More Outspoken Voices Episodes
Episode Transcript
Emily McGranachan:
Welcome to Outspoken Voices, a podcast from Family Equality that is by and for LGBTQ+ families. I’m Emily McGranachan, and I’m the Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations for Family Equality. I’m also a queer parent myself and the proud child of lesbian moms. I’m here with Dakota. Hey, Dakota!
Dakota Fine:
So glad to be back with you! By the way, I’m the Creative Director at Family Equality, and I am also a proud child of lesbian moms.
Emily McGranachan:
Woohoo!
Dakota Fine:
And I’m just so excited to share this podcast with the world. We went out to Texas and taped this lovely conversation that I am just so excited to get into.
Emily McGranachan:
I got to listen to this full conversation with these amazing parents who gathered with our CEO, Stacey, to talk about really navigating race in the Texas school system. And, it was just incredible. I really have to say to everyone listening, I’m so glad that you’re here because this is an episode that everyone needs to listen to. I think there are many people who will feel recognition in their stories and there are folks who can be accomplices in the fight for racial equity in schools and really learn and gain a lot from listening to these very real, very powerful advocates and activists. So, I’m really excited. Let’s listen and learn and honestly, I’m not kidding, get the tissues ready! And be inspired, together.
Stacey Stevenson, CEO:
“Suspect, no evidence.” These are words that a teacher used to describe my son when we asked her to fill out an ADHD evaluation form. Rather than answering a yes or no question, which was, “Has the child ever taken anything from your classroom?” She decided to write, “Suspect, no evidence.” When we escalate it to the administration and they asked her why she wrote those words, she said, “Well, he’s one of a few kids in a certain section of my room where erasers were missing. And I thought that it may be him.” This is not uncommon to folks who have children of color in the school system. And as Family Equality continues to advocate for LGBTQ+ families, we can’t forget the conversation around what our kids go through as we’re navigating the school systems, especially kids of color. So today I am joined by several parents and our wonderful facilitator, Luna.
Stacey Stevenson, CEO:
I am joined by Cheralyn Stevenson, my wife, who recently joined the ISD’s Leadership Committee so she can become a strong advocate for queer parents and especially parents who have kids of color in the school system. Next, we have Melanie Maine, who is an administrator, a teacher, and also a parent of kids of color. We also have Jackie Juarez who is a parent of a child of color. And next, we have Sonya Parker Good, who is a strong ally of the LGBTQ+ community and also has children in the school system of color. And next, we have Luna Malbroux who is our facilitator for today’s discussion. And I can’t be more excited to get started. Thank you all for coming.
Luna Malbroux:
Thank you, Stacy, for having us. I’m so excited to be here with all of you and to hear a little bit more about your experiences, your families, and like your hopes, right? I think, I think a lot of people do not understand what it’s like to be a queer parent [of] children of color and all the different things you have to navigate. And so I love that we’re here to have these conversations with each other and really talk about whether, whether we’re a supporter, you know, or whether we have children that are queer navigating the school system, also being children of color, it’s so complex. Right. So I just thank you all for being here and Stacy, thank you for your leadership with Family Equality. It’s great to have you. So let’s start by just hearing a little bit about your families and you describing, like what, what were your hopes for your children? Like what, what did you hope their educational experience would be like?
Cheralyn Stevenson:
So my children are Duke and London. And I guess I should say our children are Duke and London Stevenson. They’re her children whenever they act like her, though. My children, when they have some act, right? So they are our beautiful twin seven-year-old boys that we adopted. And we’re so proud of them, but we are also very fearful and we were fearful from the first moment we knew we were going to put them in school. We saw firsthand the struggle, even when they were three years old and a boy told one of my sons, “Ew, you’re kissing a boy!” When he saw him kissing my wife thinking because she had a bald head that, you know, that was a boy. They came home and it was, they were already talking to us about people asking them questions about having two moms. So we were very fearful, not hopeful, unfortunately.
Cheralyn Stevenson:
And what we did when the kids were—even before they went to elementary school—is we pulled them out of preschool and they had a full-time nanny because we wanted to really control that narrative and control the message that was being sent to them and that they were filled with self-love. And we felt that it was a little bit too soon to expect another school to be able to do that. So by the time that they did start kindergarten, we felt we had to we’re, we’re very big into education in our family. And we feel that that’s the way to success is that education. So we so the way we dealt with it is really knowing that there wouldn’t be representation for our kids in school. We knew that they would have an uphill battle. So Stacey and I had to make a concerted decision to say, we’re going to be present. We’re going to be loud. We’re going to be proud. They’re going to know who our name is. They’re going to know who our boys are. They’re going to know what we stand for and we’re going to advocate for them. So unfortunately I don’t necessarily come from a place of, “I was hopeful” going in. I feel like I was cautiously optimistic and we put everything in place to make sure that our kids could have the best experience and the experience that we wanted them to have.
Luna Malbroux:
Thank you so much for answering that and really telling us like all the things that you were holding. Jackie, what about you?
Jackie Juarez:
Yeah, that really resonates. My wife, Jennifer and I married 11 years ago. And really didn’t know that we wanted to have a family and expand our family. I think part of that was the fear of “What is that going to mean,” right? How are we going to achieve that? And so when the day finally came that we started that process—we ended at adoption and that process in and of itself was, you know, very emotional. And there wasn’t a lot of representation in our community of other parents that had also—other LGBTQ families that have adopted. So we were really kind of navigating that a little blind which is also kind of our experience with the school system because there really isn’t a lot of representation. In the preschool system, thankfully we landed on a preschool that was really welcoming and really loving and just took us in.
Jackie Juarez:
And, but I think like Cheralyn, we said the same thing. We’re going to be loud. We’re going to be proud. You’re going to know who we are. If there’s ever any shred of doubt that anything could be going in any direction, that’s not positive, we’re going to advocate for our son and we’re going to make sure that he feels proud of who he is and the family he comes from. And we’ve just been following that path. And it’s really been showing, we’ve been seeing the fruits of our labor—of that labor—in him. So, yeah.
Luna Malbroux:
And Melanie?
Melanie Maine:
I think I came at it from a different avenue because I have white privilege. And although I have lots of friends of color and have for a long time, much, much longer than I’ve had children. It’s different to hear about it from an adult perspective than to see it happen to your own children. Also because I’m in the school system. And I worked in a very diverse school system where people really loved kids and honored their culture. I hoped that that would be the case for my children, but having moved from one school system to another because of where we lived and the drive, I said, “Okay, well, we’ll go ahead and put our kids in school here.” my, my kids are all nonwhite. We have three children. The 15-year-old is Kaylee and she’s a cheerleader and that is a real sport.
Melanie Maine:
So we’ll not go on that. And she is Salvadorian, Mexican and white and could definitely pass as white. So we didn’t see it so much with her. My son that’s 11 is, is Mexican and he’s, he’s darker. And we’ve seen some things with him that we were a little shocked by. And then our youngest is eight and she’s half Black and half white. And the things we’ve experienced since adding her to our family have even been very different than what we experienced with them. As far as things that people will even say like, “Well, where, where did you get them?” You know, or, or “Where did they come from?” Or, you know, things like that. And it’s like, “Seriously?” You know and also, you know, being in a school that, I mean, it’s diverse for the area we live in.
Melanie Maine:
It’s the most diverse school, but, but that’s still kind of laughable considering. But really like you guys said being loud because I work in that school system, I’ve really handpicked a lot of teachers because I want my children to have teachers that look like them because my wife and I are both white and I need my kids to have examples of color. And, and so I’ve, I’ve hand-picked teachers. And, and then I’ve had to, to speak up even in my own school system, when a principal was outwardly racist and, and at a kindergarten Roundup, she hugged all the white children and, and my half African-American daughter who had never known the label for racism said “Why’d she just only hug the white kids, mommy?” before I could answer a Black man said, “Because she’s a racist, baby.” So then I said, “Oh, you know…” So we explained, you know, what a racist was. And luckily she got demoted, but it took some time because nobody was listening to the Black parents. And so it took me saying, “No, I’ve witnessed it.” Then they’re like, “Oh, you witnessed it?” Like that meant more, which is not the way it should be. And it, and it scares me for my kids because I know that the people are going to discount things they say because they’re not white.
Luna Malbroux:
And there’s so much to unpack with what all y’all are saying. So I’m going to, I have a lot of follow-up questions, but I definitely want to hear from you, Sonya, about your experience.
Sonya Parker Goode:
I have probably been a mom longer than everyone up here. I have a 33-year-old daughter and I have two stepdaughters in our blended family. Now, one 18 Yasmin who just went to college this fall and Jasmine who is 17 and Brittany, of course who’s 33. So in my experience, you know, I would hate to, to think that not much has changed, but that’s unfortunately what I’ve seen raising my daughter, you know, she was born in ’88, so pretty much in the nineties. She was a nineties baby and raising her during that time, I find that I still have the same fears today for my kid that I had when Brittany was coming up in school. Even though we also lived in a predominantly white school district living in Richardson and her growing up at Richardson school district, there was always this I don’t know this, this desire to fit in.
Sonya Parker Goode:
And I always thought if, if she could just fit in, if, if she would just be a part of, you know, the crowd. And I think about what we go through as parents when we’re talking about socializing our kids. And I think, you know, what does it mean to socialize? You know, and I think I heard someone say once that to socialize means that you’re becoming suitable for society. And when I hear someone say you’re being—you’re made to be suitable for society, what I think about is: We’re going through all of this trouble to socialize our kids so that they’re suitable for society, but I wonder about the society and if the society is suitable for our kids. And so now that I have a, you know, an extended family and, you know, I love, you know, my family now consists of my sister who is LGBTQ and she and her wife, you know, I have a nephew now who’s four years old and, you know, he’s in school and going to school, being a biracial, you know, kid with two moms, I worry about him a lot, you know, in school. He’s in school and, you know, the largest school district here in Texas, which is D I S D and, you know, unfortunately that’s going to bring a lot of, you know, in my opinion, trouble for him.
Sonya Parker Goode:
And so I do worry about that. And it’s, you know, for the same reasons that I worried about, you know, my girls. Our youngest had a lot of mental health issues when she was coming through school. And so always being labeled as the troublemaker—not really being looked at as a kid with mental health issues, but being looked at as the kid that was making trouble. And what we know is that you know, young, Black girls are three times as likely to be kicked out of school, you know, thrown in, you know, into jail/juvenile justice systems. You know, we know that those statistics are out there. So for me, that was something that my husband and I were always afraid of. It’s like, “What next?” You know, will we get the phone call where the next thing is, she’s in a juvenile detention center. So it’s just been, you know, a struggle, but you know, being a mom, it’s, it’s all a struggle, right. And so it’s a struggle. It’s really hard, but yeah.
Luna Malbroux:
I hear that. And, you know, there’s something that you said that I feel like hit everybody when you’re like, “[I] wonder if society is suitable for our kids.” And it made me think of the question that I had for all of you around everything that you were weighing when you were deciding to choose what school, you know, to send your children to. And Cheralyn, I know you talked about that a little bit, but if like, all you can think of…can [you] kind of share about what was that experience like when you were wondering, like, “Is this a suitable place?” Like, what were some of the concerns that you had that maybe someone who doesn’t have all, you know, the, all the identities you have and, you know, the families that you have, what would…what, what would they might need to know about everything that you’re holding when you’re making that decision of like, “Where do I send my kids to school?”
Sonya Parker Goode:
And can I just say, you know, very quickly, because I—there was no decision to be made with my kids. I mean, our kids went to public school and that was it, you know? So, we didn’t make a decision. So there was, you know, having to grapple with the fact like we live in Garland and if you don’t, if you…you have to know Garland, you have to live in Garland to know Garland and to know the history of prejudice, racist behavior that has been in that city for all the years that, you know, it’s been around. So to send them to Garland school district, it was like, you know, taking a breath every day, you know, and things have happened just over the course of them being in school. I remember one of the teachers my daughter, she played volleyball—the youngest—she played volleyball.
Sonya Parker Goode:
She had on those long volleyball socks, and she went into practice one morning. And you know, of course, she thought she was cute. She went and picked out her favorite little socks. And she walked in and her white volleyball coach looked at her and said to her, “You must think you’re special.” And, you know, Jasmine, she said, “Well, as a matter of fact, I do.” Because again, you talk about, you know, being in certain settings, like I had always taught them: You have a voice. You speak up for yourself. As long as you’re being respectful, you can speak up and you can say certain things. So you always just, you know, you want so much, you know, for your children. No matter if they’re, you know, a, a child of color or if they are a child with parents of the same sex, you just want so much for your kids. And when you know that there’s a big, old, ugly, cruel world out there, that’s damning them before they even get a chance to come up and be who they want to be, just because of the color of their skin or who their parents are. That’s the part of it for me that really just, just gets to my heart and my soul. So, yeah.
Cheralyn Stevenson:
We started off with being intentional about where kids go to school, even though we are, you know, we could certainly send them to public school here in our local community. And we live in a top-rated school district. We still—even though we didn’t have time for this—we’re commuting, you know, an hour round trip every day to drop the kids off and pick them up at a more diverse school because of, you know, I guess back to the point of not necessarily having that hope. We just expected that it would be a bad experience for them, if we didn’t choose a school that represented who they were had, teachers that look like them and that they would continue—that our kids just wouldn’t get lost. So we did that for the year and then, you know, COVID hit and that all just went crazy.
Cheralyn Stevenson:
They’re in the local school now and they—and it’s predominantly white. And the unfortunate thing about the position that Stacey and I find ourselves in is we have to almost choose. Do you want the neighborhood that you love and the area that you love, or do you want the school that you love? Like, I feel like you’re not able to have both. Stacey and I are very suburbia. Like even before kids, before we ever, like, when we were dating, everything, there was never a time we lived downtown. We’re not city people. I’m from the country and Stacey’s definitely from the country—like rattlesnake races and all. We have always lived in the suburbs and that’s where we want to live. But with that, and especially in Texas, with that comes a lot of interesting people. Like we still have a neighbor that has, “You know Trump won” out to this day, his yard. My parents had to make that decision of, “Do we put both of our kids in private school, in an area that’s not necessarily representative of where they wanted to raise us/not necessarily safe, or do we buy a home in another neighborhood that has a public school system that we can get in.”
Cheralyn Stevenson:
So it was kind of choosing that. And I feel like Stacey and I even really ended up doing that as well. And so my parents moved us, they moved us there, and I struggled. I struggled. I was in an all-white school and I had no identity. It was taken from me. I was told all the time about, you know, you’re pretty for a Black girl. You know, you’re a cool Black girl. I like you because you’re different than them. So it was hard for me personally. And that was one of the reasons that pushed me to wanting to do this hour round trip commute every day, because I wanted my kids to have identity, to have culture, to have representation. And those things aren’t found here. So now we, you know, as you guys have seen who have been in our house, I mean, it’s pretty, Blackety Black, Black. You know, you can’t walk to two feet without like, you know, some Black role model.
Luna Malbroux:
I’m really enjoying this conversation and I’m hearing so much about, you know, everything that you’ve been hoping for and some things that kind of surprised you along the way. So I want to, I want to start with you Melanie, cause you kind of hinted at this a little bit earlier. You know, you, what’s your role, first of all, in the school system and also like what were some things that really surprised you whether that was from your experience in the school system before, or just being a parent of children of color. What were some things that you were not prepared to kind of experience?
Melanie Maine:
I kind of alluded to this earlier that when—I was a teacher and I was a campus counselor in a very diverse area. And then I moved to a very white middle-class area as a high school intervention counselor. And, and just being there, I think I started to have more fear for my kids because I would hear things in the teacher’s lounge. Because I show up white, people will say crazy things. And it was about my second or third week at the high school. And I hired two teachers saying, you know, “I’m so glad my third period’s over.” And somebody said, “Well, why, why?” “Well, that’s where I have all those Black kids, you know, they never will be quiet.” And so I said, “What happened last time they were quiet?” And then I just, you know, I told him what I thought about this.
Melanie Maine:
And then I looked at their badge. I said, “Any kid tells me you’re racist, I’m going to know because I see, I see you.” and so I really cried working there for about the first six weeks. I kept going home every day and telling my wife I’m gonna quit. She was like, “You gotta have this job! You’re not going to quit.” And she said, you know, “Pray about it. Figure out why God put you there.” And I think that that’s why I’m there because I think because I can show up white that I’m able to make changes that when other people won’t listen. And my, my kids do not go to the same feeder pattern I do in my school district. And every year somebody says, well, why aren’t you moving your kids to this feeder? And I said, cause I, they have two moms and I need them to see people that look like them too.
Melanie Maine:
And in a school of 2,500, we had 10 Black educators last year. We’re now down to three. On tape, I won’t get into what I think that’s about, but it’s very sad to me. And I’ve requested teachers based on their color and you know, we’re not supposed to request teachers and we had this one principal that’s a real stickler about it—the racist one ended up losing her job. But I wrote in there, no, I need my child to have this African-American teacher because I need my child to see people of color in their world, you know? And, and so she was like, well, this is the strangest request I’ve ever had. And I thought, well, yeah, ’cause you’re white. That’s why. You know, but and I think it, it surprises me too, that they downplay things that kids are able to do because of their color.
Melanie Maine:
When you start looking at advanced courses or honors courses or college programs um. We had never had an HBCU night in my district. In fact, I talked to the counselors—one who had been a counselor for 22 years—and I said, “Why are the HBCUs not come to the college fair?” And she said, “Well, tell me what that is and I’ll find out.” 22 years. So then she said, “Well, we don’t have a lot of Black children here. So that’s why I didn’t know.” I said, “If you have one Black child here, you should know.” so I brought an HBCU fair. And then they said, “Well, can’t y’all put it together?” I said, “No, we don’t want to be with y’all because—” I said, “Y’all, didn’t want them with them.” And they’re like, “You know, you’re white. Right?” And I said, “Yeah, sometimes I forget.”
Melanie Maine:
But I said, you know, but so I was able to have the HBCU night. We had 22 colleges represented. I had alumni come. We also did the fraternity and sorority thing, which is such a bigger deal. When, especially, you know, I told the kids, even if you’re going to go to a predominantly white institution, then you still need to know what sororities and fraternities are. So you can find people that you fit with. And it was, it was amazing. And we have one custodian that’s African-American. He said, “Ms. Maine, where you got all these Black people from?” I said, well, cause at first I just wanted to do it at my school. But then I said, well, that’s not fair to the other schools and districts. So we invited everyone. And I was, I was told eventually by the superintendent that, “Well, from now on, we need to really merge it because we don’t want to seem like that we’re being discriminatory.” I said, “Oh, okay. We’re worried. We’re worried now. Okay. I see that.” And so so things like that really have made a difference.
Luna Malbroux:
Thank you. And honestly, you’re making a difference because we need, you know—I’ll just say like, you know, you, we, we say the word allies, but I like the word accomplice because when you’re an accomplice, you know, you’re in it. And you’re not just being like, I’m rooting for you. You’re like, I’m taking notes. I’m taking names. I’m reporting. I’m behind the scenes. I see what’s happening. But yeah. So—
Cheralyn Stevenson:
So one of the cool things was Melanie reached out to me about that HBCU night to ask about people that could support and be part of it. And my previous colleague’s husband is the police chief of a predominantly black city here in Texas and Duncanville. And so he was a—
Melanie Maine:
Oh, I forgot! He came in and did the guest speaking.
Cheralyn Stevenson:
Yeah, so he did a guest speaking opportunity. So it’s so beautiful, like the synergy and the sisterhood, and we’re so connected with wanting that representation for each other. And so I was so excited when Melanie reached out, I was like, hell yeah, I know someone! You know, and I’m glad that she was able to make that happen.
Melanie Maine:
After the guest speaking event, I said, okay. And I’d been talking to some other teachers that are people of color. And then also just white teachers that are woke. Cause we gotta have those because we barely got any people of color. And you know, and I said, “Y’all, I really want to take a picture of just all, all the Black students with him.” And they said, “We’re going to get in trouble.” I said, “Well, better forgiveness. Right.” So at the end I said, “Okay, I need all the Black kids to line up at these bleachers.” And my principal was like, “Dear God, what’s going on.” You know? And so I was, you know, and they’re all like, “Oh we gotta get up there, Ms. Maine’s like yelling on the mic.” And so we got a picture with all the other Black students.
Melanie Maine:
And that’s one of my favorite pictures because I, you know, I have that in my office and I, I just, you know, when I want to quit, I remind myself, you know, “These kids need me.” The same thing for the LGBT kids at our schools, you know, they’re discriminated as you know, as well. But, but yeah, it’s, it’s different. It’s different when you come at it from a parent like I can be an activist all day or an accomplice at my school, but when you go as a parent, you know, you see how they kind of look at you and, you know, and, and they always say, “Oh, that’s so nice that you adopted these children.” And I wonder if they’d say that if they were white. You know, I feel like that it’s more like, “Oh, these poor little minority children.” And I’m like, no, they blessed me.
Melanie Maine:
Like, you know, so you know, and people have a lot of thoughts about, you know, trans racial adoption and things like that. And I don’t think everybody should do it. Cause I, I know too many people that, that have done it and I don’t know if they went into it understanding, but you don’t get to adopt kids that are not white if you’re not going to fight the fight. And you, you know, and you’ve got to have friends of color cause that’s not fair to them, you know? So, so, but you know, so,
Luna Malbroux:
Well, Jackie, I know you had your own experiences that surprised you too. So if you want to kind of break that down.
Jackie Juarez:
Yeah. So, you know my wife and I, we, I was laughing when you said that you guys were, are not city girls because Jennifer and I are city girls. And I mean, we were the downtown loft, like the living in the gayborhood. City girls. So when we adopted our baby, it was integrating him into our life, finding a preschool that was, you know, we would drive the hour-long drive to find a preschool that was the right fit. That was really diverse. That really helped, was welcoming and loving. Then when it came time for, you know, to change preschools because we decided to leave downtown and moved to the burbs—just on the edge, just on the edge of the city. We have a swimming pool now and a big yard and a really great house and we love our neighborhood.
Jackie Juarez:
And so it was all for the right reasons. And we liked the school district. We didn’t love it. It’s not as great as here, but we just knew we wanted to still be a little closer into the city. I worked in one of them, I worked for Parkland. So, you know, being downtown is, is important. So when we made that choice, we started looking at preschools in the area and, you know, it was really interesting because COVID hit and that really shifted kind of what we were going to make a choice. And we wanted a school that was going to be diverse, but then it was like, now we want a school that’s going to be not only diverse but have our child’s health, you know, at the forefront. So when we started looking at the neighborhood that we were in and what we were—the choice we were making, there was no mask mandate.
Jackie Juarez:
There was nothing. So we said, okay, back to the drawing board. And it just so happened that our dentist, our family dentist is gay and he has two children. And he has his children in a Catholic school. And my wife had been tugging on me. “I really want him to go to Catholic school—the academic programs. And I really think he’ll get a robust academic experience.” And my thought was, I was raised Catholic. I remember how the Catholics think about us gays. And I’m not really sure I was making some generalizations based on my experience. And so we talked to our friends, our dentist, and just said, look, you’re gay. You’re an out, gay man. And you have children. What is your experience like? And it was so positive. He just told us about everything positive. And so I thought, okay, let’s talk with them.
Jackie Juarez:
And we met with the preschool director and she was loving and welcoming. And so kind. I thought, okay, I’m going to need to walk back my fears and really give this a shot. And so, we started him at pre-K 4 there, and it was just so positive. He was really the only Black child in his classroom. A lot of Latino kids, a lot of white kids predominantly, but he was the only Black child. So I thought, “Okay, I remember that experience.” I was the only Hispanic kid in the room full of white kids growing up. And so what is that going to be like for him? But we just were so welcomed and that really surprised me at how welcomed and loving people were. And now that he’s in a developmental kindergarten program and his—it’s very active, very rambunctious—we’ve come across a couple of moments where I’ve questioned the discipline that was being used. And maybe if he was being singled out, we’ve addressed it right away and it was handled right away. And so, I mean, I think that’s the most surprising is that it’s not what I thought it was going to be. My fears really were holding me back from making a decision that I think has been the right decision for him. So.
Luna Malbroux:
Well, I love hearing about a beautiful surprise. That is, that is so great to hear. And especially like hearing that you had the experience of wondering if like, oh, is my, is my baby being singled out? Like, what is this about? And that being squashed right. Cheralyn, I know that it was a different experience for you and like, thinking about, you know, you and Stacey and your experience, you know, being lesbian moms, how has that affected your children? Like what, what surprised you about that? Were there, are there any incidents you can think of that, speak to that?
Cheralyn Stevenson:
Absolutely. Many actually, but even if I go back to what my wife said, um, at the front of this, which is when she said “Suspect no evidence.” I would say that was my biggest surprise is the form that she’s talking about. We were having our kid evaluated for having ADHD. It’s very simple. There’s, you know, like, “Does your—does this child speak out of turn? Does this child get up a lot in class?” Like, very simple. And it’s you rate them zero through four on each one. So, and that’s it, there’s no room to write anything else, nothing. So this teacher, instead of even just following the instructions—and this is something that was sent to every one of the kids’ teacher—and so instead of her following the instructions and just circling 0 1, 2, 3 or four, she decides on the one question out of 50 that says, if they’ve ever taken anything, she writes, “Suspect, no evidence.”
Cheralyn Stevenson:
And so when we talk about these surprises and these beautiful surprises, I will tell you one thing. Obviously, Stacey and I were very taken aback by that because I feel that that’s the mantra of Black men. Suspect, no evidence. And in that moment I cried.
Jackie Juarez:
I would too.
Cheralyn Stevenson:
And I talked to the principal and I cried again on the phone with her. And the principal is actually Latina. And she talked to me and I appreciate it. So the beautiful moment in that, that was unexpected is I appreciated her vulnerability with me in that moment of “This is not right. And I am very upset about this and I am bothered and this will not happen at my school. And God placed me here for a reason. And I believe it.” So, it was a moment and it was a teachable moment. And I don’t expect that all of these schools come ready-made, but whenever I do bring something up, whenever my wife does, we’re so involved in the kids’ education and that’s the key.
Cheralyn Stevenson:
So even with triumph and we—and I think that’s the hardest pill to swallow for me is to know this isn’t the end. We don’t have that privilege. We are going to deal with this. My kids, unfortunately, are going to have to deal with this. They’ve already dealt with it. They’ve already had to be advocates for our family, even at the tender age of six and seven years old. I didn’t want them to have to be advocates at this age, but they’ve had to be. So it’s still a beautiful moment to see that we’re part of growing this society to make it better for my future grandkids.
Luna Malbroux:
I love that.
Jackie Juarez:
Can I just add that I think—cause what you just said, I think, really hit home. And this question is so great because it’s something that, you know, I thought about like, “Why did we choose this school? Why did we choose this neighborhood?” And I think our experience has been so interesting because predominantly our, my child’s school is mostly white. Mostly heterosexual parents. But we’ve, I’ve walked into moments in his aftercare program where a little three-year-old girl was asking—I mean, she just was so innocently asking—him about the skin color of his mommy. She said, “Is your mommy the same color as you?” and I walked in and—he’s African-American. I’m Latino, but people think that I’m mixed or something. And so when they saw me, you know, we started talking about skin color and then started talking about parents and she said, “Mommy and daddy.” And I said, “No Kayden has two mommies.” And it was such an interesting conversation. And so I thought, this is why we’re here. We’re here to enlighten these children, that they have a really beautiful kid that they love hanging out with. And he comes from a family that doesn’t look like theirs and wow, what a blessing.
Cheralyn Stevenson:
And you’re catching them right at the right time. We had that same moment with our kids when they were three. And they were like, “Do you really have—Is it really two moms?” And I said, “Yeah, isn’t that cool?” And the little girl said, “Yeah, I wish I had five mommies.” So they’re still innocent. And so it’s a great teachable moment and it’s great to let our kids know. We had our Duke who is the shy one. He’s on the spectrum. And he, the teacher said something a few weeks ago when she let us know, “Hey, you know, I just wanted to let you know about this moment that Duke had in class today. I mentioned something about your mom and dad at home and Duke who was my really super shy sit-in-the-back class, not wanting to talk to anyone kid is like, excuse me, I have two mommies.” So she sent me that message and I just lost it. I was like, you want a pizza party?
Luna Malbroux:
I love it. So, so we’ve talked about, you know, some struggles, some resilient, beautiful moments that, you know, you’ve experienced, but I’m really curious if you can kind of break down and explain to folks like, what is that day to day life experience like, you know, either being a queer parent of a child of color or just being a parent of children of color? Like what is that day-to-day like experience—I’m sure for each of you it’s different and in some ways it may be similar, but I’d love to just hear from all of you on that.
Sonya Parker Goode:
Okay. Well, I’ll start because for me, I think raising three beautiful Black, strong, headstrong young women you know, every day was like I said, it was a challenge. It really was a challenge to send them out into the world, wanting them to have a voice and wanting them to have confidence and to have that resilience. And still, like I said before, be able to fit in, in our society and knowing that—or actually feeling like—Black people really don’t fit in. So it was like the struggle, always pushing them to fit somewhere that they never really fit. And that was a huge struggle for me. And then when our youngest daughter I guess people still say came out, you know, and said that she liked girls. You know, my husband is 11 years older than I am.
Sonya Parker Goode:
And so he is a Black man born in ’59. You know, like, you know, and even though he’s a huge ally and a supporter, just like I am, he loves, you know, every person in my family, this was his daughter. Right. And so still he was like, “Really?” Yeah, exactly. My gay sister, my gay uncles…He loved gay everybody! Like everybody, you know. But this was his daughter, you know? And so he, he never said anything, but you could feel the angst, you could feel the—and I remember talking to him about it and I remember him saying, you know, it’s one thing for her to be gay, but it’s a whole ‘nother thing for her to be Black and gay. Like that was a whole ‘nother set of problems that you already thinking about—think about your child being Black in this world, but now being Black and being a lesbian. You don’t know, it’s almost like how much more, what else can she handle?
Sonya Parker Goode:
So it was, it was a struggle. It was, it was really, it’s been difficult. It’s been fearful, you know,, to watch everything that has happened, especially over the pandemic from George Floyd to, you know, the young lady, Ariana—what’s her name that was shot in her, you know? It’s, it’s just been, you just, you’re so fearful of what can happen to your children. And like I said, what are our youngest having mental health issues and, and self-harming and suicidal ideation and all of that, you just worry so much about will—will she overcome these things? Will, will life get better for her? You know I’m happy that some days they are, you know. The days are getting better. I’m very happy about that. But some days she still struggles. And even that alone causes us because she’s a Black female, you know. This black female who already, like, we already carry this image of angry Black woman.
Sonya Parker Goode:
We are the ones that are strong and carrying the charge. And so now she’s, she has all of these big opinions and big ideas and big thoughts, and she doesn’t always know how to present them well, because she’s very, you know, emotional but very you know, just dealing with a lot of her own traumas and her own struggles and things that happened early on in her childhood. And so I just worry about her all the time, like where’s this going? You know? And so just having to constantly talk, I mean, y’all we’re parents like this stuff doesn’t end. You know, like I said, I have a 33-year-old and I’ve always been on the phone talking to her, you know? Because it doesn’t end. You think parenting is—it is for a moment in time, but the feelings, they never go away. You never stopped worrying. You never stopped wondering. You never stopped wishing. And I, I just share that with y’all. It never goes away.
Luna Malbroux:
I’m seeing some big head nods.
Jackie Juarez:
That’s exactly. I mean, that’s the first thing when you ask that question, the first thing that came to mind was anxiety and worry. I think it’s this constant feeling of “What’s he going to walk into today? Is he going to be labeled the loud, bad kid? Is he going to be labeled, you know, the busy kid?” Cause he is busy. And I don’t want him—.
Cheralyn Stevenson:
The white kids are too.
Jackie Juarez:
That’s right. That’s right. And that’s, that’s the interesting part is just when it’s him and always trying to navigate and, and take my own temperature. Am I overreacting? Am I being—Am I making false accusations? Or am I assuming they’re coming from a bad place? You know, that part in me. So I think it is a constant worry. It’s knowing that I’m going to worry about him for the rest of my life, because he’s going to navigate this world without me next to him at some point.
Jackie Juarez:
And I want to make sure he has the tools, the strength, the words, the restraint, the ability to advocate for himself. And you know, he’s, he’s a strong kid and he’s a proud kid. He’s a happy boy. But he’s also impulsive and you know, he is loud and he’s funny and rambunctious. And so wanting to help him learn how to hone all of that, how to bring it in and to use his, his powers for good, you know. So I’m constantly, I think that really resonated with me: worry.
Sonya Parker Goode:
Good. And I, and I will say to that when you said about overreacting, I mean if you’re a parent with an African-American or a child of color period. Overreact. It’s necessary. It’s necessary. Right.
Melanie Maine:
Thanks, Sonya. That’s what worries me is because I really try to always, when something happens, of course, our natural instinct is we want to protect our kids and we want to make it better. But I think you know, having grown up white and still having white privilege, I have to always think, okay, could this be racially motivated? And I have to look at it from that lens. And I have to make sure that I, that I remember that. And or it could this be because they have two moms, you know? And you know, it’s, it’s very, it’s, it’s—I think that’s a scary part for me because I do. I worry about my kids all the time and I worry I’m gonna miss it, you know? And so I always have to say, okay, let me reflect on this. Could this be, you know, this?
Melanie Maine:
And so I, I do, I rely on my, my sisters and I, and I, and I call, I call, you know, my Black sisters and I say, “Okay, this is what happened. What am I missing? Am I missing anything?” You know? And because I think you’re right. Like we have to look at things so differently and understand, and it’s the same thing. I mean, my, my eight-year-old Kinsley, she is, she is full of energy, as I say. And but I don’t want to break her spirit because I it’s what makes her who she is. And you know, and so finding those teachers that are spirited too that seems to be a good, good match. Or my eight-year-old son, he struggles a lot with the—with the race thing. And you know, being Mexican, he’s never cared that he has two moms, but he really hates that we’re white, which really, in turn, means he hates that he’s not.
Melanie Maine:
And so we’ve had to work a lot and really make sure that we embrace the culture. And we talk about different holidays. And we talk about cultural events and soul food and the struggle and talk about, you know heroes of all colors and all, you know, genders and sexual orientations and make sure that they feel that. But I think that that’s my fear is the under-reacting, you know, and so many of our friends and probably more associates (I am probably not too close to people that feel this way), but they’ll say, “Oh, well, well, you know, this happens to all kids.” And it’s like, yeah, you know—”Well all kids struggle.” Yeah. But all kids don’t show up as a person of color and the struggle’s different, you know? And so just trying to make sure, I always remember that.
Cheralyn Stevenson:
What has me emotional is that my kids’ innocence is lost. They don’t get to just exist, and they don’t know why mommy and mama tell them they can’t just go run outside by themselves and play with all the neighborhood kids who don’t look like them.
Cheralyn Stevenson:
But my wife and I have an extraordinary responsibility to make sure that they aren’t put into a category of a predator because they have lesbian moms or a predator because they’re Black men with a white girl. So we have to—every time that they come home and they say, you know, “Becky Lou is my girlfriend.” No, she’s not! What’s a girlfriend? No, she’s just a friend. There’s no difference. And we take that innocence from our children. And I’m emotional. And I yearn and I cry and I wish that my kids had the innocence and the privilege of being able to just play with kids. And they can’t. And my wife and I have to remind them every day, you know? And if they even get in a little bit of trouble at school, we’re on them as if they just punched a kid in the face.
Cheralyn Stevenson:
Right. Because we don’t get to make those mistakes. Because we’re judged so harshly in the Black community. Because it doesn’t—like one kid can go run around the school doing like, “Oooooh!” But if our kid does it, they’re suspended. It’s that reality of knowing that. The thing that I talked to my wife about, like when we have pillow talk is: sometimes I feel regret that we brought them into this situation, knowing that it was going to be an impossible situation for them. But we’re willing to, we’re willing to uplift them and give them all the tools that we can, but we can’t promise that they won’t have a gun pulled out on them. There’s not one Black man in my family that hasn’t. We can’t promise that they’re not going to be called a derogatory statement. We can’t promise that they can willingly go have a play date with friends.
Cheralyn Stevenson:
And, and so I mourn my kids’ childhood, honestly. Because I can’t give them that childhood because when you know better, you do better. And I know better, and I know what our community has experienced. And I just can’t allow my kids to just be free Black men. Because they’re not.
Luna Malbroux:
I feel that. You know, I’m not a parent. So I don’t feel that in the same way that you do. But I think this is why Family Equality does the work that it does and why these kinds of conversations are so important. And I really appreciate all of you for sharing because people don’t know. And we have to illuminate this. You know, we have to illuminate everything—all the fear that you all share, that you hold, right. And we have to illuminate that. So the hopes that you have can be realized.
Melanie Maine:
And I think that is so much why we have to live our authentic lives. And why we have to move into neighborhoods like this one. And why we have to, you know, have our children of color involved in different things. So, and being out lesbians you know, not Sonya, but the rest of us—but you know, I think that that’s another reason we have to live authentically. So people see that it’s okay. And that we’re just the same people. And we want the same, yeah. Out here in Texas! Out here in the suburbs of Texas.
Jackie Juarez:
Growing up in the suburbs of Texas what you said really hits home because being a child of color in a predominantly white neighborhood growing up with no gay family insight. I never saw that. Now raising our child as an out lesbian family, and already, before we moved into the neighborhood, we were informed that somebody told one of our neighbors to “Be careful! Watch out for those lesbians that are moving into that house. You don’t know what they’re going to do.” And we all laughed because we’re like, what are we going to do? Are we going to lesbian you to death? I guess so. I mean, I didn’t get my toaster oven last year for the people that I, you know, turned, but now I’m really looking forward to it. So it was just so funny. Because it brought conversations that I think we weren’t expecting to have right away moving in, we’ve gained more allies doing that. And we’ve gained more spokespeople for our son that have his back that are right there defending him. So that’s been really nice.
Sonya Parker Goode:
And isn’t it interesting that you had those, “Oh, be careful of those gays!” Because that’s what Black and brown people have been getting forever. Right, right. Exactly. “Be careful of the neighborhood, it’s going down.”
Jackie Juarez:
It’s going down! And that’s exactly what that sentiment was. It’s changing. It’s changing.
Sonya Parker Goode:
Yeah. It’s changing.
Jackie Juarez:
Well, yeah. Change is good.
Sonya Parker Goode:
Yes.
Cheralyn Stevenson:
[I Just think it’s important to] appreciate and own and be outspoken about where you live. So we’re, we’re here. . And we’re here, you know, I started a mom’s group that had over 3,000 moms in my mom’s group and they know about us. And Stacy and I and my twins were—our twins—were just on the cover of the local magazine. And we are here and we’re not hiding. And we show up and we say who we are. And we’re vocal, you know, when it’s the July 4th celebration, it’s like, excuse me, please. Don’t put those flags in my yard. We celebrate June 19th here. You know, that was when we were free. And so we’re outspoken. We’re loud. We’re proud, and we’re showing up. And I think that’s just the most important thing. And that’s what I encourage so many people to do because if they can see it, they can believe it. And so we have to be part of that change. And so I encourage so many people to make sure that they speak up, speak out and be part of that change. Yeah.
Stacey Stevenson, CEO:
I’m just overwhelmed by the discussion and by what I heard from everyone. —some themes that I know that I heard was the resilience within our community. . But I also love that I heard the joy as well—lots of joy within these stories. And I think one thing is clear: it’s going to take some time to fix all of these issues that we’ve discussed today. And it is definitely a challenge to navigate the school system, whether you’re a queer parent, whether you’re a parent with a child of color, it’s a difficult road now. And what I’m proud about is the work that Family Equality is doing. And the reason that we do have to protect our kids is because they are the advocates of the future. And someday, they will be advocating for us. And someday, they will be sitting on this couch and talking about the same things—maybe different things. Let’s hope, let’s hope for the future, that they’ll be talking about different things. But one thing is for sure that they are the advocates of the future and we need to protect them at all costs. So thank you everyone for joining and thank you for all= of my guests. Cheralyn Stevenson, Melanie Maine, Jackie Jaurez, Sonya Parker Goode, and our awesome facilitator, Luna Malbroux. Thank you everybody.
Emily McGranachan:
Thanks for listening. You know, we’ve been doing topics for family conversation at the end of episodes, but these panelists just really sparked so many ideas themselves. So, I’ll just leave us with one topic to kind of take with us and maybe have in the car or around the dinner table as a family today. It is: When you experience or notice discrimination in school, based on race or being in an LGBTQ+ family or gender or another identity, who can you talk to? What can you do? And, what support do you need from trusted adults?
Well, all, thank you again for listening to this incredible conversation. You can connect with Family Equality at familyequality.org. And you can find us on social media @familyequality on Facebook and Instagram and @Family_Equality on Twitter.