Killing That “Tragic Mulatto” Bullshit |
Killing That “Tragic Mulatto” Bullshit
Ain’t I A Woman Collective
2015-10-28
Grace Barber-Plentie
Other than the photos of Lucille Bluth and J-Lo looking pissed off that I’ve carefully saved to use as reaction photos to white people doing, saying, or writing thoughtless stuff, there are about a million unfinished essays, or think pieces – whatever you want to call them – saved on my computer. All of them are about my identity as a black, or to be more specific, mixed race woman. And all of them are negative.
“Why,” I wail and moan in essay after essay, “do I not have a place in the world?”
“Why do I have to sit in-between cultures, in-between two worlds? Who am I? What does it all mean?”
(They’re actually a lot better than that, for example there’s one that, ignoring its negative tone, contains a great paragraph dedicated to Mariah Carey.)
I think there’s a reason I have never finished any of those essays, and I think that it is primarily because I am tired of feeling sorry for myself due to my mixed heritage. It’s time, after almost 21 years on this planet, to kill my “tragic mulatto bullshit.”…
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Tags: Ain't I A Woman Collective, Grace Barber-Plentie