Entering the Next Chapter

I wrote this poem based on what my daughter was experiencing being a biracial child in Ferguson, MO. She feels stuck. We are trying to form open communication to help her with her feelings. All of this is written off of what she has told me when we were talking, so while the format is mine the feelings are all hers.  STUCK All I see is black and white, literally and figuratively, And I forget to see all those in between. What does that make me? Stuck I see blacks angry at the whites for mistreatment, And whites unable to understand the pain. What does that make me? Stuck I have been exposed to so much hate, And have to pretend to be brave for my sisters. What does that make me? Stuck I was only a little girl with big dreams, Now I don’t know who I am supposed to be. What does that make me? Stuck I feel like a black girl in a white community, And like a white girl in a black community. What does that make me? Stuck Ferguson is the city I love, and a place that I fear.

When responding to an open question on Cafemom about choosing to adopt outside of your race one woman wrote: "No way!!!! sorry but i do not believe in inter racial anything. i was brought up that way and will bring my kids up that way. i think it is disgusting to mix races and unnatural. stick to your own kind, race and traditions. birds of a feather flock together... everyone discriminates in one form or the other it is human nature, survival of the fittest, classical conditioning." This comment, along with many others on this post, broke my heart. I am not sure why I sometime am shocked at how things of this world are not pure and good. The idea that someone disagrees with me or finds my life choices to be "disgusting" and "unnatural" doesn't bother me quite as much as knowing that Abbie, Eb, and other beautiful biracial kids have to deal with it. Why is it that some adults are even meaner than children?  It also saddens me that the person