ESSAYS ON OBAMA
My Mixed-Race Family
by Karen DeGroot Carter
While I’m not a person of color, I am part of a mixed-race family. My husband’s dad, Leon, was from South Carolina and both his parents, James and Rosetta (originally Rosie Witherspoon; I love her maiden name) Carter, were black. Leon would eventually travel north, where he’d meet his future wife, Hèlené from Montreal. They’d marry in 1964, when in some southern states interracial marriages were still illegal.
Their only son, Patrick, was born in 1965 in Plattsburgh, NY. I was born the next year in Syracuse, NY. While our childhoods originated in the same state and both our families had roots in the Air Force, while we were both raised Catholic and eventually attended parish schools in adjoining towns, our families could hardly have appeared to be more different. Patrick and his three sisters all resemble, to some extent, their late father. They have dark hair, brown eyes, brown skin. Meanwhile, my ten siblings and I present a rainbow of varied hair and eye and even skin tones to the world, but we all resemble our parents to some extent. More to the point, we’re all white.
Patrick was also part of a large, extended, tight-knit French-Canadian family that also happened to be white. Trips to see his grandparents and aunts and uncles in Montreal were common adventures that brought him the comfort—uncommon for many American kids—of unconditional admiration and love from people who never hesitated to embrace him and remind him of his immense importance in their lives. This sort of support existed long into Patrick’s adulthood, and I was privileged to witness it on many trips to Montreal. Maybe that’s why I was not surprised to see photos of Barack Obama with his beloved white grandparents; to hear him speak of how comfortable he felt visiting with older white people in small towns as an Illinois activist and eventual senator; to listen to his voice crack as he recalled the love his mother and grandmother had always shown him and said how terribly he missed them as he accepted the presidency of the United States.
Maybe that’s also why I know Barack Obama has a heart as solidly grounded as my own husband’s; a heart that knows the importance of familial ties (including those that stretch beyond one’s own country’s borders); a heart that appreciates what’s truly important and is eager to help others benefit from strong sources of support, wherever they originate.
In his speech on race in Philadelphia earlier this year, Barack Obama said one of his campaign’s tasks was to “continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America.” He also said:
“I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together—unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes, that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction—towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.”
My father-in-law’s grandchildren don’t all resemble him, but when he was alive, he truly did not care. He beamed when his grandson, who resembles me with his sandy brown hair and green eyes, played his trumpet or showed him a new dance move or simply gave him a hug. When his granddaughter sat on his lap and fed him orange slices, I suspect the fact she resembled him a little warmed his heart, but it was her smile and her baby-girl kisses that won it over and over again. And while my mother-in-law may not have had a child of her own who was her spitting image, she has one granddaughter who’s a testament to the fact that things like personality and temperament and fair skin coupled with dark eyes and hair sometimes skip a generation...and are a pleasant surprise when they do.
My children and many other American children of mixed-race heritage—regardless of what they look like to the outside world—will remember this election for many reasons. My son will remember his mom weeping during President-elect Obama’s acceptance speech. My middle child will remember sitting with her dad to watch the official announcement, past bedtime on a school night, hearing over and again from him and seeing through her own unique lens on her world that what was happening truly was historic. And my youngest, who slept through most of the election return tallies, will remember waking to the happy news the next morning. Barack Obama, a man who looks like Daddy and has two little girls who’ll move with their mom and dad to the White House (and get a new puppy, to boot), has been elected to the highest office in the land. While my children may not fully understand what this election means to them and their country and their world at this moment, I’m confident they’ll witness—and appreciate—its impact many times over for the rest of their lives.
Karen DeGroot Carter is the author of One Sister’s Song, a novel published by Pearl Street Publishing of Denver. One Sister’s Song explores contemporary interracial issues and the unique challenges faced by people of mixed-race descent, as well as single parenting, grief recovery, and the Underground Railroad. Carter’s blog, BEYOND Understanding, features resources the promote tolerance and celebrate diversity.
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