Uneasy Lies the Head...
My thoughts on being biracial, raised in whiteness and what that means to me.
Since I am often not even considered Black by my white peers, I get insight into things that maybe wouldn’t be said out loud…especially by “liberal” whites.
I’ve always known the quote to be… “heavy is the head who wears the crown,” though in its original form it was, “uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.” To me, this quote simply meant that with great authority comes great responsibility. If you are tasked with the authority over or care of others then it is your moral obligation to behave ethically and respectfully. The crown creates the authority and the responsibility but the weight of the crown is a result of the profound duty that comes with having control over someone (or something).
If you adopt someone else’s child, then your head should be uneasy. I’ve written about this before, but the responsibility of taking someone else’s child into your home and raising them, is a great one. A parent or parents have entrusted you with their literal offspring. They have given you a gift - an incredible gift1 - and I think this quote defines your responsibility to that gift. What I haven’t written about is what this quote means to me and my feelings of personal responsibility when it comes to my own privilege.
I am biracial Black and raised in a white home and an even whiter state. I have a lot of proximity to whiteness. I have a unique understanding of and access to whiteness that many Black folks don’t have (or want). Since I am often not even considered Black by my white peers, I get insight into things that maybe wouldn’t be said out loud…especially by “liberal” whites. For example, after Ahmaud Arbery was hunted down and murdered in a racially motivated hate crime while jogging, a ‘very liberal’ white friend of mine said, “yeah but women get attacked all the time while running…” So while my friend isn’t wrong, women do get attacked while running, she missed the part where Ahmaud was hunted down and killed for being Black by murderous white bigots.
This is how white people think.
I recently told another adoptee friend that as a biracial person, with the amount of proximity to whiteness that I have, I feel like I need to be a shield for adoptees and the BIPOC community generally. I feel like my body is already calloused to the casual racism that whiteness so easily spews. At work recently, a ‘liberal’ white coworker was telling a story about a young tween/teen boy who, under the guise of wanting to touch her shirt, grazed her breast instead. Half-way through the story she casually mentioned that the kid was, “Indian or maybe Pakistani…” best she could tell. This child’s ethnicity and race had nothing to do with the story. It was a story about a horny and pervy young teen…which is not a racially dependent behavior. She mentioned it so casually without hesitating to think about what her story became when she included the child’s race. It became a story about how a brown boy assaulted a white woman…and we know how that usually turns out.
But this is how white people talk.
My head feels heavy. I am deeply embedded in a culture and society that gives safety, preference, monetary gain, and humanity to people that don’t look like me and that does real damage to people who do like me. I have likely caused and continue to cause damage to my own community in ways I am still trying to figure out. I am not saying I have authority over anyone…and I am not saying I believe white people have authority over anyone…but in a system where whiteness is protected and exalted, it’s as if whiteness is the authority. As a transracial adoptee, who was raised entirely inside this system with no awareness of the system or how it works, I became a foot soldier for whiteness. Instead of me teaching my family and friends to be an allies, they tried to convince me I was white. I assumed, incorrectly, that my family would be immune from racism because myself and my biracial Black adopted brother were part of the family.
White people should feel uneasy.
So how can I behave ethically and respectfully given the crown I wear ? First, I have to forgive myself for being in survival mode as a child. I didn’t have the words, knowledge, or tools to combat racism in my friend and family groups, but I do now and I need to use them. That is my moral obligation. I encounter and engage with white people on a daily basis. My husband is white. Most of my family is white. Most of my coworkers are white. I have a proximity and access to whiteness that is not ideal for me, but is something I am used to. I don’t feel like I can escape whiteness, so I might as well make my presence useful to my true communities. I must teach those around me to have empathy, to learn real history, to understand how society exalts them…I need to teach them how to use their voice and privilege. White people should feel uneasy. You may have not asked for the crown, I sure as hell didn’t, but you wear it anyway.
My crown bears the weight of being white and Black. My crown bears the weight of all the white people I have let say and do harmful things to me over the years. My crown bears the weight of all the Black folks and other POC I have let down by not using my voice to combat racism within my own family and friend group. My crown bears the weight of my continued existence in white spaces. My crown bears the weight of what I am morally obligated to do but what I have done instead to survive for a lot of my life. My crown bears the weight of being Black and yet being unsafe for many in the Black diaspora. My crown bears the weight of never feeling safe around whiteness but feeling duty bound to many white people anyway.
I. Am. Uneasy.
*It is reductive to call a child a gift. I know that. I don’t have another word to encapsulate what happens in adoption but a child is not a commodity.