Why I Started Blogging

Photo: Vectorportal

Why I Started Blogging

When I first started blogging, my hope was that my family would read this blog and understand how I feel about racism.  I hoped that they might realize why it’s an important issue to me and why I find so many “little” things offensive.  I started writing tips about how to deal with racism with my family in mind and expressing my feelings in detail so they could see where I was coming from.  As it turns out, my family really hasn’t been a part of this blog and I’m not sure how much they will read, or if they will ever realize just how hurt I have been by some of the things that have been said and done.

Instead this blog has turned into a place where I can vent and hopefully help others to vent too.   It’s been a tool that has helped me to connect with other bicultural and multicultural families who share my interests and concerns. Families who are raising biracial/bicultural/bilingual children and who need a place to turn to for support and understanding as I have. Through this blog I have found some really great bloggers and readers who share my feelings. I’ve found great content that has taught me a lot and helped me to understand some of the feelings that I’ve had about my bicultural life and the complications and blessings of relationships with family and friends on both sides of the line.

The new magazine that we’re (me and so many awesome contributors) working on, Multicultural Familia™, is another effort to reach out to others…people like my family and people like me.  For families like mine, who aren’t really ‘racist’, but hold a number of prejudices, I want them to understand what “race” really means.

I want them to understand that what makes us different isn’t something to be uncomfortable about or to distance ourselves from, but instead, it’s something that we can all appreciate and enjoy. I also want them to understand the hurt and anger that has become a part of the lives of so many who are affected by racism and realize that they can and should take an active role in diminishing the racism and prejudice that affects their family members and friends.  We can all take steps to remove the power that racism holds over American families by actively talking about racism, speaking out against it and understanding how it operates.

There are so many great resources out there and on this new blog/ezine I’m creating a directory of links that will hopefully shed some light on the great content floating around out there.  Not just about racism, but about other cultures and faiths, other viewpoints, other American families who we might feel distanced from.

I hope that everyone will feel welcomed in sharing their links and growing our directory so that families struggling with prejudice and racism from both sides of the line can find understanding.  We all need to learn together in order for racism to be outcast from America, and yes, I truly believe that can be done.  It’s likely that prejudice will continue…we can’t control what others believe, but we can stop ourselves and this country from discrediting POC (people of color) and legitimizing the systematic denial of their rights!  We CAN stop widespread job discrimination, disparities in healthcare and education, red-lining neighborhoods, de facto segregation and so much more. We can stop all these things because we have the power to make changes, but we HAVE to work TOGETHER.

© 2011 – 2012, Chantilly Patiño. All rights reserved.