The Black & White of Motherhood

When I say transracial adoption, sort of, I mean exactly what I say. I was adopted as an infant into a Black home, the home of my paternal uncle and his wife. And, if you look at me, what you see is a white girl.

I’m not. I’m mixed-race. My birth father (my adoptive father’s baby brother) was Black. My birth mother was white.

In the 1970s, adoption was adoption. There was no consideration given to race. Kid needs a home. People have a home. That was it. And in my case, the people with the home were family.

That didn’t mean it was easy.

Being Mother's Day, I can’t help but think about my 2 mothers.

I never knew my birth mother. She died when I was 3 weeks old. Anything I know of her came from photographs and stories from people who knew her.

She was beautiful, as is obvious from her photo. I resemble her quite a bit. And she was smart, on her way to nursing school before she got pregnant with my older brother.

And she was fierce and independent. She fell in love with a Black man and openly lived her life in a small Bible belt town in a time when that wasn’t cool.

She was also troubled. I’m not sure what that means, but it’s a word often used to describe her in hushed tones.

Once I was adopted, I had minimal contact with my birth mother’s family, the white side. Not for a lack of trying. My father (my adoptive father, the only man I refer to as a father) desperately tried to foster some sort of relationship with them on my behalf.

He felt it was necessary for me to know them. He even kept the name my bio-mom gave me out of respect for her.

Nobody bit. They weren’t interested in a Black man’s child.

The only white family member I got to know was my maternal grandmother. Dad would take me to visit her every summer. We’d spend an hour or so at the nursing home she was at and leave.

It was always uncomfortable.

It wasn’t that she was mean to me. She wasn’t. Quite the contrary, she was overly nice and full of praise. She gushed with pride every time she saw me. I was the best one. I was the prettiest. I was the smartest. I was the most like her dear departed baby girl.

I was the whitest.

That’s what she meant. And it wasn't reading between the lines, she said it. Repeatedly, without any reservation. I couldn’t belong to that “Ni$$er” with my fine features and pale skin. No, there had to have been someone else, she postulated, another man, a white man, a man worthy of her daughter.

And my Dad would smile and let this old woman call his own brother down without a word for my sake.

It was hard hearing that. And it was hard knowing my mother’s family didn’t want anything to do with me. I was a good little girl. I did well in school. I won numerous athletic awards. I was cute. But they didn’t want to know.

I was tainted. I carried the wrong blood in my veins.

And it hurt.

At home, I was raised Black and old school. My father was in the Army, so most of my care fell to my mother, who stayed home. At 43 and with mental health issues of her own, she wasn’t equipped for a baby, but she did her best, I think.

She was strict! When I say old school, I mean OLD SCHOOL. Like,

“You cryin? I’ll give you something to cry about!”

“I don’t care what Bonnie’s mother does, you ain't Bonnie and you ain’t going!”

“You’re going to school to learn, not for a fashion show.”

Now and then, a slipper would come flying off her foot and straight at my head.

And there was a whole lot of Bible talk and church.

Winnie didn’t play.

And she didn’t give a rat’s behind (her words, not mine) about the white side of my family.

She wasn’t all that keen on my keeping in contact with my grandmother. She didn’t like her at all. They were both strong personalities.

To her mind, it was best to forget the white and focus on the reality of my life, the Black reality.

It was a reality I didn’t understand and only tangentially experienced. There were a few kids who rejected me, at their parents’ behest, finding out I was from that “Black family.” But other than that, I was pretty much white in my own mind.

Sure, my hair was an issue, and after puberty, my curvy bottom half hinted at something other than the hills of Scotland, but I was pretty much white, right?

Not according to Winnie. To her, motherhood was very literally Black and white, and I was going to learn exactly which side of the fence I was on. And I’d learn the easy way or the hard way.

Don’t go ‘round thinking you’re white, because you sure ain’t!

I scoffed. She said that every single day from the time I was about 4. And she never hid her disdain for my white family. She never stopped my dad from taking me to see my grandmother, but she made it clear that she wasn’t pleased. Frankly, she thought it was a waste of time.

She wanted me to be ready. Ready for something I had no idea about. Ready for things around corners I didn’t know existed.

I hated her for forcing me to be better than everyone. Top of the class wasn’t good enough; I had to be top of the class by a margin of at least 15%. If I ran track, I best win by a country mile.

Don’t leave no doubt. Don’t give them no excuse to take what’s your’s because you’re Coloured.

If I was polite, and I was, I had to be the most polite. When all the kids in the 80s started addressing adults by their first names, I wasn’t allowed to.

Don’t give them white people no excuse to down you.

I didn’t understand.

Who were “Them white people?” They looked a lot like me, more or less. More often than not, they were darker-skinned than I was.

Silly, paranoid old woman. It was the 1980s, race wasn’t anything. Nobody cared about that. I mean, sure, South Africa, but we were on the cusp of dismantling Apartheid.

Don’t go travellin’ to no funny countries, they’ll see you’re Coloured.

Racism was a distant relic of the past. It wasn’t relevant in my life. I looked white and could pass as such.

Until I couldn’t.

She was right.

Everyone knew. And they tolerated me as long as I toed the line.

The minute I challenged authority (which I did a lot) at school, my brother was thrown in my face. One teacher, now deceased, said

I taught your brother, and he was nothing. You’re no different.

My brother wasn't nothing. I mean he wasn’t the best student, but he wasn’t nothing. What he was was Black with an 18-inch afro.

Suddenly, Mom’s words were ringing true.

My white face wasn’t saving me the way I thought.

I applied for a job. I got an interview. It went well. The manager was impressed. I was sure I had it.

Then I was called back for a second meeting.

The questions were different. What was my father’s name? Where did I come from?

Hmmmm.

Did I get the job?

Of course not!

And as I grew older, it happened more and more. And as I embraced my multiracial identity, it happened frequently.

I was raised by a strong Black woman. I hated it. I hated how strict she was. But I raised my boys the exact same way. And I’m glad I did. They’re respectful, smart and resilient.

There was no nanby pamby in the Johnson house. I’m better for it.

I do wonder what it would have been like to have been raised in a white family, or at least with that culture. It’s like, despite my face, I don’t know how to be white.

But I can’t say I know how to be Black either because…well, obvious reasons. I don’t walk the world in that skin.

But Winnie did prepare me. As reluctant a mother as she was, she did that. She prepared me for a world and a racism I didn’t understand and never knew existed. She saw around corners I never saw coming.

I wish I could tell her it’s all good now.

I wish I could tell her that her fears are in the past.

I wish she didn’t have to raise me, reminded every day that I was different.

But, I’m also grateful I was raised by a strong Black woman to be a strong mixed woman.

I’m almost 54, and I still don’t know how to be or act white. I don’t quite know what that is because my mother never taught me that. It wasn’t hers to teach.

All I know is how to be me. Mixed and proud of it. And I’m grateful for the old-school Black upbringing. It wasn’t always easy, but I learned a lot. I learned respect. I learned the value of hard work. And I passed that down to my boys. We’re all the better for it.

And I learned as special as I wasn’t, I was. Not Black. Not white. Something else, something unique in those days. An anomaly, an abomination to some, a unicorn to others.

Motherhood isn’t Black and white. Or is it? Maybe it was both in my case. I was handed to a Black woman as a white-faced baby with a mixed heritage. She raised me as Black because she knew what others would see in me, even when I didn’t see it in myself.

I often wonder what it would have been like to have been raised by my birth mother. But looking back, for all the difficulties, I think I landed exactly where I needed to be.

She wasn't the mother I asked for.

I sure wasn't the kid she wanted.

But somehow, we were exactly what each other needed.

I wish she could see me now.

Maybe she can.