Confessions of a Mixed Girl: Dealing with Being Mixed Raced

Society has a way of categorizing everything from personalities to television shows. Sometimes it is hard for people to see things as gray instead of black or white. When a person is multi-cultural or mixed raced then society often asks: "what are you" and usually you must be one race or the other.

I am mixed to a degree my paternal grandmother is Caucasian and his father is African- American. My dad and his sister went through difficult times. First of all my father was born in the sixties just as the Civil Right's movement was coming into its most heat turmoil. The relationship between my grandfather and grandmother was basically a disgrace to white America. As time moved on and my father grew up the biggest thing that he went through was the infamous question "what are you?" Just as many multi race people my father and I look anything, but black at times. It is often believed that we are of Spanish descent. My aunt looked more to more Caucasian then me and father. It was only the fact that my father and his family was known on the block that lived on, which helped to answer any questions about the family. Any one would be able to see that my grandmother is a white woman.

I never saw her as black or white as child. It wasn't until my teenage years that I saw her as white. This was when I began to get asked: "What are you?" The way that I looked was so different to some of the kids that I went to school with, that they figured I was African-American, but they new something else had to be there. In fact, I will never forget this one incident, I was in the seventh grade in English and a boy, African-American asked: "What are you mixed with, I know that it has to be something?" Then I had to go through the whole splurge of my dad's history and what that left me with, which is 25 percent Caucasian. Another time I remember another young man I met during a vacation with my grandmother, saying to me in shock: "That's not your grandmother, for real," as if it couldn't be true.
After people got over the fact that I was mixed raced I had to take on the next problem which was realizing that others see me as high yellow. I am high yellow and according to people around me I must be pale high yellow. As a child I didn't see anything other then my face when I looked into a mirror, but when I went to the fifth grade I learned that I was different. After moving to another school district I found myself around more African American kids and soon learned that I was different than them because I was light skinned. To top that off I was a straight A student and did not have the same vernacular. I stood out even through I hung around all the other African-American students I still stood out for what I liked, how I dressed and how I talked and was ousted from the group. That summer before the sixth grade I watched B.E.T and fell into the world of hip-hop so that when I went back to school I could make the impression of being black. Even with all of this prepping my prepping fell. I always saw myself as friends with every one, but one of my best friends at this time was a white girl. The funny part about this was that she liked black boys. After the sixth grade and I saw that I couldn't fight my personality which I don't see it as Black or White.

I was raised to look my best, be prompt, and speak correctly. Also my own personality makes me uphold to authority. I was not one of the students who would get in trouble for breaking a rule. I wouldn't want someone telling me I made a mistake and I wouldn't want a teacher to call my mom, which would just be more trouble. To some of my peers my seriousness, teacher's pet, and properness were the qualifications of acting white and or being a snob. All I ever wanted people to know was that I was nice, a good person, and that I need thought highly of myself. For me I worried so much that others thought that I thought that I was all that, I fell into a place where I didn't think much of myself at all. I wasn't until high school when I got into different organizations that kept me away from negativity that I was able to feel better about myself. Even though I still deal with different people and how they want to categorize me, I am know who I am and I am happy with myself…finally.