Comments

1. Miss Profe wrote:

   We all want to fit in - especially in middle school and high school. Up until middle school, I was comfortable being a little Black girl. Then, something changed. I didn’t want to detract too much from “normal”. Academically, I was fine, because in my home, being a good student was not considered a “White thing”. Never was. But, in terms of my physcial self, I did my best to accomodate myself to the default culture.

   Looking back on it, I realize that it did not really matter. Most of the people with whom I went to school - the White kids - really did not pay much attention to me, anyway. So, in hindsight, I would have been better off just being myself.

   Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 8:29 am ¶

2. Miss Profe wrote:

   I realized that just after I posted my first comment, I had not read below the fold. Now that I have read the entire post, I will comment on your two questions:

   W/R/T understanding my racial identity, my parents helped me to to that. As I grew older and went on to college, where I was able to interact with women from all parts of the African diaspora, and to take classes in American history, anthropology and sociology, and to engage in my own reading, I developed an even deeper understanding and appreciation.

   W/R/T the oreo/twinkie/coconut monikers - can’t touch those. Never had a desire to identify as an oreo.

   Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 8:41 am ¶

3. jose wrote:

   And this is why educators who have that kind of experience HAVE TO help those who need it the most. Unfortunately, we don’t do enough to include everyone’s histories in our curriculum, which is why we have these feelings of inadequacy. Most of my history, I had to research my damn self, and to this day, I’m still mad I never found out much about my history from either my mother or father.

   Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 9:00 am ¶

4. Chris wrote:

   This reminds me of my experience in high school. The first day of ninth grade, I sat down at the Filipino table at lunch. After that day, I never sat there again. I got the evil eye, people were snickering and talking about me right in front of my face, stating “who the fuck is this guy and why is he sitting here?”

   I felt horrible. I already felt anxious and nervous abotu being in high school, but that was just icing on the cake. I wondered why I wasn’t accepted at their table, maybe it was because I’m mixed? That didn’t make sense, because there were other mestizos and mestizas that were welcomed at the table.

   The reason, as one of my friend’s older brother’s made me realize, was that I was a “banana.” I didn’t wear DDTP t-shirts or drop-socks, I preferred Airwalks and Vans to Timbs and Jordans, I listened to Weezer and Rage Against the Machine instead of 2Pac and Scarface and Go-Go. Therefore, I was “whitewashed” and immediately rejected from the large Filipino community at my high school.

   The funny thing is, looking back on it, their style of dress and music preference wasn’t necessarily inherently Asian, either.

   Nevertheless, I’ve never really identified as Filipino, or white for that matter. I’m just me, a mixed race kid with a personality and identity that doesn’t necessarily fit into any category. It sucks to go throughout your adolescent years as somewhat of an outcast in high school, but it’s not that big of a deal once you’re out on your own as an adult.

   Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 9:02 am ¶

5. TierList E wrote:

   I’ve had the opposite occur to me. A lot. I’m a non-stereotypical black woman and I had people (white, black, effing everybody) tell me I’m not black after I identify with it for whatever reason. It’s annoying, and even kind of hurtful- what right do you have to tell me who I am, especially after I just told you?

   I want to be black. Even if I didn’t really want to I wouldn’t have too much of a choice. I know I’m ’safe black’ and I have a different experience than other blacks that may not fit that, but the world will never confuse me for white either. My black card is always trying to be pickpocketed, and to be honest I don’t really understand why. You would think there’d be more resistance if I were trying to say I weren’t black.

   Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 9:28 am ¶

6. Celeste wrote:

   I’ve been on the receiving (Indian boyfriend using rollerball to put a dot on my forehead and making me part my hair in the middle, don’t ask) and most recently the giving end. My husband had to assimilate to survive being the only Asian kid at his school but I think he’s internalized that instinct to be as non-other as possible to the point of being a banana and I’ve told him as much. My social grousp are very mixed but when I first went out with his friends I was in total lack of POC shock. Not only were all his friends white but I was 1 of 2 blacks (there were a couple asians, too) at the club we met them at. I’d never even been to a club with such a dirth of POC’s in my entire life. It was quite shocking and a bit disturbing and still kinda bothers me.

   Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 9:47 am ¶

7. Winn wrote:

   Part of my journey to embracing and gaining pride in my racial identity involved, I must confess, a period of self-hatred. I went to predominantly white schools in Kansas and Texas, and was always an outcast among the other AA kids because of my style of dress, music choices, the way I spoke, and being in T & G and honors programs. Even my parents called me an Oreo! I wasn’t encouraged to expand my concept of blackness; it was presented to me as a monolithic identity that I didn’t conform to. So I was embarrassed by it and for a time, rejected it.

   It wasn’t until I went to college at a predominantly white university in Texas that I began to question my own self-concept. I went through an Afrocentric period for a while, attempting to change everything about myself that seem to make me an outlier. But I wasn’t really accepted by other AAs then either, especially because I declined to pledge a black sorority (the whole concept of the Greek experience gives me the heebie-jeebies, and I just wasn’t comfortable with the level of comformity expected). I finally realized I would have to forge my own path, and research my own history, discovering that we were a diverse and complex people, with no one fixed identity or set of beliefs, and many ways of experiencing the world.

   Now I know exactly who I am, and feel entirely comfortable with my blackness, even when my own community tries to deny it because I don’t fit some pre-conceived notion of how I should behave, where my interests should lie, or what I should believe. It took a while for me to understand that, to paraphrase the old saying, “we contain multitudes”. I agree that being black is about your heritage, but when that heritage is presently narrowly and without gradations, it is easy to believe that identity is about hobbies or habits. We need to do a better job in encouraging and nurturing expansive identities rather than restrictive ones. As long as we hold the concepts of Oreos and bananas, people will be branded with those labels, and without a strong center, they may, at least for a time, embrace them.

   Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 11:22 am ¶

8. Matt wrote:

   How would you feel if a white person said they don’t identify as white? I know it tends to irk me.

   What if they continued by saying their identification is with being gay? Jewish? There are lots of non-white, Jewish gays. If we’re still irked is it because we put an unreasonable emphasis on race? I don’t know about anyone else, but these aren’t easy questions for me.

   When you identify with a group, you’re not just making a statement about yourself but a statement about the nature of that group. You get into a discussion on what that group is. It’s clearest for me with respect to Jewishness. My primary ethnic identification these days is with Jewishness. To a lot of Orthodox Jews, I’m telling them their religion is not what they say it is. That’s a bit peculiar to Jewishness, but I doubt other racial/ethnic identifications are ever any less complicated. When I say I’m Jewish, I’m not only talking about myself, but I’m making a statement about what Jewishness is that other Jews might not agree with. I’m lucky I get to fall back on religious laws (that I don’t believe in) to prove it.

   Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 11:41 am ¶

9. EvilAngelfish wrote:

   There is so much to explore with this topic –
   1. First, about oreo: this is a detestable insult. When it was thrown at me, it meant “You are acting too smart, speaking too properly and dressing too prudishly to be black.” What???? At the root of this is a very narrow definition of what “blackness” is. I expect it’s the same with terms like banana/twinkie and coconut. Perhaps people who proudly claim these terms are like people who proudly claim “b*tch” and “n*gga” – they’re trying to reclaim what was leveled as an insult and make it positive. I don’t think that changes the fact that it was initially an insult. Of course, people who embrace the “x on the outside, white on the inside” mentality also seem to subscribe to a very limited idea of what it means to be a person of x race.

   2. About identity: on the other thread, there was this one idea that really chafed me, even though I could understand why it seemed valid. Someone argued that a person like Tiger Woods could identify as mixed race or multiracial however much he wanted but if he ever got pulled over by highway patrol, he’d be black, period. It seems to me that this assessment is, at the very least, tinged with bitterness. It may be that the person who mentioned it was thinking, “the cops will see black because you are black, so why not just embrace blackness and be proud of that? Isn’t being black enough?” But then, it also might have been, “No matter what you say you are, the cops are not going to see the other facets of your identity, and even if they do, they aren’t going to care. They’re going to see ‘black’ and harass you all the same.”

   Identity is a very complex thing and in some ways, allowing society to define it simplifies it. For me, it’s always been difficult. On one hand, I’ve never quite fit into society’s idea of blackness – even other black people have accused me of not ‘acting black’. At the same time, a very large portion of society, from the very moment they see me, will always conclude ‘black’, and with that conclusion comes a whole pack of stereotypes, few of which have anything to do with me. On the other hand, I could always identify as mixed. Black, while incomplete is more convenient and succinct. Mixed, while not readily apparent, is more accurate. Which is better? Is choosing ‘mixed’ instead of ‘black’ a value judgment? Moreover, does choosing to identify as ‘mixed’ instead of ‘black’ make me (the individual, not the idea or assumptions) different? In society’s eyes? In my eyes? To be honest, I still haven’t come up with an answer. The identifier that has been most comforting, strangely enough, is “weird”. It’s the one everyone has always seemed to agree on.
   For some people, choosing to identify as ‘mixed’ or ‘multiracial’ may be very well be an attempt to escape the narrow confines of society’s view of what a person of color is like. It may also be a casting off of some of the burden that comes with PoC identity. For others, it is not about rejecting parts of themselves in favor of others but representing themselves fully.

   Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 11:42 am ¶

10. Tony wrote:

    I guess I’m lucky in that I didn’t really go through a major identity crisis and identified as ‘mixed’ early on.

    I’m black/white and a little bit of Choctaw tribe Native American too.

    I studied the history of different cultures enough to respect them all, and never want to deny any of them that helped make me who I am.
    To me, defining myself as any one thing is an insult to my other ancestors.

    I have no doubt to most people I fit the “Oreo” type.
    Although less mainstream “oreo”

    I’ve always been more into the punk,goth and metal music genres than any style that is traditionally associated with blacks.
    I tend to dress accordingly (I own all of one shirt that is not black, I was one of the first “people of color’ to wear a mohawk in modern times.)

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 12:29 pm ¶

11. Gregory A. Butler wrote:

    EvilAngelfish,

    I’m the person who made the Highway Patrol argument - that, basically, for folks who are in full or in part of African ancestry, you might CLAIM to be something other than Black, but if you are driving down Interstate 20/59 at 2AM and get pulled over by the Alabama Highway Patrol, what race THEY identified you with would be a whole lot more relevant than your beliefs.

    And I still stand by that position.

    “Race” is a SOCIALLY constructed concept - for instance, in countries where there was a very small White population during slavery (like the Carribbean islands) there is this whole catagory of “Mulatto” - that is, Blacks with some White ancestry - and those folks have the status of White people.

    But in places like America, we have the one drop rule.

    So, for instance, I can go from being considered a Black man in Ft Lauderdale to being a Mulatto an hour later on Grand Bahama Island.

    I didn’t change, but I travelled from a country with one racial classification system to another with a whole different approach.

    Bottom line, we really don’t get to “choose” our racial identity - we live within a society with a certain history and way of defining people racially, and those social concepts determine our identity.

    I know that reality may make some folks uncomfortable - but it is a fact nontheless.

    Beyond that, I’d like to address this whole question of this narrow idea of what being “Black” means.

    Apparently, to be “really Black” is to speak African American dialect, not be into high culture, listen to a certain type of music, be a Southern Baptist, eat a certain type of food of slave plantation origin and to otherwise fit into a very narrow cultural mold.

    I TOTALLY reject that view of “Blackness” - and think that stereotype ridden view should be challenged.

    To be Black in America is to be a person who is in full or in part of African descent.

    Period.

    Full Stop.

    End of Sentence.

    End of Paragraph.

    End of Chapter.

    I feel very bad for folks who were raised on such a rigid concept of “Blackness” and I urge them to accept their Black identity racially, but to break with this narrow, and basically racist, view of what being “Black” is.

    You can be Black and listen to rock (hell, rock and roll was INVENTED by Black musicians - so it’s Black music too!!!).

    You can be Black and never go to a Tyler Perry “stage play” or movie (or want to).

    You can be Black without being Baptist (you can be Muslim - and many many many Blacks are, especially in NYC, or Buddhist, or Jewish, or Athiest or whatever).

    You can be Black and read books that aren’t sold on vendors tables on 125th St - you can also still be Black and go to museums, and Broadway shows, and art galleries, and arthouse movie theaters.

    Maybe I’m lucky, but I’ve never felt any less “Black” just because I didn’t identify with a narrow rigid interpretation of Southern Black Christian culture.

    So no, I don’t have to identify as “mixed” to go to see a movie at the Angelica, or to go to an art gallery, or to pass on the pig intestines (”chitlins”) and have some Thai food instead.

    You can do all of that stuff and still be Black.

    Because, at the end of the day, if you find yourself on a rural highway in the middle of the night, YOU might not identify as Black - but that guy in the smokey hat in that car with the blue lights on top sure as hell will put you in that catagory.

    Since America decided a long time ago that you are Black, why not embrace that identity? And why not embrace a type of Blackness that isn’t so damned narrow and rigid and stultified?

    Oh, and if anybody’s wondering, the reason I used the example of Interstate 20/59 and the Alabama Highway Patrol, I actually DID get stopped by that wonderful law enforcement agency on that very road back in January.

    It was Dr King’s Birthday and me and a group of folks were coming back from a counterdemonstration against the KKK in Jena, Louisiana.

    The state trooper’s claimed that we were stopped because the driver was weaving between lanes.

    However I suspect the real reason we got pulled over was that we were a suspiciously multiracial group (2 Whites, 1 Latino and 4 Blacks).

    Now, two of those Black people (me and another person) were the type of Blacks that some on this board might not consider to be ‘really Black’.

    That is, both me and that other person are mixed, neither one of us come from that stereotypical Southern Black Christian background and, culturally, we go far far far off the Reservation of what Blacks are “supposed” to be into.

    But none of that made either me or her any less Black in the eyes of that state trooper.

    Bottom line, since you’re going to be Black anyway, why not just accept it - and futher, why not EXPAND the definition of Blackness beyond the narrow rigid confines of what some see as being “really Black”?

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 12:44 pm ¶

12. FranSky wrote:

    “For some people, choosing to identify as ‘mixed’ or ‘multiracial’ may be very well be an attempt to escape the narrow confines of society’s view of what a person of color is like. It may also be a casting off of some of the burden that comes with PoC identity. For others, it is not about rejecting parts of themselves in favor of others but representing themselves fully.”

    I never viewed my own mixed-ness as you will as not being a POC. Very clearly I am a POC because my sknin is brown. So yeah I embrace being multiracial because I can’t escape being a POC ( I wouldn’t want to) and because it’s an honor to have such a variety of ancestors to come from.

    As a child I remember saying to my mom & day that they were chocolate & vanilla & I was caramel. I loved being surrounded by my parents friends of various ethnecities and loved that I blended in with so many groups of people. I would have Asian, Black, Native, Latino and much more come up to me & claim me as one of their own & I reveled in such attention. I felt my mixed-ness was a gift that allowed me to unite with all races & make friends with anyone.

    As I got older this feeling was shattered by racism. My brown skin was seen as less than by some classmates, even though they had know idea what my racial heritage was. But of course I made friends that didn’t care, but when the eventual racism came up from one of their other friends or parents, it always hurt & my monoracial friends just didn’t know what to do or say.

    I had to struggle with whites telling me I didn’t “seem” of color because of the way I spoke. Blacks told me I didn’t “seem” Black because I didn’t have the same kind of hair, even though sometimes my skin was darker than theirs. Then I’ve had folks from a few different races tell me I was “exotic” or a beautiful mix. Good lord!

    So I decided after so many opinions were put upon me that I needed to ruminate on my racial identification and decide for myself how I wanted to identify, regardless of anyone else. The “Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People” helped me a lot and found a new freedom from reading it. I now know how anyone one else feels about my background is not my business & not really theirs either. I’m blessed to be from so many ancestors. I love my Bohemian grandmother as much as I love my Native American Grandfather or my half Black father or my half French mother. My races or nor better or worse than anyone’s. Truly I experience the pain of racism & the privilege of being a POC. And for me & others that’s enough. Here’s the Bill of Rights I mentioned. Enjoy y’all! Peace!
    ~F
    I HAVE THE RIGHT…
    Not to justify my existence in this world.
    Not to keep the races separate within me.
    Not to be responsible for people’s discomfort with my physical ambiguity.
    Not to justify my ethnic legitimacy.

    I HAVE THE RIGHT…
    To identify myself differently than strangers expect me to identify.
    To identify myself differently from how my parents identify me.
    To identify myself differently from my brothers and sisters.
    To identify myself differently in different situations.

    I HAVE THE RIGHT…
    To create a vocabulary to communicate about being multiracial.
    To change my identity over my lifetime — and more than once.
    To have loyalties and identification with more than one group of people.
    To freely choose whom I befriend and love.
    -By Maria P. P. Root

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 12:50 pm ¶

13. FranSky wrote:

    Sorry for the grammar errors. I meant to say the following:
    -I am a POC because my skin is brown
    -I remember saying to my mom & dad
    -friends of various ethnicities
    -My races are no better or worse than anyone’s

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 12:59 pm ¶

14. Natasha wrote:

    I am a multiracial woman, and mother to 4 multiracial kids. My kids range from *mostly* Black, through biracial, to *mostly* White. My family’s heritage includes Cherokee, Black American, and at least 7 ethnicities of European American. As a White-appearing person who identifies as a POC, I am most often confronted by White people who do not understand how a person who looks White isn’t *just* White. Add to that my four stair-step kids, none of whom resemble each other (including the two that are full bio siblings). I am raising my kids to be knowledgeable about all their ancestry and heritage, and those of their siblings. I identify my kids–to them and others–as multiracial and Black and White (or multiracial and Cherokee and White), knowing full well that they get to choose their own identity(s) as they get older. And I will respect their choices.

    A question I am often confronted with regarding multiracial identity is this: at what level does the term multiracial no longer apply? I read somewhere a (White) scholar defining mutiracial as basically biracial, they said that a person who is 75% one race (whatever that means) was just that one race. Clearly, I don’t agree with that definition, but it is an interesting thought. There are so many of us in the U.S. who have one (or more) ancestors not so far back there who were written out of the family history for racial reasons. I’m not letting my more recent relatives white-wash my (and my children’s) full heritage.

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 1:04 pm ¶

15. Cynthia C wrote:

    But what happens when acting “your ethnicity” isn’t really part of your ethnicity, traditionally speaking? Does that mean that most people are “white inside”? For example, the stereotypical “proper” Chinese Canadian kid is expected to play piano quite well. Pianos aren’t Chinese instruments!

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 1:12 pm ¶

16. Gregory A. Butler wrote:

    Being Black in America is kind of like being in a purgatory - a permanent Scarlet Letter, that will always and forever make you less than “fully American”.

    In light of that fact, I can fully understand why some folks would try desperately to get as far away from Blackness as possible.

    I truly feel for you, FranSky - feeling as a little kid that being biracial meant that you could be friends with folks from every race - and then having to feel the emotional slap in the face of being rejected by people because of your color.

    But, here’ s an idea - instead of trying to create an American Mulatto construct to get away from Blackness, why not fight for a world were race doesn’t matter?

    Wouldn’t that be a much better place - a world where you wouldn’t have to be biracial to have friends from different ethnic groups?

    More to the point, as long as America is racist, there is no escape from Blackness.

    This country will never see folks like us as anything other than Black (no matter how much White, Native American, Latino, Asian or Arab ancestry we may have) so the whole biracial thing just isn’t going to work.

    Race is a social construct, not a personal choice (and I know that position is contraversial on this site, but facts are facts) and we’ve been socially constructed as Black.

    So, why not join with antiracist folks (of all races) and fight for a world where there is no racism?

    That seems a lot better than trying to run away from your race - a task that this country won’t let you succeed at anyway!

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 1:25 pm ¶

17. Latoya Peterson wrote:

    Gregory -

    Sorry, I’m not seeing where people are choosing to “run-away” from their blackness by choosing to identify as multi-racial.

    As I said above, with example of my best friend - she chooses to identify as African-American; that is what suits her. But she could just as easily identify as multi-racial or even as desi. (Or pass as Ethiopian, as people often believe she is when she has a tan).

    I don’t see how accepting someone else’s construct of race as they apply it to you helps with anti-racist activities. In fact, I think it hinders it. The more people who stand up and say I embrace both/all of my cultures the better off we will be in the long run.

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 1:40 pm ¶

18. Gregory A. Butler wrote:

    Latoya,

    It seems to me that some folks use “multiracial” as a way of getting away from being Black (which, in reality, is how folks who have any significant Black ancestry are defined).

    It seems like a way of trying to find a personal excape hatch from American White supremacy.

    I can understand why folks would do that - being Black is very difficult in this country, so I can totally see how somebody who didn’t think a nonracist world was even possible might try to get away from racism by getting away from being Black.

    But, the cold hard fact is, you can’t do that here!

    Look, I’m as proud of my Irish heritage - but I will never be considered Irish, because of my brown skin and kinky hair.

    On the other hand, those same characteristics will get me defined by my other ancestry - that is, African American.

    So, in light of those facts, I define myself as “a Black man with an Irish father” - which is, by American racial standards, what I am.

    Yes, I’d like to see a world where race was irrelevant and nobody was defined by color.

    And we’re going to have to struggle and fight to get to a world like that.

    And that’s going to have to be a collective struggle, involving millions of people.

    Personal attempts to find an individual escape hatch from racism, while understandable, do not help.

    Plus, there is this whole element in this conversation about being ‘really Black’ that I find disturbing, and, quite frankly, self hating.

    To be “really Black” is to fit into a narrowly defined cultural catagory - basically, if you don’t eat chitlins and go to the Baptist Church on Sunday, you’re not “really Black”.

    So, even if both my parents were African American, I wouldn’t be Black - nor, for that matter, would most of the Black people I know!

    That’s a problem.

    And I notice that a lot of the posters above take that view, that there is this narrow, rigidly defined and stereotypical “Black” identity and if you don’t fit in within that identity, you’re not ‘really Black’ and should identify as “multiracial” or “biracial”.

    Sorry, I don’t buy that!

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 2:14 pm ¶

19. Latoya Peterson wrote:

    Ok Gregory,

    Let me flip this on you.

    People look at you, and instead of seeing both your Irish heritage and black heritage, they only see the black. As such, you identify the way society IDs you - as black.

    My friend does not look black, though her heritage is one half African-American. Should she now identify as Italian or Ethiopian, as that is what society tells her she is?

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 2:29 pm ¶

20. Fransky wrote:

    Mr. Butler-

    I really wish to not make this personal but since you keep addressing me, I’ll now address you. First off I didn’t write that I’m biracial.. I said multiracial or mixed. I’m more that 2 races but three. Please consider reading comments more carefully so it seems like you’ve spent time really reading the words before commenting . Otherwise it seems to me you come off really angry & more ready to speak than listen.

    Part of the rejection I felt was not only from white kids but Black kids too. That one drop rule that certain whites came up with years ago DOES NOT apply to me in that particular sense because even other Blacks don’t recognize me as such. Yes my brother, other Blacks have told me I am not Black enough & should not identify that way. And I’m not mad about it because I know who I am & no one can try to take that away, whether they are Black, white or any other race or combination there of.

    Today, lucky for me I’m surrounded by many Black, brown & white folks who love me & value my diverse background & see me as a whole and if I say I’m Black or mixed or whatever else they value my feelings. They LISTEN and honor me as I honor them, regarless of how we choose to identify (or not identify).

    Here’s the complicated part. If I concentrate on building a world where race doesn’t matter, I’m accused of ignoring the issues & realities that race can conjure. If I address racial issues I’m accused of not fighting for a world where race doesn’t matter. If I accept all my racial backgrounds I’m accused of running from my Blackness. If I embrace my Blackness I’m accused to trying to be something I’m not. So you know what I say to all those who wish to look outside themselves & judge me? I say good luck, goodness bless & then I ignore them & do my thing. There is no other choice for me or anyone else who may feel the same way. Like it or not we all can’t agree, but we can LISTEN & HONOR each others experiences, one day, one hour and one moment at a time.

    Mr. Butler good luck & goodness bless.
    ~F

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 2:55 pm ¶

21. ambre wrote:

    I think part of the problem with the whole twinkie/oreo thing is that aspects of “American” culture is mistakenly associated with being “white.” I know that this has to do with the fact that still, many many people in this country believe that “white” = “American,” which is sad. Being “American” (in America) is hard to define, and it seems to just default to “white,” because that’s who is (and has been) “in charge.” I think “being American” really hit me (as it does most people) when I lived abroad; while I had dealt with this issue before, it of course became much more prevalent when I was overseas. I felt a twinge of discomfort when I had to say “I’m American” or people identified me as being “American” because I didn’t want people to think that it meant “I’m white” because in no way do I identify as white or coconut/twinkie/whatever. Even though I know American doesn’t equal “white” and none of the people around me (overseas) necessarily identified me as white, it still bothered me a bit, maybe also because I don’t want to be associated with the stereotypes of being “American” even if in the international community that means something other than being “white.”

    I’ve heard mixed people and people of color identify as “white” saying things like “well, I grew up eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and we never ate [ethnic] food….so I’m just white” I’m not really sure how PB&J makes one white, as I know plenty of PoC who ate and still eat PB&J, twinkies, drink root beer, etc. and don’t magically turn a different color Willy Wonka style. I mean it’s silly to think of these American foods as “white people” food, right? I do understand that food is a big part of cultural connection and identity, but aspects of other cultures become part of your own personal life/culture depending on where you live/grow up. You don’t have to be a stereotype or close yourself off from “outside influences” in order to identify with your own race. Enjoying food, music, movies, etc. from a different culture doesn’t automatically grant you that particular race card.

    I identify as being mixed Mexican/Japanese (in light of recent debate in this discussion I have no problem identifying as Latina, Asian, and Mixed - or do I have to pick one?) I was born and raised in the states, and I’m 4th generation on both sides of my family. I’ve had tons of experiences where people have tried to define me, and convince me of their definition. To most people that vocalize their opinion, I “look Asian” but still this is often a big (annoying) debate. This, and the fact that I did live in Japan for 2 years, leads people (including some close friends) to believe that I identify more strongly with “Japanese culture.” I am quite adamant that I equally identify with both my Mexican and Japanese heritage, however many people cannot handle this, and have a feeling that I’m “fooling myself.” And if I’m not “the other white meat” then I must be straight up White, right? Because I mean, I’m not trilingual, I don’t drive a lowered honda civic with tinted windows and I don’t bump Ranchera music. My friends especially like bring up this time in high school - I was in economics class and we were having a discussion about race (totally unrelated to class, but lead by the teacher who was Black), and I ended up going on a huge tirade about how “I’M NOT EFFING WHITE!!!” My class (and school) was a majority of Black and Latino students, and unfortunately most, if not all of our discussions about race turned into the oppression Olympics. I recall that this was such a conversation, and at some point someone said something to the effect of “you white people” and pointed at me. Apparently that was the last straw. Blowing up about it was of course was not a constructive way to go about it, but I was young and full of anger. My teacher and classmates, were just like, “damn, OK calm down, WHATEVER!” and no one even addressed it. No one, even some of my friends, could understand why I would be so visibly upset be this. I know that in high school, you can’t expect the most thoughtful conversations all the time, but that shouldn’t be an excuse.

    Obviously, race and identity are complicated matters, and the ideals behind them vary between individuals. However, pigeon-holing and succumbing to stereotypes isn’t going to make them any easier to understand/deal with.

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 2:57 pm ¶

22. queerhapa wrote:

    Gregory, you said “So, for instance, I can go from being considered a Black man in Ft Lauderdale to being a Mulatto an hour later on Grand Bahama Island.

    I didn’t change, but I travelled from a country with one racial classification system to another with a whole different approach.”

    I think this is a very spot-on illustration of the social constructedness of race. But what I don’t follow is why you insist that the Alabama state trooper test is the singular defining entity that delineates race (or rather, blackness), in the United States. As a social construct, there are multiple, fluid agents who have a hand in constructing race. The criminal justice system, yes, but also legal statutes, census boards, the media, social movements, popular opinion, etc. Why discount these other agents of construction? More to the point, why discount other people’s defining experiences of identity formation?

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 3:20 pm ¶

23. queerhapa wrote:

    Oh, and to get to Latoya’s question, my family probably had the biggest influence in my racial i.d., and in acknowledging being both Asian and Ashkenazi Jewish. Over the years I’ve also perfected my pat and snarky responses to the dreaded “What are you?” question.

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 3:32 pm ¶

24. Joanna wrote:

    Growing up, I wished I were just white and was embarrassed when people asked me about my background. (I’m Chinese and English.) That’s because I wanted to be normal, and normal was white in my very predominantly white town. But I called myself “half Chinese.”

    It wasn’t until I went to college and started meeting some people of color that I realized that my claim to be “half Chinese” wasn’t complete enough. I also had to say what the other half was, which was somewhat of a surprise to me.

    Now I feel like I mostly identify as mixed race, because people seem to interpret me in many different ways when they see me. I’m often assumed to be Latina (all sorts), Hawaiian, Filipina, Eastern European, French, Chinese… you name it. And I take pride in this and sometimes let people believe whatever they want. (Like when someone talks to me in Spanish on the street, I’ll just smile and nod or give them a short answer in Spanish so they might not be able to tell I’m not a native speaker.) I guess I still just like to blend in to the crowd sometimes. When I travel internationally, I love not standing out as a tourist, in parts of both Asia and Latin America.

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 4:18 pm ¶

25. atlasien wrote:

    I don’t understand Gregory’s position on multiracial identity either. The rest of his arguments and positions (which I totally agree with) don’t seem to have anything to do with this “multiracial always equals black hating” construction. It’s like a massive detour that comes out of nowhere.

    Personally, I’ve never had an identity crisis. When my family moved to a very white, very hostile environment, I made some half-hearted attempts to
    fit in. These attempts failed so badly I just gave up and resigned myself to being an outsider. This was how I started forming a racial identity. There was just no way I was going to be mistaken as white. I knew exactly one other Asian girl at the school but we avoided each other carefully… she fit in a lot better, and we had absolutely nothing in common.

    The advantage was that I realized it was my environment that was screwed up, not my self. When I left, I was able to empower myself to create a better environment where I had a lot of different kinds of friends.

    I can empathize with the “I’m not white” anger. That’s happened to me only a very few times but I remember them vividly. Once, a while ago, when a black friend was really angry at me and called me white, knowing it would hurt… but not quite how much it would hurt. Then a couple times when white friends or family have said something like “we were the only white people there” and I’d have to give an immediate correction.

    Thinking deeper, the reason it’s so wounding is that I suffered a lot when I was young for not being white (frequent racial slurs and attacks). I had to become proud of NOT being white in order to psychically defend against these attacks. Accidentally or purposefully calling me white represents the invalidation of all that hard work.

    The problem I have as a Japanese-American is that interest in Japanese culture is so… white. And black too, really… it’s just something so many non-Japanese are interested in. The most irritating tend to be white guys who believe their knowledge of anime gives them special Japanes-woman-access privileges. During college, I avoided any kind of Japanese organizations like the plague because I didn’t want to run into those guys. Looking back, I wish I’d stuck it out and joined a few.

    But I don’t have huge issues about my connection, or lack of, to Japan. After all, my favorite things to grill are squid and mackerel. If I want more of a connection than what I have, I’ll explore it in future. I wouldn’t do it to feel more authentic, but because I’d have a real desire to do so. I think that people should ideally explore their heritage because they want to, and because it makes them happy… not because they have an authenticity deficit they’re obligated to fill.

    I’m completely mystified as to why people would WANT to call themselves oreos or twinkies. Self-deprecating humor, sure. But if they’re really serious? Yikes. You’re basically saying “I want to be white and I’m ashamed of my ancestors”. Maybe these people are not that damaged… maybe they just MEAN to say “I enjoy a lot of activities that are stereotypically white.” They should just say that then, and not use words like oreo and twinkie for shorthand.

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 4:43 pm ¶

26. thesciencegirl wrote:

    I believe that racial identity has 2 components: how you perceive yourself, and how others perceive you. When these perceptions differ, people can get really confused, even angry; they don’t like it when your self-identification doesn’t fit into their neat little labeled boxes. The government is especially good at this. Teachers, government forms, college applications, a particularly stubborn clerk at the MVA… they all want me to “Just Pick One!”

    I don’t think I have to pick one just to make people comfortable. I can talk about my “blackness,” particularly when discussing my experiences with racism, without considering myself “black.” The perception that others have of me is sometimes as black, sometimes as a confusing racially ambiguous person, sometimes they just randomly guess and speak to me in Spanish or ask if I’m Saudi Arabian or Cape Verdean or… whatever. I don’t buy the idea that biracial people have to say that they are black just because of what other people think. If I followed that line of logic, I’d have to change my identity all the time, depending on my tan, my hairstyle, and the experiences of the people I encounter on any given day.

    I am the product of an Italian-American mother, and a black father with some English slave owner and Native American blood mixed in there. If asked, I identify myself as multiracial or sometimes I just say black and white.

    I have never identified myself strictly as a black woman. In fact, a very large part of my identity stems from Italian-American culture. Not to claim it, and my mother’s contribution to me: her big Italian nose and her cheekbones and her lasagna recipe, would just be so false.

    I did not come to claim my racial identity lightly, and it’s not a simple “black and white” matter (har har). I learned early in life to appreciate the fact that I reside in the gray area of race. Sometimes I feel white and black. Sometimes I feel like neither. Sometimes I am just a tired med student and I don’t think about it. But the thing is: my racial identity and the way that it has shaped my experiences are a huge part of my self-identity, and no one really gets to define that but me.

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 5:12 pm ¶

27. Tarah Sweeney wrote:

    Argh. I don’t identify myself as a coconut/twinkie/oreo, other people identify me as such.

    I’m quite comfortable with who I am, they are the ones who feel uncomfortable.

    I do understand (though only slightly) how one can choose with which racial group to identify with. This might happen to bi-racial children. I think it’s pretty normal.

    So, the person might look slightly black, but because the white parent’s culture/outlook/personality plays a stronger role in the child’s development, automatically he/she chooses that lifestyle/culture over the black lifestyle/culture.

    In a South African context: We have Xhosas who marry Sothos, for example. What does that make the children? Are they Xhosas or are they Sothos?

    True, it’s more cultural, rather than racial, but this is what happens.

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 5:16 pm ¶

28. Terell wrote:

    “And, for those of you who might know - why would someone voluntarily identify as an oreo/twinkie/coconut?”

    I think you were correct in pointing out that they have internalized some racial stereotypes. I also think that folks can be made to feel this way by their peers. The question of “are you black enough” is pervasive.
    I live in Portland Oregon and their is not much of a thriving 30 something black professional scene (at least I haven’t found it). So I find myself surrounded mostly by liberal white friends. When I find myself kicking it with old friends or family there are times when my authenticity comes into question.

    -T

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 6:22 pm ¶

29. Allison wrote:

    This is an issue I struggle with constantly. When I was in high school I did a radio piece for a local station about difficult it was to identify as black and not have stereotypical black interests. I felt that the process of developing a racial identity brings up the issue of community vs. individuality.

    One of the issues that I have encountered with other black people is the fear that the more diverse we become the less community oriented we will be. For example, it seems that the only time black people want to get together is when something horrible goes down. And if key aspects of black culture are breaking down to make way for people who just want to expand their interests, what community exists? It feels as though the only thing that will bind us will be the continued existence of racial oppression.

    I have seen various black cultures: sharing race but separated by class, status, and nation of origin. So perhaps the idea of a community based on race is an outdated and problematic one. Sure, we may share common interests related to socioeconomic progress, but is that where it should end? If more and more young people are seeing themselves as global citizens, their commitment is to the eradication of global disenfranchisment–their race is merely accidental.

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 6:53 pm ¶

30. Meg wrote:

    First off - Latoya thanks for this post, i had been reading the other comment section with interest but i guess chickened out of getting involved.

    I think it’s such an indepth question how someone comes to understand their racial identity, but i’ll try to not be long winded: I was reading this blog way back when it was Mixed Media Watch/Eurasian Nation and as stupid as it sounds that helped me gain confidence in my ethnic identity. My major issue was that while I had always identified as Eurasian (I think my Mum introduced that description to me) I didn’t look stereotypically hot-model, Eurasian. Also there’s an expectation if you are mixed race that you look like someone has literally split half your mum’s genes with half your dad’s and glued you together so they know they shouldn’t make race jokes in front of you. My frustration and wavering confidence in claiming my identity was the slap down of i’m just claiming mixed race because i want to be “special”. It led to real questions on whether it would just be easier to say i’m australian (i.e. white) and leave it at that. Seeing on the internet a global community of people who had the exact same experiences as me e.g. “where are you from? no really, where’s your mum from…you know what i mean” made me feel like less of a freak. It also opened up my eyes to conversations about race that weren’t, and i guess still aren’t, happening in australia.

    I guess because I have always had my background/identity questioned I feel strongly for people to have the right to stake out their own identity e.g. tiger woods. It may feel like a slap in the face to one of the racial groups and I don’t really have an answer for that, it’s just my gut reaction that it shouldn’t be assumed that he’s running away from something. I believe (maybe incorrectly) that there’s no way i’d be considered part of an asian community - particularly people around my age who have grown up in suburbs/schools with strong asian ties because i’m not “full” asian and definitely don’t look like them. On the other hand, i get accused of not knowing enough about my culture and being too aussie. All of this is by way of saying that someone like Tiger in many ways seems “damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t”.

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 7:21 pm ¶

31. Tony wrote:

    The whole “The highway state patrol” gimmick is a little odd to me.

    I have African features, but let’s assume I have kids with a white woman.
    My skintone is pretty much “White dude with slight tan” I’ve seen actual white guys with skin darker than mine.
    If my supposed kids inherit their mothers featurs and my skintone, the HSP will think they are White.

    Should my children then identify themselves as only “White”?
    If they did, wouldn’t they catch more crap for “passing” and all.

    I don’t identify myself as biracial to escape my Black/African heritage.
    I have quite ‘african’ facial features and couldn’t if I wanted too.
    I identify myself as multi-racial or mixed because I feel identifying solely as black is an insult to my Irish/Scottish/French/Choctaw ancestors.
    Just like I wouldn’t identify as just any of those even if my features were more ‘white’ or Native American.

    To me, race is the same as my interests.
    I’m no more just “Black” than I am just a comic book collector.
    No more just white, than I am just Goth.
    I am a mixture of many different things, and I accept them all into how I identify myself.

    If we only get to identify as what racists consider us. (The underlying message of the HSP argument).

    Then I guess I should identify as multi-racial, because I’ve had more black racists call me derogatory multi-racial terms (or derogatory white terms) than I’ve ever had white racists call me derogatory black terms.

    (and I spend a good deal of time in small mostly white towns in Mississippi. So it’s not like they don’t get the chance)

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 7:27 pm ¶

32. Kaonashi wrote:

    The “one drop rule” was created by a Supremacist in America and had absolutely NOTHING to do with biology and everything to do with but power, retaliation and fear against the Free Men of Color who owned property and were gaining power in LA, Georgia and other places. Under this same law certain Native Americans tribes were actually considered Black as well for quite some years because he didn’t bother with a classification for them at all.

    Now considering how supremacists believe that anyone of color are mud people fit to be destroyed and no one believes that nonsense except for them, why the HELL are people still buying into the “one drop rule” in America today? The fact that every other country recognizes mixed-race individuals as such except America should be enough to tell you something is seriously wrong!

    NO ONE has the right to tell anyone that if they don’t self-identify in a certain way they are wrong, or “hiding from something.” If someone can’t understand why people want to embrace their entire background instead of “picking a race” then that’s their issue to deal with.

    On another note, I wish people would stop associating things as “White activities” “Black Activities” “Asian Activities” etc.

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 8:37 pm ¶

33. lunanoire wrote:

    The mixed ppl’s bill of rights has one part that bothers me: it seems to say that it’s ok to be a racial opportunist (to get a job/date/whatever) by “changing” your ID to suit the situation. I understand that we all in some ways act differently depending on the situation, but it seems that it could be disingenuous (ex: mixed dude at a bar using different sides of his various ethnicities every 10 minutes to pick up women). I question the difference between people who pass to get ahead in life on a more temporary basis compared to those who deny part of their heritage permanently.
    Then again, in their own way, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are racial opportunists.

    Posted 21 Mar 2008 at 10:45 pm ¶

34. Michelle wrote:

    I think that we need to put Gregory’s comments, thoughts, in historical context. That is to say, Black people passing as White. I am not suggesting that people who are multiracial who identify as such are trying to pass, but we should not just say that Gregory doesn’t have a valid issue with saying that calling yourself multiracial could be seen as a rejection of Black. I am just saying, see it from that lens and perhaps what Gregory is saying makes more sense.

    And one more thing about his comments. If you send your son into the world, and that world sees him as Black, even if he doesn’t, he could be in a world of trouble, even danger. I think that Gregory is trying to articulate that there are survival mechanisms that come along with the acceptance of who you are in the eyes of the world, especially when you are a Black man, or a man who happens to be socially perceived as Black.

    I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, Gregory, that is just what I saw and have been seeing in your comments on this issue.

    Posted 22 Mar 2008 at 1:22 am ¶

35. Torontonian wrote:

    “I have never understood the thinking that you were born a certain race, but really should be another.

    I feel like that kind of thinking stems from having bought into certain racial stereotypes about your own group.”

    Yes, that’s exactly it.

    When I was in high school, I used to believe that I was another race trapped inside a Chinese body. Because I grew up in a multiracial environment, I thought I was a multiracial person trapped inside a Chinese body — black, white, South Asian, Chinese, etc. I wanted to distance myself from what I considered the “Chinese people”, who were basically HK Chinese “FOBs” and were culturally different from me. In public school as a whole, I suffered the perpetual foreigner stereotype from some white teachers who assumed I was a foreigner because of my race and ethnic name. I had a narrow understanding of what it meant to be Chinese, which was also based on stereotypical portrayals of Chinese people in the media.

    When I went to university, it was a bit of a cultural shock, because most people were white, StuffWhitePeopleLike white. I realized how unwhite I was, and that even the culture I had could be traced back to growing up in the less segregated areas of Toronto, being a child of immigrants, being a continuation of the story of my ancestors. I also happened to take this social science course because of a breadth credit requirement at my university, and realized I grew up with a lot of internalized racism and considered Chinese people to be “Other”.

    Coming to understand my racial identity did not take just a day or just a year. It was a process throughout my undergrad that came from a chain of various realizations. Coming to understand my racial identity continued beyond my undergrad, and I’m still working on it right now.

    I identify as Chinese now because of my appearance (the way I am treated by society because of my East Asian appearance is an experience shared by all East Asians in Canada), and because of my ancestry (the privileges and disadvantages I have today are a causal result of what my forebears did, where they immigrated, etc.)

    Other identities I have are “Canadian”, “Chinese Canadian”, “Torontonian”, etc.

    Posted 22 Mar 2008 at 12:55 pm ¶

36. Torontonian wrote:

    But what happens when acting “your ethnicity” isn’t really part of your ethnicity, traditionally speaking? Does that mean that most people are “white inside”?

    You completely missed the point of this topic. This is not surprising, since you identify as as “banana”.

    If this Racialicious post doesn’t help you with your issues, I don’t know what will.

    Posted 22 Mar 2008 at 1:05 pm ¶

37. sfsinger wrote:

    This is all interesting. Both of my parents are Black. Both of my great-grandmothers were Cherokee so like a lot of other Blacks who do so I can claim to have some ‘Indian’ in my gene pool. My brothers all had the curly ‘good hair’ but we’re all medium brown. I grew up in a very segregated city in Upstate New York and plotted and counted the days until HS graduation so I could escape the economic and social oppression. When my parents had extra money I could go to Catholic school - it was on the “Black” side of town and had a predominantly Black student body. Otherwise I went to public school. I loved school and was offered the chance to be placed in a higher grade. My mom was a young mom, a cool mom, who was completing her undergrad and grad degrees so I got to attend some of her night classes with her. I used to read some of her books on Swahili or Child Psychology as well. One thing she always emphasized was getting multiple sources of information about history, so armed with what I’d read in books at home, I’d ask teachers why were some things emphasized while others completely ignored. I have always had a sense of pride of being Black, but have had to struggle with defining what that is and what it means to me. Just like with religion and beliefs - but that’s a whole other topic! So while I had to deal with racism - from a woman pulling her child inside when she saw me and my classmates walking from school [in our uniforms and backpacks no less] - to never being able to find an adequate job during summer breaks; I also had to deal with other self-hating Black people who insisted I fit a limited model; to trying to assert my own identity even within my own family. I preferred New Wave to R&B, I thought Boy George was flamboyant strictly because he was British, one of my high school crushes confessed he was gay and I felt fiercely protective of him, I didn’t understand the fire & brimstone view of religion, I wanted to be in a multi-cultural environment and live in NYC even though that meant I had to state I was an adult and left against my parent’s wishes with $50 and no sense of danger. It’s all fluid. And I still live an ‘unconventional’ life by some people’s standards. I have chosen to not have a child without a partner. I waited to have sex for longer than I thought I ’should’ because I wanted it to have some meaning - even though I didn’t understand that at the time. I took off for Europe with $3000 and a few prayers because I had to get out of this country even for a little while..and came back broker than ever. I want to be performer…still…and I’m in my 30’s and freaking out now…but cannot just take a 9-6 job for the sake of having a job…and have to deal with the financial ramifications of that…even though I like haute cuisine and designer handbags and would love to own a house. I live in an expensive state in an even more extensive city and have to fight feeling like a ‘loser’ because I have limited assets. But I can’t imagine not having access to wifi or cable or an organic food store even though I know a majority of people in the world don’t have these things and don’t need them either. Basically life is very challenging in many degrees for all of us regardless of how we identify along racial, economic, social, religious, class, etc. I think we all want to be free. Free to choose, free from other people imposing limits on us, free from our own fears, free to be..you and me.

    Posted 22 Mar 2008 at 3:20 pm ¶

38. La - msviswan wrote:

    I know a set of siblings that have the same parents, but they don’t all claim the same identity to this day. Their parents were black and white, but they both died by the time the kids were in their teens back in the early 50’s. They had to split up to live with different family all over.

    The ones that grew up in a black Caribb region will tell you they are black and think nothing further. The ones that moved away and grew up in the US continent, will tell you they are “biracial”, and get offended if you refer to them as “black” . I always found this interesting and somewhat troubling as a little girl. I think the identifying choices speak volumes on both sides.

    Posted 22 Mar 2008 at 6:15 pm ¶

39. Lola wrote:

    I have never understood the thinking that you were born a certain race, but really should be another.

    Maybe it’s the same as the gender or nationality thing. I guess it may be like a man feeling like he should have been born a woman or a non-british girl feeling like she should have been born british? (I know one, and she’s leaving for England this year). I guess???

    Now about the race being socially construct, I totally understand that people of mixed race wanna claim their different heritages. I respect their courage to define themselves regardless of what society has to say. People see what they want, what matters is how you see yourself.

    That’s like saying, because society in america decided that nappy hair isn’t hot (just an example folks, I’m not promoting a “for the cause” message) I should just accept it and not define them as beautiful regardless of what non-black people SEE, SAY OR THINK. Beauty is also defined by society, nappy hair will be venerated in Jamaica, while most Americans define them as “ugly”. Just like most Americans define mixed people (black+else) as black.

    Mixed people be free to define yourselves!! I had a friend who was black and indian, black people didn’t think she was black enough because she was into rock and classical music and a brilliant student, indians didn’t think she was indian enough. She chose to be blandian (black+indian) regardless, and the funny thing is, it was a white friend who helped her accept herself as she was and not let other people, not even white bigots, tag her “this” or “that”.

    Real freedom is defining yourself, regardless if you live in/go to Japan, Congo, Jamaica or America, the definition of “race” will change from one place to the other, but you won’t lose your mind because your definition of self will always be the same and won’t depend on the outside.

    Posted 22 Mar 2008 at 8:04 pm ¶

40. Lola wrote:

    I have never understood the thinking that you were born a certain race, but really should be another.

    ** Regarding my previous post, I have to add that I understand that it often has to do with buying into stereotypes, but not always…that’s why I thought of the nationality/gender thing. Like, I knew a white guy in high school who would beat you up if you called him white because he thought he should have been black. But hey, I don’t really know, i’m just tryna guess

    Posted 22 Mar 2008 at 8:33 pm ¶

41. Torontonian wrote:

    Lola,

    Gender identity has a biological basis, unlike believing that you are the wrong race or nationality, which is cultural.

    Posted 22 Mar 2008 at 11:22 pm ¶

42. atlasien wrote:

    I don’t have any problem with the formulation that SOME people who say they’re primarily multiriacial/biracial are trying to deny their black/Asian/other heritage. It’s obvious, and we all know people who fit that mold.

    The gaping chasm is between the SOME people to the ALL people formulation. I just don’t see how it follows that because SOME multiracial people fit that mold, therefore ALL OTHERS are tarred by association, and it doesn’t matter what their unique family histories or circumstances and life decisions are.

    Posted 23 Mar 2008 at 10:33 am ¶

43. blaster wrote:

    Yup, this is common. Black and (Near) Middle Eastern here (I identify as both, actually. I don’t simply identify as ‘multiracial’ and I agree that would sortof be a cop out of who I am. I am both, fully. I am not “half” anything, blood quantum is for nazis and the BIA.) and wanting to fit during my predominately white public school experience, I usually avoided discussing my background and let people draw whatever conclusion they were seemingly most comfortable with.

    I am dark enough and have enough african features (namely the kinky hair, but I kept that in check in school by keeping it cropped very very short) where I am never truly white, but I am light enough where, because I dressed a certain why and talked a certain way, people were comfortable thinking of me as only “slightly less white” than they were.

    As for the highway patrol comment, I think this is spot on. What’s interesting is I’ve had my identity ran by the cops a few times, and if they give a race for me they say I’m white… but I also get treated differently. One of the times they ran my ID as “white” (one day I’m going to argue with them, but it’s not really a good idea when you are being terry stopped to argue with the police) I was stopped with two white friends, all three of us in the car, me in the passenger seat, and they pulled us out of the car and searched me for weapons, but didn’t search either of the people I was with. So I was “white” enough to be ran as white when they were checking for warrants, but not white enough to where they felt safe being near me without searching me for weapons.

    I also don’t doubt that were I in a place like Alabama, my experience would have been different, and I don’t think I’d pass the whiteness test there.

    As I’ve always said, your ethnicity is how you see yourself, your race is how others see you. Your race can change as you travel, etc. I can only speak for myself, but I have enough racial features where I have been called a nigger, I have been called all sorts of things that people shouldn’t be called, and otherwise attacked for who I am. I would not feel (or be) safe at a Klan rally. So I am Black, I am a person of color, and it’s not up to me.

    Posted 23 Mar 2008 at 11:20 am ¶

44. blaster wrote:

    Ack, I forgot to point out what I wanted to say in this post — an elementary school teacher, when I was 8, told me that I should check off “White” because it would be easier for me (he was asking me why I had checked off “Other”) - which is fucked up beyond words, and I’ve only come to terms with how that’s affected me as an adult.

    Genocide is alive and well in the public school systems. Just ask any Native brother or sister.

    Posted 23 Mar 2008 at 11:21 am ¶

45. Orville wrote:

    I remember when I was a teenager people thought I was weird. Apparently since I am black I’m not supposed to listen to rock and roll music. I remember people telling me this. I u listened to Metallica, Morrissey, Smiths, PJ Harvey. I also wore leather jackets and I was a total goth. I used to wear Doc Martens and listen to songs about death all the time. Now I look back at my teenage years and laugh but I definitely stood out.

    Posted 23 Mar 2008 at 6:38 pm ¶

46. Andrea wrote:

    Racial identity ? This question has really been on my mind for a while now. I am eighteen and I was born to african immigrants in a european country. When I think about if I am black (=full of african culture) or a coconut, I tend to think I am a coconut. Why? it’s not something easy to answer but I’ll try. To begin, even if I know some things about the country my parents come from and had the occasion to go there, I think I have been brought up a bit differently from what it’s like in Africa, meaning less strictly. Let me take an example, over there as a child from what I could see, you have to learn some things earlier, like cooking and clean the house, go to the market, even work some odd job in addition to going to class (when you can and manage to stay getting good grades), in short words you are helpful to your family. You’ll tell me, but in the US or in any other developed country, some children learn that too. Yes, but I’d say that in Africa it’s more widespread. So, I feel I did not have these obligations. Secondly, there are tons of, what I’ll call african things, that I can’t do, like african braids - these and their variations like the ones you can see on some hip/hop or R&B stars. Add to it cooking african dishes, I’ve tried once, but it was a total disaster :D. Also, I don’t feel any shame talking or even showing the few stuffs I know about African to others (=white or other), and I also found a way to keep a piece of this culture, language. Also, maybe a bit paradoxical but, I don’t have the feeling I act “white”, For me I am a coconut(=mostly melt in the values, habits of the country I live in) but not forgetting my origins and I want to show people that I am not feeling like a victim of this status that I’ll call in my case “semi-acculturation”, I accept it as it is but do not flush in the toilets what my parents told me, showed me of Africa.

    Posted 23 Mar 2008 at 8:14 pm ¶

47. Adrianna wrote:

    I just don’t want to be put in any rigid, narrow box by anyone on this earth. As a black women it was tiring having someone tell you that ” Oh A is just a white girl trapped in a black girls body in High school. I so happy that I did not have to go to Middle school in America. Or had have some serious issues. Tough going to middle school in Haiti wasn’t great either with having to deal with the colorism and classism issues.

    It’s an inferiority complex . How else to explain that all that is certain positive traits, intelligence, proper grammar,beauty, curiosity about other arts, music, food, not your own be considered white. What are we savages who had no culture , no intelligence, no proper grammar until we got enslaved, colonized. Go to school in the states and you will think that intelligence and being black are mutually exclusive.

    Posted 24 Mar 2008 at 12:01 am ¶

48. Faith wrote:

    My racial identity was hard for me to formulate. I always knew I was black because my mother did a lot of racial socialization with me from a young age. I read books like “Color Me Brown” and fairy tales with Black characters, I was exposed to Black history at a young age and was told how great my Black heritage is. Yet, I felt for a long time that I wasn’t black enough because people, black and white, always told me that. I was constantly told that I talked like a white girl. When I took figure skating lessons and listened to classical music, I was criticized for doing things that white people did. I had a white girl in hs tell me that I was an oreo and even my closet black friends mocked the way I talk. So, I always felt out of place. I went to a PWI for my first two years of college and that made things worse. I became like Latoya’s Korean classmate and did eveything I could to “escape” my blackness. For the longest, I wanted a white bf, I pretty much didn’t hand around other black students too much and I developed an eating disorder so I could become more thin, lose my butt and be more attractive to white men. I also took off my hijab because I thought that made me too “exotic”. I just wanted to be “normal” (white).

    I look back on that period now and I think “wow, was I crazy.” Again, like Latoya’s classmate, I’m the complete opposite of what I was. I cut off my permed hair and went natural. I now keep my hair in kinky twists. I embrace my black heritage. Whenever, I identify myself, one of the first things I note is that I’m black. I had to realize that I had to determine my racial identity and be proud of it. I had to let other people stop determining it for me.

    Posted 24 Mar 2008 at 11:52 am ¶

49. johnjihoonchang wrote:

    I’ve never voluntarily identified myself as a “Banana”, but I’ve been told that I was one or “whitewashed” as my sister likes to say. Granted, my sister likes to tightly define race via stereotypes and I think she’s internalized them to some degree, so that must have something to do with it. I say I’m Asian because my parents are from Asia. Most people who look at me see Asian. Both my personal perspective and in the visual test, I count as an Asian.

    But I don’t drive a rice rocket. I haven’t adopted the AZN component of Asian American culture. And I think there is certainly a category of Asian Americans that like to narrowly define what it means to be Asian in America by their adopted identities, which I feel to be no more authentic than my own.

    At the same time, I still carry many habits and patterns learned from growing up with Corean parents like going shoeless in the house, eating with chopsticks, Corean-style cooking, using the language as well as less tangible ideologies carried by my immigrant parents.

    I think such terms come from those who have bought the stereotypes present in mainstream consciousness and internalized them into defining race for them, whether used against others to try to conform them to the stereotype or as a measure of one’s own acceptance that they have betrayed the stereotypes of their race.

    Does that make any sense?

    Posted 24 Mar 2008 at 4:23 pm ¶

50. Sara no H. wrote:

    I’m still working out the parameters of my racial identity - I’m mixed Filipina and white/Irish. I fit more of the stereotypes of “second generation” kids than either white or Asian stereotypes, i.e. struggling with my racial identity, not knowing the language of my islands, etc.

    I was called an oreo by (ignorant) kids in grade school, but for the most part identified as white in high school because I didn’t think it was possible to be anything else. I knew I looked different from my peers but the difference seemed really superficial, even when in hindsight it’s clear that it never was superficial to them. It took a long talk with one of my exes from high school, in which he revealed that the reason it’d taken him so long to decide he wanted to go out with me was that he didn’t want to face the stigma of being in an interracial relationship - until he said that, I hadn’t even really realised that the other kids thought of me as not-white. Course then I came out to UCSD for college and got quite a shock in the prevalence of other Asian faces around me, and strangely felt like such a fish outta water - it was weird to finally look like everyone else, but not have anything in common with them otherwise.

    I’ve never been called a twinkie but ever since I heard it, my ongoing love-affair with Hostess has made me rather partial to it. I don’t identify that way, but it doesn’t bother me the way “coconut” and “oreo” do because I can’t get past the association with the snack food ^^;

    Five years of living in San Diego and I now identify as a woman of colour and a Pinay, although it’s still kind of fraught since it’s hard to know whether I’m “Pinay enough” - I don’t speak, I don’t eat a lot of the same foods that my Pin@y peers eat, I don’t have the same kind of familial experiences. There are times when I almost feel like I’m appropriating that identity, you know?

    So I’m still kind of figuring things out, but more and more often I come down solidily on the side of my Filipina heritage.

    Posted 25 Mar 2008 at 11:11 am ¶

51. Andre wrote:

    funny funny funny, I don’t really battle with this too much, because I pick and choose friends that really don’t give a damn. I’m a black guy, no matter what, even though I listen to Rock, Hiphop, and Japanese music. I’m still a black guy. When people use disposition , to determine a person’s race, I think it’s really stupid. And its really sad, that she thought she was an oreo. When someone tells me that, I just leave them with their ignorance and I move on, to more intelligent people. Funny, though, very funny.

    Posted 25 Mar 2008 at 12:53 pm ¶

52. Andre wrote:

    I’ve never been called a twinkie but ever since I heard it, my ongoing love-affair with Hostess has made me rather partial to it. I don’t identify that way, but it doesn’t bother me the way “coconut” and “oreo” do because I can’t get past the association with the snack food ^^;

    Good one Sara, lol. I see your point, I’m Jamaican and Guyanese, but I act like neither. More like Canadian, even though I do eat some foods from both countries. And no Canadian to me isn’t white, it means you were born in Canada, and act like you were born from there. Either way, when someone asks me what my culture is, I say Canadian. So they have to ask me again, where are you parents from? lol.

    Posted 25 Mar 2008 at 1:00 pm ¶

53. Katie wrote:

    I just want to call out lunanoire, who said that it was shady for mixed people to identify differently in different situations.

    That is ridiculous. The example you use is of someone who’s mixed using a different identity to pick up women, or get a job.

    1. You may not realize this, but you’re playing into stereotypes of mixed people as shady, duplicitous and treacherous. The fact that you’re worried about this reflects how pervasive the stereotype is.

    2. Why assume that a POC - mixed or not - is going to use his/her identity for harm? This also plays into the racist rhetoric around the mythical “race card” that POCs are supposed to have. Don’t use this argument - it’s a cliche, and, though it need hardly be said, a falsehood.

    I’m sure others can weigh in with more here…

    Posted 25 Mar 2008 at 5:54 pm ¶

54. TheeCocoaJoJo wrote:

    This article is very interesting to me, and although my issue is not race, it is still similar. I struggle with people not accepting my ethnicity. I am an Igbo Nigerian and whenever I tell people so, they say “No… that can’t be true, you don’t have an accent.” Or my favorite, “But you were born here so that makes you American.” And I simply inform these people that according to my culture, it doesn’t make me American. I find that because I am Black and happen to live in the U.S. I can’t possibly be anything but Black/African American. It’s funny that people will readily accept an Asain person saying that they are Chinese or Korean, but they can’t accept a Black person saying that they are Nigerian when they don’t have an accent.

    Posted 28 Mar 2008 at 6:15 pm ¶

55. Ike wrote:

    “It’s funny that people will readily accept an Asain person saying that they are Chinese or Korean, but they can’t accept a Black person saying that they are Nigerian when they don’t have an accent.”

    Hehe. This is funny because there are many Americans of Asian descent who consider themselves American but are constantly asked where they are “originally” from.

    Seems to be the flip side, but they stem from the same issue of people thinking they can define others.

    Posted 29 Mar 2008 at 5:03 am ¶

56. Kia wrote:

    I remember when i was growing up i was often told by the black kids that i thought i ws white cuz i never wore my hair in an updo,spoke proper english(both mom and grandma were school teachers who would yell if u said the word aint in my house lol),wore gap clothing,and because i wore makeup(apparently black girls in the rural south didnt wear makeup lol) these kids obviously had a VERY ignorant and narrow view of what being black was and it wasnt until i got to college that i met several other black girls who like me didnt fit into the box of what BET told me i should dress and act like. I learned that yes i can be black and like kylie minogue and wear gap clothes. I think the AA community needs to broaden its thoughts on what it is to be black in america. BTW im one of those girls who thinks i should have been born in england lol i plan on leaving for england when i graduate from college

    Posted 30 Mar 2008 at 9:11 pm ¶

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