The Current Race Discussion and That Caught-in-the-Middle Feeling

[ultranos]

(I don't know if I want this posted publicly, because I'm still not sure if this sounds like whining. But I need to get this off my chest. Help?)

ETA: After being assured that, hey, you're allowed to have your own perspective, I'm going to unlock this. Here's to hoping I don't regret this. Also, fixing spelling errors.

I saw rydra_wong's link roundups of the current race discussion (here and here) and have been reading through them. Actually, let me be a little more honest: I first had to gather up my courage and then read them. Because I always get profoundly uncomfortable during race discussions.

And I was talking to abyssinia4077 last night about it and was finally able to articulate why I'm uncomfortable and confused. It's not that I want to make it "all about me" or my interactions and perspectives. Actually, it's, I'm sort of ashamed to say, the opposite:

It's never about me.

Because, you see, in these discussions about race and being Othered, I never see anything from the perspective of those of us who are painfully caught in the middle. Those of us who have a foot in two worlds on the race discussion. Those of us who get scrutinized in sandwich shops at the check-out line and asked "what are you?" Those of us who always have that little moment of grief and confusion whenever we fill out a form and are asked to check one box for "Race".

Yes, I'm talking about the mixed kids.

In the course of my life, I have been asked if I am Italian, Spanish, Latina, Hispanic, Turkish, and I'm probably missing some. My brother has been asked if he's related to Saddam Hussein. (Yes, I'm serious. I seriously hope the kid was joking, but I remember feeling like I'd been punched in the gut when my little brother told me this.) We don't fit into people's little boxes. We're not "brown" enough to be immediately put into one of those boxes, but at the same time, we're not "white" enough to be obviously white.

I was pathetically grateful and amazed when one of my professors this past term was the very first person to correctly identify what my cultural and ethnic background was, after I explained that my last name is Slovak. It was the first time in my life where I didn't have to awkwardly explain that I was a product of Imperialism at its best, and by god the sun really hasn't set on the British Empire.

Because that's what I am. My mother's family came from India to the British colony of Guyana as indentured servants. And in that melting pot of the British Empire's sugar cane fields, they began stripping away some of those cultural things in order to survive. And then, in the 1960s, there were race riots in the country and clinging to Indian culture was the equivalent of painting a target on your head. And when my mother went to college, she went to a school in Canada (all hail the British Commonwealth), where she was mocked by a professor because of her accent.

Meanwhile, on my dad's side, the Slovak language has died with my great-grandmother. I grew up with only scraps of that culture, all of which can almost be held within Christmas Eve dinner, and even that I see slowly slipping through my fingers. And it hurts.

And because it hurts, I can empathize so much with people when they talk about being Othered, about feeling the negative effects of white privilege. And at the same time, I feel horribly awkward and guilty, because that's half of me. Because I don't immediately draw stares or whatever when walking down the street. Because I can "pass" at a glance. I may not be carrying an invisible knapsack, but damned if I don't feel like I'm carrying at least a satchel. Because I feel that weight. Because I feel like a horrible liar and a fake when I let people assume. When I "pass". Whenever I have to decide to BE one or the other. Because it always feels like I have to choose which side I'm going to be on.

Because I'm the kid caught in the middle. I'm the person with a foot in two worlds and belonging to none, and a cultural orphan to boot. (And I can get on a soapbox about American cultural appropriation etc, and how American "culture" is sometimes a bad thing, but dammit, it's the only one I have.)

When shewhohashope wrote:

- There is no equivalence between the misrepresentation of Othered groups and the misreresentation of [insert white ethnicity]

No, really. It's about power imbalances and a dearth of decent representations. Think about five childhood heroes from novels that are the same race as you. I bet you can find more. Try to think about five that are South Asian. Arabic. Sub Saharan African? Call me back you're not drowning in decent representation of people who look like you.

I had a horrible moment of realization and it felt like a punch to the gut.

You see, I'm still trying to find one. Because there's never the story about the half-Slovak, half-Guyanese-Indian kid. Hell, let's be a little more broad: there's never the story about the half-Slavic, half-South Asian kid. Actually, I'm still trying to find the stories about the mixed kid in general. This is probably why I unconsciously clung to the half-Elven heroes in fantasy stories, because it was practically the closest I could get. Because at least there I got the cultural tug-of-war that IS being mixed.

And then there are those tiny little slaps that happen every time the rare mixed hero or heroine DOES grace the screen or print, and the comments come of how that character is "a cop-out". Mixed with white to be "more acceptable". How it isn't "really" a PoC. And how every single word just twists the dagger a little more.

Because I'm freaking invisible. Because I can't help but believe that some people would be a little more comfortable if people like me didn't exist. And I'm always afraid of these discussions on race to even speak up, because I'm afraid at best I'll get a pat on the head and at worst shoved aside and belittled because I "don't count".

And maybe they're right. Maybe they're not. I don't know. But it's been flying around, and I just needed to get this out because it's swirling in my head, and I DON'T NEED THIS on top of all these other identity issues I have right now.

Comments

[avalon's willow (from livejournal.com)]

I would like very much to comment on this post, it reminds me of decisions I've made and things I don't think about anymore. I wrote something out in notepad but I can't seem to post it, because it reminds me far too much of times when I got called a waffler and blind and ignorant and naive.

I don't think of the term Mixed anymore, I just say black. But then of course something happens and I talk about it and it's personal as well as political and I might mention that 'I have family that is', but don't explain things more than that, except maybe to say I'm from the Caribbean.

I'd forgotten the 'Pick Something! Pick what you look like the most!' I'd forgotten how much it confused and hurt.

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

I really hate that sometimes I'm forced to do the "pick one!". Because I tried that. I really did. I started checking the "South Asian" box all the time, and then my own mother called me out on it, asking me if I was ashamed of my father's race.

And I felt lower than dirt for that.

And that's the thing. For some reason, at least for me, owning that I AM Mixed is somehow more deeply personal when I talk about it. Because there's a lot of family history and pain and it took a heck of a lot of bravery for both my parents (my mother didn't speak with her father for a year, because my grandfather couldn't deal with the fact she was dating a white man). But...it feels disingenuous to deny that.

So I'm trying to own the term Mixed. But it's so very, very hard, because in discussions like these, I feel so very caught in the middle. Because I can see both sides, and there's this choking, burning sensation in my throat and yet I'm afraid to speak because I can't "choose" a side. Because choosing hurts more.

[avalon's willow (from livejournal.com)]

Thinking about this has actually made me realize that there is yet another side that doesn't get spoken about. The side where someone's black mixed with something else and in my case I end up wondering if I'm appropriating the American African Descended experience, and if in doing so I'm letting go of my own culture.

I do know that I've been feeling more and more than the only thing I have to hold onto my culture is food. Because the food encompasses everything. To further explain things - I'm Trinidadian. Everyone I know in my family is mixed. My first cousins are the most obvious, but my great grand parents were biracial and things do not solidify into one race as the generations lead down to me.

And I identify very strongly with the whole watching of chunks of heritage slip away. It's not the same at all, like hiding parts of oneself in order to survive as your family members have done. That's adding weight I can't even begin to break down. But I don't speak patois and I can't explain to people not from the Caribbean (it feels like at least) that that's a mother tongue even if it's the daughter of combined mother tongues...

My father mentioned to me recently how he walked into an Indian store here in the states and used the words he grew up with for the vegetables he needed and how they stared at him and ended up asking him where he learned those words, had he married an Indian woman? And he was left feeling 'But those are my words too'.

And then there are the times my father casually mentions some aspect of family history and I go into instant denial because it feels like even talking about it is appropriation.

Yeah, I seriously hate even thinking about this. I didn't realize that at all until I read you.

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely right on the food thing. Because I know I've started begging my aunt to teach me some of the Guyanese recipes because, holy crap, I'm one of the only people (if not the only one) who'll actually try to not let it completely die. Because my mother's family grew up speaking only English, so I already lack that tongue (and, god, I wish some days that I had that. Even a so-called Creole tongue. Just...something). And ever since my grandfather died, I've sort of become acutely aware of heritage slipping away. (Apparently, he was the glue that kept things together)

And while I can only speak from the perspective of someone who is mixed with white, I think I can at least understand the perspective of someone who black mixed with something else, or Asian mixed with something else, etc. Because of the cultural tug-of-war you feel like you're perpetually in, and you're just trying to cling to something.

But thank you for reading, and thinking, and responding. It means a lot.