Biracial

"What are you?" is a question I have heard very frequently throughout my life.


What am I?  What did they mean? This was an ignorant way of asking my ethnicity.  When people would ask me this question, I started to question who I was.  My mom tried her best but I don't think that she fully understood how to handle the feeling I had of not fitting in.  I always felt insecure about me.  I felt I had to suppress a part of me.  Its funny but I felt like I always had to identify with being "black" instead of embracing both sides of me.    I am only speaking for me but I think that all or most of mixed individuals feel those sort of feelings of misplacement.  
As always, I related to my all time favorite singer, Mariah Carey, to help me deal with all the mixed emotions I was feeling.  Also, its strange but I felt so liberated to check the "other" box for the first time.  "Other" seems to hold as a simple word but much more to me?  I am different.  I recognize that I am different. I want to choose who I was.  It is more than color but this is the first thing people judge you on. 

In today's society, mixed individuals experience racism still.  To combat this racism, I believe it begins with strong family support.  Liberty will always know her combination of races.  We will help her build a sense of pride.  She will know that she has a right to feel beautiful.  Good hair or bad hair?  All hair is beautiful.  All mixes are beautiful.