W hen I’d adopted Brookti, I’d expected freaky racial and class encounters, both subtle and in your face. I thought I knew the most common ones to expect. Yet I hadn’t experienced how it wears you down day-to-day or how intricate the race and class hierarchies on both sides are. Nor had I imagined how protective of Brookti I would be. I’d known I would be fierce, but not downright vitriolic. Until I had Brookti, I’d avoided confrontation like the plague; I didn’t even know I had a temper. To this day I am loathe to engage in a genuine verbal confrontation; instead my anger and frustration eats away at me in a manner that is admittedly unpsychologically correct. But when your child is maligned or judged or treated differently for no good reason on a regular basis, it is very difficult to practice anger management skills. In fact, it is very difficult not to go ape on a regular basis.

There are those, the majority of whom are white, who suggest that I seem disproportionately angry and bitter when I carry on over these incidents or seemingly less significant incidents. Well, I am angry and bitter. No doubt some of my outrage is due to the loss of Caucasian sense of entitlement (often subconscious, yet certainly hard-wired) when, by maternal proxy, I’d become a quasi-member of the other team (or more likely, because I’d simply become a member of a two-toned team). The loss of snow white privilege that includes the right to walk down the street obliviously, the precious right to be just one of the crowd, in most crowds, that is. Pre-Brookti, I’d felt relatively anonymous as a white person walking down the street in Tribeca, my home of over 25 years. Walking together, I often felt like the proverbial deer in the headlights. After three years, I was so sick of the public scrutiny, sometimes subtle, sometimes not, which included non-verbal assumptions — from relatively innocent stares to not-so-innocent sneers — from black, brown and white people, all ethnicities included, made about White Mama and her black daughter and the purposefully not-at-all subtle verbal inquiries based on cockamanie assumptions. Even when the scrutiny is innocent, it’s intrusive.

Tribeca has become one of the wealthiest whitest neighborhoods in New York City. Talk about sense of entitlement; Tribeca residents reek of white power! Not all of them: there are the dwindling group of neighborhood relics who have lived here for twenty, thirty years — artists, writers or other social misfits — most of whom are hanging on to obscenely cheap rental tenement lofts by the skin of their teeth or hiding out in rustic bargain-basement lofts they bought in the 70s or 80s (if they haven’t had to sell them to be able to afford the exorbitant cost of living here in never-never land). If I could afford to move, I would, but, as it happens, I too am one of the social misfits, having been camped out for thirty-some years in one of the aforementioned cheap rental tenements lofts.

When Brookti first arrived, I’d get a kick out of telling the white mothers in Tribeca that Brookti’s uncle was a jazz musician and her female cousin was a college basketball player. They’d usually murmur something appropriate in response, but I could see the ‘what’s wrong with this picture’ confusion in their faces. If they knew she was adopted, they were thinking we must be in unusually close contact with Brookti’s birth family. If they knew she was adopted from Ethiopia, they were wondering, do they have jazz and basketball in Ethiopia? It never occurred to them that Brookti’s uncle, my white Jewish brother was the jazz musician and Brookti’s cousin, of the same ilk (with some Catholicism in the mix) was the basketball player.

When I mention to the white Tribecan mothers that Brookti and I have encountered racism, they’re outraged. “Surely not in this neighborhood!” they say. “From both children and adults,” I add gleefully. “I don’t believe it!” they insist and that generally concludes the conversation.

Will wonders never cease? And why are these same people so adverse to admitting to ordinary coded everyday racism or blatant institutionalized racism against black people living in America, born here or elsewhere, and yet so eager to attend benefit after benefit for war and famine in Sudan, or the post-earthquake situation in Haiti, and boast about it later, or engage in solemn discourse on AIDS in Africa? You tell me.

I n Brookti’s early days, when I was unaccustomed to being approached by strangers on an hourly basis, there were certain questions and incidents that played over and over again. There was the question from black men, for some reason, usually immigrant taxi drivers. “Is her father black?” they’d say, after inquiring if I was Brookti’s mother. Initially I’d proudly deliver an earnest spiel but eventually I’d just snap, “No.” Then they’d look at me like I was the one out of line. Once I replied, “No, but my father was black and it skipped a generation.” That was effective.

Upper class white males liked to do a kind of faux-jive talk, often with a bobbing of their head. “Hey girl!” they’d say, or “Hey girlfriend!” with a follow up, “Gimme five!” If Brookti happened to be in motion, which was 90% of the time, they sometimes added (I kid you not), “Hey she’s got rhythm!” or “Girl you can dance!”

Then there were the snide comments from American black women about the ‘unbridled,’ shall we call it, nature of Brookti’s hair when it wasn’t meticulously braided in tidy plaits (by someone other than White Mama the slob, needless to say). Or they’d just fix me with a disapproving tight-lipped stare.

Around this time, a black woman approached me on the street to ask if I would like some help with Brookti’s hair. We were exiting from a Ugandan childrens’ dance performance and, granted, Brookti was having a particularly bad hair day — with a lavender wig perched precariously atop the entire mess — but there was a legitimate reason. We’d been in a rush to get to the performance which, to White Mama, seemed more important than the time consuming grooming of the Hair, since theatre of any kind, particularly dance, was Brookti’s favorite form of escape and the only time she would sit still, completely transfixed. Although at this particular venue, she got into the spirit, began dancing in the aisle and we were — literally — kicked upstairs, but let’s not go into that episode. Suffice to say, I was not in the mood to deal with another public admonition regarding the hair, but I managed to reply politely. “Oh, no thanks, her hair is fine. We usually have puffs but she wanted to wear her wig today so I didn’t [pin her to the ground with my knees in order to] comb it…” and so on.

The woman keeps interrupting me, saying, “No, her hair is not fine!” When I’m done with my empty excuses, she adds, “ You need to wash it!”

“I do wash it!” I say, now somewhat irritated, as I pick up the pace, dragging a bewildered Brookti . “And I have all the best products too.”

“I can help you!” she says beseechingly, right on our heels.

“Thanks, but I don’t need any help,” I say, starting to race walk.

“I can help you!” she repeats, not giving an inch, right in step with us.

“I don’t need any help!” I repeat, breaking into a trot.

This goes on for several minutes until she grabs my arm and says, “Please please, take my card!” simultaneously thrusting her card into my sweaty white palms and to shut her up, I accept it and take off, sprinting.

A few years later, our babysitter, Jasmine, was harassed rather persistently about the condition of Brookti’s hair (when Brookti was not even having a bad hair day, at least White Mama the slob didn’t think so). “How could you let your child go out without grooming her hair?” says the woman. At first, Jasmine, hair stylist extraordinaire, explains that Brookti has so many activities she doesn’t have time to perfect her hair every day, but as the woman continues on her rant, Jasmine finally gives in and says, “She’s not my daughter, she was adopted by a white woman.” “Oh, that explains it,” is the reply and then Jasmine is further chastised by the woman that she hasn’t taken matters into her own hands.

I know full well what a sensitive explosive issue hair is for black women, historically, politically and personally, and White Mama is just asking to be crucified, but let’s put identity politics aside for thirty seconds. First of all, in the grand scheme of things, Brookti’s hair, at two years old, was the least of my problems at the time (she wasn’t exactly looking for employment); the damn attachment process, her low muscle tone, her speech delay and, well, getting through the day, were just a few of my more serious concerns. Secondly, my mother had a severe hair psychosis directed towards her own blond Jewish kinks (not that she would ever admit it but, as they say, actions speak louder than words, like the fact that she would rather die on the cross than get her obsessively straightened hair wet) which I mercifully escaped. I wanted my daughter to escape the hair psychosis too. I repeat, I am fully aware that a white woman’s relationship with her hair is not nearly as complex or fraught as a black woman’s. At any rate, I liked my curls — frizz and all — and still do because I grew up in the late 60s and 70s and cannot shake my roots, the good old days, when all my contemporaries, black and white, wore their hair natural. At least it seemed like it to my semi-hippie self.

Another dirty secret: many black women that I know don’t have the skill to braid hair nor do they particularly care; they’ll gladly pay for their children’s hair to be braided if it makes their lives easier or if they like the way it looks. And certainly black women whose children’s hair is not old-school groomed get this snide treatment, but take my paleface word for it, there’s no comparison. As far as I know.

Hair is also a class issue. Early on, when I brought Brookti to a hip Mother’s Day DJ celebration in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene (before it was a ‘mixed race mecca’ and where White Mama was the only white mama and one of two Caucasians) Brookti was the only toddler with the tidy plaits, the rest of the kids had loose curls or dreads, the more unkempt the better.

Upper class Caucasian females had a somewhat different take when they saw Brookti and me. “Oh she’s so lucky!” they would gush if they figured out she was adopted (to which I used to reply like a giddy robot, “I’m the lucky one!” but that got old real quick) or just a basic “She’s so beautiful — I love her hair!” especially if it was in unbridled condition, the more untidy the better.

Africans of both sexes were non-judgmental and genuinely interested in Brookti; their comments were usually right on the money: “I knew she was Ethiopian.” Sometimes, but not always, from the females (after the initial enthusiasm), there were the ’helpful hints’ regarding the Hair.

Obviously racial discord, shall we call it, is not nearly as simple as black and white; it involves every ethnicity against every other ethnicity. It’s white against black against black against brown against light brown, especially these days since most dark immigrants are battling one another for whatever sliver of the American pie they can get — particularly when any given day could be their last on this soil. And, of course, you’ve always got to figure in — big-time — that pesky all-inclusive class war that gets more volatile and personal with an economic crisis a day or the announcement of an economic crisis faux-solution a day.

W e did not make many new friends that first summer. Our first friendship attempt was an unmitigated disaster. Barely a week after Brookti’s arrival, I made our first (and last) foray into the world of arranged toddler socializing, more commonly known as a play-date. God knows what I was thinking — well, I wasn’t. Instead, I was floating in a netherworld with a less than firm grip on reality.

The trip to southernmost Brooklyn was a major miscalculation on my part. At the time, it had sounded so easy, so enticing. My (newish) friend picked us up on her way home in a standard car service black sedan, one of the perks of her job. Naturally it didn’t occur to me that the dark car with the dark windows, mimicking the airport limo Brookti came home in a mere seven days earlier, might trigger some unpleasant memories for Brookti, say yet another terrifying solo trip into the unknown. Or that it might trigger the same heartbreaking sobbing that wouldn’t stop. Well, of course it did. A very shaken Brookti arrived to find three small boys on various high powered plastic vehicles racing in circles from room to enormous room in the enormous house. Brookti, who hadn’t yet summoned up the courage to venture all the way from her bedroom into mine, about 15 feet away, tottered valiantly from enormous room to enormous room, trying to keep up with the boys, at times crying in frustration.

My friend and her husband sipped wine in the midst of the chaos, commenting on “how easy it was to have only one child — just try having three!” concluding with “how lucky I was to have just the one,” and so on. I wasn’t able to conduct a conversation, much less play the effete New York game of My-Life-is-Harder-Than-Yours (no doubt yuppies across the country play it, but surely without such malevolence!) since I was busy trying to direct traffic to protect Brookti from the onslaught of vehicles. When one of the boys mentioned that Brookti looked just like their babysitter, I suggested it was time for us to go.

By August we had slowed down in our avid pursuit of cultural events which were the only thing that seemed to comfort Brookti. Instead we spent a lot of time in the neighborhood park (trying to make the ever-illusive friends), or en route back and forth in the suffocating 100 degree heat. The neighborhood park is the public arena where modern parents (primarily mothers) practice with a vengeance the grim profession deemed ‘parenting’ and where every day is judgment day for fellow practitioners. Mother-child warfare is enacted, mother-mother warfare, child-child warfare — and that most profound warfare of all: warfare between mothers and babysitters. And in my Caucasian hedge-funder infested neighborhood, a strictly white mothers-babysitters of color segregated battlefield it is. The primarily black and brown babysitters hang out together in their geographically-based cliques and the primarily white mothers hang out together in their, well, economically-based cliques. Most of the mothers view the babysitters as lazy and shiftless — necessary evils at best. Likewise the babysitters view the mothers as lazy and shiftless — as well as highly neurotic and overprotective. After just a few days, I was inclined to agree with the babysitters.

Neither group was particularly keen on Brookti and me, though we won the babysitters over eventually. Once they realized I wasn’t a spy for the white mother group, that, in fact, I didn’t fit in either; that I valued their professional child-rearing opinions and preferred their company; and once the even more crucial fact was established that I had not engaged in sexual relations with a black man to produce Brookti, I was in like flint. Except, of course, for a few hold-outs, one of whom liked to remind me every time Brookti didn’t ‘share’ or had a breakdown (generally at the exact moment when I was about to tear my hair out or Brookti’s precious strands) that “Brookti always shares and plays so nicely when she’s with her [West Indian] babysitter.”

Eventually, when Brookti arrived, straining to escape the confines of her stroller while singing at the top of her lungs, clapping along vigorously, she was hailed by the babysitters as though she were royalty. When she finally stepped out with her ‘don’t mess with me’ strut, a chorus of “Hey Brookti’s” filled the air, to which the royal one responded with hugs and gracious smiles to her fans. A few loyalists would even defend her against what ever white child they were minding, even if Brookti was in the wrong. In short, they became Brookti’s saviors — and mine too.

The 50s-throwback mothers rampant in Tribeca were not so easily charmed. They are a territorial group, particularly the downright hostile humorless stay-at-homers, and I was an oddity, to say the least. I work but I work at home, so I don’t fit in on either side of the ludicrous Mommy wars, a self-defeating, self-indulgent waste-of-time battle waged between two groups of inordinately privileged women.

Nor were there a whole lot of single mothers — the genuine article, that is. The few self-professed single mothers were woe-is-me divorcees with fat incomes sweetening the bitter pill or with some kind of ‘daddy’ lurking in the background, however haphazard, sometimes along with a staff of full-time nannies and housekeepers, country homes and big cars. In fact, if White Mama heard one more woe-is-me divorcee wrenchingly describe herself as a single mother or read one more single mother blog written by an undercover divorcee or one more heart-rending story about a Hollywood-style strong single (divorced) mother, White Mama, an old-fashioned unwed mother with nary a man or man’s income in sight, was going to explode.

Apparently, I was also considered a potential-husband-stealer — which a friend from the outside suggested as a possible reason for some of the hostility I encountered. A potential husband-stealer? I had enough trouble. There could be nothing further from my mind than the opposite sex. Who the hell had the wherewithal to even take note of the few stray husbands who were reduced to entering the park on any day other than a compulsory Saturday or Sunday? As for me registering on a husband’s radar as a sexual being of the female persuasion, oh sure. I felt like a ghostly old hag hanging on for dear life from one day to the next who no man in his right mind would possibly even glance at.

And sin of all sins, I was thin, having lost ten effortless pounds from keeping up with the human cyclone. This did not ingratiate me any further in an all-female atmosphere (females reduced to their most vicious former teen-age selves, may I add). And don’t forget, I was also said human cyclone’s keeper, who, while not able to walk or talk very well, did manage to propel herself forward rapidly in order to hug one of her peers. Unfortunately the cyclone did not know her own rather considerable strength, so the ‘hugs’ were often misconstrued as ‘chokes,’ perhaps even attempted murder, for all I know. Crookti (Brookti’s nickname bestowed by a friend who was aware of her criminal proclivities) also had a great propensity for misappropriating toy strollers and flip flops. And of course there was her balloon fetish. As in every time we passed one, even if it was tied securely to a booth or on to a child’s fragile white wrist, Brookti went for it with a young Fagin’s tenacity. In other words, she displayed some tendencies termed ‘aggressive’ in aggrieved stage whispers from the sidelines. The only other mother who was genuinely friendly was a giant gorgeous young model from the Netherlands with an equally ‘aggressive’ son, light brown in this case — and a sense of humor, a rarity in these parts — who really threatened the tight-lipped mothers.

As summer began to fade into fall, my introduction to parenthood had begun to resemble an episode of The Twilight Zone, a really scary episode. Communicating with the neighborhood mother battalion remained a largely alienating experience. At times, I felt like I was back in my youth waiting outside trendy nightclubs, wishing I could just go home again, even more so when I gained entrance. How often I longed for a cocktail in those days. Attempting to conduct some kind of small talk at the park was still far more painful than trying to decipher what Brookti was trying to express. At least Brookti had a sense of humor, a budding Jewish sense of humor, not surprisingly. When a little white girl asked her if the other little black girl in the park was her sister, Brookti replied, “No, is she yours?” in a deadpan more than worthy of her new tribe.

Eventually, I did make headway with a mother other than the giant young model. Like myself, she was older, worked primarily at home and her daughter and Brookti played ‘nicely together,’ as the expression goes. One day she pulled me aside and began speaking rapidly in the aggrieved stage whisper I was unfortunately becoming accustomed to.

“You know Sandra, right?” she said.

Indeed I did know Sandra. She had been one of my favorite neighborhood babysitters from day one. Not only did she genuinely love kids and do a beautiful job with the three she looked after, she had appreciated wacky Brookti instantly, had not judged White Mama for one second and had remained our stalwart ally. In fact, at this very moment, she was playing with Brookti, doing me a big favor on her own volition.

“Yes,” I replied cautiously.

“Well.” Here the mother pauses dramatically and jerks her head towards Sandra and Brookti instead of turning her stiff-with-tension neck, which probably could no longer turn. “She’s manhandling Brookti. As we speak. ”

I look over at Sandra and Brookti. They appear to be having a good time. I look again. Well, I’m a little nearsighted, but it is possible that Sandra is tossing Brookti up and down. Which is fine. Brookti loves being tossed up and down…don’t all children love being tossed up and down?

“All the mothers have gotten together and we think Sandra is too rough and we think someone should talk to her, ” she continues, hysteria rising.

“Well, I love Sandra and she has been our good friend since Brookti came,” I say. Glancing over again, there still doesn’t seem to be a problem. In fact the phrase “all the mothers” is making me feel sick to my stomach.

The mother continues to rant and rave about how “all the mothers” think Sandra is too “rough” with the children.

Too rough? Having grown up with three older brothers and a sister, if I emerged unscathed, physically or psychologically, by the end of a typical day, it was a day to rejoice and count my blessings. As for my sister, who was often recruited to be the defensive tackle in the games of knee-football conducted in the narrow upstairs hallways, let’s just say she bruised easily — and often. Not me — at the slightest rumor of a potential match, I made myself scarce, probably in some dark closet somewhere.

As for the action outdoors, which, as we all know, was conducted in unsupervised backyards and on city streets back then, only the strong survived. I remember my first fist fight well. With my best friend, of course — who happened to be a boy. We were about seven years old, and, as I recall, he was holding one end of a precariously balanced board which served as a kind of bridge which I was trying to walk across to get to the bottom steps of a treehouse, or some such folly. My friend dropped it, whether on purpose or not we’ll never know, but I fell down, assumed the worst and pride wounded, proceeded to punch him, and the fight was on. There was a whole group of kids watching, of all ages, including one of my brothers. What I proudly remember is that I made my friend cry first but, to be fair, he gave me a black eye. So I guess you could call it a draw. As for my brother, did he step in to help me? Hell no! Did my mother have the wherewithal to even notice when I ran up to my room, trying in vain to hold back my tears? Hell no!

The next day when I saw my friend, I recall downcast eyes from both of us, perhaps some awkwardness, and then he invited me to go to the store to get a peanut butter cup. “Sure,” I said, and all was forgiven.

In those days, we did not “use our words,” as the modern parent is always urging their errant progeny. Nor did we always “make good choices,” another popular modern parenting edict. On the other hand, we managed to pour our own bowls of cereal, dress ourselves solo and tie our own shoes (well, one of my brothers couldn’t tie his own shoes but he probably learned to after he tripped and fell over them once too often) and then walk to kindergarten by ourselves. Effortlessly and without incident.

Meanwhile, back at the park, the stiff-necked mother is going full speed ahead: “We all have to get together and discuss it and decide who should talk to her!”

I can’t listen any more, do not want to be included in “all the mothers” nor do I have the strength to challenge her because she is way too far gone and I have enough trouble. Instead I beat a slow retreat, walking backwards so that she doesn’t notice, until I bump into I-didn’t-care-who to start any old conversation with.

A few hours later Brookti and the daughter are playing (against my better instincts, but what the hell). In the excitement of the moment, Brookti decides to administer one of the impulsive ‘hugs’ that Tribeca mothers often misconstrued as savage choke-holds. Brookti is smiling her great big radiant smile which in no shape or form resembles the smile of a sociopath. Indeed, the rather stout daughter appears able to hold her own during the hug, but the mother begins screaming at Brookti, again somewhat hysterically, and before I have time to react, the mother turns to me and says, “Betsy, she’s choking her! Your daughter has a lot of anger!!”

I’m thinking if anyone has “a lot of anger” it is me, primarily because of crazy-ass mothers like you. I hold my tongue and gather up the alleged assassin to go home.

White Mama was getting the message. It was past time to investigate parks in other neighborhoods. We took an excursion to a forsaken park in the east twenties where a children’s’ West African dance troupe was performing. My transplanted East African lapsed into her state of dance-watching euphoria, joining in on the sidelines. Not that she was indiscriminate. She would only deign to do her thing when inspired, and afterwards she’d hurtle herself back into my lap until inspired again. Afterwards we stuck around so Brookti could play. Kids of all shades were stripped down to their underwear so they could run under the sprinkler more comfortably, racing around, pushing each other without being reprimanded by some nosey adult or another, knocking even smaller kids out of the way as they did — little kids who did not cry but went back for more.

It was a new world order and for the first time I was reminded of my own Only The Strong Survive childhood. Brookti in her sagging wet diaper was in hot pursuit of two older boys who pursued her right back, engaging in physical contact and enjoying it, no less, with the adults on the sidelines ignoring them and rather enjoying themselves, unlike the Tribecan Vigilantes. Brookti blended right in with the other ‘physical’, ‘aggressive’ children. Maybe I wasn’t so crazy after all.