Infuriating Words

I've been thinking for awhile how to broach this subject and there's no easy or politically correct way for me to ease into it, so I'm just going to jump right in and say what I think.
As a mother of two mixed race children, racism is something that has not only ALWAYS bothered me, but that downright infuriates me after giving birth to them. To know that my beautiful, smart, kind babies may be judged due to the color of their skin or the coarseness of their hair is something that hurts down to the core of my soul.
Now, I'm not saying that I don't appreciate race jokes or culture jokes. If it's in good fun, it's fine by me. Stereotypes are there for a reason, enough people of one race or culture portrayed an image that it became a stereotype. When someone teases about stereotypes or jokes about them, I don't become offended. When the offensive names are pulled, THAT'S when I become offended. I should not be able to log onto Facebook and see the N word in a status. It's uncalled for and has such negative connotations associated with it that it makes my eyes red with fury.
When I was a little girl, I remember driving in the car with my parents. I don't know where it came from or why, but they told my sister and I that if we ever dated a black guy that we would be disowned. I blew it off then, I was only five years old, how was that going to affect my life of bubbles and dress up? Well, it affected my life at 14 when my first boyfriend came to my house and he was half black. My dad sat me down that night and told me I couldn't date him and that I was ruining my life because the "good white boys" are going to think I'm a "Nword lover" and not want to date me. I was so hurt that I went to my room and cried all night while writing in my journal. To be honest, I had never even noticed that my boyfriend was of a different color or race. I saw a cute, sweet, nice, funny guy who I had fun with. I didn't see a color or ethnicity.
In my mind, race is something that you can not help. It's something that you are born with. It's not your fault that you were born a certain color. I couldn't help but think that if my family was so superficial that the color of someone's skin would affect how they immediately thought of them, then what about someone who was born disabled, or with a big nose, or a deformity of some kind? Would they shun them as well or was it just a skin thing?
I understand that PEOPLE can be stereotypical and act like crappy PEOPLE, but that doesn't mean that every single person of a specific race is like the other. We are all different and we should embrace that diversity. Judging someone because of their color or their hair color or the size of their nose is ignorant and just shows me that I can't take your opinions seriously.
I had hope that racism was dead. That it was something that only the south dealt with and that even there, it wasn't too bad. I thought that as a society we had grown up and moved forward. Then, I had my children and the first black man ran for president. It was ridiculous how much I heard about his race and where he was from and what religion he might be. I thought politics was supposed to be about policy and principles and ideals, not all the other stuff people talked about. I worked for his campaign and in trying to talk with people, I was bombarded with more racist remarks than I had heard in my life, and I grew up with pretty racist people surrounding me. I've never heard the N word more than I have in the past few years that he has been in the White House. It sickens me. Don't like him because of his policies, what color he is shouldn't have anything to do with why you don't like him. And the "monkey" jokes that people like to forward about the first lady, are utterly disgraceful.
Right now I'm looking at a picture of my son. He looks too much like his daddy for his own good. He has gorgeous ringlet curls, a wide smushed nose, pillowy lips, tan skin, and deep brown eyes. I see a little boy with a huge caring heart, a sensitive soul, an intelligent inquiring brain, and a laugh that could make the crankiest old man crack a smile. Yet, I know that someday he will encounter ignorance and I can't protect him from that. I can't always be there as he grows up to thwart the mean hurtful people. My daughter has already been introduced to the fact that she is different. She came home from daycare and told me how one of her friends called her "brown" and asked why she wasn't like her. Then my inquisitive daughter looked at me and said, "Mom how come you aren't brown like daddy, me, and Colevin?" How do you even respond to that? How do I teach her how beautiful she is BECAUSE she's different? How do I make my children tough enough to not only withstand the normal teasing and bullying, but also the racism that their father had to endure in his life?