Mixed Race on the Brian Lehrer Show

My favorite radio show is having a call-in right now on being mixed race - I can't get through so I will blog about it instead.  Apologies in advance for the stream of consciousness.

Click on multiracial on the tag cloud at right or search "mixed" to see my previous musings on being more than one race.

While I appreciate the guests - an interracial couple, I'd like to hear from a mixed race "expert" instead - but that would defeat the purpose of understanding since any one person's experience can't possibly capture it for us all.

You know where being mixes sucks these days?  Dating.  White guys are like "I don't date black women."  I don't know how someone can say this and not feel they're being racist and vastly generalizing (ahem, John Mayer, whose songs I have deleted from my iTunes after his extremely racist and insensitive comments about interracial dating).  And black men do not know what to do with me.

Last week I went to my friend Santana's play reading - she wrote a one-woman show about her experience growing up mixed called "The Other Box."  It was brilliant.  I didn't expect it to be that good this early in development.  But we have some uncommon parallels in our childhood & experience, so it was very hard for me to absorb at points.  The show is going up this month, happy to share info, it is so worth seeing -- you'll laugh and cry and get it.

Woman on radio now is talking about how it's more of an issue in New York.  This is so true.  Of course I was a kid on the West Coast so I may not have been as aware, but I will tell you that in NYC everyone needs to fit everyone else into a box, and it can really suck.  Of course, this is true way beyond race: your job, your neighborhood, your money, your family, your alma mater, your marital status, your hobbies, etc etc.

And.... segment over!  Seriously, I could explore this all the time.  Maybe I will start my own radio show just about being mixed and America from a mixed perspective.  Why not, every other racial group has their own media microcosm.  Take that, Brian Lehrer!

HBHM: The Undercover Black Person

I was overjoyed to find my favorite essay on mixed-ness published in its entirety online - Danzy Senna's The Mulatto Millennium brilliantly captures what it's like, especially for those of us who "look white" and are therefore privy (though I use that term loosely) to all sorts of shades of grey in the chasm between black and white.

White folks were the most uncomfortable with the dissonance between the face they saw and the race they didn't. Upon learning who I was, they grew paralyzed with fear that they might have "slipped up" in my presence, that is, said something racist, not knowing there was a Negro in their midst. Often, they had.

Full article.

On a related note, being the only black and white (and red) person in most of my groups and a big avoider of conflict, I never know what to do when a friend says something I deem racist, whether about one of my races or someone else's.  This happens every so often. Yes, I am probably more sensitive than others due to my racial makeup.  And yes, classification of racism is hugely subjective.  Still, I feel complicit if I don't call it out.  So where's the line?

HBHM: President's Day Edition!

On this fine bank holiday, Meet the Pressler honors multicultural American leadership by listing all of our multiracial or biracial or multicultural or otherwise racially diverse presidents!

Barack Obama

Wasn't that fun?  Happy President's Day everyone!

HBHM: On Half-Blackness and Halle Berry

Half-Black History Month Continues...

I was over the (half) moon to see a well-rounded feature in the Times recently about the decision by many young bi- and multi-racial Americans to define themselves as such.

Many young adults of mixed backgrounds are rejecting the color lines that have defined Americans for generations in favor of a much more fluid sense of identity... “It depends on the day, and it depends on the options.” They are also using the strength in their growing numbers to affirm roots that were once portrayed as tragic or pitiable. “I think it’s really important to acknowledge who you are and everything that makes you that. If someone tries to call me black I say, ‘yes — and white.’ People have the right not to acknowledge everything, but don’t do it because society tells you that you can’t.”

I feel incredibly strongly about this -- unlike Halle Berry (I know, you thought we were exactly the same, but it's really just exterior), I do not buy into the one-drop rule that one black ancestor means I must define myself and my experience as African-American.  That's about as genuine as Michelle Obama identifying as white since she has white ancestors; her life experience has probably been lived as a black woman regardless of her genetic history.

One of my clients right now is a transman who has written a rock memoir (yes, that's my term, go marketing!) about his life and transition from female to male.  It's been a huge eye-opener for me.  I can't imagine being born into the wrong body, an identity that I couldn't embrace... and yet, I identify heavily with his story, as throughout my life I have been, and always will be, confronted by people and situations that want to tell me how I "should" identify, which box I should check.  Identity, ideally, should be something that is self-determined, and the rest of the world should accept it and carry on.  It feels insincere for me to say I'm black because that ignores a huge part of what has shaped me, but on the other side of the oreo, saying I'm white certainly doesn't tell the whole story either. So it is fine with me if Halle identifies as black, but I hope as time goes on, she lets her (quarter-black) daughter define herself.

The Mayoress Decrees: Half-Black History Month!

It's February, you know what that means?  Tacky Valentine's Day gifts, daydreaming about Spring Break, and feeling guilty you don't know more about black people!

Well, the guilt end now because the Mayoress is decreeing the second half (get it?) of February...

Half-Black History Month!!!

Yesiree racial voyeurs, for the next two weeks I will focus my meandering rants on the issues of multi-race.  Because mixed is the new black!

Look forward to contributions from such mixed luminaries as Mariah Carey, Halle Berry, Tiger Woods, and the POTUS himself!*

Questions & suggestions welcome... more to come.

*Subject to change without notice.