i was reminiscing about my old college days when i had a higher b.a.c and a social life. those were the days of early 2009. i came across the pictures from my birthday party, my best birthday of college and maybe even ever (excluding my quince) it was a themed party of course, a theme i decided on to honor a part of me i ignore, my white side. it was a "stuff white people like" party. i told my guests they could come dressed as any white stereotype they wanted or personal ethnic stereotype, but white people could not come dressed as another ethnic stereotype. i was not about to support racism. everyone got really into it, myself included. i chose to wear all sequins, tacky new money white girl (think kim from real housewives). my blacktina mother did not understand at all, she said "bonnquisha, aren't all of your friends white? aren't they going to be offended?"
oh the inefficient detective. i showed her the blog and explained to her how a) it was a white person who came up with the list b) being offended was one of the things on the list and c) being half white allows me to do so. i know it sounds juvenile but it was a way of embracing my "whiteness". i'm currently 30/129 on the list.
ever since i became conscious of the implications of my mixed race, i have had complications with my white side. this is deeply rooted for two key reasons which i will lay out in no particular order.
1. my greek dad
in stringent racial terms, my father is a white man. however, he is also a greek man and an immigrant. he came to america at the age of 20 to go to college with the intention of going back to cyprus after finishing. growing up in cyprus, a newly independent former british colony, his english had/has an unusual accent (one i've never seemed to notice). as i grew up, he slowly became more american. for example, my brother never had to go through the painful embarrassment of having a father wear a red speedo while all the other dads wore trunks. now my dad runs marathons, wears new balance shoes, listens to conservative talk radio, and embellished his house key with an american flag. but even though my dad looks white, i didn't feel that i grew up with the american sense of whiteness i was surrounded by.
2. where i grew up
this is a big one. i grew up in the dc suburbs, in virginia, a state that fought till the end to keep interracial marriage illegal in the 1960s. while a lot had changed by the 1990s, i still witnessed a lot of unspoken prejudice, the glares and the stares, the whispers of older white women. i went to a predominately white elementary school with a small handful of asians, a couple black kids, two other latinos, and me, the soon to be tragic little mulatto. it wasn't until i was about seven that i experienced a form of racism for myself. it's one of those days you never forget. i wrote my college essay retelling that page from my life. i was in after school care, day dreaming about jonathan taylor thomas when this girl i had know for years, i still remember her name and her smirk, came into the makeshift teepee to inform me, "your step-dad is here to pick you up." those words still resonate in my chest, for a little girl, it was hurtful and heartbreaking. "he's my real dad" played over in over in my head but i didn't retaliate. i didn't tell anyone, not the teachers, not my parents. i kept it to myself for ten years. this was the beginning of the end, the end of my naivety, the end of believing that i was just like everyone else. in hindsight, i wish it didn't have a profound effect on my identity, but it did. over the years, there were ups and downs, some kids called me a "spic", some said i wasn't white, others would literally poke my shirt and say "what are you?" while i still had white friends who were accepting, the damage had been done. i slowly but surely distanced myself from identifying as white. it was like a defense mechanism, we can be friends but i am no longer one of you.
even though i am older, it is still a difficult connection to make. while it's not fair to classify an entire race based on the actions of a dozen or so children, i consciously and unconsciously damaged ties from personally identifying as "white". i say damaged and not severed because when i am being asked to describe my racial background (after my ethnic background) i still check the white box because i feel not doing so would be denying my father. but even that is still new to me because it wasn't until very recently that i had the option of doing so.
eventually, i will write about being half-blacktina.
till next time...
