Creative Habits Podcast

Have you ever heard of the term brown babies?

Brown Babies is a term used for children born to black soldiers and white women during and after the Second World War.

In January 1942, after the US had entered the war, a large number of American servicemen (known as GIs) were shipped to Britain. Over the next three years approximately 3 million GIs passed through the country, of which approximately 8% were African-American.

As of 1955, African-American soldiers had fathered about 5,000 children in the American Zone of Occupied Germany,[2] making up a significant minority of the 37,000 illegitimate children of US soldiers overall.

In Occupied Austria, estimates of children born to Austrian women and Allied soldiers ranged between 8,000 and 30,000, perhaps 500 of them biracial.

In the United Kingdom, West Indian members of the British military, as well as African-American soldiers in the US Army, fathered 2,000 children during and after the war.[6][7] A much smaller and unknown number, probably in the low hundreds, was born in the Netherlands.

Other names for the term brown babies include "war babies" and "occupation babies." In Germany they were known as Mischlingskinder ("mixed race children"), a derogatory term first used under the Nazi regime for children of mixed Jewish-German parentage. It is estimated that approximately 2,000 ‘brown babies’ were born in Britain during the war and nearly all of them were illegitimate. Brown babies’ was the term given to these children by the African-American press.

Nearly half of these babies were given up to local authorities or children’s homes, such were the difficulties and pressures facing the mothers: the stigma of having an illegitimate and ‘coloured’ child, and the fact that between a third and a half of the mothers were already married.

English and German  authorities tried to discourage relationships between white British women and black troops but many romances began at dances

Black troops were not allowed to marry their pregnant white girlfriends and many of the children were given up for adoption, according to Prof Lucy Bland, from Anglia Ruskin University, who interviewed 50 of them for a book called Britain's Brown Babies.

Speaking on The Localist - Suffolk podcast, Prof Bland says: "Nearly half of these babies were put in children's homes. They were often lied to and told their fathers were dead and that their mothers didn't want them.

"They were often called names and didn't understand. Some of them didn't even realise they were a different skin colour; no-one was explaining it to them."

Very few of them were adopted. Officials said it would be impossible to place mixed-race children and the government blocked adoptions from the US, worried they would be seen as dumping them there.

The children grew up in predominately white areas — the sites where the GIs had been largely based: south and southwest England, South Wales, East Anglia and Lancashire, where they had little or no black or mixed-race role models. Most suffered racism, the stigma of illegitimacy and a confused identity.

I’ve always been creative. Over the years I’ve expressed my creativity through Graphic Design, Web Design, and Fine Arts. Recently, I fell in love with photography, and I DID NOT see it coming.

Along with my creative spirit, comes big dreams. Like you, I work hard to try and make my ideal lifestyle possible. So I started thinking…

The Law of Attraction is the belief that anything imagined is achievable if you deem it possible and take action accordingly. Some people call this the practice of MANIFESTATION.

So I took my new passion and set out to help people manifest their ideal lifestyle through photography.

Facts about friends and family

-They are instinctively incapable of seeing your partner’s side, they will always be on your team and it will be hard for them to be objective.

-Their first priority will be to comfort you and make you feel better

-They don’t know what is going on behind closed doors to give a fair analysis of whatever you and your partner experience in your relationship

-Your family and friends will keep a constant reminder of the things he/she did wrong whenever you face challenges this can hinder your progress or healing if you are working on building trust, growth, or moving past an issue together.

So if I can’t talk to my friends and family, who should someone talk to when they are trying to work out the issues or challenges in the relationship?

-First your partner

-Second, if you are unable to resolve a hurdle by communicating with your partner, seek professional help.

What happens when your partner is not ready to speak with a professional?

Give them space, but communicate your desire to make things work with the help of someone who knows what they’re doing. Have patience and be open to learning

Our Trip to London Part 2

Lionel Frazier White III is a Washington D.C native, arts educator, and interdisciplinary conceptual artist they work in painting, drawing, wood sculpture, installation, and mixed media collage.

White’s work explores themes of forced and coerced labor and its effect on family pathology, erasure, displacement, reassertion, and gentrification. White holds a Bachelor in Fine Arts from The George Washington University Corcoran School of Art and Design (2018) and is a graduate of The Duke Ellington School of the Arts High School in Washington, D.C. they have been exhibited at the D.C Commission on Arts and Humanities, Prince George's African American Art Museum and Cultural Center, Torpedo Factory |Connect The Dots, Rush Arts Galleries, and Area 405. White was a 2019 Halcyon Arts Lab Cohort 3 Fellow in Residence in Washington DC.

Welcome to the show Lionel.

If you could introduce yourself

Instagram : black_ebb_art

Our Experience in London 

His name is Swahili and comes from East Africa in Kenya. Omari (Oh-Ma-Ree) means the highest, mountaintop and close to God, Ajamu (Ah-Jah-Moo) means he who fights for what he wants, Ajanaku (Ah-Jah-Na-Koo) means free and wealthy people. Omari is a husband and father of three children; Aiyanna, Bashiri and Israel.

He was born in Chicago, IL and grew up in Langston/Guthrie, OK. After attending Langston University in 2012 he graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2017 with two bachelor's degrees; one in forensic science and the other in criminal justice with the intention of using both with his future criminal law degree.

His experience includes;

six years with Oklahoma City Public Schools as a substitute/Language Art's Teacher, seven years with the YMCA as a youth and family counselor/coordinator and four years with various youth shelters as a youth specialist/advocate.

Omari is the owner of an entertainment company,

a criminal law firm, a vocational non-profit and a podcast.

His purpose is to control his intellectual property, ensure generational wealth and

to lead by example while doing what he loves to do.

Dejah Greene is a semi self taught photographer from Prince George’s County, Maryland. She has been shooting for 10 years. Dejah finds the beauty in simplicity as well as showcasing the beauty of black culture and the realities of mental illness. 

Please email at [email protected].

Website https://www.dejahgreenephotos.com/

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Tune in for our final episode for this season, where we talk about strange and weird facts that are not so common. We will return in August with more content, interviews, and videos to share on all of our platforms. Thank you listening, we appreciate you!