Dear My Fellow Bi-Racial Babies,
It turns out being bi-racial can be kind of weird.
I didn’t think about it when I was a kid, it’s just what I was: half-black, half-white. My parents loved me, and I loved them. I didn’t notice people looking at the three different skin tones in my family, or taking a double look when they saw me with only one of my parents, especially with my dad: he’s white.
It wasn’t until I was older that I realized my family wasn’t “normal”. I was embarrassed when people were shocked by what my dad looked like asking if he was my biological dad and shocked when I was told I wasn’t really black or if I wanted to be I couldn’t say I was bi-racial.
This understandably makes months like February weird for me and maybe for you too. I understand that Black History Month is about celebrating historical figures, but it’s also about celebrating being black and that can be hard when you aren’t sure where you fall.
What does it mean to be black? And what does that mean when you’re only half?
It took me a while to define what my “blackness” was. To be honest, I’m still figuring it out and sometimes it gets shaken when I hear people having a completely different definition.
For me my blackness is loving my natural hair despite the effort it takes to make it work; it’s loving how my skin works with different colors and how it always has a glow to it. It’s about seeing how far we’ve come as a society that I can even exist with a black mom and a white dad: something that used to be a crime.
Black History Month is recognizing all of me and knowing that I am both no matter what other people try to define me as.
Maybe you’ve already come to this conclusion, and maybe you’re still working on it and finding where you belong, but no matter what you’re not alone and us bi-racial babies get it.
Love,
A Fellow Bi-Racial Babe