Facebook, while it is many things, is an outlet for social debate. I posted a comment today about white people dressing in black face for Halloween. It sparked some great conversation and interesting theories....but it also deeply hurt me and made me realize I have a chip on my shoulder. All the way in Asia, I thought I spent little time actually worrying about my race, when it is quite the opposite. I mean it's obvious I am a foreigner, but that applies to black people, white people and folks of any persuasion other than Korean.
Race is such a tender topic for me and I guess it always has been. When I first got to Korea I made a slide show with a photo of both of my parents, my mother being white and my father black. So many of my kids gasped when my fathers image came up on the screen. "Ooh, very black" "Ooh Africa" they said, which was followed shortly thereafter by questions about whether I tan or not and if I think I am pretty. An interesting question, which made me realize. I spend so much time "being mixed" that I never just get to be me. And really whose fault is that? I can't blame past experiences, or racist people I've encountered. It is something I have let become a part of me. As a result, I think of myself in terms of black and white or gray, always the other. This complex has made me incredibly tolerant of every person I've ever met, but more than mildly judgmental of myself. I never feel "pretty," because I never feel like the standard. I'm not even sure I know what the standard is. When people say I am intelligent, I assume they mean intelligent for my background, or upbringing, but I never see myself as being properly included. I know that I am so much more than a color, but I just don't know what yet.
At the age of 25, I still feel like a kid again, every time I have to justify how I feel about race or myself in relation to a particular ethnicity or group. I always feel like I am outside looking in, no matter how close I am to the situation or people. I want very badly to focus on me, not my place in a group and certainly not whether they are thinking of me as strange or different, or the exception. I've never felt black enough, or white enough or really anything enough to have a place to identify. When I was a kid, I made sure that I was funny. If I was the funny kid, I didn't have to be the mixed kid. When people would say something horrible about my hair, my features, my family or my skin tone- I would make it into a joke. It was a defense of sorts, but it is also something that has carried over into my adult life. It is something that makes me very angry and more sad than I often care to admit.
How do I forget about it, when it's everywhere.On my ID when asked to pick a race, I sat there for 45 minutes refusing to select just one. Every time I fill in a survey or a box I see reminders that I just don't fit neatly, I can't just "please choose one." When I'm in a relationship and my boyfriend's mother says, "you're so sweet, I just wish he was dating a black girl" or a "white girl," how do I ignore it. When the media says "beautiful for a black woman" or "alabaster chic" do I acknowledge that I will be called "exotic" which has become code for, uncomfortable with our inability to define you.
I'm pretty tired of being tired and I'm even more tired of being the "other." I really just want to be me for a while, whoever that is.
