After having a break from blogging for personal reasons and giving myself a while to regroup after a series of personal issues and losses.
I return to the BIO Blog to share with you some of my own observations of what it really means to be a “Browning” or “Brown Girl” or woman, in this modern society. A society full of stereotypes and superficial methods of profiling us, in this system that seeks to categorize us by how we appear! And not necessarily who we actually are.
I have observed that a person of mixed cultural heritage, being brown and having a Black man as a Father is a completely different experience from being born from a White Father and Black Mother. In terms of class specifically it is obviously more about class than race in this instance. As the cultural and biological mix would be similar, however a white male would be usually automatically in most first world countries considered to be of a higher class than a black male who would be considered at most times to be a minority. In traditional, conventional systems of classification, having a ethnic minority Father will affect the class and effectively the success rate of an infant growing in society considerably.
As opposed to a child who is born from a minority background Mother with a white male Father. This would be considered to be moving up in the class, or “Breeding” up into the premiere classes. And therefore in terms of race and racism this would be viewed by many as an intelligent action. Still this is based on traditional thoughts and on racist ideology and negative stereotypes. Still if we are honest with ourselves we will acknowledge that racism is still very prevalent and that black people are directly and indirectly encouraged to deny or detach themselves from their cultural heritage in order to move up the class ladder and to achieve more in society.
It is so much more acceptable for a black woman to have a child within a white family in order to provide a more stable, conventional household. And encourage that child to grow and be nurtured with an ‘entitlement attitude’ that will enable them to be more successful as an outcome.
These racist, cultural profiling ideologies are all based on our inability to move beyond ideas that are built into our intelligence from a primary level. Where we are taught to be “White is alright” but to be black we had better stay at the back!” The back of the class is often where we begin and where we continue to attempt to break out of, in society for our entire lives.
