Complicated, Unconditional, and Intensely Beautiful

Like a lot of brown people, airport security is always a nerve-wracking experience for me. This is especially true when I, a brown person, travel with my white mother, as the intense interrogation from TSA about how we’re related to each other is often quite an emotional ordeal. As we stood in line for the metal detector after one particularly long round of questioning, I was surprised to see my mom laughing at something a TSA agent said, very much in contrast to the paralyzing fear I was feeling in every crevice of my body.

As I observed that interaction, I realized that my white mother will never completely understand what the world is like for her brown daughter. Though these words may seem harsh, they are true. Because of how ingrained race is into the structures of our society, any white person will never be able to truly comprehend what it’s like to move through the world with brown skin. Though I do believe that white allies can arrive at a place of significant empathy, that does not negate the simple fact that white people, including my own mother, will never really know what it’s like to see things through my eyes as a brown girl.

Despite this gap between us, however, my mother and I are extremely close. From our shared love of Jojo Moyes’ novels to our mutual disdain for ripped jeans, we share many opinions, feelings and experiences. This is not to say that my melanin or her lack thereof have never presented any challenges. For example, when I talk about my feelings surrounding Eurocentric beauty standards and how they make me feel ugly, my mom will tell me I'm pretty without understanding how deep-rooted that feeling of ugliness can be when you’re a brown girl living in a society that equates beauty with whiteness. A simple “you’re pretty” cannot fight against the centuries of imperialism and white supremacy that have gone into trying to make brown people feel ugly and inferior.

But the beautiful thing is that I can tell my mom all of this and I have. She’s always open to an honest conversation, especially when it comes to race and how it affects her daughter’s world. She is the perfect example of radical empathy and the profound impact it can have on a relationship. Her willingness to always listen while knowing she will never fully understand is not just what allyship should look like but what it must look like: compassionate, kind, and most importantly, selfless.

However, her radical empathy is not limited solely to our conversations. When she was buying Barbie dolls for me as a kid, I told her I wanted the classic, blonde Barbie. But my mom insisted on buying a brown-haired, brown-skinned doll instead, and even though my five-year-old brain didn’t quite understand it, she knew the immense power that representation would hold for her daughter in the years to come. Even though I am beyond thankful for my mom every single day, I feel especially grateful for her when I think of the active effort she’s put in regarding race and raising a brown girl in a society that often doesn’t value brown girls in the way that every mother wants their child to be valued.

To be the white parent of a biracial child seems to me a difficult, slippery slope, yet my mother is able to navigate it with compassion and consideration. And for a while, I resented this challenging part of our relationship immensely. When people would see my white mom and jokingly make comments about how little we look alike, my first instinct was to get upset and defensive and wish for my skin to be a different color. But over time, I've realized that such careless, haphazard words don’t matter. What really matters is our love for each other—complicated, unconditional, and intensely beautiful.