All the differences that biological siblings might have,
we don't think of racial difference as being on the top of that list.
But over the past few years there's been quite a bit of interest,
even a media frenzy,
over couples and families, around the world,
who've had children of a different race.
I'm really interested in these questions.
I'm intrigued by the presence of these sibling pairs.
In many cases, they're biological twins of a quote unquote "different race."
I've been collecting photos and articles about these sibling pairs,
reading about their lives.
I've been fascinated about how the media portrays them
as feats of humanity, marvels of science.
All because they have a different racial appearance.
But what's even more fascinating than these photos themselves,
has been the public reaction to them.
Some people view these pictures as evidence that racism is over.
Others, on the other hand, feel as though racism isn't over,
but that racial mixture like this might lead us to the end of racism.
Now, as a sociologist, I disagree with both of those ideas.
But I think that there are two important lessons
that we can learn from these photos.
Number one is I think that these sibling pairs
are the perfect example of how we know that race is a social construction.
So sure, these siblings have differences in skin color, and even in hair texture.
But these superficial differences
don't justify the creation of racial categories.
There's no biological basis for this thing that we call "race."
But even as I say this as a sociologist, I know that race and racism matter.
They matter in our society.
When I say "racism,"
what I'm talking about is the unequal distribution
of economic, political, and educational resources.
But I studied race in family.
I'm particularly interested in how race can infiltrate families.
This is the important part;
how race can lead to unequal distribution of love and affection in the same family.
So how parents treat their children,
how grandparents treat their grandchildren,
how siblings interact with one another, can all be impacted by racism.
The question that drives my work is whether or not it might be true
that what love looks like in families can depend on what you look like.
The basic premise of this talk really challenges what many of us
fundamentally believe to be true about families.
We have a type of collective investment in believing families are our safe haven.
This is why we have these phrases: "Home is where the heart is."
"There's no place like home," I guess Dorothy said it best.
"Home sweet home."
All of these phrases really resonate
with the importance that we give to families.
What I'm suggesting today, and challenging you to do
is think about how families are much more complex and contradictory
than we ever give them credit for being.
As it relates to race in particular,
families can certainly protect family members against racism
but they might also reproduce racism.
When emotions are thrown into the mix, we know that home is where the heart is,
but home might also be where the hurt is.
For me and my quest, in terms of studying questions of race, love, and emotions,
I was inevitably drawn to an incredible country,
and that was Brazil.
What most of you may not know about Brazil is that the mix
between African, indigenous, and Portuguese populations has given rise
to some of the most racially diverse families in the world.
In Brazil, having a baby is a bit like playing racial roulette,
because of the uncertainty about which racial features might emerge
in the genetic lottery.
Even though it's true, that racial mixture in Brazil is very high,
racism also still exists,
whiteness is still overvalued,
and a person's life chances and life opportunities
are still shaped by their physical proximity to whiteness.
So what does that mean?
A person's skin color, hair texture, and facial features can all come
to shape their life outcomes.
But again this takes me back to that question that I began with.
We know that racial appearance matters in society.
But might it also matter in people's families?
How might racial appearance impact how people are treated
within their own homes and with their own family relationships?
Now you might be thinking, "Okay, this sounds like an exciting project,"
and Brazil was certainly the ideal location for this project.
That was a "no-brainer" for me.
But there were some barriers in my research.
First, I had to learn Portuguese.
After overcoming that barrier, I had to deal with my own skepticism
about whether I would be able to observe some of the dynamics
about which I'm talking.
So in one of my earliest trips to Brazil, I met a woman by the name of Ana.
Ana was a local student at the university.
When I told her that I was interested in studying race, love, and family,
she had the following response:
She said, "Yes, in a family, people are happy to have children.
They have the dark one first, but when the white one comes, everything changes.
The white one is treated well, and the dark one is forgotten.
The black one is punished because it is said to have "a cara dum escravo."
"The face of a slave."
You can imagine that this was a powerful statement to be made.
But it also made me feel as though I wasn't so far in left field
with this interest that I had in capturing race, love, and emotion in families.
In my book, "The Color of Love", I spend over 16 months working with families,
interviewing over 100 people in ten core families in Brazil,
in order to study these very dynamics,
in order to study how race, love, and family function together.
Sure enough, I found a number of examples that resonated with what Ana had said
to me about "the face of a slave."
So first I met a woman by the name of Doña Elena.
Doña Elena, in her interview, reveals to me
that when she delivered a dark-skinned baby,
and her husband saw the baby for the first time, his reply was,
"Where did you get that black baby? Levá la de volta."
"Take her back."
Corina had a similar story.
She told me about when she delivered her oldest son.
Her partner and his mother came to visit.
They took one look at the baby's black ears,
and decided that her partner would not recognize this child.
Their assumption was that this child would eventually grow up to be dark skinned.
So for that reason they figured it was not possible for the son
to have fathered a dark-skinned child.
Then there's the third example.
A nine-year-old girl named Hegany.
She's by far my favorite interviewee during my time in Brazil.
She was brilliant, she was boisterous, she was effervescent.
She had this type of honest sincerity,
this type of vulnerability that many of us tend to lose as we get older.
Coincidentally, during the time I'm interviewing Hegany and her family,
her mother actually gives birth to a baby girl.
This baby girl is unanimously viewed as perfect: white skin, and straight hair.
I ask Hegany, "What does it feel like to be a big sister? What is this like?"
Her response to me was the following,
"Eu tenho medo de perder o carinho dos meus pais."
"I'm afraid of losing the love of my parents."
So I asked Hegany, "Why do you feel this way?
Why do you think this might happen?"
She looks back at me, and she says, "Because of the baby.
You saw her, didn't you? She was born clean, with straight hair.
I'm afraid they will love her more.
Her hair won't give them as much trouble.
Everyone is saying it.
She'll have everything, and I'll have nothing."
Hegany covers her face with her hands and begins to sob.
What's so devastating about this interview is that she's only nine years old.
Yet even at this age, she understands how racial features
can impact the way that her family interacts with her;
the level of love and affection that she might receive in the family.
Over the course of the weeks and months that I'm in this family, I observe Hegany,
and she shows herself to be resentful of the baby.
She's constantly, almost obsessively observing the baby.
Waiting to see changes in the baby's skin color,
waiting for it to become darker,
for the baby's hair to become a little bit curlier.
But something else happens.
I also see Hegany holding the baby closely, rocking her tightly,
and taking on the role as a big sister.
What this suggested to me is that honest portrayal of families was a partial one.
That there were numbers of ways that families could both reproduce
and resist racism.
Doña Elena, who I mentioned before, had a daughter who was dark skinned,
but she viewed her dark skin as being evidence that her daughter
possessed true black beauty.
Other families developed alternative anti-racist personas.
The best example of this is a father who insists that I call him,
"Pantera Negra."
"The Black Panther."
He names himself after the Black Panthers in the United States,
and has a radical political agenda
that involves raising the racial consciousness
of people in his neighborhood.
He introduces me to his wife, who he calls the "Panterona,"
"The Big Panther,"
who also is committed to the same thing, to raising racial consciousness.
Now what does all of this, what do all of these narratives
tell us about racism in the United States and Brazil?
Any effort to eradicate racism has to leverage the power
and the influence of families and communities.
But not just that, it must also promote concrete public policies,
concrete legislative actions that lead to structural changes in our society.
I love the example of "Pantera Negra" because he really shows
the importance of global linkages.
In his case, he's building on the Black Panthers.
Contemporary social movements now, like "Black Lives Matter,"
are also exceptionally successful because they're relevant
both in the local contexts,
but also because they're relevant in the global context.
The best part about their message is that it's relevant for white folks
but it's also relevant for people of color
who may have internalized anti-black racism.
Where do we go from here?
Frederick Douglas says,
"Power concedes nothing without a demand."
I encourage each of you to use your families and communities
to work together to articulate demands that can move us towards forging
a better future, an anti-racist society that leads to the eradication of racism
in the United States, Brazil, and the rest of the world.