Co-worker ponders being terrible about race

[conuly]

Dear Amy: The other day a woman I work with brought her 8-month-old grandson around the office. He was a charming, lovely boy, and she was obviously very proud to show him off.

But there's one thing I'm struggling with. My co-worker, who is white, had mentioned to me that her grandson's mother is black.

Hey, I'm from the Caribbean and we've always had a much more relaxed attitude toward racial mixing. I'm biracial, myself.

The parents of this baby are unmarried and just out of high school, but I don't judge them.

What I'm struggling with is that this child doesn't look biracial at all. He is very dark skinned. Nobody back home would believe for a second that this child has a white parent. But people in America don't seem to be as savvy as we are about these things.

I don't know this woman's son, and am definitely not in any position to suggest a paternity test. But I feel like saying nothing might not be right, either.

I'd hate for this young man to be stuck caring for a child that isn't his, even if I don't know him.

Am I terrible for even thinking this?

-- Worried

Dear Worried: Um, yes -- you're pretty terrible.

Thinking is one thing -- nobody can police your thoughts. But yes, speculating on the race or DNA parentage of a baby you've met exactly once is at the very least terrible-adjacent. I hope you'll keep your thoughts to yourself.

I know African Americans who are fair skinned and freckled. I have biracial family members who are dark skinned, while their siblings are fair.

Your co-worker might be white, but her son might be biracial (you don't mention his race).

Your Caribbean heritage or racial identity does not make you an arbiter of how other people identify.

In short, stop. This is absolutely none of your business.

Comments

[conuly]

Quite aside from the obvious, a large number of fathers raise step-children or children from a known or suspected infidelity and they still love those children. It isn't the random act of sex plus nine months that makes you a parent.

[rosefox]

My great-grandmother was one of those children; she's the reason my grandmother "didn't look Jewish". The only thing that makes her story at all unusual is that she was raised by her biological father and his wife, so there was never any "was it the milkman...?" question. Her father's gentile mistress gave birth to her, her father brought her home, his wife said "She's ours now". She was beautifully, abundantly loved.

The LW can piss off.

[conuly]

That is certainly the more unusual way it works, but sometimes that's how it happens. (Huh, that's how it happens to all three kids in The Whicharts, aka "The original version of Ballet Shoes".)

[minoanmiss]

That is such a darling story I nearly exploded into a shower of glitter! Eee!

[cereta]

I would really love to see someone tell my younger brother, the soon-to-retire Marine, that his half-Mexican-American daughter doesn't look like she has a white father. I'm pretty sure I could sell tickets to that event.

[xenacryst]

I'd buy those tickets. Happy to bring popcorn.

[cadenzamuse]

I'll bring some sodas, we can make a full Event of it, yeah?

[eva_rosen]

Dear Worried really fails at everything. First, how can they believe that birracial people should always look half and half? Like, what!? And the 'I don't judge' followed by blatant judgement of the baby's parents circumstances, and the implied worry about a black woman 'trapping' a (presumed by them, white) man with a baby. FAIL.

[rmc28]

"Stuck caring for a child that isn't his" shows such a nasty judgmental mind.

[minoanmiss]

Dear fellow Caribbean person:

Please SHUT THE FUCK UP. And get over your colorism. (You are being terrible about race, as Americans define it, and *also*, overlappingly, being terrible about skintone. As a fellow West Indian, I see you.) No one deserves such baseless, mean speculations.

Thanks,
me.

[lemonsharks]

I was waiting for you to come in and make this comment and it is everything I hoped it would be.

[beable]

I'd hate for this young man to be stuck caring for a child that isn't his, even if I don't know him.

Why? WHY would it matter in the slightest to you? WHYYYYYYYYYY?

Also Hey, I'm from the Caribbean and we've always had a much more relaxed attitude toward racial mixing.

No, no you don't. If you had such a relaxed attitude you wouldn't even have bothered trying to worry about the race or parentage of the kid of two people you've never met.

[ayebydan]

Wind your neck in.