“Because you’re not white.”
I was sixteen, in a Planned Parenthood, when I heard those words. I was filling out a medical form for the first time without adult supervision. To say I was terrified is an understatement. As they typically do, the form asked my race. Unthinkingly I checked the box for white. The girl I was with, we’ll call her Jane, was an Aryan wet dream. Blonde hair, blue eyes, Christian, and the only person I trusted to go with me on this rite of passage. My best friend. I have no doubt that as Jane corrected me, she was only looking out for my best interest and health. That her concern was genetics and not fueled by racist beliefs. Yet, I sat there, dumbfounded, and very, very, confused.
My mother’s family can all be traced back to regions of the former Confederate States of America. Growing up in upper middle class, she wanted for nothing and lived a life of relative comfort and privilege. When she met my father through mutual friends, a Muslim merchant marine from the island of Sumatra, her Southern Baptist upbringing was not a concern. He was brown, Asian, and most important, not black.
“I know, but that doesn’t mean you are.”
Their relationship ended a few years after my birth. Due to my father’s profession, custody was never a question, and I lived a majority of my life with my mother and her parents. Although it was never spoken aloud, I’m sure my appearance was a relief. Despite being the spitting image of my father, my complexion was much closer to my mothers.
White enough, if you will.
And that’s how I was raised. I never questioned my whiteness as a child because for the most part, I looked like the people raising me, who were white. I accepted it as fact, as children do when they are taught by the adults they love and trust. It was this very love, trust, and acceptance that was exploited the first time I became aware of the racist undertones in my household and demanded an explanation.
By second grade most American youth have heard the names Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. We are conditioned from a young age to believe that the Civil Rights Movement ended racism in the United States for ALL minorities, not just African Americans. So, while watching the 90’s sitcom classic, Family Matters, I was mortified to hear my grandmother question the networks ability to find so many talented colored people. I ran to my mother in tears because I was mortified. If my grandmother was racist, did that mean she hated my dad?
This is when I learned the word prejudice. My mother explained that my grandparents weren’t racist. Racists hated everyone. That was a word reserved for Neo Nazi’s and the KKK. My grandparents were prejudice, and only against black people. I was told it wasn’t their fault, that they were raised that way, and that they were too old to learn anything different. I distinctly remember feeling a deep pity for them. How could I be angry at them for their prejudice? They were raised that way. It wasn’t their fault. So, I accepted it and learned to look the other way. I looked away when my black friends weren’t allowed to sleepovers. I looked away every time I heard the work nigger from a mouth that was unaware of my presence. I conditioned myself not to see these things because if I didn’t acknowledge it, and it wasn’t hurting anyone, why embarrass them?
In true human fashion, it took being directly impacted to make me open my eyes. As I got older it became more and more common for people to question my ethnicity, nationality, or just rudely ask “what are you?” More and more often my reply, “white…” got stranger and stranger looks, prompting me to explain that I was bi-racial. Typically, this would cause the other person to relax considerably and exclaim that they knew I wasn’t just white. It took only a few of these awkward occasions for me to simply tell people it wasn’t any of their business, or that I was a mutt, to avoid it. By my junior year, being spoken to in a myriad of different languages upon introduction was no longer “weird,” just embarrassing.
“I don’t know, but you’re not white.”
At home, it was what was on the inside that was being questioned. After the 9/11 attacks the atmosphere in my home changed overnight. Growing up, politics weren’t discussed. My grandmother worked as her pastor’s secretary for over 30 years and would only vote for pro-life politicians. As a firm Democrat, my grandfather was constantly frustrated that she wouldn’t look at the other issues. Now politics were discussed often, openly, and were pointedly anti-Muslim. I never thought that these issues applied to me personally, but to my father. When I defended him as not only a good man but an American citizen, I would always get the same speech. The same patronizing smile and evasive, vague explanations. My father, clearly, was the exception to the rule. I was too young to understand. Pushes for religious freedom in schools and a call for the removal of “God” in the pledge of allegiance seemed to only confirm my families growing belief that the liberals were trying to oppress white Americans and destroy the Christian faith. I blamed the internet.
With the election of President Obama things reached a fever pitch. My email was constantly filled with anti-liberal, anti-Muslim, pro-Republican articles and memes. While most of these were strictly propaganda or false news, several made very racist jokes or satire, and they all shared a single theme: That the Republican party was the only party that was willing to protect white, Christian, American values. After reading a lengthy, hateful, theory on how the president was a Muslim spy with aims to take down the U.S. from inside and murder all white infidels in their sleep, I had enough. I wrote him, sobbing the whole time, and begged him to either reconsider his opinion or to no include me in his hate mail.
His response? That not only would he not stop sending them, but that he was afraid I had been lost to left agenda and needed to read these things and understand the risks to my country. That I was naive, and it was his job to educate me. That my personal feelings on the topic didn’t matter. When national healthcare was brought to the forefront of politics, I was constantly attacked for clearly not seeing the communist agenda to undermine our glorious American Capitalism. Although it was never spoken aloud, I could feel the resentment towards me building in my family. Gatherings, phone calls, all communication became more and more strained as I tried to respectfully keep my thoughts and opinions to myself to save face and remain an accepted member of my family.
With the Trump nomination and eventual win in 2016, I knew I was on borrowed time. The hate fueled campaign messages echoed the same fear of white oppression that I had read over and over in countless emails throughout the years. Trump winning the election single handed validated not only white nationalism, but the irrational fear of the Democratic agenda to oppress white, Christian, values. Each new Trump era atrocity was a point of near fanatical pride. When I raged about Hispanic children being torn from their mothers arms their responses were cool, calm, often repeated, regardless of the issue.
“If they didn’t break the law, it wouldn’t be an issue”.
“We have to protect American values from the radicals.”
“You’re white, too. Remember?”
While this may seem disturbing for some, for mixed children these conversations and experiences are all too real. Bi-racial and multi-racial children and adults all over the country, and the world are being forced to choose between the families who created, loved, and molded them. Choose, or risk becoming pariah for your lack of convictions.
On one side, the belief that all men are created equal regardless of race, origin, gender, or religion.
The other? Your blind obedience to the call of white, “American values” in the name of patriotism.
Shamed into silence, this is growing up mixed in America.
Welcome to the Half-Breed Nation.
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