Fighting for social justice is always important, from calling out racism and homophobia to being environmentally cautious. Acknowledging the existing problems is the best way to start tackling them.
At the same time, it's also just as important to make sure that the problems you're trying to solve are actual problems and not just something that is taken out of context.
That brings us to today's story, where a woman was accused of being borderline racist towards her kids. Yet, the reality was way more complicated than this kind of all-or-nothing thinking.
More info: Reddit
Calling out problematic behavior is always important, but you have to make sure it’s really as it seems and not just taken out of context
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Like in this story, a woman was accused of being borderline racist towards her biracial kids
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
It was because she, a white woman, brushed out her daughter's curly hair and posted pictures of it online
Image credits: EyeEm / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Some relatives and friends started calling out the woman for "whitewashing" her biracial daughter and telling her to "let her be Black"
Image credits: Throwawaytith
This confused the woman, because she was doing no such thing – she only brushed out the daughter's hair the way she liked, and in a way that was the most convenient, given her age
The OP, a white woman, has a 4-year-old daughter, who looks a lot like her Black dad. As moms do, she’s responsible for her daughter’s hair, which looks very similar to hers – extremely curly. One day, the mom brushed her daughter’s hair into a ponytail and put on a cute outfit to recreate her childhood photo.
Yet, when she posted the photo online, she received a lot of backlash from friends and family, accusing her of whitewashing her daughter. This made the woman beyond confused – how is maintaining her daughter’s hair in a way that the girl likes whitewashing?
What made it all even more confusing was the fact that more than one person told her to leave her “Black-passing” child's image alone and let her embrace her Blackness, especially because her younger sibling is more “white-passing.” For instance, they started advising the woman to let her older daughter play outside without sunscreen, which the OP refuses to do.
You see, the thing with whitewashing is that it is indeed a problem when you look into it. And it touches many sides of life – from entertainment to beauty. Granted, in the context of this story, the entertainment side is not really relevant – no person of color was replaced by a white counterpart, as it’s done in film and television.
Instead, while replacement wasn’t the issue, the whitewashing of someone’s features was, which is another side of said phenomenon. It’s basically when people alter their skin in some way, whether digitally or with plastic procedures, for it to appear whiter, or alter their hair to resemble the Eurocentric beauty ideal of straight hair.
Image credits: inna-zueva5 / Freepik (not the actual photo)
This latter part is exactly what the OP was accused of. Yet, when it comes to such claims, common sense should be applied and context taken into consideration. Just like in this case, was it really whitewashing of the girl’s hair, or was it being done the way it’s best for her?
After all, the girl is only 4 years old, and as her mom described, her extremely curly hair tends to be a mess due to its complicated texture and the girl’s tendency to mess it up. Additionally to all of that, the girl herself doesn’t like to have her hair styled, so why should a mom go against her bodily autonomy just because some folks on the internet are worried about the wrong thing?
Well, at least netizens, who are strangers to the OP, unlike those who threw those accusations, didn’t think anything the woman was doing was so problematic. Again, given the context, all the actions make sense.
Plus, those people just seem like social justice warriors who picked an issue that isn’t really one in this case. Calling out problematic behavior is respectable, but so is making sure it’s really problematic and you're not just trying to look morally better than someone.
What do you think – was the OP wrong for “whitewashing” her kids, or were her relatives just too picky about her? Share your takes in the comments!
Folks of social media didn't see much fault in the woman's actions, and they said that those relatives were just trying to fight a fight that didn't really exist
