Don't let others define who you are

By now, everyone has seen the UCLA girl rant about how Asians are taking over the library. When I saw that video, I honestly did not know that people that ignorant still existed. The things she said were so hurtful and misinformed, and her sheer disregard for the victims of the tsunami and various Asian cultures was astonishing.

I then began to think about all the times I remember someone saying something hurtful, in that same context, to me just because I'm mixed--oh the stories I could tell.

I know I’m pretty young, and that I have my whole life ahead of me, but I never thought that I would encounter some of the sheer inconsideration that I have experienced so far in life.

WHITE GIRL: I have a few friends that like to call me white girl occasionally—one in particular that disregards my African-American heritage altogether but all in good fun…right?

WRONG

To say that I am “white washed” or that I am not black enough is not up for you to decide. My culture and ethnicity are up to me to define. And when I get a solid definition, I’ll let you know so that you can describe me correctly.

NAZI/NIGGER: The double “N” words. Yes, I’ve been called both—sometimes by people I did not know very well and sometimes by people closer to me. I just don’t understand how some people come to the conclusion that they are entitled to say these kinds of words to anyone.

What blows my mind, though, is the fact that I receive this kind of teasing from all different people: young, old, Caucasian, African American, Asian, Hispanic, male, female. No one is excluded.

And like Murs raps (see audio clip below: Dark Skinned White Girl), people like me are at times “rejected by the black and not accepted by the white world,” depending on their situation.

So obviously, after thinking about this for a while, I went immediately to Youtube.com. I found this channel that has to do with race by JAYLOVE 47. I honestly could not finish some of the videos because they were so hurtful.

Saying that biracials are hated or all have a superiority complex or explaining why black people hate biracials are not the type of discussions we, as human beings, should be having. We should be having informed discussions on race and acceptance that propel society into a movement to stop internalized and institutionalized racism and discrimination so that “one day…[our children] will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”




JAYLOVE 47

What Are You?

Do you remember the day you realized you were mixed? Not white but not completely black either? Maybe someone pointed out that you weren’t Asian enough or made fun of you for not liking tacos since you were only half Mexican?

Mixed people all over the world have to face the category issue at some point in their lives—an issue many others who identify as a single race do not have to address at all. All of us have our own identity stories and remember the moment when we had to face the fact: I am mixed.

I sat down on the couch with my mother, and before I knew it, through my tears and sobs, I told my mom that I hated myself. I had finally expressed, out loud, the tormenting feelings I had harbored inside for the past two years. Not knowing what to say, she let me cry it out, but from that day on, I began my life-long identity journey to answer the simple question I get asked on a weekly basis: what are you?

And I thought the most compelling three words in the English language were “I love you.”

Many children, like myself, grow up aware that they are not of a single race. Knowing that I was not one or the other but rather one and the other, I went back and forth between my two identities, trying each on with different people, seeing which persona fit best, like a coat or a pair of shoes.

Since that didn’t work out too well, it came to a point where I felt like I had to choose white or black, and essentially, mom or dad. That is a choice no child can make or should have to make just because society has a categorization issue—a society that likes to peg, ostracize, segregate, and separate people based on race and ethnicity.

A lot of mixed people end up choosing one side or the other. That’s fairly common especially if your physical features favor one ethnicity over the other. Others altogether reject society’s categories since it has never provided the right ones for them. Only since 2000 could people mark more than one box on the national census, and because of that shift, 7.3 million people identified as more than one race. Also, 41 percent of those people who identified as more than one race were under the age 18.

There are so many issues when it comes to identification, and some people—ignorant people—make others choose between their races for whatever reason. But despite all odds, choosing for yourself, loving yourself, and feeling comfortable being you in your own skin are the only things that matter.

No matter what race you identify as, check out this song by Murs and the 9th Wonder titled "Dark Skinned White Girl" (my favorite verse is the last one)


Murs-Dark Skinned White Girl by shellyp32