I swear being mixed with a WHITE mom probably has to be the hardest shit ever for some mixed folks. Although I'm basically "mixed" (both of my parents being mixed), I don't identify as such, and first and foremost, I always identify as Black. It's not because I "don't look mixed" or "I wanna fit in" with my black peers, it's because that's how society sees me, how my afro conscious father raised me, and my experiences growing up has always been as a black male. I noticed that sometimes these white mother's with half black children never know how to teach their children that "black IS beautiful" or "you can identify as mixed because that is who you are, but never forget that half of it is black and that is how society will treat you". They teach their kids Eurocentric standards of beauty and sometimes even say racist shit in the same household with their half black children and/or Black husband! I have two mixed friends, both girls, one has a Black African mother from Senegal and a White Euro father from France, and the other has a white American mother from Texas and an African-American/Creole father from Louisiana. The one with the white father and black mother always embraces her blackness and never tries to downplay, yet she still acknowledges that she is mixed-race girl and despite growing up in France, Austria, and Switzerland, she sees herself as 100% Black and 100% White. She wears her hair natural, speaks 5 languages! 1 being her mother's native African tongue, and she cringes at the idea that because she is "light skinned", she is more valuable or adored in many societies across the globe. The one with the White mother and black father however, always gets angry when people call her black or accidentally mistakes her for being so, as if it's such a bad thing. She hates her natural hair and says she wants it permanently straight like her white friends, she has naturally brown eyes but wears cheap looking blue contacts, she has the same skin color as BeyoncΓ©, yet wears makeup that's 2 shades lighter, and she hates when "dark skin bitches are jealous of her just because she's light skin" (major side-eye). I remember having dinner at her house a few months ago and her white mother openly joked in the dinner table that she better marry a white guy because it's hard enough having to raise "nigger children" who don't look like her (the mother)...they both fucking laughed and I just sat their with my mouth wide open and left before dessert. Her black father is a color struck deadbeat who always feels the need to bash on any beautiful black woman and says he was truly blessed and lucky he got the wife he wanted (obviously because she's white). It's interesting noticing these type of dynamics that plays into being mixed-race with one white parent and one black parent. I don't wanna generalize because of course not all mixed-race people with a white mother think like this or have a family like this, but it just seems like if you have a black mother who teaches you that even though you are mixed, the black side of you is equally as beautiful as the white side of you and that makes you who you are...you seem to embrace the blackness of you and never try to downplay it because you have a mother who is black and who knows how the Eurocentric standards of society works. My father and his sisters are an example, their father (my grandfather) was a white man from Spain and their mother (my grandmother) was Black from Haiti. When their father died when they were young, their mother always taught them that black is beautiful, it is not a curse, it is a blessing. Even though they are mixed, she tried her damn best to make sure they didn't fall into society's trap of seeing themselves as superior because they happened to be mulattoes (unfortunately, the way it is in Haiti). She would teach them as much as she could about their Spanish European heritage and their Black Haitian heritage. Upon coming to America, my father identified as "Black, but with a white father" which IMO is better than saying "I'm not black, I'm mixed-race!". Black does not solely mean dark or African looking, it's an identity connected to struggle, labor, and pain, yet success, beauty, and regality. That's what makes the black race so dam great, our diversity. Mixed-race in all colors and Black in every beautiful shade. I'm all for mixed people identifying as just "mixed-race" because that is who they are, but if they wanna downplay their blackness and get angry for being called black and put themselves on a social pedestal because they have a white parent and/or for being light complected? I'm not here for it. Y'all get so damn pressed when you get called black (which is what half of you is), but when someone mistakes you for being Hispanic or Arab or even White, you get all giddy and smile and it isn't what you are in the first place! In essence, love who you are, BOTH SIDES and try to learn to embrace that black side of you and not be ashamed of it.
