I thought I knew and understood racism. I?d read a lot about it in school, joined marches to protest it and was always challenging others on their prejudices. I thought of myself as someone who was aware and sensitive, but I never really realized how blind I was to my own privilege.
All of that changed when I became the mother of a biracial daughter and saw how different things are for her. I got the first inkling that the way my life went wasn?t the way it went for everybody when I started dating a man from Morocco while at university in Germany. All of a sudden, the bars and nightclubs I had frequented for years denied me entry when I was with him. We got all kinds of strange looks when we were together. I was never checked by airport security, even while wearing a cast on my leg large enough to hide a machine gun, but when the security personnel saw us saying goodbye, I had to pass through the metal detector three times before they let me continue. And that doesn?t even compare to what he had to go through when flying. The more I left my comfort zone, the more I realized how sheltered and protected my upbringing had been.
While dating and marrying a guy from Morocco sharpened my senses to the racism and injustice people endure every day, becoming the mother of a biracial daughter took it to a whole new level. My daughter has dark hair, dark eyes and caramel skin; I am blonde and blue-eyed. When she turned one, my ex-husband and I broke up, and my daughter and I moved to...