A Blackstack Original piece on our shared but unique Black experiences, and how impactful the words "You're Not Black Enough" have impacted our biracial community members.
Thank you for these pieces and yes, there is so much more to be said. I have three things that come to mind.
First, there's Toni Morrison's Bluest Eye -- how many Black girls and women deep down want to be someone other than who they see in the mirror? How many want to not change their name or hair or shape or size but all of it. All of it.
Second, I think of my husband, a blended man born in Oakland CA, the product of a Jewish, Black, and Wampanoag woman and a European man. His experience of living in a world that thinks he is out of pocket for not passing.
Last, I think of myself, an only child born to a Black woman who was the last birthed by a midwife in a little forest enclave that no longer exists and a Black man born of a young mother and older father who gave him up for adoption. How I felt like I was raised by wolverines, raising my self, a latchkey kid who likely would have been labeled as neurodivergent had such labels existed back then.
All examples of ways "not Black enough" can manifest in our lives. But we are here, we are Black, and we are wonderful.
I have never felt as white as I look, nor have I have been seen by others for as black as I feel.
The message I have repeatedly felt is that, “You are only as black as your skin color allows you to be.”
If I allow myself the freedom to be as black as I feel, I face judgment and ridicule and accusations of cultural appropriation.
If I deny my blackness, just because it doesn’t show on my skin, I feel like I’m betraying myself and a culture I very much identity with.
My skin color was never the shelter I felt at home in but it provided privilege I can’t deny.
When the first question a stranger usually asks you is, “What are you?” Meaning, “what’s your ethnic background?” Or other’s describe you as “exotic” or “ethnically ambiguous” depending on hair color, tan, makeup, etc. Then you know you can “pass” but you don’t fit in.
And “passing” can feel shameful and frightening, as can not fitting in. This is a complex concept that goes much deeper than skin deep, much “darker” than color.
When I look in the mirror I expect to see Maya Angelou looking back at me.
I do my best to keep these feelings to myself because they seem insignificant in comparison to the harsh reality of racism.
It feels insensitive to discuss my skin color as a problem when I know it’s probably the only thing that’s kept me and my bold ass mouth alive thus far.
Besides, I feel like the melanin mix is the only solution to systemic racism. By 2100, the entire world will be on its way to a swirl, we will all be various shades of brown; and racism, at least against people of color, will be in the past.
Until then, we hold the dichotomy that color both matters and doesn’t matter. It matters because it sets the stage for how one is treated, and it doesn’t matter because, we are one.
Thank you for your vulnerability, sharing your perspective, and inciting a much needed conversation. This was beautifully written and inspired me to broaden my perspective.
There are some specific things that you said that I'd like to continue to discuss.
The first is-- "My skin color was never the shelter I felt at home in but it provided privilege I can’t deny."
This is a beautiful line and I love the way it expresses the discomfort of not being at home in your body. The question is--how do we cultivate a feeling of being at home in our body? Mediation is one of my favorite ways to cultivate that feeling. Do you have one?
The second is-- "I feel like the melanin mix is the only solution to systemic racism."
When I was in high school, I read an article that said something to the same effect. It said that by 2050 most of the world would look racially ambiguous. It also said that the "swirl" would save us. But, I think there's flawed logic in this. This argument assumes that having children from a different race changes your interactions with that race. Can we talk about the self-esteem and self worth issues that come along with having a racially ignorant/harmful parent?
I don't think that interracial relationships gift us with any sort racial progress because white supremacy is a barrier to love. It's a myth that white parents are motivated to unlearn their racism because of the love for their children. Their capacity to express love is inextricably linked to their ideology of the world. And as long as they view white supremacy as beneficial to them they will plant those seeds in black children. Intentionally or not it does get done.
That being said. It's my belief that moving forward it's going to be necessary to find the balance like you said, "we are one." It's also necessary to approach each other in these conversations knowing that and not being afraid to say what we think. And being more open to diverse perspectives as we move forward. Audre Lorde reminds us that we have to accept differences as the mechanism by which we grow and evolve.
Thank you, Satnam. Your name is a prayer I know well. How beautiful. I agree with you and will sit with your words, and let them be heard, before replying thoughtfully. Sending love.
Thank you for allowing me the grace to sit in the depth of your sentiments until I felt I had the words worthy enough to greet them.
You asked, “The question is--how do we cultivate a feeling of being at home in our body? Mediation is one of my favorite ways to cultivate that feeling. Do you have one?”
I do. I have a practice of sitting in stillness, sometimes to meditate and other times— simply to breathe.
As a child and young adult, no matter who I was with, I heard hateful things about people with white skin and hateful things about people with black skin and what does that do to a mixed child? It can make them hate the skin they’re in.
I have boundaries now and don’t tolerate hate speech. I get to choose the narrative I have about people and their skin color, and I choose oneness.
I choose to use my language carefully by discerning the difference between “ethnicity” and “race,” for there is only one race, the human race. I wrote a short poem about it, inspired by Whoopi Goldberg when she said a few years back that Jewish wasn’t a race. https://youtu.be/es4c1Sb-Ko8?si=JIqkgaSRUAWQQNHX
While I feel more at home in my body today than I ever have, I know my comfort is context dependent. I am not comfortable in my body around people who are judging it. Be they racist on either side, ageist, judging disability devices I sometimes use, or fat phobic (I’m the size of the average American woman, 16, but somehow in America, average is considered fat compared to those who go to extremes to stay thin).
I remedy this by removing myself from places of judgment whenever possible and doing my best to make my self-acceptance and comfort a protective bubble that’s bigger than the noise from the judgment of others that’s trying to penetrate it.
I grew up in different homes. One was an all black neighborhood where I was mostly seen as only white or whatever people assumed, usually Latin or Greek. When I was in all white neighborhoods I got the question, “What are you?” It was a common question when meeting people for the first time that was code for my child brain “you don’t belong.” I looked different enough, “exotic” was the term most used, for people to ascertain that I was an “other.” I was not like them.
No matter where I went, I always felt like an outsider in my own communities. There was no one who looked like me, who said they felt like me, and talking about my feelings was met with dismissive minimizations.
Back then, there were no prominent social figures with a similar ethnic mix to me for people to compare me to (who could pass for white) like Halsey, Megan Markel or Rashida Jones. It was easier for people to ignore my ethnic mix, or dismiss it as not true especially because I was denied access to my father’s side so I had no representation to support my truth. No one to claim me as their own.
I was encouraged by people of all skin colors to “Pass for white and don’t look back.”
~~~
I agree with every poignant and painful truth that you wrote here: “I don't think that interracial relationships gift us with any sort racial progress because white supremacy is a barrier to love. It's a myth that white parents are motivated to unlearn their racism because of the love for their children. Their capacity to express love is inextricably linked to their ideology of the world. And as long as they view white supremacy as beneficial to them they will plant those seeds in black children. Intentionally or not it does get done.”
You said, “Can we talk about the self-esteem and self worth issues that come along with having a racially ignorant/harmful parent?”
Yes. I had a mother whose own DNA was woven by the barbed wire strands of systemic racism. This is what I meant by the great melanin mix saving us- It will not just be the children of mixed ethnicities, those children will be the parents and the antecedents who were “pure bred” will have died off. At some point there will be no people left who are only one ethnicity. Everyone will be mixed. “Racial hatred” will be self-hatred forcing people into self-love in order to survive.
This is what drives white supremacy —who by the way—successfully indoctrinated people into acceptable forms of segregation through the propaganda fears associated with the cultural appropriation movement. By making people afraid of appropriating other cultures, it divided us even further, it put a pin in the melanin spin. It seems to me, that fewer people are having relationships with people they have been taught to believe are so different from them that to do so would be an act of cultural appropriation itself.
This is not to say that cultural appropriation isn’t real and shouldn’t be addressed but it’s important to realize where these movements come from and the larger impact they leave us with.
Satnam, I think this is an important dialogue we’re having. Would you like to collaborate with me, turn this into a co-authored post and share across both platforms?
I honestly don't know how to kindly, or politely respond to this comment.
Whatever, wherever you're coming from with this, I hope you can acknowledge that it's not everyone's lived experience.
My father, the white parent, doesn't perform allyship. Not in his work of close to 30 years where he helped to amplify the voices and experiences of people of color first and foremost. Not with his children, allowing them to carve their own unique paths in life and unequivocally supporting them regardless of his own beliefs and opinions. And not with his wife of nearly 50 years, whom he has seen incredibly dark and painful moment with, spending them side by side with her, with a love that makes everyone envious to witness.
Again, I don't know what your goal was in commenting something that doesn't seem to want to create a dialogue at all. Please, think before you reply next time with something that has come across so careless, crass, and seemingly with only the desire to cause malice.
Like, we name sexual violence in all its forms and its perpatrators in the hopes that it will end sexual violence, but sex is the solution to centuries of racial violence? For real?
I have no idea what you’re talking about or how you’ve misinterpreted my words. Who said anything about allegiance to anything? It’s not about mixed kids saving us- it’s about the entire world becoming mixed and saving itself. Respectfully, we’re not having the same conversation.
No. It’s not. This is not a suggestion. We will never be more “the same” or “more different” than we are now. The only people who will be swayed by the melanin mix are those who are swayed by it now. You are missing the point and picking a fight with a ghost who ain’t there. I’m not it, honey. I am not it!
As my 30th bday approached, I felt similar fear and trepidation, but I also appreciated how this was the first phase of my life that I entered having a fuller sense of self. Much of your youth is filled with just being what your family/caregivers expect of you, and your 20s are spent trying to understand who you really are and what you want to be. This confirmed sense of self very much includes my black identity. Throughout my life, I had experiences being the "token" and being amongst the majority, and during both experiences, I found myself trying to understand how to perform blackness. By my late 20s, I finally realized that performative blackness is a lie propagated to us by a society that does not truly value black lives and experiences.
Yes! I'm in the thick of coming into personhood and it's interesting the things we pick up from the world that we don't need. That aren't really who we are, but who we assumed we needed to be. Having space between me and my family has definitely allowed me to see myself more clearly. The last couple of months has been an exploration of the ways that I perform and how I can unmask to be more fully.
I could quote so many juicy nuggets in this essay, but I have to go with my own words. Reading this is deeply meaningful for me. I literally just wrote a poem this morning about living between both worlds.
I have a Black Mother who is also half Cape Verdean, and a white father. After my father left, my mother raised me with a Black family in an all Black neighborhood. I was raised with the understanding that I was a Black girl, even when I visited my paternal grandparents.
It was very difficult for me growing up being stared at when walking with my very brown-skinned mother. I identified as Black until my 40’s when I had to finally admit that in the past I’ve not always been welcomed at Black centered events. I’ve dealt with negative comments and stares, but I always kept going because I felt like I didn’t have the right to complain because of the history of racism and colorism.
The fact is being denied by a community that I most identify with is painful. I can’t even describe the hurt. I know there are times I’m treated differently because my skin is lighter. I’ve also been followed around stores and had to deal with negative comments around Blackness.
A couple years ago I self published a small collection of essays and poems called “More Than a Drop,” and discuss the process in more detail.
This is a crucial topic that needs respectful discussion, even if it evokes painful emotions.
I appreciate you so much for posting. I very rarely comment in Black spaces because I’ve been told so many times that I’m “not Black enough.”
I can relate to the feeling pf exclusion. When I was fresh out of high school coming from Kansas to an HBCU I felt like there was an edict class I hadn't taken that caused me to stick out like a sore thumb. There are cultural divides and barriers that we can work on breaking down. Thank you for sharing your words and story.
Oh Tara, your words are so moving…”The fact is being denied by a community that I most identify with is painful. I can’t even describe the hurt.” Thank you for sharing them. I relate so deeply. Have you read the most recent research about the effects of exclusion? They’ve found that those feelings register in our brains even stronger than physical pain. This is an important topic.🫂
Being biracial has its challenges. My mother is Afro-Caribbean and my father Indian. Black folks didn't treat me as Black growing up. I grew up in the Caribbean with my Afro-Caribbean family AND culturally relate most to that upbringing and culture than any other. I'd say I'm autistic, though not formally diagnosed by a specialist - and that means no matter what ethnic community I came from, there'll always be some limits to how I fit in socially and culturally. I certainly wasn't viewed as Indian (by anybody ever but certainly by the Indo-Caribbean community in Trinidad).
And that combination of experiences means that in attending an event to which I was invited through an organisation that exists to support and network Black British writers, I felt imposter syndrome. I was sharing this with another would-be attendee who happened to be half-Jamaican, and half-English and who grew up in the UK (Black British). He laughed at me. He said, 'You don't need to worry about that here in England. Nobody's questioning that here. In Trinidad, maybe.'
And honestly, when I first laid eyes on him, I had to do an about take. He was definitely the Black guy, who in the world of colourism, at first glance would be least considered Black in Black circles - and yet he's very clear that he's Black. The whole colourism thing and the absurdity of race fascinates him and he's made it the basis for some of his creative writing, in which he explores themes similar to the themes in Malorie Blackman's Noughts and Crosses. I think the creative motive comes from his experience as a biracial person, racialised as Black by white folks and as almost-white by Black folks.
I was just discussing the absurdity of racial hierarchy. And we are sort of forced to forced to confront the absurdity because the impact of people buying into the delusion is at best ignorance and at worst violence. I've been utilizing my art to confront the absurdity of of racial hierarchy. How are you coping?
Grrrr. I just wrote you a long and detailed answer and it disappeared before I could press Reply. I'll try again! Perhaps next time it will be an even better answer!
Thank you. Thank you for being honest about how “othered” you felt. I am grateful that by 30 you found a semblance of wholeness. My blackness was questioned because of light skin and two Black parents. I was called “Casper” by friends… questioned about “proper” English so much that I taught myself slang… and in the wrong environment forgot to code-switch. I can share that there ARE people who will welcome all of you. I have determined that those who choose to stay confined to experiences past down to them from restricted perspectives will struggle to see nuance and beauty outside of the box of “familiar”. I lived in the projects, I just didn’t stay there. I can exist in both places… but once expanded… you can’t unknow the expansion. I pray thirty is sweet to you. I pray that you find the beauty in both sides of your DNA. That you find community… and most of all, love.
I'm mixed and constantly feel like people want me to prove it. But now at 29 I'm learning that I'll never be black enough for some people and that as long as I'm proud and doing the work, as long as I can look myself in the mirror, then that's all that matters.
We are on a similar path and documenting similar epiphanies. Reaching out through what feels like a sea of loneliness is stepping into IT! Yourself. Your true creative self. I’m reaching out, too.
I've been told "I talk white" because of how articulately I speak, and I'm not "reeeallly black" because I'm Cajun & Louisiana Creole by family members. Once, I was even told that "You're black, but not black black," by a white co-worker..TF? It was the first time that someone outside of my race had told me that, and I stood there like I was shell-shocked. I didn't know how to respond... specifically because I was on the clock and she was a supervisor. At that time, I was one of two black people working there, but the only one who couldn't ignore the microaggressions.
I remember a family member telling me I wasn’t black enough because of the things I liked. I loved to read, I wrote( I still write ) the tv shows I watched and I had enough. I told her off. It hurts to be honest but I don’t live like that.
I am Black, Filipino, and Native Alaskan. 22 years old, queer, neurodivgent and disabled. Pronouns are he/they. I'm light skinned with 4c hair. My hair has been very important to me. I was raised by mostly my dad (black). He southern catholic, and his father was military. But I was mostly raised in Alaska, with a few years in Seattle and Georgia (stone mountain). I was taken from my mother at a young age by child protective services and given to my father. Though they both struggled with similar demons, she couldn't get clean.
I was called alot of things by my dad's side of the family. Often referred to as "yellow skinned." Or how I acted white by reading and the things i liked reading or watching. I really love fantasy and worldbuilding. There was a love and playfulness but much of the colors were drained by greys trauma.
I struggle with weight due PCOS and Hypermobility (which I found out recently this year). My dad had a real "doctors is for bleeding" mentality. He had 5ish baby mommas that raised me at different times of my life. But his unstablitly was the only consistency I had. I was treated poorly by some of my stepmoms due to their jealously of my mother. I have many siblings, I just kinda lost count at 11. All of them are half or step siblings.
I was forced to get my hair permed alot of my life. One of my step moms or sometimes my aunties (her sisters) would do my hair. They'd perm my hair straight then braid it, adding the latch hook extentions. I hated the way it made my hair look and my hair would break off. I had to have a break down in a salon to get them to stop perming my hair. Explaining its important culturally.
I never felt like I was enough. Not black enough, not Asian enough, not skinny enough, not native enough, too slow, too loud, too different. I remember as a kid being so bugged that my lighskinned brother (white and black) was "somehow darker" then me. But really, I think it was due to my fathers toxic masculinity. I think it was more just he was the boy my father always wanted. He's my father's only biological male. He sees the males as the only true ones to pass on the family stuff to. But he did teach me alot (often because the boys were more into video games). I worked at his car lot doing office work, detailing cars, learning a bit of maintence. I also took care of the dogs (he bred game pits).
Growing up, with my mom was mostly out the picture, besides a few monitored visits and a bunch of lore, my native side was ignored and I had to learn on my own. The glimpses I got were through "jokes" such as; racist accents and my sibs comments on how natives were "ugly", but I was okay cuz I didn't look "too native." Or Asian jokes of "here read this" as the proceed to give me product instructions written in mandarin. And obviously all the stereotype microagressions in between.
My queerness and neurodivgentcy on top of this just made me feel alien. We went to church a bit as a kid. This mega church then stopped going. My Fa said to "just read the bible for yourself and come up with your own answers." Which I did like. But was cancled out when I came out as gay. I am currently trans and pansexual. But he only understands gay or straight. Everyone else who knew me knew I wasn't straight. I never had a straight phase. But still had to "come out to him" because I was trying to go to a pride parade. It went something like this:
"Can I go to that parade downtown?"
"Why, are you gay?"
"You don't have to be- yes I am."
"OH, so you're all grown now and think you can make decisions!"
"It's not a choice, it's who I am."
"There's always a choice. You are gonna start reading the Bible again, and going to church with your granddad."
And I got like three bibles over the next few years, but didn't go to church, I think he forgot.
My Fa, he didn't belive in depression or neurodivgentcy. Even when my step mom and her son has diagnosed adhd, her other son has diagnosed autism. "Beat it until it works" and "therapists are for crazy people" added to the list. I was in and out of therapy most of my life and put on meds. He him self struggled with depression and ptsd.
People at school often didn't know what I was. I got" exotic" by white kids but wasn't cool enough to be with darker kids. And learned some scripts to hint I'm a safe person. Sadly a very useful one was relating to our asses being whooped. But I will say my friend groups throughout my life, though not consistent (moved like every year), was consistent in always being diverse. I loved to learn about everyone and trying to be welcoming. A mom/dad friend alot of the time. In middle school and high-school I took Spanish and Japanese, and was apart of alot of language clubs. I've always wanted to travel.
I left at 18. Have been struggling with homelessness /housing insecurity ever since. And after staying at a shelter my health is burned through. But, for the last four years. I have lost weight (proper PCOS diet), I live on a housing voucher and have done alot of work. I can finally look in the mirror with confidence and love. I am restoring my hair, went bald to get a good foundation. I'm contiuing to decolonizing my mind. I have been going to the doctors almost every other day to get all these test for the last 4 months. And I'm trying to reconnect my spirt, to my ancestors, and break this generational curse.
As a biracial black woman — I have much to say on this but I will simply say this: who we are on the inside is not defined by our outer appearance but we are force fed perceptions of illegitimate conception since birth. And without parents who are cognizant of the psychological impact of their decision to create a split of culture heritages in their offspring, they will inherently breed confusion disguised as symbol of love.
absolutely agree!! the burden is only passed on to the child, because it's first put upon their parents to do what they can to lessen that blow. they have to be the first teacher on just how cruel the world will inevitably be on them.
Thank you for these pieces and yes, there is so much more to be said. I have three things that come to mind.
First, there's Toni Morrison's Bluest Eye -- how many Black girls and women deep down want to be someone other than who they see in the mirror? How many want to not change their name or hair or shape or size but all of it. All of it.
Second, I think of my husband, a blended man born in Oakland CA, the product of a Jewish, Black, and Wampanoag woman and a European man. His experience of living in a world that thinks he is out of pocket for not passing.
Last, I think of myself, an only child born to a Black woman who was the last birthed by a midwife in a little forest enclave that no longer exists and a Black man born of a young mother and older father who gave him up for adoption. How I felt like I was raised by wolverines, raising my self, a latchkey kid who likely would have been labeled as neurodivergent had such labels existed back then.
All examples of ways "not Black enough" can manifest in our lives. But we are here, we are Black, and we are wonderful.
"But we are here, we are Black, and we are wonderful." is a beautiful mantra.
Mixed
I have never felt as white as I look, nor have I have been seen by others for as black as I feel.
The message I have repeatedly felt is that, “You are only as black as your skin color allows you to be.”
If I allow myself the freedom to be as black as I feel, I face judgment and ridicule and accusations of cultural appropriation.
If I deny my blackness, just because it doesn’t show on my skin, I feel like I’m betraying myself and a culture I very much identity with.
My skin color was never the shelter I felt at home in but it provided privilege I can’t deny.
When the first question a stranger usually asks you is, “What are you?” Meaning, “what’s your ethnic background?” Or other’s describe you as “exotic” or “ethnically ambiguous” depending on hair color, tan, makeup, etc. Then you know you can “pass” but you don’t fit in.
And “passing” can feel shameful and frightening, as can not fitting in. This is a complex concept that goes much deeper than skin deep, much “darker” than color.
When I look in the mirror I expect to see Maya Angelou looking back at me.
I do my best to keep these feelings to myself because they seem insignificant in comparison to the harsh reality of racism.
It feels insensitive to discuss my skin color as a problem when I know it’s probably the only thing that’s kept me and my bold ass mouth alive thus far.
Besides, I feel like the melanin mix is the only solution to systemic racism. By 2100, the entire world will be on its way to a swirl, we will all be various shades of brown; and racism, at least against people of color, will be in the past.
Until then, we hold the dichotomy that color both matters and doesn’t matter. It matters because it sets the stage for how one is treated, and it doesn’t matter because, we are one.
(In light -no pun intended- lol-of the story I broke on the alleged plagiarism by Mel Robbins, I now end my posts with copyright verbiage. © Sage Justice March 27, 2025. This concept/theory/poem is original to Sage Justice. If you use it, please give credit and link to original work. Thank you.)
Peace,
Thank you for your vulnerability, sharing your perspective, and inciting a much needed conversation. This was beautifully written and inspired me to broaden my perspective.
There are some specific things that you said that I'd like to continue to discuss.
The first is-- "My skin color was never the shelter I felt at home in but it provided privilege I can’t deny."
This is a beautiful line and I love the way it expresses the discomfort of not being at home in your body. The question is--how do we cultivate a feeling of being at home in our body? Mediation is one of my favorite ways to cultivate that feeling. Do you have one?
The second is-- "I feel like the melanin mix is the only solution to systemic racism."
When I was in high school, I read an article that said something to the same effect. It said that by 2050 most of the world would look racially ambiguous. It also said that the "swirl" would save us. But, I think there's flawed logic in this. This argument assumes that having children from a different race changes your interactions with that race. Can we talk about the self-esteem and self worth issues that come along with having a racially ignorant/harmful parent?
I don't think that interracial relationships gift us with any sort racial progress because white supremacy is a barrier to love. It's a myth that white parents are motivated to unlearn their racism because of the love for their children. Their capacity to express love is inextricably linked to their ideology of the world. And as long as they view white supremacy as beneficial to them they will plant those seeds in black children. Intentionally or not it does get done.
That being said. It's my belief that moving forward it's going to be necessary to find the balance like you said, "we are one." It's also necessary to approach each other in these conversations knowing that and not being afraid to say what we think. And being more open to diverse perspectives as we move forward. Audre Lorde reminds us that we have to accept differences as the mechanism by which we grow and evolve.
Again, I appreciate you.
Much love,
Satnam
Thank you, Satnam. Your name is a prayer I know well. How beautiful. I agree with you and will sit with your words, and let them be heard, before replying thoughtfully. Sending love.
Hello Dear Satnam,
Thank you for allowing me the grace to sit in the depth of your sentiments until I felt I had the words worthy enough to greet them.
You asked, “The question is--how do we cultivate a feeling of being at home in our body? Mediation is one of my favorite ways to cultivate that feeling. Do you have one?”
I do. I have a practice of sitting in stillness, sometimes to meditate and other times— simply to breathe.
As a child and young adult, no matter who I was with, I heard hateful things about people with white skin and hateful things about people with black skin and what does that do to a mixed child? It can make them hate the skin they’re in.
I have boundaries now and don’t tolerate hate speech. I get to choose the narrative I have about people and their skin color, and I choose oneness.
I choose to use my language carefully by discerning the difference between “ethnicity” and “race,” for there is only one race, the human race. I wrote a short poem about it, inspired by Whoopi Goldberg when she said a few years back that Jewish wasn’t a race. https://youtu.be/es4c1Sb-Ko8?si=JIqkgaSRUAWQQNHX
While I feel more at home in my body today than I ever have, I know my comfort is context dependent. I am not comfortable in my body around people who are judging it. Be they racist on either side, ageist, judging disability devices I sometimes use, or fat phobic (I’m the size of the average American woman, 16, but somehow in America, average is considered fat compared to those who go to extremes to stay thin).
I remedy this by removing myself from places of judgment whenever possible and doing my best to make my self-acceptance and comfort a protective bubble that’s bigger than the noise from the judgment of others that’s trying to penetrate it.
I grew up in different homes. One was an all black neighborhood where I was mostly seen as only white or whatever people assumed, usually Latin or Greek. When I was in all white neighborhoods I got the question, “What are you?” It was a common question when meeting people for the first time that was code for my child brain “you don’t belong.” I looked different enough, “exotic” was the term most used, for people to ascertain that I was an “other.” I was not like them.
No matter where I went, I always felt like an outsider in my own communities. There was no one who looked like me, who said they felt like me, and talking about my feelings was met with dismissive minimizations.
Back then, there were no prominent social figures with a similar ethnic mix to me for people to compare me to (who could pass for white) like Halsey, Megan Markel or Rashida Jones. It was easier for people to ignore my ethnic mix, or dismiss it as not true especially because I was denied access to my father’s side so I had no representation to support my truth. No one to claim me as their own.
I was encouraged by people of all skin colors to “Pass for white and don’t look back.”
~~~
I agree with every poignant and painful truth that you wrote here: “I don't think that interracial relationships gift us with any sort racial progress because white supremacy is a barrier to love. It's a myth that white parents are motivated to unlearn their racism because of the love for their children. Their capacity to express love is inextricably linked to their ideology of the world. And as long as they view white supremacy as beneficial to them they will plant those seeds in black children. Intentionally or not it does get done.”
You said, “Can we talk about the self-esteem and self worth issues that come along with having a racially ignorant/harmful parent?”
Yes. I had a mother whose own DNA was woven by the barbed wire strands of systemic racism. This is what I meant by the great melanin mix saving us- It will not just be the children of mixed ethnicities, those children will be the parents and the antecedents who were “pure bred” will have died off. At some point there will be no people left who are only one ethnicity. Everyone will be mixed. “Racial hatred” will be self-hatred forcing people into self-love in order to survive.
This is what drives white supremacy —who by the way—successfully indoctrinated people into acceptable forms of segregation through the propaganda fears associated with the cultural appropriation movement. By making people afraid of appropriating other cultures, it divided us even further, it put a pin in the melanin spin. It seems to me, that fewer people are having relationships with people they have been taught to believe are so different from them that to do so would be an act of cultural appropriation itself.
This is not to say that cultural appropriation isn’t real and shouldn’t be addressed but it’s important to realize where these movements come from and the larger impact they leave us with.
Satnam, I think this is an important dialogue we’re having. Would you like to collaborate with me, turn this into a co-authored post and share across both platforms?
I appreciate you too.
Much love,
Sage Justice
I honestly don't know how to kindly, or politely respond to this comment.
Whatever, wherever you're coming from with this, I hope you can acknowledge that it's not everyone's lived experience.
My father, the white parent, doesn't perform allyship. Not in his work of close to 30 years where he helped to amplify the voices and experiences of people of color first and foremost. Not with his children, allowing them to carve their own unique paths in life and unequivocally supporting them regardless of his own beliefs and opinions. And not with his wife of nearly 50 years, whom he has seen incredibly dark and painful moment with, spending them side by side with her, with a love that makes everyone envious to witness.
Again, I don't know what your goal was in commenting something that doesn't seem to want to create a dialogue at all. Please, think before you reply next time with something that has come across so careless, crass, and seemingly with only the desire to cause malice.
Like, we name sexual violence in all its forms and its perpatrators in the hopes that it will end sexual violence, but sex is the solution to centuries of racial violence? For real?
I have no idea what you’re talking about or how you’ve misinterpreted my words. Who said anything about allegiance to anything? It’s not about mixed kids saving us- it’s about the entire world becoming mixed and saving itself. Respectfully, we’re not having the same conversation.
Respectfully, isn't saying that everybody has to be the same for everyone to be safe the same idea that's led to the world's worst moments?
No. It’s not. This is not a suggestion. We will never be more “the same” or “more different” than we are now. The only people who will be swayed by the melanin mix are those who are swayed by it now. You are missing the point and picking a fight with a ghost who ain’t there. I’m not it, honey. I am not it!
Powerful Sage, thank you!
As my 30th bday approached, I felt similar fear and trepidation, but I also appreciated how this was the first phase of my life that I entered having a fuller sense of self. Much of your youth is filled with just being what your family/caregivers expect of you, and your 20s are spent trying to understand who you really are and what you want to be. This confirmed sense of self very much includes my black identity. Throughout my life, I had experiences being the "token" and being amongst the majority, and during both experiences, I found myself trying to understand how to perform blackness. By my late 20s, I finally realized that performative blackness is a lie propagated to us by a society that does not truly value black lives and experiences.
Yes! I'm in the thick of coming into personhood and it's interesting the things we pick up from the world that we don't need. That aren't really who we are, but who we assumed we needed to be. Having space between me and my family has definitely allowed me to see myself more clearly. The last couple of months has been an exploration of the ways that I perform and how I can unmask to be more fully.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
Deep! What a powerful statement! Thank you for sharing 🙏🏽
No, but certainly been told I’m TOO Black, of which I thanked for the compliment! 🫡✊🏿❤️🖤💚
I could quote so many juicy nuggets in this essay, but I have to go with my own words. Reading this is deeply meaningful for me. I literally just wrote a poem this morning about living between both worlds.
I have a Black Mother who is also half Cape Verdean, and a white father. After my father left, my mother raised me with a Black family in an all Black neighborhood. I was raised with the understanding that I was a Black girl, even when I visited my paternal grandparents.
It was very difficult for me growing up being stared at when walking with my very brown-skinned mother. I identified as Black until my 40’s when I had to finally admit that in the past I’ve not always been welcomed at Black centered events. I’ve dealt with negative comments and stares, but I always kept going because I felt like I didn’t have the right to complain because of the history of racism and colorism.
The fact is being denied by a community that I most identify with is painful. I can’t even describe the hurt. I know there are times I’m treated differently because my skin is lighter. I’ve also been followed around stores and had to deal with negative comments around Blackness.
A couple years ago I self published a small collection of essays and poems called “More Than a Drop,” and discuss the process in more detail.
This is a crucial topic that needs respectful discussion, even if it evokes painful emotions.
I appreciate you so much for posting. I very rarely comment in Black spaces because I’ve been told so many times that I’m “not Black enough.”
Thank you 🙏🏽
I can relate to the feeling pf exclusion. When I was fresh out of high school coming from Kansas to an HBCU I felt like there was an edict class I hadn't taken that caused me to stick out like a sore thumb. There are cultural divides and barriers that we can work on breaking down. Thank you for sharing your words and story.
Oh Tara, your words are so moving…”The fact is being denied by a community that I most identify with is painful. I can’t even describe the hurt.” Thank you for sharing them. I relate so deeply. Have you read the most recent research about the effects of exclusion? They’ve found that those feelings register in our brains even stronger than physical pain. This is an important topic.🫂
Thank you Sage, I haven’t read the research but will look into it.
Being biracial has its challenges. My mother is Afro-Caribbean and my father Indian. Black folks didn't treat me as Black growing up. I grew up in the Caribbean with my Afro-Caribbean family AND culturally relate most to that upbringing and culture than any other. I'd say I'm autistic, though not formally diagnosed by a specialist - and that means no matter what ethnic community I came from, there'll always be some limits to how I fit in socially and culturally. I certainly wasn't viewed as Indian (by anybody ever but certainly by the Indo-Caribbean community in Trinidad).
And that combination of experiences means that in attending an event to which I was invited through an organisation that exists to support and network Black British writers, I felt imposter syndrome. I was sharing this with another would-be attendee who happened to be half-Jamaican, and half-English and who grew up in the UK (Black British). He laughed at me. He said, 'You don't need to worry about that here in England. Nobody's questioning that here. In Trinidad, maybe.'
And honestly, when I first laid eyes on him, I had to do an about take. He was definitely the Black guy, who in the world of colourism, at first glance would be least considered Black in Black circles - and yet he's very clear that he's Black. The whole colourism thing and the absurdity of race fascinates him and he's made it the basis for some of his creative writing, in which he explores themes similar to the themes in Malorie Blackman's Noughts and Crosses. I think the creative motive comes from his experience as a biracial person, racialised as Black by white folks and as almost-white by Black folks.
I was just discussing the absurdity of racial hierarchy. And we are sort of forced to forced to confront the absurdity because the impact of people buying into the delusion is at best ignorance and at worst violence. I've been utilizing my art to confront the absurdity of of racial hierarchy. How are you coping?
Thank you for sharing your story.
Grrrr. I just wrote you a long and detailed answer and it disappeared before I could press Reply. I'll try again! Perhaps next time it will be an even better answer!
Thank you so much for sharing this story.
Thank you. Thank you for being honest about how “othered” you felt. I am grateful that by 30 you found a semblance of wholeness. My blackness was questioned because of light skin and two Black parents. I was called “Casper” by friends… questioned about “proper” English so much that I taught myself slang… and in the wrong environment forgot to code-switch. I can share that there ARE people who will welcome all of you. I have determined that those who choose to stay confined to experiences past down to them from restricted perspectives will struggle to see nuance and beauty outside of the box of “familiar”. I lived in the projects, I just didn’t stay there. I can exist in both places… but once expanded… you can’t unknow the expansion. I pray thirty is sweet to you. I pray that you find the beauty in both sides of your DNA. That you find community… and most of all, love.
I'm mixed and constantly feel like people want me to prove it. But now at 29 I'm learning that I'll never be black enough for some people and that as long as I'm proud and doing the work, as long as I can look myself in the mirror, then that's all that matters.
The only thing we can be in ourselves.
We are on a similar path and documenting similar epiphanies. Reaching out through what feels like a sea of loneliness is stepping into IT! Yourself. Your true creative self. I’m reaching out, too.
I've been told "I talk white" because of how articulately I speak, and I'm not "reeeallly black" because I'm Cajun & Louisiana Creole by family members. Once, I was even told that "You're black, but not black black," by a white co-worker..TF? It was the first time that someone outside of my race had told me that, and I stood there like I was shell-shocked. I didn't know how to respond... specifically because I was on the clock and she was a supervisor. At that time, I was one of two black people working there, but the only one who couldn't ignore the microaggressions.
I remember a family member telling me I wasn’t black enough because of the things I liked. I loved to read, I wrote( I still write ) the tv shows I watched and I had enough. I told her off. It hurts to be honest but I don’t live like that.
Yes and I write about it here. 🩷 Thank you so much for this
https://open.substack.com/pub/katermashedpotater/p/hate-is-hungry?r=2lza49&utm_medium=ios
I cannot thank you enough for this. Black mother, white father and I saw so much of myself and my own struggles in this piece
i'm so glad you felt seen, that was my goal! 🫶🏽
I am Black, Filipino, and Native Alaskan. 22 years old, queer, neurodivgent and disabled. Pronouns are he/they. I'm light skinned with 4c hair. My hair has been very important to me. I was raised by mostly my dad (black). He southern catholic, and his father was military. But I was mostly raised in Alaska, with a few years in Seattle and Georgia (stone mountain). I was taken from my mother at a young age by child protective services and given to my father. Though they both struggled with similar demons, she couldn't get clean.
I was called alot of things by my dad's side of the family. Often referred to as "yellow skinned." Or how I acted white by reading and the things i liked reading or watching. I really love fantasy and worldbuilding. There was a love and playfulness but much of the colors were drained by greys trauma.
I struggle with weight due PCOS and Hypermobility (which I found out recently this year). My dad had a real "doctors is for bleeding" mentality. He had 5ish baby mommas that raised me at different times of my life. But his unstablitly was the only consistency I had. I was treated poorly by some of my stepmoms due to their jealously of my mother. I have many siblings, I just kinda lost count at 11. All of them are half or step siblings.
I was forced to get my hair permed alot of my life. One of my step moms or sometimes my aunties (her sisters) would do my hair. They'd perm my hair straight then braid it, adding the latch hook extentions. I hated the way it made my hair look and my hair would break off. I had to have a break down in a salon to get them to stop perming my hair. Explaining its important culturally.
I never felt like I was enough. Not black enough, not Asian enough, not skinny enough, not native enough, too slow, too loud, too different. I remember as a kid being so bugged that my lighskinned brother (white and black) was "somehow darker" then me. But really, I think it was due to my fathers toxic masculinity. I think it was more just he was the boy my father always wanted. He's my father's only biological male. He sees the males as the only true ones to pass on the family stuff to. But he did teach me alot (often because the boys were more into video games). I worked at his car lot doing office work, detailing cars, learning a bit of maintence. I also took care of the dogs (he bred game pits).
Growing up, with my mom was mostly out the picture, besides a few monitored visits and a bunch of lore, my native side was ignored and I had to learn on my own. The glimpses I got were through "jokes" such as; racist accents and my sibs comments on how natives were "ugly", but I was okay cuz I didn't look "too native." Or Asian jokes of "here read this" as the proceed to give me product instructions written in mandarin. And obviously all the stereotype microagressions in between.
My queerness and neurodivgentcy on top of this just made me feel alien. We went to church a bit as a kid. This mega church then stopped going. My Fa said to "just read the bible for yourself and come up with your own answers." Which I did like. But was cancled out when I came out as gay. I am currently trans and pansexual. But he only understands gay or straight. Everyone else who knew me knew I wasn't straight. I never had a straight phase. But still had to "come out to him" because I was trying to go to a pride parade. It went something like this:
"Can I go to that parade downtown?"
"Why, are you gay?"
"You don't have to be- yes I am."
"OH, so you're all grown now and think you can make decisions!"
"It's not a choice, it's who I am."
"There's always a choice. You are gonna start reading the Bible again, and going to church with your granddad."
And I got like three bibles over the next few years, but didn't go to church, I think he forgot.
My Fa, he didn't belive in depression or neurodivgentcy. Even when my step mom and her son has diagnosed adhd, her other son has diagnosed autism. "Beat it until it works" and "therapists are for crazy people" added to the list. I was in and out of therapy most of my life and put on meds. He him self struggled with depression and ptsd.
People at school often didn't know what I was. I got" exotic" by white kids but wasn't cool enough to be with darker kids. And learned some scripts to hint I'm a safe person. Sadly a very useful one was relating to our asses being whooped. But I will say my friend groups throughout my life, though not consistent (moved like every year), was consistent in always being diverse. I loved to learn about everyone and trying to be welcoming. A mom/dad friend alot of the time. In middle school and high-school I took Spanish and Japanese, and was apart of alot of language clubs. I've always wanted to travel.
I left at 18. Have been struggling with homelessness /housing insecurity ever since. And after staying at a shelter my health is burned through. But, for the last four years. I have lost weight (proper PCOS diet), I live on a housing voucher and have done alot of work. I can finally look in the mirror with confidence and love. I am restoring my hair, went bald to get a good foundation. I'm contiuing to decolonizing my mind. I have been going to the doctors almost every other day to get all these test for the last 4 months. And I'm trying to reconnect my spirt, to my ancestors, and break this generational curse.
As a biracial black woman — I have much to say on this but I will simply say this: who we are on the inside is not defined by our outer appearance but we are force fed perceptions of illegitimate conception since birth. And without parents who are cognizant of the psychological impact of their decision to create a split of culture heritages in their offspring, they will inherently breed confusion disguised as symbol of love.
absolutely agree!! the burden is only passed on to the child, because it's first put upon their parents to do what they can to lessen that blow. they have to be the first teacher on just how cruel the world will inevitably be on them.