Personal Narrative: Mixed Race

The complex situations are the most unfair, and for me, my complex situation is my identity as a young mixed race woman. It is the “not white enough to be white and not enough black to be black” aphorism that has shadowed my life and has caused inner conflict and unrest within myself. The only people I have been able to share the conflict with were my own sisters who were engaged in similar battles of their own with race. We never spoke about race. We didn’t bring it up at family engagements or talk about with our mother. The issue was an elephant in the room that weighed heavily on my chest. I went to school with white kids, and I attended the family gatherings with white adults. My father was gone, taking away any chance of African culture I might obtain. I was left with my
We could not speak about it. We were brought up depending on one half of what we were - white. While the world would only see the other half - black. Moving neighborhoods might have been the best thing for the situation, if it wasn’t also the worst. It helped me discern the other half of myself, because the kids in the neighborhood were also seen by the world as black. But nothing could prepare me for the hate from my own people. Not black enough. I was inconvenient to some of my peers, and because of my light skin I was often teased for being stuck up. I wasn’t egoistic, how could I be when my shoes had holes, and my socks had holes, and my identity had holes. I felt different, no matter where I was, or who I was talking to. No one tells you who you choose to be. I thought if I ignored it I would be fine. Ignore the ignorance of my white family, ignore the ignorance of my black peers, and I would be fine. But I was not. How could I ever be when you face the harrowing question - who are you? Who was I? Why did I have to pick? This circled my mind. Like a shark lingering for it’s prey, ready to attack without