You Can be Both! (And Not In the Way You Might be Thinking) |
You Can be Both! (And Not In the Way You Might be Thinking)
Mixed In Canada
2015-01-14
Dr. Maria P. Root’s “Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People” has greatly influenced how many mixed-race folks identify today. One of the things I learned from the Bill was that I had the right to identify however I wanted to, regardless of how my family, friends, society etc thought I should identify. On top of that, I had the right to change my identity as many times as I felt necessary throughout my life. To that point, I have identified as a lot of things during my 30 years on this earth. As a young child who understood nothing about race, growing up completely surrounded by white folks, I thought I was a mutated white person (*cringe*). Once I realized that I was in fact Black at around 8 years old, I was incredibly happy and immediately began to identify that way (or as “Jamaican” again in my limited understanding of race, conflating race & nationality). Named after my grandmother whom I loved dearly, I was so happy to find out that I was Black, just like her. Despite having a white mother, for years I avoided a mixed-race identity, because for the longest time it didn’t feel right. I didn’t feel mixed. I felt Black…
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Tags: Mixed in Canada, Rema Tavares