Friday, June 18, 2010

Suburban white girl rant aka myopia?

Our friends just adopted a baby from Ethiopia and when I went to the store to find something cute for Maleah... there's NOTHING but little white babies on cards and packaging for cute baby stuff. What is up with that?

Then yesterday I worked to create a media piece for Father's Day. I looked through a ton of pictures of children and here's what I found:
white kids are happy, loved and maybe pouty.
Non white kids are impoverished, sad eyed and rarely with adults.
What is up with that?

Is it a case of we take pictures of what we see?
I know there's some truth to this as I sit in my HUGE house in Beaverton, Oregon. But what if you are growing up a kid of color and this is all you see?
What if you live in the Jefferson school neighborhood and they are thinking of closing your high school because people dont want to go there?
Guess it was just a disappointing reality check for this clueless white American girl in Beaverton.
Molly and Andrea- Helene 2009

2 comments:

Melinda said...

Thought provoking!

Anonymous said...

We tried to bring some color to your great church in suburbia over the years, J-girl. What you describe is the reality some of my best friends live with every day. Years ago I asked my late father-in-law, G's dad how often he had to deal with racism and prejudice in his nearly 50 years in P-town. Long pause, then quietly he said, "Every single day." We're trying to change that one song at a time. Thanks for letting us try it at Sunset so many times. blessings. dan