There has been something on my mind lately that I keep trying to push back, but for one reason or another pops back up. So here I am. I am gonna spill my opinion and annoyance with the situation and sit back and see what happens. It’s kind of big touchy don’t go there subject, but I am. I am gonna go there.

Race relations. Now being a middle class white girl, I am not ever going to say or think that I can understand all the issues that people of other races face on a daily basis. I know my experiences are only minute in comparison to what others deal with consistently.

Being married to my hubby, who is half Korean, has brought some of the issues into my life. When A was a lot younger, kids used to make fun of her eyes. I had someone (back in my hometown) curse me out on A’s “tanned skin & I need to more put sunscreen on her” (uhm, thats her skin tone - duh! no tan) I had someone that owned a children’s play center tell me, “your boy’s eyes looked different. What are they?” Sometimes things like this annoy me a little bit, but I try to go to the heart of the offender. Did they mean to offend, or were they just curious? Do they treat my children differently or poorly. No, I can’t say I ever had that blatantly happen.

I do think we are lucky to live in the community that we do, as it is very diverse. I am sure that if we were living where I grew up, things would be a little more different for us.

I can identify with some of these issues that others at some of the blogs I read seem to have too. A lot of these blogs I love and laugh so hard while I read. What I can’t identify with is the anger. It seems like at least a few times a month someone is posting some rant on how rude people are because they told them that their little (Asian) child is cute or a non-Asian family dressed in Chinese costumes. A stranger upon hearing mother and child speak in their foreign language, decides to join in using the language and is considered rude.

What I wonder is if all this hostility is causing more of a divide in different races. I mean, it seems like to some bloggers there can be no right. For example, is this family that dressed in traditional Chinese costume worthy of an entire post debating whether that family thought that all Chinese people dressed like that all the time.

I can understand the concern regarding this… but why do we have to go straight to negative?  Why can’t we give the benefit of the doubt? Why can’t we just look at the motives behind the action? Maybe these people, like my sister and her family, who lived in China for over a year, like to dress up in the costumes they brought back. Why couldn’t we just appreciate that a family was joining in and appreciating another culture. It’s the spirit that counts, shouldn’t it be? I highly doubt any family who lives in the area that this took place in truly believes that any Chinese family really dresses this way all the time. It is fairly diverse there.

When someone comments on your child, whether adopted, Asian, Hapa, white, green, whatever, why can’t the person tell you so, without there being some devious inappropriate motive lurking behind it. Maybe I am super naive, but I think most of the time people are trying to be friendly and just mean what they say. No strings.

The other thing is that in the next breath these same bloggers (and people I know it RL too) complain that at times in social situations, no one includes them or talks with them. Honestly, if I ran into some of these same people myself, I am not sure I would talk to them either. Not because they have an adopted child or are Asian, but because I would be too scared that I would unknowingly say something that was offensive to the person. It’s kind of like the saying “damned if you do…”

I guess my point here is that maybe we could all get along a little better with everyone if we viewed these issues with a little more love and understanding. There are kind ways to deal with this type of stuff. I am far from perfect in this area and know that blogs are personal and the writers free to dish what they feel, as am I. I have never commented my ideas on the several blogs that have brought these feelings of mine to surface. I have a personal comment policy of, “if you don’t have anything nice to say…” I don’t mean to cause a war or hurt feelings. I just wanted to get my feelings out there and now I have.

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Remember this post? I recently put my ideas to use on a birthday gift for one of the boys’ friends. I took pictures (ok I admit this is a little strange) to show ya’ll. Here goes…

I cut open a paper grocery bag I had stashed. Painted some really rudimentary street scenes on the clean side of it.

While the paint was drying, I opened up an old VHS tape. ( I knew I stashed those old things in the garage for something.)

Yup, there it is. I found it to be much thinner than a regular curling tape, but with a little urging, curls just as nice.

I made a little smoke cloud card greeting. The car only cost $5 at Target and added a nice added little bonus gift. I mean really, what 4 year old really is usually that interested in the card? I know my boys usually just want to rip things open and ask who it was from later.

Ta-dah! I wrapped the gift, tied on the car to the package with the VHS tape and made little curl come out the back of the car. The package was a hit, was economical, and actually fun to make!

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