T. Clifton Green is Associate Professor of Finance, Goizueta Business School, Emory University, Atlanta, GA.  His areas of specialization are Investments, Behavioral Finance and Market Microstructure.  Among numerous outstanding achievements are:

Publications

- Gender and Job Performance: Evidence from Wall Street, with N. Jegadeesh and Yue Tang, Financial Analysts Journal, forthcoming

- Price-Based Return Comovement, co-authored with Byoung-Hyoun Hwang, Journal of Financial Economics, 2009

Working Papers

- IPOs as Lotteries: Expected Skewness and First-Day Returns, 2009

- Stock Selection Skills and Career Choice: Buy Side vs. Sell Side, with Jeff Busse and N. Jegadeesh, 2008

Achievements and Honors

- Keough Award for Excellence, 2009

- BBA Distinguished Educator Award, 2009

Professor Green holds a Ph.D. in Finance from New York University, M.A. in Economics from University of Virginia and B.S. in Economics (minor in Mathematics) from Texas A&M University.

He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children, Miriam Tigist, Nathaniel and Adam.

(Interview with Flaimahmy, February 11. 2010)

FM:  You and your wife Jennifer have two biological children.  How long did it take you to decide to adopt your oldest child and daughter Miriam, from Ethiopia, when she was one-year old?

TCG:  My wife lived in Africa for a year before we got married.  Even in our courtship we had always talked about adopting a child from Africa.  That was a part of the family plan all along.  We’re in the process to adopt again.  Hopefully in the summer sometime we’ll bring home also from Ethiopia another little girl to round things out.  Since we have two boys already we’re going to get another girl.

FM:  Were you ever concerned about bringing a black child into your home?  Were you concerned about your family, friends or even strangers?

TCG:  Yes.  We read a lot of books about transracial adoption.  We’re not so concerned for us; we’re concerned for the child, the child’s well-being and how will she feel having a different color skin from the other kids in the family.  That’s definitely something that transracial adoption kids deal with.  One of the reasons we chose Ethiopia is because there are lots of Ethiopians in Atlanta where we live; there are tens of thousands.  We have quite a few African American friends but also Ethiopian friends and that helps.  We’ve had Ethiopian babysitters.  Ideally we wanted the kids to learn the language.  The babysitters have not spoken the language to the kids as much as we had hoped but they do know some and it’s just been a nice thing.

Our daughter is still young.  She’s five and a half; she’ll be six next month.  As she grows and matures into a young woman I think there will be issues that she will have to work through.  There are things that we will not always be able to help her with.  That’s why we need help from the black community, for her to grow into a proud woman of color.

FM:  Jennifer gave birth to Nathaniel seven weeks before you went to pickup Miriam.  Did you and Jennifer ever feel overwhelmed?  Did you have to take time off from work?

TCG:  I’m a professor, which is sort of a nice flexible career, so it was helpful in that regard.  Having a kid in the first place is sort of overwhelming for the first time.  We viewed this as more like having twins; they just sort of both came at about the same time.  When you have a new little baby it is already occupying your time.  Our time was already in that mindset so it was easy to feed two kids at the same time, get two kids to go to bed at the same time, those kinds of things.  We didn’t know it any other way so it was perfectly fine.

FM:  You’ve said that you began to do Miriam’s hair out of necessity.  What was your first thought about her hair?

TCG:  Well, our first thought was maybe concern because she didn’t have very much of it at all when she came home at one year old.  She’d had some nutrition issues in Ethiopia and so she didn’t have the healthiest head of hair.  Some of the other kids in the orphanage had much thicker hair than she did.  She had some sort of  knot on the back of her head that went away, like some kind of cyst of some kind.  Hair was not a huge concern, at least not initially, except for the fact that she didn’t have very much of it.  It was more like joy when it started to grow in and become a little healthier and thicker.  It was just nice.  And, it’s like with all little babies, when it gets long enough to put in little puffs and to be able to make some parts, it  just was so exciting.  We weren’t doing it initially;  as it started to grow we would just wash it.  As it got a little longer we had a babysitter who would braid it or put it in little parts and little puffs.  I just thought it looked great.  I would come home from work and it would be in some new style and I just enjoyed that.  I liked seeing how it would look when I came home.

FM:  You have stated that learning  how to do Miriam’s hair “was far more than hygiene or looks;” it was ”a litmus test of your parenting.”  Can you elaborate?

TCG:  Well, being white parents of an African American child I think it is like a signal that we have committed to raising a black child.  Sometimes parents just feel that color does not matter and love is all that’s important.  Obviously, love is important but we all know color does matter.  And, so this is a little signal that we recognize that color does matter.  It makes for a more welcoming attitude from African American people we meet when we show that we take this as a very important part of who she is.

FM:  Very often we hear about black women being ridiculed for refusing to go swimming.  How different do you see this whole issue of black women and their hair now that you’ve had the experience of taking care of your daughter’s hair?

TCG:  Well, I mean, (laughter),  I’m sympathetic to that, so it doesn’t slow our daughter down at all in terms of whether or not she goes swimming.  It just sort of makes me sad when she does have to fix it again afterwards or wash it the next day or whatever.  We try not to let it shape who she is.  I think it’s more when she gets older and timewise when she’s the one who fixes it, then she may think twice about doing things that require her to spend more time on it, if she’s not in the mood to do that.  For right now we just let her do whatever she wants then we deal with it.  If it doesn’t look so great one afternoon then we just try to live with that.  We don’t want it to slow her down from swimming or other things like that.  It’s the same with riding a bicycle, putting the bicycle helmet on, sometimes that sort of messes it up but we just try to deal with that.

FM: The pressure for black women and girls to assimilate and straighten their hair is extremely great.  What will you say to your daughter if she asks to straighten her hair?

TCG:  Well, it’s definitely not something we’re going to suggest to her.  So, if she wants to straighten her hair, I guess we’ll…I mean I’ve thought a little bit about that…I just hope it doesn’t happen for a while.  We hope that we can find ways that she can wear her hair that seems carefree and that she feels proud of.  This pressure to fit in and look like everyone else it so strong.  Hopefully, we can help her fight those pressures.  If she does, if she really wants to do that, then that’s something  we can talk about at a later time when it arises but it is definitely not something we’re going to bring up.  It’ll just be if she pressures us to do that then we can decide what to do at that time.  Along the way we’re hoping to encourage her to love the hair the way she was born and not feel compelled to change it.  We know that’s a whole can of worms so we’re not political with hair on the other side either.  I support women’s natural hair choices but I don’t condemn women who choose to straighten their hair because I can understand their reasoning for doing that as well.

FM:  Aside from learning about “Carol’s Daughter Leave-In Conditioner for Dry Hair,” and ”Carol’s Daughter Hair Milk,” what have you truly learned about what is referred to as “kinky hair?”

TCG:  I’ve read quite a bit on different hair styles in terms of what’s considered to be “good hair” and what’s considered to be “bad” or ”"nappy hair.”  Of course, I know the idea is that  it’s all good hair and I support that view.  I think there are styles where every type of hair can be beautiful.  I just want to support that.  Whatever Miriam’s hair is, if it changes as she grows up, I just want her to feel good about finding a style that she can feel beautiful with naturally.  If she wants to do other things that are out there like extensions or color or straightening then I want to be as open and supportive as I can be.  Primarily, our goal is to make her feel good about the hair that she has and the way that it is.

I don’t know if I got your question specifically.  You asked about what have I learned about kinky hair.  I have learned about different types of hair just from reading books and reading online.  But, of course, most of what I’ve learned about is Miriam’s hair and how it responds when it’s wet or as it drys and you have to dry it out and what it does if I just wash it and let it dry versus putting things in it or what it does in twists or what it does in braids and if I make little braids or big braids, so I know her hair mostly and a little bit about other types of hair as well.

FM:  Do you believe that you and your wife have instilled in Miriam a sense of confidence and belief that she is beautiful?

TCG:  I think so.  I mean a lot of that is genetic.  Some people are born with more levels of confidence than others.  What we can do is add to that with environment and so the nurture we give her is always in those kinds of signals that she is beautiful and that we love the color of her skin and the way her hair is curly and that it’s just something that we think is beautiful.  That’s one of the reasons why we are adopting again, so that we can have someone else in the family who has the same color skin and the same type of hair just to provide some balance to our family to make it better for both of them.  That’s one of the motivations to doing that, to make that seem more normal.

FM:  Flaimahmy considers you to be a Fly Dad.  What do you think makes you a Fly Dad?

TCG:  I’m not a perfect dad; I don’t know if  I am a Fly Dad.  We both try to live intentionally and to think these things through.  We don’t always make great decisions.  Like I said, I’m not a perfect dad but I’m trying.  If I’m a Fly Dad it’s because I’m trying.

http://mirroronamerica.blogspot.com/2009/07/daddys-little-girl.html