we – I – change ourselves and the world today.
In Lace on Race I have a community that gives me hope for this vision. A community that pushes me to root out my own white supremacy so that I can be a better mother to my half-Khmer child, to help her navigate life as a mixed-race child with immense privilege in her society. To build tools together as a family to contribute throughout our lives to a more racially just and equitable world. So, here I am walking with all of you, trusting that you’ll hold me accountable to making this vision a reality.
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