I am me.

'A black artist can paint a wall of smiley faces and people will ask why they're so angry.'

Flipping through hundreds of channels this evening I stumbled upon The Black List. If you haven't seen any of it, I highly recommend you do.

I know I've written about this series previously and it makes me ponder race, ethnicity, and identity every time. First of all, what do these words mean?

Race: a group of persons related by common descent or heredity.

Ethnicity: Identity with or membership in a particular racial, national, or cultural group and observance of that group's customs, beliefs, and language.

Identity: The set of behavioral or personal characteristics by which an individual is recognizable as a member of a group.

What do they mean? I've been sitting here trying to interpret these three terms in my own words without using one of the other two and I've failed. Why? I guess race is the most straightforward of the three. It's the most immediately visible isn't it? How much does how we define ourselves in relation to these three terms make us who we are at the core?

If you're black, is that all you are?
If you're gay, is that all you are?
If you're a woman, is that all you are?
If you're Turkish, is that all you are?

It gets more complicated when you're a mix of these things and even more complicated if these terms that 'define' us are challenged.

How dark do you have to be to be labeled as black?
How gay do you have to be to be labeled as gay?
If you feel like a woman trapped in a man's body, are you a man?
Even one's nationality can become questionable.

I feel like some think of these as cut and dry matters.

I know they aren't for me.

I know I am a mixture of many things, experiences, as well as a reflection of the people around me. I don't want to be defined as any one thing because I'm just not. I'm. Just. Not. I don't fit anywhere and I truly like that about myself. I can't say that I always have but I know that I do now.

There's one overarching theme in all three volumes of The Black List that's brilliant in it's simplicity and brevity:

I am not this, that, or the other. I am me.

'i just heard myself'

i went up to Beacon this weekend to see my oldest friend E. she took part in an open studios event and i thought it'd be lovely to see her. off i went with 3 peeps in Hubie2 Saturday morning.

i wont bore you with details about the day other than that we saw some lovely art, went to a vineyard, and crashed a house party.

what i came away with, (you knew this was coming!) was a realization about what dear E means to me and why i've always felt such a strong attachment to her.

picture it: we met when i was all of 8/9 years old. she was my 15/16 year old teacher in Saturday morning German language school. (my mother wanted me to learn the language since i'm Swiss.) she was smart yet chill, completely charming yet humble, one of the most approachable and accepting people i've ever met and to top it off...she's a halfie. she was my first halfie role model. you may not ever think of this, or maybe you do, but it's not often that i'm face to face with someone who looks like me.

whether you recognize it as important or not, i never realized that very fact until i attended a Loving Day event a few years ago and was in a room full of halfies. i daresay most of the others in that room probably felt the same as i did. it was neither a feeling of woe and isolation nor one of happiness, rather it was a feeling of shared experience and solidarity. as you know, i have some of the very best friends in the world but i believe even they would have a hard time comprehending the feeling of awe i felt in that room simply because it's not likely something they've ever encountered. and it's not something i'd expect from them as non-mixed people. why would i? would i say i comprehend the black experience to my black friends? no. it's one of the few things in life one has to be to understand.

so it was this past Saturday I fully recognized my connection with E and why I've always held her friendship so close to my heart. i saw her almost every Saturday for 5 years and to be as young as i was and see a well-adjusted, unaffected, and brilliant biracial, i think, really had an effect on me. as i've said before, being biracial is only a part of who i am and i'd never want it to be more than that but it's an important part nonetheless. there was so much that didn't need to be spoken. we just understood each other. at one point on Saturday she said, 'it was like i just heard myself' while she listened to me rant about my Loving Day experience. precisely, how i've felt in her presence my whole life.

i know i have friends who don't see me as biracial and i honestly love that they're colorblind to it. but it's something i've always been aware of. in my impressionable years, it wasn't something that conjured a feeling of pride. i had been on the receiving end of one too many racially charged comments. i knew people didn't accept my mother because she had a kid with a non-Chinese and out of wedlock nonetheless. gasp! undoubtedly some of it was also self-imposed. was it why my dad left? and where were the role models who could've showed me otherwise? so you see, all this internal and external loathing made an indelible mark.

the silver lining is, as i became more confident and self-assured, i came to recognize my difference as uniqueness. it didn't automatically make me less and just because i didn't see many people around who looked like me (and by extension, felt as i did) didn't make me less worthy, less loved or less worthy of being loved and i needed to stop looking at myself that way.

so, dear E, please know that in the 20 years i've had the pleasure of your acquaintance you've unwittingly become my main halfie role model in all realms of life. i know you're so much more than being someone of mixed race but that part of who you are has been important to me. thank you for showing me tolerance and acceptance.

p.s. apologies for not retaining a lick of German! :)

Madea makes me think

"You never had anything happen to you in your childhood? Then what kind of adult are you?" - Tyler Perry

I'm watching The Black List: Volume 2 right now and this quote struck me. Apparently Tyler Perry had a colorful childhood, to say the least. He followed by saying, 'It's made me who I am. It's made me the man I am.' (I wouldn't say this is verbatim but it's the jist of his comments.) He prefaced the first quote above by saying that he felt sorry for people that had a 'perfect childhood.'

I think and I think and I think and I look and I look and I look around me and the people who understand me best have experienced some kind of adversity in their youth (or young adulthood). And while, I wouldn't wish a 'colorful childhood' on anyone, especially a child, it appears there's something to be said for what it does for personality and character building. It's not to say that everyone that has been through adversity is more well adjusted or that people who haven't been through adversity are any worse off. I'm just saying that it's a pattern I've noticed in my life. It's hard to pinpoint what it is. Perhaps it's a slightly different model of empathy and compassion. Perhaps it's an acknowledged understanding and respect. Perhaps it's a different kind of humility. It's why gays understand gays differently than straight people understand gay people, and visa versa. Same goes for people of the same race or, in my case, of mixed race. If you haven't dealt with it, it never occurs to you that there's anything else. And it's not to say that the people who haven't dealt with 'it' can't understand. I think one of the most amazing things about some people is the ability to recognize that it's something that hasn't been part of their experience and then consciously make an effort to try to understand. I have such great respect for people who acknowledge that they don't know. Because it's a humbling thing. We like to think of ourselves as open and worldly but it's not about ignorance, which has a negative connotation, it's about acknowledging and then opening up yourself to broaden YOUR experience. Because, in the end, it benefits everyone.

Here I go separating. Making myself and these people around me 'the other.' But like I've always said, normal is boring.