The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
Sunil Yapa,
New York, NY.
I’m biracial and grew up in rural Pennsylvania. The question where are you from has always hounded and haunted me. I’m from the US. I’m from Sri Lanka. The only two places in the world where they are certain I don’t belong.
Kyle Lim,
Grand Rapids, MI.
As a biracial individual, I learned early-on how to de-emphasize certain aspects of my racial identity depending on who I was around. When I met my wife Claire, we were both attending a predominantly white private college and although she knew that I was mixed, her experiences with me have been ones where she mostly experiences my “white side”. Over the course of our short year as a married couple, I have begun to realize that she sees me not as a biracial, multi-cultural individual, but more as a white man who tans really easily. We are deeply in love, I am not worried. But I do wish that she would/could see me the way I see myself. I am only now learning that I need to embrace my heritage, and break out of the social/racialized conditioning that tells me that it is just easier and better to be white.
Holly Drury,
Lebanon, TN.
Ana Vega Rios,
New Braunfels, TX.
Self-awareness is the first step in moving forward. We all are prejudice in some way, it’s about being authentic enough to admit it. Opening an HONEST dialogue is the beginning of change.
Mary Henry
Oxford, OH
I am white, my husband is black, our daughter is biracial. If I’m out with just my husband or just my teenaged daughter, wait staff usually ask if our order is on one check, suggesting they don’t realize that we’re related (my daughter is not very dark-skinned, but looks more like my husband’s side of the family) or married (people still don’t expect interracial couples, I guess).
Anonymous
Kennewick, WA
Being Latina, with a white name, but in knowledge of my Latino surname. I try to be supportive of my friends with their biracial and transracial adoptions, but it is so hard. I have suffered and struggled so much with my identity. People have such good intentions, but the children suffer. Then, “Be glad you were adopted”, attempting to make me feel guilty. YOU ALL HAVE NO IDEA what it is like .
Anonymous
Ann Arbor, MI
The concept of being an “edgewalker” is from Nina Boyd Krebs–it means you can move between cultural traditions and cultural communities with some level of ease, comfort and enjoyment. Being raised in a Black/White family, we talked about and lived race/ethnicity/socio-economics/etc. daily. I know now that this is a blessing as I see the people I grew up with, who lived very mono-cultural and mono-racial lives, are handicapped in many ways in our multicultural society. More than having any particular cross-cultural knowledge, I grew up with a love of and respect for diversity in its many facets, and enjoy traveling the world to learn more about the ways that culture and appearance influence our lives.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/edgewalkers-dr-nina-boyd-krebs/1112725216
Tamara Engelking,
Albuquerque, NM.
David,
Detroit, MI.
To the cops, I am “white”. To many others I am “not” black. I don’t try to pass and I don’t try to compensate for it by “acting” black. I am very direct about these issues though. I am a black guy. How much more direct can I be? I’m not adopted.
So lets cut to the chase. I’m one of those lightskinned black guys that looks so Caucasian that some people think I fall in that “lucky” category. Well I do not relate to that category and I honestly do not like it. As much as I feel like I stand out among everyday black people, I am black. Not mixed, not multiracial, not this or that. Just black. I have never felt the pull to deny this, although I grew up confused about how it’s physically possible.
White and black are not polar opposites, or “versions” of one another. They are just two distinct types of people. IN the end we are all people, but you cannot ignore what stands out and just pretend. Acknowledging our own ignorance, mine included, is a real effort to improve our country, world, city.
I benefit from white privilege to some degree. I get the respect from cops that many black people don’t. I get whites to talk more earnestly with me about race issues, that is until I tell them I am black or until I question their thinking.
I don’t know what it’s like to “be” white or “be” multiracial. I know what it’s like to be mistaken for white or mistaken for multiracial. I don’t know what it’s like to be arab either, but sometimes I am mistaken for arabic, or latino, it goes on and on…
In the end, I do not resent whites or hate them. But I do hate the indifference. When there are black issues in America, they are just that “black” issues. When there are white issues in America, they are “American” issues. Rudy Guiliani asked why don’t black people do more in NYC to improve “their” community. Yet he was mayor. He doesn’t realize that those citizens are New Yorkers and he’s not asking the New Yorkers who have influence… “why”.
Ericka Danko,
Santa Monica,CA.
This is my son, Ziggy. He is adopted from birth and he is biracial. He has told me that he wishes his eyes were the same color as mine.
Ashley L.,
Durham, NC.
For much of my life, people have asked and assumed that because of the way my sister and I look that we have one black parent and one white parent. While it’s true that we technically have mixed ancestry, both of our parents identify as black, as did their parents before them and their parents before them. I wish more Americans, black and white, talked about our shared mixed centuries.
David Swerdlick
Submitted via Twitter: @Swerdlick
NC, DC, CA, NYC
Raenette White,
Moreno Valley, CA.
Shout out to California Baptist University.
Amy Hueitt
Gastonia, NC
I am black and white. My children are black and white! Genetics play an important
role in how we appear. My son looks Mexican because his dad was Mexican!
My daughter looks Mexican white because her dad was white! God truly has a
sense of humor and He makes no mistakes, ever.
Susan Siegel
New York City, NY
Brooklyn
l am living on the backs of those that struggled and fought so that I can live my life outloud.
Jessica Thomas
Bloomington, IN
I guess being biracial gave people the right to refer to me in the same way that they would a dog. I AM NOT AN ANIMAL!
Anonymous
Brooklyn, NY
Biracial (white and Asian). Partnered with a white man from rural West Virginia. We don’t experience much (if any) hostility. I’m told that this is increasingly normal in society, and this demographic development is supposed to fill us all with hope and pride. But I look around at all the entrenched inequalities in our country, and the entrenched apathy toward it all, and I feel increasingly despair and hopelessness.
Dawn E Josiah
Landis, NC
My daughter is Hawaiian American. I’m the white part of her, her dad is the Hawaiian part of her. After 25 years of marriage, he pushes us out of his life and returns to his roots. I’m the one that deals with the anger and pain from my daughter because we live in the South and being a Hawaiian American is not recognized. I tell her that no one, including me, can determine her worth. She is a strong woman – she will raise her daughters to be strong women. Her father is the one who loses out, I am the one who is greatly blessed.
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