I’m Biracial. This is what it is like to be judged by my light-skin.
When Rachel Dolezal, who was head of a chapter for the NAACP for a bit, was outed as not really being African-American, that really disgusted me! She was a white Civil Rights Activist who obviously had an Identity Disorder. This pissed me off to the max because for ME, ever since puberty, all of a sudden those white guys who used to pick on me so bad had decided that I wasn’t really half-black. People decided that my mother was right and I was ‘Culturally Confused’. This was because if I was mixed race, these people would have to deal with their ‘white guilt’ from being racist. I know Rachel Dolezal made other light-skinned mixed race women just like me look like total head-cases! What’s even worse, is that she really HAS no idea what it is like to be born BLACK. To grow up BLACK. To go through the difficulties of puberty BLACK. Rachel Dolezal just woke up one day and decided to be another race. Social experiment or mental illness? Why couldn’t she just say, “I’m white and I LOVE BLACK PEOPLE.” She could have really had a great life being herself! The fact she did what she did to her hair is even more insulting to those of us whose hair can be straight or curly ON IT’S OWN.
To me it doesn’t matter either way. If you aren’t half-black or ALL black, you have zero idea what it was like to grow up in the 1980’s like us. To have white mothers who blatantly lie, even when you tell them they are lying. To have no one listen and believe you because you are just a child, you can’t POSSIBLY remember your own father. Not only did I remember those 2 years of bonding with him, and still do, my mother’s family also remembered him. I’m the spitting image of him, with a dimple in my chin just like him. My skin is a tad lighter, but the only ‘confused’ people are those who suffer ‘white guilt’. Imagine at the age of 16 years old, having a blatantly racist, abusive white boyfriend and his friends, decide to talk to your mother AFTER you break up with him and get an order of protection. HIM deciding that HE knows more about you than anyone because ‘All mothers and their daughters are best friends.’ He decides that you are like Rachel Dolezal and he wants to ‘help’ your mother? YOU need to learn RESPECT. And both of them decide YOU need psychiatric help? When in fact, he’s just abusive. Your own mother has been abusive by lying. But you don’t bother dealing with either because you know who you are, so do your family who loves and supports you.
My father was a bit older than my mother and had been born and raised in New Orleans. My mother was white and before I was born, they both lived together in Buffalo, NY. After I was born we spent time while I was a baby living in New Orleans, Louisiana. Then some more time in New York until they split up and my father went back to New Orleans. After that, my mother had to deal with all the dealings of having my father’s daughter. The abuse from others in regards to my skin tone was one that I dealt with alone. My mother had attempted, without support from her family and most indefinitely without support from me, to say I was white and that my Paternity was UNKNOWN.
ME: In a Nutshell
This is what it has been like, and it is NOT ‘fun’ for anyone other than victimizers who think that I need to adhere to the rules that they made for being a biracial Human Being. The same has been for those whose question of their ‘Blackness’ has not been any kind of a question. It is clear when you look at them: their hair, skin, facial features, and all those other ‘Culturally Correct’ Black-isms are plain to the eye.
When I rub lotion on my body from head to toe, a beauty ritual I have engaged in since I was at least 11 years old, I am ‘pretending’ to be African American. If I braid my hair and take extra-special care of it, the way I have been doing by myself since I was about 12 years old, I am ‘Culturally Appropriating’ and insulting another heritage or ethnicity. I was ‘faking’ being mixed by using a self tanner to even my natural skin hue, due to a birthmark down the middle of my stomach. A birthmark that mixed people tend to have.
My mother and others have said that I use fake tanner to look darker and I curl my hair to appear African. I actually have to train my hair, so it is not a frizzy nightmare, by braiding each side. My hair is naturally dark to light brown, and acts like copper. If I do nothing to it, it’s everywhere and drives me nuts. I rub oils on my hair at night during my bath, to protect my dry scalp from becoming prone to flaking and break-outs. I use oils in the bath for my skin, which gets not just ashy, but will crack and bleed on my elbows, back, legs, butt, feet, and knees from the lack of moisture and the loving care that I need to provide to myself.
THE MOST RACIST PEOPLE A LIGHT-SKINNED BLACK WOMAN CAN COME ACROSS, ARE THE ONES WHO HAVE ZERO CLUE THAT SHE KNOWS HOW TO LOVE HERSELF PROPERLY. Should I repeat that?
Being Black, whether you have both parents or only one parent of African descent, comes with a steep price. There is a whole childhood of growing up mixed race. Going to school and being bullied because you are mixed race. Having to get on the school bus day after day, knowing the suffering of bullying that will happen because you are mixed race. There is the love you receive at home because no one cares that you are mixed race, you belong to your family and they know that being biracial is nothing bad at all. Then there is the balance of basic hygiene that women who are NOT biracial, or Black, have no idea about. There are chemicals we can’t use on our hair and skin. Moisturizer is always on the pharmacy list. My mother was so caught up in her lie, she allowed me to perm my hair when I was 12. That right there is when I learned that Black girls don’t get perms! It was a nightmare, right down to my roots!
The reality is that I have had a lifetime of standing right next to people, be they adults at church or school, wherever I went with my grandparents throughout my childhood, who have made remarks disparaging towards Blacks. Police officers, strangers at a bar, work, or even just acquaintances, people judge, and will continue to judge, making their displeasure of Black people obvious with their callous, rude remarks. The inability to recognize me as an ‘enemy’ due to my not being ‘Black enough’. Since I’m not, people feel it is SAFE to assume they can speak down, in front of me, about a whole part of me that is made of all the blood from another group of people that share a long history of being treated unfairly due to country of origin apparent in their skin tone. I have even had people say to me that I’m just sticking up for something that I am not, that I don’t understand what I’m saying. Or that I’m joking or lying to make myself more interesting. Both have been men and women. I do not have BLACK WOMAN (or any of their other favorite racial slurs) tattooed on my forehead. I have always tried to practice patience, but it depends on the context that these things have happened. Would you believe that some people have even told me I have ‘Feelings of Inferiority’ because I refuse to accept what THEY believe about MY RACE? I don’t appreciate people attempting to psychoanalyze me, but it has happened! I used to ignore this and go about my business. Another persons rudeness has nothing to do with me, something I learned as a child. Believe me, if my Blackness was more obvious, these people would probably never say a word. Then I wouldn’t have to say ‘I’m half-Black.’ and no problems would develop in social settings. I wouldn’t be ‘HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT’ as my beloved grandfather like to say. He also said this about my niece when my sister was pregnant, just so you understand that his sense of humor was NOT racist! It was dark humor that I was lucky enough to be a conscious part of as I grew up. I was lucky I had him there for me.
These are just my personal experiences with racism:
A) Most White people are afraid of people who aren’t White.
B) People in general are rude.
C) Remember who they are.
D) Avoid these individuals later in life.
To be light-skinned is to be ‘Tragique Creole’ in New Orleans. In most other places in the U.S. you are either white or whatever will be acceptable because saying your half-black to people who are too ‘Culturally Correct’ have never seen someone of Creole descent. It is like saying ‘I’m an alien. Nice to meet you!’
That is what it has been like for ME.
What exactly is ‘Tragique Creole’?
The word ‘Creole’ is actually a derivative of the Portuguese word ‘create’. French language took hold in the Americas and in the ports along the slave trade route in Haiti, Spain, Africa, and the French West Indies. This term was created to define light-skinned blacks who were biracial or multi-racial and judged as either too white or too black to be accepted. Many of them suffered from this cultural rejection of their own people so badly, they fell into deep depression, hid in society while pretending to be white, or succumbed to suicide.
The monetary value and physical ability of African slaves was judged according to skin tone by Slavers. Appearance was everything to these Human Traffickers. Light-skinned slaves were seen as smarter and better able to get an education, and most were more likely to be allowed to ‘earn’ their freedom. Darker skinned slaves were seen as ‘feeble minded’ and more likely to be used for physical labor.
Just in case you think that I’M being a racist, let me remind you that the oppressed cannot look down upon the oppressors. I have had the luck to experience a perception of people that not everyone can have. Trust me, I feel for Black women like Rachel Cargle and Robin DiAngelo (Author of ‘White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism’) and understand what it feels like to have White women and White men express ‘White guilt’. It’s annoying. After everything that I have experienced in MY life? I don’t believe that a single abusive person who targeted me because of my race, or has used my gender as their excuse to sexual harass me, those toxic people I have removed from my life and refuse to allow back in, will ever change the permanent damage they have caused to me by apologizing to me. I’m sure those who suffer ‘White guilt’ feel bad about something they have said or done at some point in life towards another person or group of oppressed people.
The only response from me to people who want to start solving their personal issues regarding their own ‘White guilt’ is this: I’m proud of you for realizing your actions caused someone else to hurt. Forgive yourself, learn to change your behavior, and don’t do it again. Damn, even go to therapy if it bothers you so much! But do not come to me, a random mixed woman to try to ‘fix’ things because you had a personal revelation about your past behavior. AND YES. I have had that happen on more than one occasion. LET ME REPEAT: Do NOT bring your personal issues with MY race to me. I’m fine with myself. I do not need to change or alter MY thinking OR my response on this issue in order to navigate through White society. I was born privileged enough to learn how to show courage, I have a backbone, and if you don’t back me up? Then you are NOT my friend!
Are we ready for women to come together?
Feminism is supposed to mean equal pay, equal opportunities at achieving an education, and equal treatment for women, at not just work but everywhere else too. How would a White woman navigate the obstacles that a Black women had to grow up learning about if she suddenly just woke up Black one morning? How many men worry about being sexually harassed as soon as they step outside? If you’re a White woman reading this, ask yourself how often these thoughts cross your mind, and how often you experience being sexually harassed in public. How many men come to your assistance? Do you pay attention to their nationality or skin color when they do? Women of color are over-sexualized and over-scrutinized no matter how we dress or what we are doing. We also tend to be the target of White male-dominated societal pressures…these are playground bullies who are now adults.
I had to learn how to be assertive earlier, how to keep my boundaries, and how to teach others to respect those boundaries. Women like me have to learn self-love, self-acceptance, and what these mean to us individually in our survival, in comparison to our blacker and whiter sisters. Black women in general have to learn, work, and play harder than White women have ever had to in order to reach goals.
A Feminist is not going to recognize the problems in identifying as such if they are allowing a man to tell them how to think, act, or how to treat another woman. Having been told that I need to ‘get laid’ and go ‘find a boyfriend’ for almost the last twenty years, by men AND women, has just been a bad example for my sons to witness. Luckily, the three of us know each other better! How DARE a woman tell me I need to meet their friend to ‘hook up’ with or that I should find a Friends With Benefits situation? I am perfectly happy and comfortable being a single woman! This unsolicited advice insinuates that because of my gender and my physical appearance (which I will not alter to displease myself when I look in the mirror) means I must be helpless and also have a sexual need that I know I don’t. That advice is for the benefit of someone else who wants, needs and desires to be taken care, NOT ME! If you accept a person for being biracial, then you have to accept their personality as an individual too. Mine has always been independent. THAT has zero to do with race! It is just who I am! Yet this behavior, BY MEN AND WOMEN, towards me and other women and girls happens every day. It is much more acceptable to be thought of as independent if you are white, than NOT. Why? Because everyone else is thought of as inferior and forced to behave that way. It’s a form of abuse.
Refusing to believe that a Black woman can be just as victimized as a White woman has set a standard in Feminism that should be changed drastically. Even a White woman who associates, dates, or has children with a Black man is considered lower than a White woman who does not. In the 1990’s, during the same time-frame as my first abusive relationship, I knew girls personally who not only managed to come forward about violence at the hands of their partner, but they got an arrest and a conviction.
My own mother was called a drug addict, drug dealer and told to her face that she has no education. She’s actually a high school graduate, has two degrees (in two different areas of study) was a Real Estate agent, Appraiser and had her NYS Brokers license. My mother passed all those the first time around with a perfect score and has always been pretty intellectual. She was on the Deans List in 1998 at UB for her studies on Architectural History. But for some time back in the 1970’s, my White mother lived with my Black father and they had me. Being a White woman with a mixed child is NOT all it’s cracked up to be and I give her props! Raising me hasn’t been easy, either on her, my step-father (they married after almost 10 years together, divorcing later), or on my grandparents. Especially during my teens. But they did it! Yes, my mother lied to people. But the real issue is: Why would others would take it out on me? For anyone to believe her, and to actually KNOW ME personally, is preposterous.
My race is a fact, not based on popular opinion as though I’m a slave at auction. GET IT?
Domestic Violence:
In the United States, studies show 22% of Black women have experienced rape. Forty percent of Black women will experience intimate partner violence in their lifetime, and Black women are killed at a higher rate than any other group of women. We can also include non-binary genders into these statistics as well.
The fear and frustration of victims, from feeling helpless and without escape, often leads to incarceration, suicide, and even murder. The devastating consequences of silencing, and discriminating against Black women, Black girls and other non-white groups of women (non-binary gender, too! I’m not forgetting that group as I write this.) leaves them without legal representation, support and struggling to cope in recovery. Their goal is to be able to say “I’m a survivor!”. I don’t like using term ‘victim’, because I feel that denotes a certain ‘Victim Mentality’. I didn’t say that at 15, 16, or at any time since. I say “I’m a survivor!” which I feel is much more incensing to victimizers. Nothing shames abusers more than us LIVING! Shame and instilling fear has always been their favorite silencing tactics. It has NEVER worked for me. Want me to be quiet? THEN STAY AWAY FROM ME.
Oklahoma
In 2004, a 20 year old mother of three, Tondalo Hall, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for failing to protect her children from her partner. She was not present when the abuse occurred and did not harm her children herself, but the actual abuser served 2 years in prison and 8 years on probation. *There is a campaign for her here where you can sign her petition. Ultraviolet Action is a community working towards equality at a higher level! You can make tax deductible donations and help them empower women, expand our rights and fight sexism.
Alabama
In 2018, Jacqueline Dixon, a 38 year old mother of two children, shot and killed her estranged husband in self-defense. She had been granted an order of protection and custody of her children after having endured years of physical abuse at the hands of her abusive husband, Carl Dixon. The piece of paper didn’t stop him from charging her and she shot him in order to protect herself. *There is a campaign to sign a petition for the District Attorney to drop the charges against Jacqueline Dixon here!
Louisiana
At 18 years old in 1996, while visiting a home in Opelousas, Louisiana, survivor and now gun violence protection advocate, La’ Shea Cretain, was shot when her ex-boyfriend broke into the home. After firing into her, while her 4 month old daughter and toddler son watched, he shot himself in the head. She lives with five bullets stuck in her, chronic back and spine issues, and all three of them have had to live with psychological trauma. *Time wrote an article about her you can check out here. La’ Shea Cretain also wrote a blog that you can read by clicking this link.
In 1995, I had a nervous breakdown. This is just one of the many effects stalking behavior has on victims. The severity of the psychological abuse and sexual abuse during my teens caused permanent damage to my psyche. One psychiatrist suggested to me in 1998 that I move out of the area to avoid being triggered. I found a ton of relief in seeing a Hypnotherapist for two years, before, during, and after my first pregnancy. I suffer from PTSD, anxiety, frequent flashbacks, insomnia and nightmares. Despite the physical evidence, as well having to take a second stalker, who is White, to court because of the physical evidence outside my home when I was just 19 years old, and the continued harassment whenever I worked, an order of protection was still just a piece of paper. That went on for 8 years!
One of the times I was a waitress for a few months, the harassment started as phone calls to my boss about my appearance. At another temp job as a secretary, I received more phone calls and I was the one who had to answer the phones! I won’t even share details how at one factory position, the guys sang whenever I walked by…needless to say, sexual harassment is real, stressful, distracting, and women who are not white experience it more often than White women!
Imagine having to quit a job, or drop out of school or college, not getting that bank loan or home mortgage (Bank of America was sued because of their discrimination practices.) because you have been placed into a racial category that is meant to be kept oppressed. White privilege is not being fearful of working a job, attending classes on campus, or worrying that your A grade will change to a low score, or that your credit application with that 700 credit rating will be denied anyway, because, well, you’re White sister!
Women shouldn’t be placing themselves above other women in accordance to the rules of a society that has historically been dominated by White men. We need to continue to raise our sons to know the difference between the right and wrong ways to address a woman, the proper way to accept rejection, and to understand that love doesn’t hurt…either men or women. And we need to raise our daughters to accept themselves and to never let society define who they are. It is perfectly ok to appear ‘boring’, ‘frigid’, or ‘cold-hearted’. Not a single person should try to manipulate you into behaving against your own nature. For young boys, the ABSOLUTE same! There is nothing wrong with appearing empathetic, expressing how you feel and being comfortable with ‘feminine’ personality traits.
I cannot express enough love for men who have respectfully approached me and then walked away nicely after my equally polite rejection. Kudos to you! Let me just also clarify, the ratio of polite Black men greatly outnumber my encounters in comparison to the polite White men I have had. In my experience, Black men are more likely to politely compliment a strange woman, attempt to get her number, and accept an equally polite rejection. Let me also clarify, that I have always tried to keep myself as safe as possible. It is much easier for White women to move about fear-free in society than it is for a non-White woman.
There really is just something wrong when people live their lives peacefully minding their own business and another person decides that the color of their skin makes that person a threat. I urge people who have these feelings of fear and violence towards innocent people, please talk to a psychiatrist!
Feminism is more than one skin-shade. Feminism has many colors. Feminism is more than one country. Feminism is more than one gender. Feminism means being supportive of women in helping men to understand that the Feminist movement INVOLVES men, it is not AGAINST men. We are ALL members of the Human Race!
