African (region unknown) | European (swiss-german/UK) Indigenous (southeast US)

Photo credit: provided by subject

My mother is mostly African-American with some Indigenous heritage. My father is a mixture of European-American backgrounds. My childhood began in a very diverse community, but when I was ten that shifted abruptly, when my family moved to a small town in Indiana. There, racist mentalities negatively stereotyped me for my Mixed features and heritage. Until people there told me I was Black—or anything other than “human”—I had no concept of race whatsoever. This was healthy in one respect, as we’re all part of the human race and no other. In another respect, it was a setup for disaster. I was born in the US, and my nation did see me in other racial terms.

I didn’t anticipate or know what to do with that fact, when I encountered it, and I had no positive connotation for the word Black, when it was hurled at me. Even after I learned about race—which means I started hearing racist comments while living among mostly European-Americans—I wasn’t looked upon consistently as either White or Black. This made things very confusing for me. I was both Black and White and neither Black nor White. I was whatever people wanted me to be for their own purposes.

I felt like an outsider all the time, regardless of the racial label, because inside I didn’t fit with any of them. I felt boxed up by labels and thrown in a corner, helpless in my wish to be seen as I really was—as I had been seen before in my childhood. And that was terrifying. From that time on, I was driven by fear down a road to build a “pure” identity for myself, something unquestionable and beyond others’ criticism, to gain a sense of security and relieve the shame I felt about my real humanity. In this pursuit, I walked varied and often extreme paths in politics, religion, artistry, and education. In the end, the desperation of my path was an addiction, and it nearly killed me. It was only the utter brokenness, great generosity, and inner voice I met along the way that finally, together, helped me see the truth: my perfectly imperfect Mixed humanity was all I ever needed.

That’s the story I tell in my soon-to-be-released memoir, Marginal Eyes. By taking that journey with me, I hope others, and particularly Mixed people, can add to their own human liberation.