Both rapper Eve and reality TV star Kim Kardashian have been recently quoted as saying they want their biracial children not to see color.
Eve recently opened up to Vibe Vixen about her relationship with white British race car driver, Maximillion Cooper. Eve is moving towards marriage and children with Maxmillion, and when discussing raising biracial children she stated, “I want them to be colorblind… I don’t want them to see color.”
Surprisingly, Eve echoed the words of Armenian-American TV star Kim Kardashian, who is currently expecting a biracial child with African-American rapper Kanye West. In March, Kim said in an interview with BET that the “most important thing is, the way I want to raise my children is to not see color.”
Well, good luck with that…
Is anyone really “colorblind”?
My first question is: why on earth would they want their children or any other children with 20/20 vision not to notice that human beings have skin tones ranging from the lightest of beige to the richest shades of brown? To me, that is like expecting children not to notice that grass is green and that roses are red, while violets are blue.
Isn’t it human nature to perceive color? Why would we want to suppress that when the color pertains to human beings?
Noticing racial colors might be natural. It is thus unlikely that Eve and Maximillion or Kim and Kanye will be able to suppress this perception through their parental influence.
Secondly, even if this aspect of human nature could be suppressed, with no disrespect, I’m not sure that these parents would be capable of creating the family environment necessary to promote color blindness.
As recently as November 2012, Eve herself noticed color as she stated in an interview with Angie Martinez that sometimes she looks at Maxmillion and thinks, “‘You are so white.’ Seriously!” — and that sometimes she still can’t believe she’s dating a white guy.
I bet that Maxmillion more than “notices” Eve’s brown skin. He probably highly admires it.
Kim and Kanye: Likely color-aware
Do you think that Kim Kardashian has failed to notice or admire Kanye West’s dark skin and the deeper browns of her former lovers, such as Ray J and Reggie Bush? As she is a woman with a long, public history of dating black men, I don’t.
Kanye has also been known to notice color, a lot. It is reported that in a 2006 interview with Essence, he told the magazine that, “If it wasn’t for race mixing, there would be no video girls,” and then offensively referred to biracial women as “mutts,” as he stated that “me and most of my friends like mutts a lot…yeah in the hood they call them mutts.”
The statement that if there were no biracial women there would be no video girls appears to imply that darker, non-mixed black women are not attractive enough to be video models. (Using white models is often deemed unacceptable by artists and audiences, because this seems antithetical to hip hop is an “authentic” African-American art form.)
West’s comment manifests a clear ability to see color, and perhaps the belief that lighter is inherently “righter.”
Can color-aware parents raise colorblind kids?
If these reports are true, one can only speculate as to whether a simple preference for lighter women, at best, or internalized racism/self-hate, at worst, influenced Kanye’s decision to date and procreate with Kim Kardashian.
Thus, these couples are most likely NOT colorblind themselves. Few people in American society are. How can these celebrities expect to teach their children a perspective that they themselves don’t seem to possess?
Sadly, Kanye is not alone in his preference for lighter skin, and children are not raised in bubbles. The media, popular culture, and the communities in which children are raised certainly influence them, and for better or worse, colorblindness is not the norm among many children.
The sad truth of colorism
In 2010, CNN recreated the doll test that was used in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case that led to school integration. In the study, both white and black children showed a bias towards whiteness by associating positive attributes with white dolls and negative characteristics with black dolls. Given the vast variety of homes that the tested children came from, it is clear that today’s prevailing culture is not one of colorblindness.
I personally believe that attaining this goal is neither possible, nor desirable. Although I share Kim and Eve’s interest in children’s color perceptions, I don’t want my black sons to be colorblind. I hope they will love, appreciate and celebrate all colors, including their own.
Making sure brown kids love themselves, and others
I also pray that they will notice and adore the stunning beauty of their own radiant dark skin and gravity-defying hair, despite society’s seeming preference for lighter hues and straighter hair textures. Towards this effort, my husband and I are working to set a good example with respect to our own racial/ethnic pride and acceptance. In loving their own unique physical attributes, I hope they will also come to appreciate the hues and hair textures of others, and the various geographies, cultures and histories often attached to different shades, hair types, and nose widths.
Finally, I hope that my sons’ appreciation of skin tone will not be laden with imposed racial hierarchies because no skin colors are inherently better than the others, nor are people. When it is time to choose a mate, my only wish is that they will be open to women of all colors, including their own.
You don’t have to be “colorblind” to equally appreciate all people.
Ama Yawson is a co-founder of Loveessence.com, a dating site for black women and men of all races. Ms. Yawson has earned a BA from Harvard University, an MBA from the Wharton School and a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two sons.