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Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise, Day 9: Three Racial Moments with Naomi

Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise, Day 9: Three Racial Moments with Naomi

Last updated on: June 4, 2015 at 9:44 pm by Nancy French

Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise, Day 9: Three Racial Moments with Naomi 2015-06-04T21:44:29-05:00 Nancy French

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One advantage of being on a cruise that lasts this long – 15 nights! – is that you really spend time with your family. I mean, really. Like, you can’t get away from them. They’re right here with me. All. The. Time.

Anyway, here are three things that I saw with my own eyes when I was hanging out with Naomi that relate to race:

1. Before you go into eat anywhere, there’s a Disney employee standing outside the dining room with hand sanitizing cloths. These people invariably are super nice, welcoming, and kind. (Our server at dinner told us he applied to work for Disney in 1998 and waited until 2015 before he got a job. David and I have laughed that the perpetually happy and kind Disney crew are the only argument against the depravity of man that we’ve encountered since becoming reformed in our theology. Our server told us that everyone is just happy to be working for an American company with such good benefits.) Anyway, one day we were coming out of lunch when the nice employee handing out hand cloths stopped Naomi and said, “Is this your mom? No, I am your mother, and I have proof. Look at my skin! We match. You are my color.”

This, by the way, is my worst nightmare. Naomi paused, looked at me, and then looked at her. Confusion hung on her face like a mask as she tried to ponder this weird turn-of-events. Then it got worse.

“I lost my daughter,” she said, holding out her arm next to Naomi’s to show that they were more similarly hued. “You must be her.”

I literally lost my ability to speak. It was just so patently wrong on so many levels, it was hard to react. Naomi knows she’s adopted – obviously – but she doesn’t quite get all which that entails. She doesn’t know that there was another person who gave birth to her. She hasn’t wondered about what her biological mother looks like or that she could be lingering somewhere out there.

Which brings us to…

2. In the pool, a six year old girl looked at Naomi and looked at me. “Why is she brown?” she asked. Naomi bopped up and down in the pool going in and out of the water. I began my normal “she came from Africa, where many people are darker” speech, but she interrupted me. “No, who is her real mom? Is she brown? Why didn’t she want her?” The girl peppered these questions to me while Naomi’s head was in various stages of water submersion. I answered her as well as I could, while Naomi was under the water, smiled, and left that area.

3. The next day, we were in Manhattan. A black man stood on the side of 44th Street. A cab with occupancy flew past his upraised arm. “I can’t get a taxi to stop.”

A woman passing by said, “I’m sure one will come by here.”

“What I mean is that none will stop for me.”

If you’ve ever lived in New York, you know this to be an undeniable truth. Cabs sometimes tend to pass black people for white fares.

The white woman stopped and hailed a cab for him. Naomi, witnessing this, asked, “Why won’t they stop for black people? I’m black?”

Anyway, I think this must happen to Naomi more than I realize — these three things happened within 24 hours of each other… Very thankful for this time with her to talk with her about issues that matter, and will matter, to her for the rest of her life.

P.S. Today is so foggy that it is legally mandatory that this ship sound its horn every two minutes! I love that long, sorrowful sound – it’s the ship equivalent of Canada geese flying overhead. Also, we have 6 feet swells, so the ship has begun to rock in a fun, dramatic way!

Read more in this series:

Day One, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: Anchors Away

Day Two, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: Medical Evacuation

Day Three, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: College Admissions Conversation?

Day Four, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: The Gut Punch of New York

Day Five, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: Day at Sea

Day Six, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: Nova Scotia

Day Seven, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: I Didn’t Know Cinderella Was Real

Day Eight, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: The Worst Thing About This Cruise

Day Nine, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: Three Racial Moments with Naomi

Day Ten, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: Frozen’s “Freezing the Night Away” and Internet Withdrawal

Day Eleven, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: Birds

Day Twelve, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: Not Living Up to Vacation Demands

Day Thirteen, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: It’s Not Over Until Someone Passes Out

Day Fourteen, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: Meeting the “Genie-Soul” of Copenhagen

Day Fifteen, Trans-Atlantic Disney Cruise: The End, the Numbers, and a Final Word

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