I Passed for White and Straight, Even Though I'm Not -- How Looks Hide My Identity

[JustAnotherGen]

5. Disagree to an extent

I'm forty- bi-racial - and had blonde hair as a kid . . . that fair. Like many bi-racial kids- we get a bit darker and curlier as we get older.

There are very concrete experiences that only a woman with my 'family dynamic' can HAVE experienced.

This woman's experience was probably very much like my paternal grandmother's experience - but she went out and found the darkest black man she could find to marry in 22. Her reasoning to do that was because of how she experienced the world in the deep South as a child in the turn of the last century.

My experiences born abroad, spending my formative years in the military culture in a foreign land - and my 'culture shock' even coming back to the North East in the late 1970's as a 4 (almost five) year old - are imprinted in me.


Yes - in an ideal world - it SHOULD be Human Race.

But in America - I don't have that luxury. I simply don't. And it's not my fault - or the fault of any minority Americans. The Dominant Culture must ALL change - and then we can. Until then - we can't have our voices or experiences down played. Because our voices speaking up and out - well that's what will make the dominant culture stand up and take notice of the 'card' they placed in the deck.