My daughter is black, I am white

By Janine Preesman

My daughter is black, I am white. She currently speaks three languages, Dutch, which is her home language because it is mine, Afrikaans, because she started attending a pre-school that was predominantly Afrikaans and now, English, because since the beginning of this year she started attending a new pre-school, which is English medium.

My daughter is three years old; she will be four next month. She is a very bright young girl, and she is beautiful. We live in a society where the fact that I am white and she is black can still be an issue. Most people respond positively to us, but in some instances I see the disapproval from all sides, as people look at us. We have been lucky so far, as we have only had one incident where someone verbally tried to demean her by speaking Zulu to her while knowing that she cannot speak the language, making her feel inferior and then calling her a coconut. She is three years old and did not understand the inference of this, but I did and she felt the disapproval on an emotional level and I was angry. My daughter is black and I am white, but she cannot be more my daughter if I would have given physical birth to her myself. She is my daughter, my child and I am her mother!

I am proud of my bright, strong, independent, beautiful daughter and I know she is going to be someone who will bring something very special to this world of ours. She started out in life with the odds against her, but we are changing that. We, me and her, us as a family are showing this world what it means to be black and what it means to be white and what it means to be women and what it means to be human. I will never disregard the fact that she is black, because that is part of her identity, just as I am white and I will not allow anybody else to do so. And part of that identity is the fact that we are women, or at least she is going to be a woman in a few more years. She will be a strong woman, an independent woman, a black woman who knows who she is, where she came from, who she can become. I will create a safe space for her, for this to happen, because I am her mother.

I know I am harping on the black and white, but these are the realities of our life and during these past three years, which have been the most amazing in my life, I have learned to negotiate between, as well as bridge the world of “blackness” and “whiteness” and it continues to be a journey, daily, just as it is and will be for my daughter.

We are surrounded by people who deeply love us and see us as we are in terms of our essence of being. Yet, sometimes, because of this world we live in everybody seems to go to the “us” and “them” premise, even the people who love us. We all do it and we can do it with anything; “men are … “, “women are … “, “old people are … “, “young people are … “, “Muslims are … “, “Christians are … “, “whites are … “, “blacks are … “, “gays are … “, “straights are … ” et cetera, et cetera, you can add any group, religion, race, whatever.

We make these blanket statements, we include a whole group of people and they all become that which we say, they become the “them” to our “us” and we have two groups opposed to one another and always in a negative sense. If you are not part of the “us ” (as we define it) you are rejected, outside, inferior, stupid, lazy and the “us” will close ranks against the “them”. We do this and not even realise that we do it or what the implication is and yes there are major implications, for “us” and “them”, because we all lose when we do this.

I sit in the company of people and I see and hear this happen and I look at my daughter and am thankful she is only three years old and does not understand that she has just become part of the “them” because of something someone has said and my heart breaks for I know I am not going to be able to protect her against this and there will be a time not too far in the future that she will start to understand.

People will look at her, not know her and will “them” her, she must be stupid, she must be lazy, she must be corrupt, she must be inefficient because she’s black, she must be a traitor to her culture, she thinks she’s better than her race, she’s a coconut because her mother is white.

My daughter is black, I am white, my daughter is bright, strong, independent and beautiful and our home will be the place of security where she will learn how valuable she is, where she will learn to love and value herself for everything she is and that nothing of who she is, is in any way inferior. I will continue to learn to become more and more conscious of the people and groups that I myself place in the “us” and “them” position so that I can be changed. This is a commitment I make to my daughter.

I am a single parent, I am also a pastor in an LGBTI-affirming church and I work in learner support at a major university. I am committed to equality in all areas of life. Since I became a parent I have become acutely aware of my own impact and the necessity to be continually challenged and changed.