This verdict makes me remember the many discussions we have about race in our household. As visible Latina in a Latino dominated neighborhood we think about bringing a child into the world with the baggage of moving around as a person of color and as a child of queer parents. Will our child be subject to the day to day racism? Will he or she be able to rely and trust the authoritities supposedly hired to protect and serve him/her. What does it mean to raise a Latino male in this city? Yes I am more worried about males than females because males are uncharted territory for Mikey and I having had no brothers and very few male cousins. And how will the addition of homophobia complicate matters?

And then I rethink our desire to have a child that is visibly a child of color. When we were on our donor hunt many moons qago, Mikey and I had a desire that the donor be Latino, Puerto Rican, and have very visible Latino characteristics (black hair, brown eyes, olive/brown skin). This desire I confess comes from a place of mild dislike for “White” features and a desire for the baby to look like Mikey. The last couple of times this was mentioned I had put most of the onu on Mikey bu I know it existed in me too. Maybe not to the extent of Mikey but it was there for me too.

I feel bad that that White dislike did flare up in me as I have a mother, sister and nephews with very European features and I worship the ground their little toddler feet walk on but yes I confess that I made a joke or two on how Sis found the one BabyDaddy that was White on the entire island of Puerto Rico. 

And all this is just a bunch of nonsense because all Latinos are a genetic stew and many brown parents have given birth to white, blue eyed babies even in my own family so I could easily be one of them but i still have the hope that I am not because I don’t want to be mistaken for my child’s nanny (which I was for my nephews here in NYC) and I want my child to be proud of that extra melanin from God.