"Why must mixed-race women always be tragic?"

[franch]

Article in the Guardian yesterday

Let's just focus on the fact that these women are NOT tragic, they have strength, drive and ambition which has made them into a success.

Absolutely. I think that's what the writer was getting at?

I wonder why a poor one parent upbringing equates to a tragic one. I know plenty of people who had very happy childhoods albeit with an absent parent and/or not much money. If you are loved as I am sure many of these women were by their mums then who's to say any part of their lives were tragic. Am i even making sense?

Yes, I see where you're coming from yingers. I don't think Helen Kolawole is saying that single parent upbringing = tragic, just that it's one of the things that's always emphasised about mixed-race women as part of the "against-the-odds" image?

I wonder about that. Though my little boy will have an absent white father. I wonder how the odds would be flipped in that sense. Do you think it makes as good news??? I think these women show real strength though it does annoy me how the media always hypes Halle berry etc... how tragic can it be to be so successful?