The Butler: Taking a Long View on History

Color me kooky, but when friends told me that I had to see Lee Daniels' The Butler, I took them at their word. 

"It's ah-MAAAAZE-ing!" raved one . "EXCELLENT!!!," exclaimed another. "The best film I've seen on race relations... ever!" promised a third. 

High praise for a director who once cast Halle Berry as Leticia Musgrove in Monster’s Ball: a role Angela Bassett famously turned down saying, “I wasn’t going to be a prostitute on  film... It’s about putting something out there you can be proud of 10 years later.” Granted, Berry subsequently won a Best Actress Oscar for her star turn. But true to Bassett’s conviction, 12 years later I still cringe at the soft core visual of Leticia moaning “I want you to make me feel good. Can you make me feel good?” This, as she stripped for her would-be (if stunned by the out-of-the-blue overture) lover. A man she’d met just hours prior and who, coincidentally, had overseen the execution of Leticia's husband.

Daniels also cast Mo’Nique as Mary in Precious. Her tour de force portrayal of the title character’s mother earned the actress an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. But thanks to the graphic depiction of Mary’s unrelenting emotional and physical abuse of her child-- including dropping a television set down a stairwell, with the intention of having it land on Precious’ head-- I still struggle to draw a distinction between Mary and any number of Loony Tunes cartoon characters with an axe to grind and a weapons cache at their disposal.

Personally, I prefer a  good story that captivates and compels my attention without stooping to sentimentality, melodrama or simplistic black & white depictions of people as all-good or all-evil. By that measure, Beasts of the Southern Wild is my idea of perfection in film making. Scenes like the one where Hushpuppy is placed in a government facility and transformed overnight from a fearless spitfire (who once ran free in nothing more that an undershirt, shorts and rain boots under a cloud of untamed hair), to a dopplegänger of her former self (in a government-issued blue dress; white, patent leather Mary Janes; and hair pressed and combed into submission) leave me breathless not because of what is stated, but for what is implied. In this case: the capture and taming of a once free spirit. The suppression of individuality. The homogenization of Hushpuppy.

Given my preference restrained movie making, it’s anyone’s guess why I might have expected Daniels to deliver something as subtle and nuanced as Beasts of the Southern Wild. Or a film that would be as quiet, understated and dignified as the former White House butler, Eugene Allen, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2008-11-07/politics/36906532_1_white-house-black-man-history whose real-life story inspired the screenplay for The Butler. 

Perhaps the Downton Abbey-like images I’d seen on movie posters and in film previews bolstered my belief that service would not be confused with servitude in Daniels’ film. That the undertone would be elegant. And that a butler’s work might be elevated to art form through careful storytelling and refined cinematography. Certainly my friends’ endorsements, the abundance of critical praise heaped on The Butler, and the fact that the film reigned as #1 at the box office for three straight weeks (before getting served by Vin Diesel’s Riddick last weekend) helped weaken my defenses. So I threw caution to wind and finally saw the film.

Next time, I won’t be so reckless.

I suppose The Butler has merit as a history lesson, for those too lazy to actually read a book, but its Greatest Hits of Black History compilation approach to screen-writing struck me an inadequate substitute for narrative and character development. Likewise, the butler’s front row seat to every human & civil-rights trail, trouble and tribulation-- from a white plantation owner raping one of his black field workers within earshot of the victim’s husband and child, to Cecil’s son’s pow-wow with Martin Luther King, Jr. moments before King’s assassination-- undermined the gravity of of the events, diluted the intended impact and gave the film a Forrest Gump-esque quality: minus the wink-and-a-nod irony that made the Tom Hanks movie so utterly charming and original.

Casting on The Butler was another problem. The star-studded cameos felt more like a distracting parlor game (Jane Fonda, and Robin Williams, and John Cusak. Oh, my!) than a legitimate means  to animate one dimensional characters. And watching an artist of Forrest Whittaker’s caliber share the screen with supporting actors who could not bear the weight of his genius was a desecration on par with seeing the Hope Diamond in a tin setting. Like seeing a giraffe in a parking lot, I kept wondering “What is that magnificent creature doing in this unexceptional setting?!” Happily, the one deviation from that norm was newcomer David Oyelowo, the young man who played Cecil’s son, Louis, with a deft touch despite the disjointed, clunky script with which he had to work.

In her role as Cecil’s wife, Gloria, Oprah Winfrey proved that the charisma responsible for making her such ratings and marketing juggernaut on the small screen is actually enhanced on the silver screen. But for all the leaning in Winfrey's presence inspired, the rate of  emotional return was not commensurate with time and close-ups devoted to her character. To be fair, there were moments of absolute truth-- none more so than when Gloria slaps Louis across the face for disrespecting his father, then reminding her son that, “Everything you are and everything you have is ‘cause of that butler.” And her cuteness factor was off the charts when she donned a black & white jumpsuit, giant afro and hoop earrings in an homage to 70’s chic. But Gloria’s stuck-on-sourpuss tone struck me as monotonous. And her occasional out-of-left-field mood swings were unfaithful to the character. In one such instance, Gloria tells Louis “...now, get that low-class bitch outta’ my house,” after finding fault with his girlfriend. In another, Gloria tells a heart-broken Cecil (who has just left the newly-widowed Jackie Kennedy bloodied and broken in the White House) that she doesn’t care about a the First Lady’s plight. This, in spite of Gloria’s near obsession with how many pairs of shoes Jackie owned, and her constant badgering of Cecil to shed some light on the contents Jackie’s closet.

The soundtrack, though beautiful, was as discordant as Gloria’s multiple personalities. And while it swelled in all the right places, I was left feeling more manipulated by the score than moved by the material. 

Then again, maybe I'm just out of step with what people really want when they go to the movies.

Daniels' flare for mega-drama has certainly served him (and his leading ladies) well in the past. And I pray that fortune will smile upon his leading man this time around. But whether or not Forrest Whittaker takes home a statuette next March for his pitch-perfect depiction of Cecil Gaines, I'll be thinking about Angela Bassett when the Academy Awards roll around. Considering her personal benchmark for excellence. The wisdom of taking the long view in life. And wondering if anybody will think The Butler is as "ah-MAAAAZE-ing!" in 10 years, as they do today. 

Boys in the Hoodie

In August of 2002, my extended family reunited on the island Jamaica to say good-bye to my uncle, Vincent Lee, a man whose laughter was as prodigious as his appetite for life. Unc died very suddenly: leaving his wife, children, siblings, grandchildren, nieces and nephews without the only patriarch we’d known since my grandfather’s passing  30 years prior. To say that our collective loss felt like an amputation would be an understatement.

Still, the family agreed that it would have been a disservice to remember Unc by dressing in black, beating our chests and howling at the moon, so the tone of our gathering was decidedly "better to have loved and lost...,” if not downright celebratory.

Courtesy Olive Rose Kemble

The other cause for celebration that summer was my cousin Dominic’s imminent departure for boarding school in Pennsylvania. One of the youngest of our tribe, Dominic was born and raised in Kingston, a straight A student and the kind of competitive swimmer who brought as much intensity, focus and determination (to win) to the swimming pool as he did the classroom. That he excelled in both arenas was no accident. In fact, when he was a toddler his mother once told me that her primary goal as a parent was to “make sure that when I unleash my children upon society, I’ll be making a positive contribution, as opposed to burdening the world with a potential  liability.”

With that mission accomplished, Dominic was ready to make a splash in uncharted waters.

Courtesy Matthew R. Wendel Photography 

But not before getting an earful from his elders on the eve of his departure.

“When you get to campus, try an extra-curricular activity that’s out of your comfort zone,” encouraged one cousin. “You never know where or when you might discover a new passion.”

“You’re going into a different culture,” my mother advised. “And though the language is the same, the accents are very different. This may cause you some discomfort at first, but don’t let this inhibit you from engaging with the other students. Observe. Be curious. Ask questions.”

“Education is everything,” said a grand-uncle. “It is the great equalizer. You can play hard, but I want you to work harder because the choices you make today will have an impact on the rest of your life.”

And then a close family friend, Jennifer, offered her insights:

“Dominic,” she began, in the no-nonsense tone that serves her so well as a South Florida prosecutor, “if the police ever stop you on campus, on the street or while driving a car-- always keep both hands in plain sight, maintain your composure, do not raise your voice and do not allow the encounter to escalate. No matter what they say or do, your responses must be ‘Yes, Sir. No, Sir.’”

I can still hear sound effect of a needle scratching across a record every time I recall that moment. Jennifer’s words felt like a slap across the face. My brain scrambled to reboot. I was insulted that the best she could offer the best & brightest of our family was a primer on Police Protocol 101. And I was offended that she’d done so without at least consulting Dominic’s parents first. How dare she. What the hell was she thinking?

I now realize that Jennifer said what she did because she was thinking. Whereas I had visions of unicorns and rainbows dancing in my head: neither of which would have served a muscular, 6’3” 15-year-old boy on the cusp of manhood much good given the whole new world he was about to encounter.

Courtesy Dominic Lee 

As a first generation American who’d grown up in a family of mostly girls, I was completely ignorant of what I now know to be "the talk." As were my cousins, who also grew up in the States. Owing to the homogeneity of Jamaica’s population (where my parents were born and raised), “the talk” was as a foreign concept to their generation as mine, so chances are even my big brother was spared the father-son chat which is practically a rite of passage when African-American boys reach a certain age. The age when they transition from looking cute & cuddly to threatening-- as would Dominic-- to an untrained eye.

I have been thinking about perception, reality and the potentially lethal power of an untrained eye  a lot ever since the shooting death of a boy (who was just two years older than Dominic) became headline news. And while a Florida jury subsequently acquitted Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, of second degree murder charges, the self-appointed (though unskilled and unsanctioned by law enforcement) neighborhood  watchman will never elude the fact that he is now a cautionary tale of how wrong assumptions can break hearts and end lives.

Courtesy People Magazine 

Consider Zimmerman's words the night he called 911 after spotting Martin walking though the gated community-- where Zimmerman lived and Martin was staying with his father’s fiancée.

“Hey we’ve had some break-ins in my neighborhood, and there's a real suspicious guy. ... This guy looks like he's up to no good, or he's on drugs or something. It's raining, and he's just walking around, looking about. ... Now he's coming towards me. He's got his hand in his waistband. ... Something's wrong with him. He's coming to check me out. He's got something in his hands. I don't know what he's doing. ... These assholes, they always get away.”

We now know that Martin had a cell phone in one hand, a bag of snacks in the other and that he did not get away that night. But Zimmerman’s drive-by assessment of the 17-year-old as “a real suspicious guy,” “up to no good” and an “asshole,” his palpable level of frustration as he spoke to the 911 operator and his rush to judgement all struck a chord with people who have been on the receiving end of unwarranted prejudicial treatment in the past.

From the usual subjects...

Courtesy Eunîque Jones Photography 

To those snared in the dragnet cast over one-quarter of the world's population since September 11, 2001...

To those with enough self-awareness to acknowledge having been the beneficiary of white privilege.

Much to the credit of mankind, people around the world were appalled by the unprovoked confrontation that cut one life short and revived dormant discussions on race, racism and the alternate reality black men are forced to navigate on a daily basis. As a show of solidarity with the young victim, supporters from every strata of society contributed to a campaign called “I am Trayvon Martin” by posting pictures of themselves, on-line, wearing a hoodie similar to the one Martin wore the night he was killed. Some of the more high-profile participants included elected officials, sports icons and music moguls. And one of the more arresting images came from Howard University Medical school, where an image of hooded students was juxtaposed another of the same group wearing white doctor’s coats.

For all its good intentions, my feelings about this movement have been mixed from the outset for a variety of reasons. Not because I don’t agree that it is shallow to equate a person’s worth with their dress, but because it would be intellectually dishonest of me to pretend that human beings do not respond to uniforms. Right or wrong: just as the soon-to-be doctors at Howard might expect to be regarded differently when they upgrade from blue scrubs to the coveted laboratory coat upon graduation, so too might a young man wearing a hoodie and sagging pants with a slumped posture want to consider how he might attract extra scrutiny merely because his dress and affect mirror those of a sub-set of young, black men who have been the perpetrators of extremely anti-social behavior. I suppose this is why seeing  a photo-shopped image of Martin Luther King, Jr wearing a hoodie was so jarring to me.

Granted, it is ironic that the visionary who inspired a nation (that seemed incapable of living up to her founding principle that all men are created equal) to judge one another based on the content of a person’s character was also the man who changed minds via the sheer power of imagery. But Dr. King's suit was literally his armor. And his always pristine manner of dressing was one of the mightiest weapons in his arsenal. As was his non-violent composure, even when having to negotiate with state-sanctioned barbarians.

Montgomery Alabama, 1958

But as the alter ego of this particular civil rights icon-in-a-hoodie was stamped onto the consciousness of billions of children around the world, I felt that my generation owed it to them to fill in the back story.

Coretta & MLK, Jr. walk  in the James Meredith March, 1966 

The story of women like Rosa Parks, for example: who was not, by any stretch of the imagination, the first black woman to be mistreated on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. But she was the first victim of such unimpeachable character that, once arrested, NAACP organizers immediately rallied to her defense after identifying her as the best possible candidate for seeing through the legal battle (to dismantle segregation laws) that would surely ensue. Parks, in the minds of her advocates, would be regarded as a sympathetic victim to blacks and white. And they (her lawyers) were right.

Rosa Parks following her arrest in Montgomery, Alabama, 1956 

Was it fair for a civil right’s organization not to challenge all instances of racial discrimination reported during the Jim Crow era with as much vigor and publicity as that devoted to Mrs. Parks’ case, owing to other victims having had arrest records? Or having being deemed women of ill-repute? Or for having had less than stellar reputations in the community (as has been documented)? Of course it wasn’t. But the NAACP understood that the fight for fairness was anything but fair. And they were trying to change the hearts and minds of the majority of Americans who could not identify with the plight of people they neither knew, nor cared to know.

In exemplars like Parks and King, however, it was impossible to deny their humanity-- thus their insistence upon human and civil rights-- when their values so obviously mirrored those of the larger culture...

Coretta greets MLK, Jr. outside a Montgomery courthouse in 1956 

When they presented themselves in a way that reflected high self-esteem and self-respect...

When their commitments to family values were irrefutable...

Courtesy Flip Schulke Photography

And when their non-violent example to followers proved potent enough to inspire the masses and move mountains.

MLK, Jr. homecoming after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964

It goes without saying that the hypocrisy of moral giants like King and Parks once having had to prove themselves to a majority population-- that demonstrated neither the social, spiritual nor political will required to make America actually live up to her Constitution-- is not lost on me. When I consider their examples, I realize how lucky I was to have been raised at the tail end of a time when the bar for excellence was set so high. But it also makes wonder about the negative ramifications for boys and girls being raised today, who have yet to become acquainted with the dreams (and dress codes) of their forefathers.

Courtesy Sabrina Fulton 

I still struggle with the two faces of Trayvon that have come to light following his death. I held my breath when the baby-faced portrait was first released to the media-- because given his age at the time of the shooting the picture of him in the maroon tee-shirt was likely not the most current his parents had. Not by several years. And we now know that subsequent images of Martin only undermined any arguments that he might have been a total innocent. (Which, I realize, should have been irrelevant for the purposes of determining Zimmerman's guilt or innocence.) But when I hear pundits and journalists dismissing Trayvon's self-destructive choices-- including truancy, expulsion from school, drug use and alleged theft-- as no big deal, I vehemently disagree.

The only reason black people have come as far as we have in this country, in spite of a systemic, institutionalized efforts to nullify our existence, is because we once took our parents at their word when they told us "You have to be twice as good as your white peers to go half as far." Because children were taught to kept their eyes on the prize with a mono-focus that left no room for bullshitting, ever. Because the public figures who represented us-- from movie stars to men in uniform-- understood that the privilege came with tremendous responsibilities.

Lena Horne with Tuskegee Airmen in 1945

This is not to say that I think Martin should have been the Jackie Robinson of the adolescent set. But there is a shadow side to 21st century living in the African-American community that would make Dr. King weep in his grave. The substitution of gangsterism for masculinity, the misogyny masquerading as musicality in rap, the abdication of responsibility to women and children by the men who once protected us with their lives and the unchecked homophobia in our churches is indefensible and unacceptable.

Such a backdrop could not have boded well for Martin-- who carried the legacy of his race on his young, narrow shoulders when he was, in effect, put on trial in that Sanford, Florida courtroom-- even though he’d done nothing wrong the day he was profiled, targeted and ultimately stalked to his death.

I am astounded that George Zimmerman is a free man today. And terrified by the prospect that someone with so little judgement and such poor conflict-resolution skills has not lost the right to carry a firearm in his home state. And yet the pain he has inflicted upon the black community pales in comparison to the self-inflicted wounds we continue to visit upon ourselves. A house-cleaning is long overdue. And to pretend otherwise not only sabotages our position when supporting truly deserving African-Americans (like the First Family), but offers a woefully inadequate road map for young men and women striving to be the next Barack and Michelle Obama.

My Aunt Rosie and I cannot see eye-to-eye on this point: her position being that how Martin looked and carried himself should not have mattered in a court of law, because it was not he, but Zimmerman who was on trial. And I would never argue with such logic. But if the case was also a de facto battle for public opinion (which it was, in my opinion); it can be argued that some of Martin's choices did not help his case. Including his association with witnesses like Rachel Jeantel: who proved detrimental to the prosecution's attempt to portray Martin as a sympathetic victim thanks to her naked hostility, lack of respect for authority figures, unintelligible responses and a body language that implied she had better things to do with her time than sit around and rehash the tragic, final moments of her friend's life.

At best, Jeantel's inappropriate demeanor made me wonder how many children are ignorant of the fact that we are all judged by the company we keep. At worst, I put myself in the shoes of Sybrina Fulton and Tracey Martin: Trayvon's parents, who epitomized grace under ridiculous pressure, as they sat and watched this young woman speak for their son.

But why should she know better when so many elders are preaching one thing in public, while practicing something else entirely in the privacy of their homes?

I have a hard time reconciling my Aunt Rosie's hyperbole (re: how Martin's missteps should not have been used against him throughout the trial), for example, with the woman who is constantly reminding her grandson, Noah, that she expects him to comport himself like a gentleman at all times. Noah can mimic his GiGi’s lectures, chapter and verse, on the merits of combing his hair, making sure that the waistband of his pants align with that of his anatomy and the importance of having good manners inside and out of his home. He’s even become adept at pointing out those who violate GiGi’s rules when they’re in the park, or at a mall or running errands around town.

And Noah is just eight-years-old.

Courtesy Lori Lwanga

To her credit, Auntie maintains the drumbeat because she knows that little boys who look like Noah are afforded zero margin of error before being dismissed as worthless in this country. She stays on her grandson’s case because unlike George Bush-- who could be elected president in spike of his past as a slacker who abused alcohol for decades, and Mitt Romney-- who came damn close to being president in spite of his well-documented past as a high school bully-- Noah will get no such passes in this lifetime. And this does not even take into account the the double-standards and disrespect Noah may have to endure should he follow in the footsteps of our current President-- whether the questioning of his academic credentials or his US citizenship-- that reflect our country’s schizophrenic attitudes towards black men.

Sure, kids like Noah will always get the message that his personal appearance, words and actions can mean the difference between life and death (even if it kills his GiGi!). But what about the kid who may never benefit from such tried and true wisdom? They are the ones I worry about the most. Especially when I see pictures of celebrities (who have the unique privilege of slipping into and out of a variety of personas, easy peasy) like the one posted below: which always fail to mention the unintended consequences that tend to befall our boys in the hoodie, should they encounter an armed stranger with a grudge... and an untrained eye.

And after the lessons learned when Jennifer schooled me on the real facts of life 11 years ago: I believe the most dangerous thing I could do to any child would be to paint a picture of the world as I wished it to be... as opposed to preparing them to survive in the world as it really is.

Doing the Right Thing at the Wrong Time

I make it a habit not to patronize establishments with poor lighting. And the notion of being able to stock up on lingerie and motor oil in one fell (shopping) swoop has has always struck me as the opposite of desirable. Moreover, as much as I love saving a buck, I will happily pay a premium to shop in spaces that elevate rather than depress my zest for life. So you can take my word for it when I tell you that I am no fan of Walmart. 

But following the beat down the big box retailer has been taking for doing the right thing at the wrong time, I kinda' feel bad for them. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/21/virginia-parents-walmart-biracial-daughters_n_3313143.html

It all began when a Virginia man took his three daughters to their neighborhood Walmart to cash a check, before picking up his wife (the girls' mother) at a separate location, then driving home to find a police officer waiting for them outside their Prince William County home. According to the dad, Joseph, (who wishes to keep his last name private) the officer said he'd been sent by Walmart security "to make sure that the children you have are your own." 

Joseph's wife, Keana, described her initial response to the inquiry as "dumbfounded" when speaking to a FOX 5-News reporter after the fact. Adding, "I sat there for a minute and I thought, 'Did he just ask us if these were our kids knowing what we went through to have our children?' "

Baring the cop's ignorance of such intimate details and his apparent lack of insight on whether or not couples who have  surmounted fertility challenges (or whatever may have been the impediment to Joseph and Keana starting their little family) ought to be above suspicion when harming minors is at issue-- the policeman who drew the short straw on this awkward assignment did have one thing going for him. A winning personality. Or, as Joseph said he (the cop) asked some very difficult questions "very sincerely." Which is probably the only reason this incident didn't escalate and lead to an arrest, followed by a "Beer Summit" at the White House with President Obama presiding...

http://thegailyplanet.wordpress.com//?s=henry&search=Go

...because Mama Bear was not taking any crap without asking a few questions of her own. 

After she and her hubby showed the officer their ID, and their daughters confirmed that the gobsmacked couple were in fact Mommy and Daddy, Keana called Walmart to demand an explanation. The answer "that a customer was concerned because they saw the children with your husband and he didn't think that they fit," only inspired Keana to press for clarification. "What do you mean by they don't fit?," she asked. "I was trying to get her to say it. And she says, 'Well, they just don't match up'."

Well, I'll just cut to the chase and tell those of you not familiar with the story that Keana is black, Joseph is white and their little girls are brown. 

Why a Walmart shopper might have called attention to Joseph and his daughters on a family outing is anyone's guess. As is the shopper-in-question's motivation for expressing his "alarm" over the threesome to Walmart security. Potential answers cover a gamut that ranges from good ole' xenophobia, to hyper-vigilance-bordering-on-paranoia thanks to a 24-hour news cycle that pedals the notion that we are all straddling a razor's edge between death and destruction at any given moment. Perhaps a well-meaning stranger had Ariel Castro on the brain and thought he (the stranger, not Castro) was preventing the potential abduction and decade-long incarceration of three more little girls. Or, maybe some good samaritan just acted on a gut reaction and chose to alert someone charged with protecting the public. 

Hell, I was actually pleased that it was a man (according to the Walmart staffer who spoke with Keana) who pulled the trigger on the whole shebang-- as women generally get the lion’s share of credit for nurturing and protecting children.

Hindsight being what it is, we all know it was a hideously bad call.  But when it comes to looking out for the most vulnerable of us, can society really afford the alternative? Are we prepared to look the other way as we debate the political correctness of possibly offending our neighbors? And, most critically, do we really want to abdicate the responsibility for distinguishing the good guys from the bad guys to a corporation with notoriously bad policies as they pertain to employee pay and benefits?

I regret that Joseph was an object of suspicion when he did nothing wrong. I'm sorry his little tykes had witness the two most important authority figures in their young lives being questioned by an even higher authority. And if I didn't have such an aversion to Walmart, I would actually be sorry that Keana had to forfeit the joy of ever hearing "Attention: Walmart Shoppers!" again. (According to FOX 5 News, the distraught mom said she would "never shop at a Walmart again." Which to me is a silver lining, but to each his own I suppose...)

If Facebook, Twitter and chat rooms are any indication of where America stands on the topic, my thinking puts me in the minority. Which is neither here nor there. But following are three examples of where the conversation is going, as well as my responses to each.

1.  "Why is the state of Virginia going backwards?," asked one commenter at huffingtonpost.com. "This father's rights were clearly violated. What was the probable cause?" 

Probable cause? 

Seriously?!

Unless Walmart is lucky enough to have police academy graduates moonlighting as security guards at their superstores, I think this standard might be a tad lofty. 

The security guard was merely the messenger: telegraphing information from one eye witness to the police, who then acted upon what they were told. Is no one else proud of the rapid response on the part of law enforcement and the quick-thinking bystander who likely recorded Joseph's license plate number to help track him down? Sure, the person-of-suspicion wound up being related to the kids; but in a world where abusive mothers, fathers,  football coaches and members of the clergy run roughshod over the innocence, integrity and dignity of children day in and day out, I am happy that somebody has their eyes peeled for OPK (Other People's Kids). And until things change for the better, I don't think anyone is entitled to a free pass where the welfare of a child is at stake. 

2.  "It's just sad," said one woman on Facebook. "I didn't grow up like this... my FRIENDS didn't grow up like this... to be honest, I never saw any kind of racism myself until I was an adult."

I have two observation on this post. First, has the writer reached the age of reason? And, if so, where did she and her friends grow up because I'd like to move there.

Tangentially, even if one were lucky enough never to have been victimized by racism, I'm afraid bearing witness to it is inescapable because racism is pervasive. Which begs the question of whether what this case of Who's Your Daddy was even racist to begin with? From what little I know, I'd have to argue no.

Short-sighted? Perhaps.

Living la vida Leave it to Beaver in the Age of Obama? Sure.

But racist? I am having trouble making that leap.

In fact, given America's checkered past on race relations I'd have to say that what happened in the parking lot was the antithesis of racism. Ditto if the disparity in mass-media reporting on missing and exploited children, owing to race, is any barometer of how far we still have to go when it comes to equal protection for all demographics. So when the (alleged) damsels in distress are brown, and there is no breakdown in police protocol to ensure the children's well-being, I consider that a plus. For that matter-- big-up to the dude who saw something and said something to somebody who could actually do something. That is my definition of brotherly love.

3.  Finally, from Twitter came an ironic, "Welcome to post-racial America."

But what could be more post-racial than a white man not being granted the presumption of innocence in America merely because of his color? Yes, having a black president of the United States is a close second, but I am encouraged by the fact that Walmart did what they believed to be in the interest of three children of color-- even if it meant inconveniencing a white man who happened to be their father. Can you imagine the outcome were Daddy-O not the good guy in this story, and managed to kidnap three innocents in broad daylight because no bystander had the heart or mind to say something when their instincts prevailed?

Of course, the elephant in the room is race.

Despite the rise in multiracial families due to interracial marriages and cross-racial adoptions, and a heightened awareness of what it means to be a modern family in 2013 (thanks in part to states like Virginia which lead the nation in marriages between blacks and whites) we evidently have have not reached the promise land. And while I am sympathetic to the uphill battle families at the vanguard of this movement are facing, there must be room for discussion if the alternative is no discussion at all.

 I say this in solidarity with any mother who has ever had her parentage called into question because her skin color is not identical to that of the child for whom her heart beats-- whether through the miracle of adoption or birth. I say it as the auntie of a nephew (whose father is black and mother is white) who asked his grandmother "Why do people treat me better when they think I'm white?," when he was just 12-years-old and developing his perspectives on race and identity. And I say it with respect and admiration for women like Thien-Kim (AKA Kim): a woman who was so fed up with the stares and inappropriate questions she's had to field since bringing her Hapa (Vietnamese-American and African-American) babies into the world that she started a blog called "I'm Not the Nanny".

http://www.imnotthenanny.com/

Kim's blog is as brilliant as its title. And she has introduced me to a community where questions I'd never dare raise are asked and answered for me. Stuff like whether or not it's OK to ask if someone's kids are adopted:

http://www.rageagainsttheminivan.com/2012/02/it-okay-to-ask-if-someones-kids-are.html

 Or what not to say to the parent of a biracial child:

http://www.imnotthenanny.com/2012/02/what-not-to-say-to-parent-of-biracial.html

 I also discovered a wonderful guide for parents raising multiracial children called "Does Anybody Else Look Like Me".

http://www.amazon.com/Does-Anybody-Else-Look-Like/dp/0738209503/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369415349&sr=1-1&keywords=does+anybody+else+look+like+me+a+parent%27s+guide+to+raising+multiracial+children

And I don’t even have any kids!

But I am grateful for the opportunity to dialogue with anybody who can broaden my horizons without being shamed into silence. Likewise, I am open to questions, and firmly believe that the only stupid ones are those that go unasked. One of the wisest I’ve ever heard came from a young charge I used to babysit when working as an au pair during a college semester abroad in Paris. Julie was seated in my lap, caressing my hand absentmindedly (or so I thought) as I was telling her a bedtime story one night when she suddenly looked up at me and asked “...êtes-vous marron partout?” (Are you brown everywhere?) When I answered yes, her already big blue eyes widened considerably as it dawned on her that we were simultaneously different and alike. 

Of course, Julie was only six-years-old when she had her eureka moment, but wouldn’t it be cool if we could somehow keep the conversation going from the cradle to grave-- as long as our intent was pure and we exercised judgement when asking in front of the children? (Which, according to Kristen at "Rage Against the Minivan" (see link above) is thoroughly uncool.)

At the risk of getting tarred and feathered by my multi-culti friends and family, I must  give a shout-out to the Walmart shopper for looking out for the little peeps among us. Big ups to the policeman who managed to very sincerely ask some seriously tough questions. And thank you, Walmart, for sounding the alarm. If you are guilty of anything, it is of holding up a mirror that shows us who we are as a society. If we don’t like the reflection we have to fix ourselves, not the looking glass.

In the meantime, y’all might want to consider paging Dr. John, STAT! (Sooner Than Already There)I think his song “Right Place Wrong Time” would be a kick-ass anthem for Walmart going forward, and the good doctor’s mug would be a vast improvement over that unimaginative smiley face currently used in your advertising campaign. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT4RainY-lY

Oh... and while you're at it, why not go hog wild and upgrade the lighting in your stores too? People might still try holding you accountable for that which is neither your fault nor your responsibility... but at least they'd have a shot at looking good while doing so.