By Suzan Erem

Photo by Rupesh R. Kariyat. The Jacksons, from left, Jayson, Devon, Lesley and their dogs Raven and Bailee, have found support in the Multiracial/Multicline Family Resource Community.

They are singles and couples, with and without children, in all shades and shapes, from around the country and around the world — and they defy the usual descriptors of “black” or “white” or “Latino” or “Asian.”

Membership in the Multiracial Family Support Group is growing, the ongoing result of the melting pot America and Centre County are becoming after years of institutionalized racism. Even the name of the group continues to evolve, most recently to Multiracial/Multicline Family Resource Community to recognize that race is a man-made definition and that “cline,” or phenotype, better describes the physical differences in people.

“I felt it would be good for my son,” explained organizer Denise Hinds-Zaami, a counselor with the Multicultural Resource Center at Penn State, about organizing the group. “He has a sense of social justice in him.”

After a racist altercation two years ago involving her son Mahdi at State College Area High School, Hinds-Zaami called in the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. Out of that incident came the Student Problem Identification and Resolution of Issues Together (SPIRIT) program at the school.

Then Lesley Jackson approached Hinds-Zaami, who has advanced degrees in psychology, social work and education, for help. Lesley, who is white, is married to Jayson, who is black. The two Penn State graduates, now professionals, settled in Centre County and had a baby. Then they started looking for places their daughter could play with other children who looked like her.

“It’s never been something I’ve thought about too much,” Jackson told Voices. “But I have an 18-month-old daughter now and as soon as I had her, I started thinking about things she had to go through and what she’d have to face.”

The group Hinds-Zaami pulled together now numbers 10 to 15 couples, families and individuals, meeting once a month to discuss problem-solving tips, concerns and other ideas for living in this largely homogeneous county.

There is the biracial international graduate student who needs coping skills, the blended family with black and white step-siblings, the multiracial couples thinking about having children, the white couple who adopted a Guatemalan child, the multiracial couple from California who had never heard the racist comments they get here, or the white woman who adopted a number of children from other backgrounds and now experiences overt racism first-hand.

This June marks the group’s first year and its first “Loving Day” celebration June 13 at Tudek Park in State College. Loving Day is named for Mildred Jeter, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, who in 1958 married in Washington D.C., where it was legal but then moved back home to Virginia where it was not. They were arrested and tried, found guilty and exiled from Virginia for 25 years.

“I can’t believe just 40 years ago my relationship with my husband was illegal,” said Jackson. “I think it’s important to remember that and educate people on that topic.”

From personal experience, Jackson, who lives in Pennsylvania Furnace and said Centre County could be worse in terms of racism, said that education is still more important than ever.

“I was at the Weis and some guy was giving us the hairy eyeball and he had swastikas all over his truck,” she said of a recent incident. “When we go through these tiny towns I just always make sure we have enough gas. It’s about my daughter; it just terrifies me to think of something happening.”