Why wisdom matters (part I)

Dear WISDOME

 

At the MamaBaby clinic yesterday, the Haitian midwife who saw me found my lina negra.   I couldn’t find it because it’s more like a lina blanca.   So I made a joke that my lina is white because I am having a white baby.   “Would you want to have a brown baby?” she asked.   “Of course” I said “I would LOVE to have a brown baby!”   She looked surprised and so I told her how white babies and white people are more sensitive to sun than brown babies in particular if they are bald (like Niko was for 2 years).    That’s just one reason that I’d LOVE to have a brown baby.   The other reasons is because I know intuitively that your skin colour can take you different places and that to me is fascinating.   What I didn’t tell the midwife is that Matt and I have been praying and pondering the decision of whether to have a brown baby or a ti blan for a good two years, two years which we’re abruptly interrupted by the surprising news on a little white stick with two faint lines.  Here’s the issue.   We don’t want race to matter.    And yet, race does matter.   Skin colour (not to be confused with race).   I LOVE colour and variation.   I think different colours whether skin or hair, boo boo or halter top, or the underwings of a bird, are essential to living a full life.   But I’m white and at least once a week whether in Haiti or in Canada, I benefit in apparent ways from white privilege.    In my nuclear family, everyone looks more or less like me.    I am not black in a family that is piling on white people.   I don’t have a visceral clue of what it might be like to be a visible minority in ones own family.