Wednesday, April 20, 2011

The Princess' Frogs

  Yesterday, I came home from the grocery store to find my husband and girls tearing apart the laundry room.  They saw a frog and he jumped into the dirty clothes.  So here they all are, throwing clothes everywhere trying to find the frog and just making a big ass mess.  So I tell the girls to go clean up their room before dinner and I would try to find the frog.
   You're wondering if I found it aren't you?  You're God damned right I did.  Have I not mentioned I'm mama's daughter?  I put him in a Red Vines container and called my mama.  She told me what to do to make the little frog as comfortable as possible and my girls and I went out in the nice evening April drizzle to find dirt, grass, bugs and a piece of bark for the little froggy to sleep under.  He's got a pretty cool little terrarium set up.  I spent the evening checking on him to make sure the girls weren't shaking his little house up or anything and they didn't. They're Honey's grandchildren of course.
   Pretty sucky that I've lost a puppy in the last week and gained a terrarium of frogs already.  Yes, frogs, plural.  Today, while playing outside, Nonna found another frog inside of one of her snow boots she had left out on the back porch.  So now I have two.  I told the girls I wanted to name the frogs Prince Naveen and Princess Tiana.  They don't see the similarities.  Nonna wants to name them Shiver and Shake.  I have no idea where she gets this shit from.  I think since I got two frogs, they should obviously get fucking Disney names.  My kids don't understand the importance of the Princess and the Frog to their mama.  Frogs can't get Disney names according to them.  They're real frogs mom.
   My girls are only 5 and 2.  They don't really understand what it is to finally have a black Disney princess.  They won't grow up as little colored girls in a world where all the princesses look like Belle, or Ariel ,or Aurora.  They don't realize how groundbreaking Jasmine or Mulan were for me to see, even though I was past pretending to be a princess by the time those two came along.  They can't understand how earthmoving it is for me to see Tiana, not even my husband can because he's just a boy.  Tiana,who is a waitress like me too.  I could watch that movie from sun up to sun down and be happier than shit.  I love it sooo much.  I cry every time.  I sing to Evangeline in the shower.  "Almost There" is my new theme song.
  I get mad when they don't want to watch it. Even though secretly I am grateful that they take the little black princess cartoon for granted. Because they come from a world of Dora and Diego and Happy to be Nappy, they don't know that there wasn't always programming for children that celebrated the differences in us all as well as all of our similarities.  I am so proud of Princess Tiana.  There wasn't a Disney princess for me until now.  There was no Tyra, no Alica Keys, no Barack mother fucking Obama, just to name a few.  I grew up a mixed race child who had trouble at times identifying and socializing with the other kids of either race.  I am proud of the world I get to bring my babies up in.  
   And while race to my children at this young age is of little or no concern to them, it is always in the back of my mind.  I know that someday, someone, will judge them because of their skin tone.  I know that racism is still alive in this world and that my children will have to face it.  It is my duty to raise them to face these experiences with their chins up and their backs straight, and to not let the poison of hate in whatever form it takes break their spirits or dash their dreams.  Just because we have so many more black and other ethnic role models than we did when I was coming up, doesn't mean that they wont have to deal with it.  Racism, ignorance, intolerance, discrimination, HATE all live and breathe in this world whether or not people want to admit it or not.  My children need to grow up knowing that it is of course, the content of one's character and not the color of their skin that matters.   But also that they should celebrate the heritage that they have, the black people who have gone before them; while still respecting every person in this world as another human being neither greater nor lesser than they are.  We are all God's children.  Even little frogs that I want to name Naveen and Tiana.

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