race

I'm starting off 2023 with my hardest parts, apparently. My "thoughts on friendship" post in January was a sensitive subject for me to explore. Race is a very raw subject for me right now. It's fitting but not planned that it's February and Black History Month. And so here's my "thoughts on race". With a similar disclaimer to January's post that these are my thoughts now and will be different from my thoughts in the future and are different from my thoughts in the past. Everything is impermanent including me, my body, thoughts and feelings, and experience.

I'm bi-racial. I've known this from the time I was born. I remember kids in school asking me, "What are you?" Sometimes I'd feel like being cute and say "I'm human!" or "I'm American!" but that usually didn't fly. "No, no. Are you white or black?" "I'm mixed." I'd say. "Oh! Right." they'd say. It was like something was off about me and they couldn't quite put their finger on it. They couldn't figure out which category to put me in, which label to affix.

Well, I found the whole thing terribly uncomfortable. We moved around a lot as a kid. I was never in one school longer than 2 years. I coped by being shy, hanging back, and not standing out. New city and state, new school, new people, same questions. 

Somewhere along the way people stopped asking. Maybe little kids feel freer to immediately dive into the personal stuff. Maybe society became a bit more sensitive. Maybe I grew into more ambiguity during puberty. I'm not sure. I've had conversations as an adult that have gone both ways. A white woman told me "I thought you were just a white girl!" and a black woman told me, "I knew you were one of us!" 

My kids tell me I'm just white and laugh when I tell them I'm black.

My brother had a different dad and his skin is darker than mine. He probably always identified as black but I only caught on when he was in high school. He's my little brother and I'd moved out of the house by then. I remember asking him something like "You're black now?" and in my memory he gave me a confused look that I now interpret as "I've always been black. Don't you know me at all?" 

I used to think of my sons as mixed, even when I was warning them to stay away from interactions with the police. Now I think of them more as black even though I know the truth of their DNA. I know they see themselves as black and the world sees them as black. They've had a much different life experience than I did because of their darker skin, just like their uncle. 

All of this matters so much. And I think none of it should matter at all.