My kids speak of both subtle slights and blatant racism. It's a narrative I never imagined for them.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a parent's realization of the harsh realities of racism that their children experience.
Jacqueline Woodson reflects on the painful awareness that her children are facing racism in its subtle and overt forms, a burden that she had never anticipated they would have to bear. This quote highlights the deep concerns and challenges that parents face when their children encounter discrimination, emphasizing the need for understanding and dialogue about these issues within families.
In practice
During a discussion on social issues at a community event, a parent might share this quote to illustrate the importance of discussing racism with children.
'Brown Girl Dreaming' was a book I had a lot of doubts about - mainly, would this story be meaningful to anyone besides me? My editor, Nancy Paulsen, kept assuring me, but there were moments when I was in a really sad place with the story for so many reasons. It wasn't an easy book to write - emotionally, physically, or creatively.
In the midst of observing the world and coming to consciousness, I was becoming a writer, and what I wanted to put on the page were the stories of people who looked like me.
Sometimes you do have to laugh to keep from crying. And sometimes the world feels all right and good and kind of like it's becoming nice again around you. And you realize it, and realize how happy you are in it, and you just gotta laugh.
I don't want anyone to walk through the world feeling invisible ever again.
The strength of my mother is something I didn't pay attention to for so long. Here she was, this single mom, who was part of the Great Migration, who was part of a Jim Crow south, who said, 'I'm getting my kids out of here. I'm creating opportunities for these young people by any means necessary.'
I would have written 'Brown Girl Dreaming' if no one had ever wanted to buy it, if it went nowhere but inside a desk drawer that my own children pulled out one day to find a tool for survival, a symbol of how strong we are and how much we've come through.
And she keeps saying, how can you do this to me? And i want to scream, what do you mean, how can I do this to you? Aren't we confusing our pronouns here? The question, really, is How could I do this to myself?
The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together and to rest in her bosom.
When any society says that I cannot marry a certain person, that society has cut off a segment of my freedom.
I trust it will not be giving away professional secrets to say that many readers would be surprised, perhaps shocked, at the questions which some newspaper editors will put to a defenseless woman under the guise of flattery.
I love being single. It's great. I get to be who I am and do what I want and be with the people I love. I feel like I have everything and I'm very fortunate, and it's very rich fulfilling time in my life.
In that shrinking moment he discovered that he had never hated anyone until now. It was a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational.
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