"not in San Francisco...."

This is often the comeback I get when I talk about racism--"not in San Francisco"  Acutally it happens more often than you'd think.  My reply--ummmm--"yes, in San Francisco!"  It always suprises me that people believe that racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. do not occur here because it is seen as such a liberal city. While it may be better than some other cities and/or other parts of the country, all of these things still happen.  Although this may be a little off-topic, I was out the other night with a friend who invited several of her friends that I did not know.  They were delightful people, save one.  Now it is important to mention that my friend is very liberal, open minded, and loves my daughter to pieces and the one person whom I had issues, she did not really know and she ended up kicking him under the table all night and apologizing to me afterward.  Also of note was that some of the others were drinking quite a bit while I was drinking water as I was the designated driver, so inhibitions were lowered, so internalized homophobia became externalized.  So this guy all of a sudden started going on about his gay friend who took him out to the Castro and how "all the gays" kept hitting on him.  My immediate thought was "if you think 'all the gays' were hitting on you, they definitely were not"  Now I found myself in a quandary.  I was offended by what he was saying not only because I have family and close friends who are gay or bi, but I value and respect people's desires and their right to love who they love, and to top it, I knew there was another guy there who was gay.  Normally, there would be no question and I would stand up and say something and not give it a thought, but this guy worked with my friend and had direct influence on her job.  If I actually said what I was thinking, that would not have been either appropriate or probably even helpful  and possibly detrimental to the situation. And I most definitely did not want to get my friend fired.  So I chose to ignore and not talk or interact with him for the rest of the night.  Now why I bring this up is for a couple of reasons.  First surprise, surprise (written with an ironic tone) there is homophobia (and racism,sexism,etc) in San Francisco.  All those happen everywhere. And secondly, and very importantly, how you respond to it is up to you and that may vary depending on the situation.  So if someone says something racist to your family and you have adopted transracially, and it is against your child's race, what do you do?  Although you do need to take a strong stance against racism, it isn't always so clear as what the "right" thing to do is.  However, it is of the utmost importance that you talk to your child about it if/when it is developmentally appropriate.  When your child is a baby, I do think it is our responsibility as parents to not only address comments or situations that directly affect your child, and to address racism as a whole, how we do it changes with the age of the child.  There are different options we can teach our child--how to respond, how to go to a teacher, an adult,etc, how to walk away, or even to ignore if that is appropriate.  It is crucial to include your child in the conversation as developmentally appropriate.  When my daughter was about 5 she was playing in a park in the East Bay.  She and the other two girls with whom she was playing came running over to me and said there was a boy (about their age) who was chasing them and "being mean."  Then my daughter said the boy "said I smelled like I was Japanese!!"  So, first I told her that this was a racist statement--a comment based on the way she looked, in this case the shape of her eyes, and asked her what we should do.  She shrugged her shoulders.  I asked if she would  like me to talk to his adult/parent.  She said "no." I think she did not want to make a big deal out of it and it wasn't someone who she was going to see again.  I had been watching while they had played with this boy and had noticed his adult/parent had been yelling at him when they interacted, but not yelling about his behavior, so it seemed like he did not have a very approachable or insightful person.  I always think,especially at that age, children just espouse the values of their parents.  So I said to the girls "I know that you are all kind and compassionate girls and you would not want to hurt anyone and what he said is not something that I think is kind or true" thus validating what he said was a) racist and b)not the belief of our family.  Then I said "Maybe it would be better to just stay away from him if he is not being nice to you all."  They all agreed and said they did not want to play with someone who is mean.  Now, I often use humor as a way to deal with the world and to model for my daughter that things don't always need to bother us and more importantly in this case, so she did not internalize this kid's comment and said "besides, why did he say Japenese, you are so Chinese"  and she said "right!! I know" and started laughing and ran away happy and giggling.  In this case, the issue was addressed but I did not confront the kid or adult/parent. This is what my daughter wanted and I respected it.  That said, there was another time when she was older when a Chinese aunt of a child in her class came up to her on a field trip and started telling her how "lucky" she was to be adopted because "they kill baby girls in China."  I actively stepped in front of her and told this woman that she was being inappropriate and could not talk to my daughter and it was not ok to say anything about adoption or her idea in front of my child.  I then talked to my daugher.  So how you address comments is dependent upon many factors--the age of your child, the situation, the comment, the environment, just to name a few. There is no absolutes here.  There are many ways to address racism.  But address it, we must.  Not only is it important to our society, but to our culture, our own personal growth, and most importantly to our children.  They need to know we are behind them; that a racist (or sexist,or homophobic) comment made to them is like it was made to us as well. It has to be that close.