Feature image via TheState.ae
I’m biracial. A fact that I have zero issue stating. My mother is West Indian, and my father is a white dude from New Jersey. But, somehow stating this, even today, is a touchy subject. Sure, in the eyes of everyday Americans, cops who give me $600 worth of tickets for sitting in my car, and old women who clutch their purses at the sight of me, I’m Black. I’ll proudly say that I’m Black. But, my experience of the world is the result of the simple truth that I’m biracial.
For many years of my life, I was too black for the white kids in my small town, and too white for the black kids at my church. In addition to my undiagnosed Autism, depression, closeted queerness, and gender-fluidity, the world’s reaction to my biracial existence was one of many things that left me feeling broken and wrong pretty much everyday of my young life.
So, these days, as I speak loudly and proudly. Ready my outfit for PRIDE, call out bigotry as I see it, and hold up my picket signs for women’s bodily autonomy, somehow discussing the nature of my biracial existence is still a touchy subject. You know what? I get that race is touchy in general. I get the closing ranks and drawing lines that many people of minority communities feel the need to do. I do get it. But, I’m not going to deny any aspect of who I am.
As a child, I remember clearly being told by an older black man to, “Don’t ever tell someone your father is White! Throw that right out your mouth!” I remember walking in my school’s Halloween parade, and as we passed the homes where some kid’s parents were sat out on their front lawns, hearing someone shout at me, “Superman is Black!”
Now, I have no delusion that racial disparity is in anyway even. History, demographic statistics, and just the testimony of people around me make that nigh impossible. (Some people do still struggle with it.) But my own personal experience is not that of a White person. And while aspects of my experience are very similar to that of a Black person, it isn’t the same. I deny nothing about who and what I am. I wish the world would recognize me and the other 2.9% (according to the 2010 Census) multiracial Americans, as what we are. Human beings left to navigate territory largely unexplored until the arrival of “The Loving Generation.”
I’m proud that my great grandmother was Pennsylvania Dutch. Apple Dumplings are god damn delicious. I’m also proud that my mother came to the States with pretty much nothing and built herself up to the Doctor she is now. I’m proud that my father, who never went to college, is the smartest man I know, bar none. I’m proud that I am the sum of seemingly disparate parts.
Neither of my parents 100% get what my sister and I go through, but God bless them, they are willing to hear about it. However, in the end, the story of many biracial people is one of either self rejection or social rejection. I choose neither.
I will fight for anyone struggling. I will stand for anyone who needs backup to defend their right to exist. I’m a Biracial Queer American. Don’t ever try to tarnish my shine.