Growing up, it never occurred to me that my Polish-European grandmother was White and that, by extension, my mother and her siblings were biracial. Even when I was forced to relocate preschools, suffer a mental breakdown, and eventually enter homeschooling (at my own request) as a result of racial bullying, it did not occur to me. My parents never taught me terms like Black, White, Asian, etc., and when I came home and asked what such terms meant—having heard them from others—my parents always replied, “They don’t matter. We are not a box of crayons; we are all just people.” (Back then ‘skin-colored crayons’ were not as common as they are today.)
I can still recall attending my school’s “International Week.” It was a celebratory week aimed at honoring the range of identities at our school, and yet I was told “you can’t be from more than one place” when I chose to honor my Polish, American, and Bahamian identities. Later in life, I recall a student of mine saying “oh well you’re not really American then” when I told her I had grown up in the Bahamas—I am a US citizen.
As a result of my parents’ attitudes toward race—or lack thereof—I grew up without a concept of race and with a concept of humanity centered on simply seeing others as people. I learned to judge people by their actions and not their race, religion, or identity. When I moved to the U.S. at 16, things changed. My relocation came during the BLM marches. At the time I didn’t know much about the movement and thus I felt great fear for mine and my family’s safety. I worried we would be ‘mislabeled’ as Black and face violence as a result. I also faced the classic immigrant experience: new culture shock and loss of the previous culture. I was told the uninspired jokes of “go back to your country” from White friends, to which I replied, “I am in my country. I am a citizen.” I went to a majority White private school. Even then, many “White” students were diverse ethnically, in language, or in religion. What I noticed was a culture of complete erasure of diverse identities and the perpetual retelling of ‘the single story’ rather than one that reflected the reality of diverse people coming in all shades, shapes and histories.
In hopes of feeling more accepted, I joined my high school’s Black Student Union (BSU) but left after one day. The club felt like a living stereotype, with fried chicken and watermelon served and a movie about the “hood experience” being played. We were in the middle of very wealthy downtown Boca. Rather than connecting to the experience of Blackness in front of them, the school created a narrative they felt the students should—even must—subscribe to. It is silly to honor one story of race while ignoring the one in front of you. It creates the idea that all people of a given demographic must have the same experiences and, therefore, beliefs rather than taking each person as an individual with unique experiences that don’t always have to be associated with their phenotype.
In fact, the only reason I attended the club in the first place was because another student told me, “You should join the BSU.” When I told her I wasn’t Black, she dismissed me and told me, “Well, too bad. You look Black.”
That was one of the first times I had ever considered race and had the sudden and horrifying realization that others saw me as Black first and human second. I became more aware of things said to me, of expectations placed on me, of the deviations from ‘the norm’ that I lived, and how my race seemed to wear me.
When I got to college, I had the unwelcome experience of having the N-word written on my dorm door in all caps. I reported the incident to my school’s counseling center, a place I had been visiting to help with the transition of moving halfway across the country from my family in a nation I was still adjusting to. I was effectively dismissed and told there was nothing to be done. I was livid, not because that word necessarily meant anything to me—another term I did not grow up hearing—but because I knew what it meant to others and that, yet again, my whole identity had been collapsed into just my race.
Most recently, I experienced racism in the workplace. My manager began a joke she called “Racism Fridays.” It entailed her berating me with subtle and not-so-subtle racist comments, criticism, and outright remarks. I was only a month or so into the job when it began, and I put up with it for nearly two months after. When—advised by friends and my boyfriend—I did speak up about it, nothing much was done. Our boss got both sides of the story, apologized, and then arranged for my manager to apologize to me. She did, although the apology was mixed in with excuses and passing the whole thing off as an ill-placed joke.
I would like to note, too, that not all my racist experiences have come from White people or non-Black people of color, but also from other Black people.
When my White Canadian boyfriend and I go out for dinner, we have to brace for heckling and comments implying that our “race mixing” is negative. We were once even yelled at during a concert and ultimately had to relocate to another side of the crowd. “Sista, how do you feel about being with this White man?” I was asked, among other harsher comments.
What did these experiences teach me? First off, that hate can come from anywhere. The idea that racism is always White people toward Black people is false. Anyone can be racist, and anyone can face racism.
I learned, too, that I myself will never identify as Black first and won’t allow anyone else to identify me as such. I am not your Black friend or a Black author. I am a friend and an author. My race already precedes me, but I can work to change that.
Standing up is hard and often fruitless, but not pointless. Standing up for myself as a child, when I was segregated from peers, denied recess, punished for no other reason than my race, and accused of bullying when I, in fact, was being bullied, looked like advocating for homeschooling. As a teen and early college student, it was reporting hate, speaking up, holding to my beliefs in crowds, and walking away when I realized situations weren’t for me. Sometimes things can’t be solved in the moment, but that doesn’t mean one should allow themselves to be subjected to mistreatment.
As an adult, standing up still looks like calling out injustice even when it doesn’t immediately create change, and, more importantly, accepting myself. I used to hold firmly to the identity of multiracial. I would suck in my lips, copy trends in Eurocentric fashion and never wear my hair out. Being multiracial made others more comfortable, and I experienced much better treatment when I was “exotic.” I have since accepted the racial marker Black, partially for convenience, but also because if that is what others already see me as, then fine—I will be Black, but I will be my version of Black.
I will wear my afro. I will have a story that goes against stereotypes. I will see myself and others as human first. I am an artist, an author, Polish, American, Bahamian, French-speaking, human... and yes, I am also proudly Black.
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When did FAIR's editorial policy become to capitalize "Black" and "White"? Seems like leaning into the racial division that FAIR is meant to be opposing, and adopting a novel way of writing that wouldn't even be happening without the recent culture war.
It's not just you. As a graduate student in counseling many years ago, when I dared put forth the idea that we should see people as humans beyond external markers (race, sex, sexual orientation, e.g.) I was told that doing so made me a bigoted white man of privilege who "didn't understand" the injury I was causing by saying such things.
I never gave in because I knew then as I know now that people are deeper than their labels - any label - and that the vast overwhelming majority of humans prefer to be viewed as such; as having great potential.
Now, more than a decade and a half later, I'm learning I was right to have such a viewpoint because it begets hope for those who have self-labeled to the point that they're now limited in their own perceived capacity. Labels, by definition, are limiting. But humans can be many things and their possibilities are limitless. It's been quite wonderful to see my patients grow beyond what they previously thought possible.
Thank you for writing this, it's a breath of fresh air.