Background
This essay was originally written during the Fall of 1993,  as a combined project for two courses, Philosophy of Feminism and a History of Literature by Women, both taught by Dr. Shari Starrett. I was a student at California State University, Fullerton.  My progressive friend Pete would send me postcards from Amsterdam or Nicaragua addressed to me in Foolerton.  How right he was.  We called it Cal State Disneyland, both for the Magic Kingdom's proximity and the seriousness with which we regarded both institutions.  It was quite common for students to work at Disneyland while attending CSUF.  Kevin Costner did it and many a marketing  (that was his major) and theater (that's the department he always came back and spoke to...sounds more arty than marketing or the more logical Radio/TV/Film department) major tried to follow in his footsteps.  One  guy even did a detailed comparison for me of his live vs. that of Mr. Costner.  It was quite thorough and impressive:  right down to working the same ride (Pirates of the Caribbean) and dating Snow White -- just like Kevin Costner.  Ay dios!

I lived in a cheesy private dorm just three miles down the street from the Richard M. Nixon Library and Birthplace.  Did I mention Orange County's legendary conservatism?  Nobody mentioned that until after I transferred there.  It was especially fun in the cafeteria every night when word spread I was interning with the Democratic Party of Orange County.  The typical, I'm-so-clever-to- think-this-up-remark was, "I didn't know there was one!"  Needless to say, it was not a fun place to think for oneself.  However, I learned the strength of my convictions and of myself.  I doubt any of the conservative group-thinkers who ganged up on me at dinner every night could have managed to handle themselves if submitted to a group of 4-8 Democrats (the only other school of politics in their very limited scope of thought) every night for two and a half years.

When Nixon died, I ODed on the endless coverage, the constant talk, the dignitaries helicoptered onto campus, not to mention tons of  my peers lining up 24 hours a day to sneek a peak at Tricky Dick.  People say I'm a cynic, but really, I thought my brain was melting when suddenly he was a great, big hero.  Huh?  Are we talking about Richard Milhouse Nixon?! When I realized this mindset was catching on nationwide, I bemoaned the Irvinization of the country.  But I guess that's another essay altogether.

The experience of being thrust in a sea of retro-repressive thinking while seeking refuge in  the world of liberal politics and feminism heightened my thought process.  I was in overdrive during those times.  This essay is one major result.

The I-Dentity title was originally a result of spacing issues on a font used for titles on this paper.  It stuck because I liked how the textual  mutation expressed individuality.

 
This is by no means intended to be an exhaustive discussion of the biracial experience in America, which is in no way monolithic.  In fact, it is inspired by the belief that race (whether singular or plural)  is an outdated concept and so it alone does not determine self-image, and if it does, not necessarily in the ways we stereotype each other, nor to the degree of signifigence generally attached to it in the mass media. 

Toward that end, this paper will suspend disbelief in the concept of race, in order to explore the dimensions and constructions of race.  If nothing else, I hope it raises questions about the assumptions we  carry with us.  A biracial person is first and foremost a person, with all the shared and unique qualities of any other.

 

Assumptions about the biracial become self-fulfilling prophecies. Like all assumptions (regarding women, or blacks, for example), they limit the possibilities of both the person making them and the person about whom they are made, and in their ability to connect.  While mixed race people are a natural link between the races of which they are a part, images of them have  instead been used for divisive purposes.

 This is especially  disturbing as it applies to relationships among and between  white, biracial and black women.  Rather than connecting on the basis of interests or other shared experience, the relationship between blacks and biracials is often predicated upon the latter's partial denial of heritage.  This illustrates a basic problem in race relations.  By viewing race as a fundamental identification, it becomes defined in very narrow terms and experiences, alienating blacks both from non-blacks with whom they might share profound experiences and from other black/part black biracial individuals whose experience is very different from their own.

 

Theories aside, the author questions the ability of one so tied to the issue as herself to be objective.  Are my assertions and reflections simply based on the idealism with which I judge events?  Could I be reinventing my experience to accommodate my beliefs?  Am I nit-picking or merely whining about realities I should simply accept?  Perhaps objectivity is overrated and empiricism does not always apply.  After all, if we don't tell our own stories, who will tell them for us?  So far, no one.

Thesis

Stereotypical attitudes regarding the biracial silence women by objectifying them into narrow images to which other women are unable to relate and thus connect. Women too often waste their energy competing, whether for a piece of the economic pie or for the attention of men  -- rather than communicating their experiences and connecting with one another.
 

Subject Outline

 I.  Biracial individuals in American history and fiction

A. Sex/Miscegenation
  1. Laws
  2. Taboos
 

 B. Ideas of Beauty

  1. American Standards:  Viramontes
  2. Defining biraciality in terms of appearance
  3. Closer to the European standard, which oppresses all women
 

 C. The Tragic Mulatto Stereotype

  1. Confusion
  2. Choosing
 

II.  Hidden Biases

A. Omission of other races/ethnicities, etc. when dealing with the issue of race    relations  (i.e. race issues dealt with in terms of "black and white.")

 B. Assumptions

  1. Race as a determining factor for behavior/attitudes
   (Self-Identification by race is not be most meaningful for everyone)
  2. Stereotyped experience
 

III. Theories on Alternatives to Separations Among Women

 A. Break Silences -- Audre Lorde

 B. Change Perceptions -- Papusa Molina

 C. Unify -- Barbara Smith
 

IV. Personal Reflections/Experiences

 A. Assumption one can and should choose a race

 B. Dual Heritage

 C. Stereotypes about people of mixed ancestry

 D. "I don't mind Blacks, but...[Asians, Mexicans, etc.]"

 E. Assumptions and results of attempts to precisely quantify biracial experience.
 

Throughout my women's studies coursework, readings and their resulting discussions have led me to a new introspection about my experiences and identity.  The readings and discussions revealed that interest in the issue of biraciality was not merely self-centered, but pertinent to women's studies which, as Barbara Smith explains, is "mere female self-aggrandizement" unless it seeks to free all people by unifying them.

 

In "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action," Audre Lorde discussed all the ways in which we allow ourselves to be separated.  It is not our difference which separates us, but our silence about that difference.  Silence does not protect us from fear, because avoiding perceived conflict causes more problems than it prevents.  Lorde realizes this; because of her overlapping identifications (black/woman/lesbian) she says, "I am the face of your fears. "  Asserting biracial identity opens a cornucopia of difference, which many would prefer to forget.

 

Papusa Molina says this is a function of the ideals of the dominant social culture.  We "have a hard time accepting and celebrating difference...because we are immersed in a society where 'sameness' is venerated as the most desirable quality. "  Molina's piece crystallized the roots of the conflict for me.  The Western perception that life is a zero-sum game is shown in the false dichotomies in which it expresses the dominant values, good v. evil, white v. black, feminine v. masculine, gay v. strait, etc.  These dichotomies also imply that conflict is the inevitable result of differences, which are seen as polar opposites.  Trinh T. Minh-ha's "Mirror-box" essay took this one step farther, by describing how an assortment of characteristics are assumed to be warring factions of the self; that one cannot simultaneously be a writer, woman and person of color, without being a woman writer of color obliged to choose a single loyalty and serve it to the exclusion of all other parts of self.

 

 "Everything around us tells us that in order to affirm who we are, we need to negate the other or define it as opposite," Molina explains.   Biracial identity rails against these norms by at once emphasizing difference and also by minimizing and bridging the gap between supposed "polar opposites."  As one student in class put it, celebrating African American culture (and referring to oneself as "African American") is about being self-defined (by a rich culture, instead of  by an inaccurate color label), rather than as the negation of whiteness.  Likewise, referring to myself as biracial is not an attempt to distance myself from my blackness or my whiteness, but is an affirmation of my many unique qualities.

 

 In "Light Skinned-ded Naps," Kristal Brent Zook discusses division in the black community based on color.  This is a reality of which many non-blacks are unaware, and which most blacks would prefer to forget, rather than resolve, in the interest of unity.  "I want to emphasize here that the anger of both my darker and lighter skinned (ded) sisters is truly valid...Our sufferings as Black sisters of different shades are not identical...but they most certainly are mutual. "  Zook goes on to say that the shade of Blackness does not determine the depth of pain experienced.  Contrary to the resentment many blacks feel towards those light enough to pass, many (like the title character in Iola Leroy and her Dr. Latimer) chose not to, using their advantages instead to help others.  This shared pain should serve as a link for women, but, in order to do so it must not remain unspoken.  Silences build artificial walls between natural allies, and, as Lorde says, "...it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence.  And there are so many silences to be broken. "

 

 THE PROBLEM OF OMISSION

 Presently, there is a backlash against what is termed ìpolitically correct."  White males in particular claim they are tired of being bashed.  This backlash is a reaction to multiculturism, an attempt by the previously silenced to be heard and self-defined.  This conflict is constantly alluded to today, but is nothing new.

 In response to the various rights movements of the 1960s and 70s, there were attempts to make institutions and actors and the policies within them, the university and its faculty and curricula for example, better reflect the diversity within the community.  This conflicts with the American tendency to define equality in terms of sameness.  By affirming assorted cultural identifications, blacks, women and various ìothersî* were perceived as rejecting traditional American values and contributing to division and hostility.  Being oneself and proud of it has become anti-American.  Michael Novak responds, ìWhat breeds hostility is the quiet repression of diversity...the refusal to allow others to be culturally different, the enforcement of a single style of Americanism.

 

While multiculturism has even been compared to indoctrination under the Nazis, Eurocentric, masculine bias in the academic world is either dismissed as nonexistent, or is supported by its own logic, a circular argument.  Here is the common struggle women, people of color and all combinations thereof face.  If the well educated, recognized for their positive view of ìothers,î do not recognize how incomplete studies of history, literature,  and science affect the degree to which those others are devalued by themselves and the dominant class -- then who will?

 

Isms are perpetuated in textbooks in two ways: commission and omission.  Commission is overt: stereotyping, ethnocentrism, use of prejudicial statements or demeaning caricatures.  Omission is more subtle and insidious, it is the ìGreat lie of Silence.î   Not depicting the existence of something is tantamount to denying that it exists at all.  This is how the bulk of information about the contributions of minorities and women has been contained.  Ethnic and women's studies courses attempt to correct this lapse.  There is, however, a tendency to ghetto-ize these disciplines by not integrating the resulting information into the general curricula.

 This concession to progress has resulted in a perplexing dichotomy.  Women and people of color are more visible than ever before, but usually as sidebars to white males.  The closest most textbooks come to integrating the study of all writers, scientists, political figures, Americans, etc. is by portraying images of successful women and "others" as not only separate from white males in that context, but also as exceptional in light of their status as non-white and/or non-male.  In other words, their sex or heritage should naturally have precluded such success and, by implication, their intellect, abilities and affinities.  Thus, they are deviants among both their cultural and professional peers.

 

Some universities have instituted additional degree requirements in an effort to expose more students to gender/ethnic studies, but this has led to resentment by students who allege they are forced to take courses which do not apply to their concept of reality.  The very texts to which students have been exposed during the twelve years prior to college portray the contributions of women and people of color as somehow apart from the really important things discussed in the body of those texts; and, by implication, apart from the very society from which they come.  How then can students be expected to be open to the idea that these contributions are important to and affect their lives?

 

This question can be expanded to include the contributions of mulattos whose existence has been ignored even by blacks.  Few seem to be aware that it was a biracial man (Jan Matzeliger), for example, whose invention (which by eliminating the tedious, costly process of hand sewing the upper to the sole) makes it possible for the average person to be able to afford shoes.  Many blacks study the history of the civil rights struggle without recognizing that the biracial were often on the front lines, sometimes in capacities that would not have been possible if not for their heterogeneous background.  Walter White, for example, was able to use exploit his blond hair and blue eyes to infiltrate the Klan.  Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington are recognized for their contributions, but their biraciality is forgotten when mulattoes on the whole are accused of using their mixed heritage as an unfair advantage over "pure" Africans, or to escape blackness altogether.

 

Even where there is some study of race relations and biraciality, it is almost exclusively in terms of black and white, literally.  As the recent tensions in Los Angeles indicate, these are not the only two groups which have experienced conflict in the United States.  In fact, complex anti- miscegenation laws attempted to prevent a wide variety of couplings.  During the early migration of Filipinos to California in the 1920s, the male-female ratio was 15:1, making interracial marriage (approved in Filipino culture) an obvious solution.  Courts ruled that an American woman would lose her citizenship if she married a Filipino, existing marriages were nullified and the California legislature in 1933 amended the state ban on interracial marriage to include ìmembers of the Malay race.î   Filipino men were allowed to marry white ethnic immigrants, Mexicans, and mulattoes.  In other states, a literal reading of schizophrenic antimicegenation legislation apparently made it illegal for mulattoes to marry one another!

 

ORIGINS OF THE MISCEGENATION TABOO

Clearly, the underlying root of seeing miscegenation as a "problem" are the interlocking systems of patriarchy and white superiority.  Humanity, in the prevailing social text, is defined  in terms of Western/white male values, assumptions, and culture.  The presumption of superiority easily leads to the portrayal of the non-white as also non-human.  This is apparent in war propaganda, which justifies killing by dehumanizing the enemy.

 The very word "mulatto" carries this animal connotation; it comes from the Spanish for "little mule."   This hidden racist assumption cannot be downplayed.  Referring to blacks in animal terms is generally not socially acceptable, the word "mulatto," however, has been accepted as a standard reference, even though it too is a slur.  If mulattos are animals, then by implication, so are blacks.

 

Perceiving nonwhites as less than human is the result of the close connection between Christian dogma and the connotations ascribed to black and white in English tradition, even before those races first encountered one another.   The correlation between blackness and badness or dirtiness and between whiteness and purity is entrenched throughout the culture.

 

COLORISM AND RESENTMENT IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY

Since class distinction was based upon the color distinction between blacks and whites, this process was mimicked within the black subgroup.  Resentment of light-skinned blacks was originally a function of class separation during slavery.  The house servants, who were mostly the offspring of their masters, were socialized to a level of living closer to the white ruling class and whose training was often marketable enough to allow them to buy freedom for themselves and family members.

Field hands, however, were not able to learn the skills to perform anything more than menial, manual labor and quite naturally saw the mulatto as acting in collusion with the oppressor.  This produced a class system within the black community based almost exclusively upon color.

 

A blacklash eventually occured during the civil rights  movement.  Essential to motivating blacks during that era was the affirmation of blackness.  If black is beautiful, what then is light?  Flipping the zero-sum color paradigm created something of a white guilt among the previously privileged light black elite.  As a college roommate once asked me, "Why do you say you are half white?  Isn't it cool to be black now?"

USING THE MULATTO IMAGE TO SEPARATE WOMEN

The mammy image (epitomized by Hattie McDaniel in "Gone With the Wind") of female slaves was used to downplay the fact that they were indeed women in whom white men had a sexual interest.  The simple clothing (in which Mammy is most often depicted) was considered appropriate and expedient for...lessening the extent to which she [the female slave] was perceived as a threat to her mistress.

 

The Mammy, Sapphire, and Jezebel images of black women have portrayed them as the "antithesis of the American conception of beauty, femininity, and womanhood."   Black women are typically portrayed as aggressive, loud, masculine, and domineering.  These images were devised during slavery to invalidate rumors that slave owners were sexually attracted and abusive toward female slaves; any such couplings could be attributed to the hypersexuality of the bad-black-girl.    Later, this seductress was often  portrayed as mulatto, and since mixed children were the result, all those pillars of white womanhood began to resent both the slaves who got the attention they did not receive from their husbands and the mulatto offspring which resulted from such liasons.

The image of the mulatto seductress with European features (thin lips, long straight hair, slender nose, thin figure) conforms more closely to the American standard of beauty than the other images.     This impossible standard of beauty is always just beyond the reach of mulatto women, for black women this image is infinitely impossible, but even the white women it purports to hold in esteem cannot achieve it.  Frustration over this ideal, since it is common to women of all races in this society, could be a context for exploring their shared experience.  The beauty myth universally affects women,  and is applicable to a larger context.  The oppression of women is fundamental  -- it crosses the boundaries of race, class, ethnicity, and religion.  Sex is the first division, sexism is the first "ism."

 

Like most  laws, those prohibiting miscegenation have been unequally applied against white women and black men than white men.  Like births out of wedlock, the birth of a child proves only the "guilt" of the mother.  The result of this biological fact is that racists have used it to uphold the double standard, reasoning that a race is transmitted through its women.  The argument went that the white race remains "pure" so long as white women do.  Meanwhile, white men could sire any number of children with black women, because this did not affect the white race.

 

The demands of slavery did not allow black women to accept the gender roles normally assigned to women by men in power.  As a result, they also refused to accept the related position of subordination to which women, in general, have been consigned.   Hundreds of  years later, this dichotomy between the white and the non-white, has been divisive within the women's movement.

THE TRAGIC MULATTO:  REALITY AND FICTION

"In America we still live with the paradox that white is black...Americans who are more European than African in their heritage insist, sometimes defiantly, upon their blackness."   Perhaps one reason stigma has been attached to race mixing (especially for African Americans) is the image of slave women being raped by white men.  Assuming white males forced mixing upon African females in this manner,  the desire to distance oneself from the resulting progeny is understandable.  The image, however, is not entirely accurate because the first cross-racial unions were probably among indentured servants.  Blacks and whites lived and labored closely together and, naturally, chose mates from among their own social class.

However, most miscegenation did take place during slavery.  Much of the collective negative feelings with which society still regards biracial children is the old conundrum that his offspring may be at once be a man's child and his slave/property.   This common theme appears throughout mulatto fiction, from Clotelle to Iola Leroy.

 

 

CONCLUSION

 The biggest obstacle in this area is the  avoidance and tendency to ignore the issue altogether, resulting from several misdirected concerns.  These include:  presumptions of shame and the vogue of black pride (that one would prefer to focus on this aspect of their heritage only); failure to recognize the biracial experience as a unique, valid one; failure to view race relations in any other terms than black and white, literally; the perception of a solely coercive history of miscegenation; and the prevailing value of enforcing sameness over allowing and celebrating the equality of difference.

 This tendency [to ignore biracial existence] is evidenced by a dearth of current research.  Most of the books readily available on the subject are at least 10 years old, with the majority published between the late sixties to the early seventies.  Despite the era in which they were published, most books were concerned almost exclusively with relations between blacks and whites, with little discussion of other races; they also show a strong bias as a result of preconceptions about the biracial existence.  The most comprehensive is Reuter, frequently cited in the newer books, which was published in 1918 and reflects the prevailing bias of "scientific" discoveries of the time, which were used to justify the subjugation of women and minorities.

 Historically, choosing a race was necessary for biracials, in order to determine their place in the class system.  Obviously, when race ceases to become an issue or the lone determinant of class, power, and status, the experience of biracial individuals changes.  Although the civil rights movement has brought about strong beginnings of just such a shift, a preponderance of the available literature reinforces negative stereotypes.  Those seeking to educate themselves about dual heritage may find nowhere to turn but these mostly outdated, biased literature available.  This perpetuation of  the  confused and/or tragic mulatto myth and anticipation of racial division become self-fulfilling prophecies.

 One author, however, expressed hope for the future of race relations precisely because of the unique and unprecedented opportunities possible for the biracial generation born in the early 1970s:
 That child was born to a world where the law of the land declared equality of opportunity in all things public and civic...it seems probable that they will be much more at ease with both their whiteness and their blackness than their parents have been.  Indeed, the next generation...that has struggled to join black and white comfortably together...might well be...the first fully evolved, smoothly functioning model of a people who have transcended both an exclusive whiteness and an exclusive blackness and moved into a world in which they accept and value themselves for themselves alone -- as new and unique, as indeed, a new people in the human universe. 

 The reflections of one such "new person" follow.

 STEREOTYPES & ASSUMPTIONS

 Race is sometimes seen as a determining factor for attitudes/experiences.   There is some truth to such assumptions, nonwhites are disproportionately poor for example, but race is at best an indicator.  Experiences have shown me that people often used assumptions about my race to determine how to treat me, even in terms of benevolence.  Perhaps as a result of the heightened awareness about "others" which seemed to take place in the 1970s, some of my early teachers seemed to feel sorry for me, perceived and approached me as economically disadvantaged.  The real problems which were causing me to be withdrawn  grew worse because they went unrecognized.  The plight of my peers who actually were poor went unrecognized if they were white.

 Upon discovering I am biracial, the reaction is too often pity.  Images of the tragically confused mulatto dance in people's heads.  I have realized that the reaction is a result of these images.  When the subject of my background comes up, people seem to think I have revealed my deepest secret,  of which I must feel ashamed.  This is assumed to be the root of my every problem, that I am confused about my identity.

 There is a common assumption that, by virtue of being mixed alone, one must be  confused.  "They don't know whether they're black or white," is the warning given to mixed couples about their hypothetical offspring.  When asked about my race, on an application for example, I do have difficulty answering.  This has nothing to do with confusion, and everything to do with the fact that most forms list only a half dozen ethnic categories, half of which apply to me, but instructions insist check one only.  How is that possible?  Shall I check "white," because that is what I am the most of?  That follows a mathematical law, the prevailing measure of logic.  The reaction of a potential interviewer would be shock, to say the least.

 I don't sit around anxiously wondering if I am black or white because I know that I am black and white.  The assumption of identity problems is compounded by the refusal of society to recognize the existence of racially blended people.  The confusion lies in the question rather than the response.  Far from being confused, my experience has been one of self-affirmation and a feeling of openness toward others.  I have heard of research finding that blacks and whites do not relate the same way in [racially] homogenous versus heterogeneous groups.  My experience adds another complicated twist to this because no one is any more different from me than they are similar to me.

 Others have tried to minimalize or dismiss my experience by telling me, " You don't look mixed -- you look black."  Those who cannot see that I have white ancestry have not allowed themselves to see it -- have bought into racist logic.  Although I am closer in complexion to my mother than my father, no one ever says "You don't look black," because only the black heritage is seen.  It is not so much a matter of my splitting hairs or trying to be racially superior, but the blatancy of the illogic galls me.  It is as if to say orange has no red in it, only yellow; this would be to ignore an unchangeable reality.  Denying my background would be equally preposterous, but people seem to find some comfort in it.

 People have often defended their faulty assessments of my background by saying I am not light enough to be mixed, that I don't have white features or "you know, that hair like mixed people have." (curly, but not coarse)*.  Again, the illogic of racism confounds and frustrates me; yet the facts are simple.  I must be "light enough" to be a mulatto, because I am one.  My mother has the same features (nose, lips, brown eyes) as I do; on me, however, they are perceived to be "black."

 Like anyone else, I have two parents whose genes could have manifested themselves in a trillion combinations.  My brother has the stereotypical hair which is expected to clinch whether or not he is half white.  Does that make him any more my mother's child than I?  Am I any more my father's, then?  Of course not.  Our experiences as humans are defined by many things, perhaps the least of which is the exact shade of our skin or some arbitrarily determined position on the hair texture continuum.  By defining what it is to be biracial in these terms, the experience is both misunderstood and trivialized. 

 CHOOSING

 "Choosing" is perhaps the most pervasive and detrimental assumption regarding the racially blended.  It seems to stem from the syndrome of thought that, by virtue of their genetic mixture, biracial people are confused.  It is for their own good and mental stability (as I have been told) that they must choose a single racial identification and stick to it. 

 When I was younger, I bought into this myth and my most natural choice resulted in a blacklash at my "trying to be white."  Never mind that I am white, that I was raised by one white parent and another who is not particularly "black" by the same cultural behaviors which apparently damn my choice. 

Like my father, most black people, as a result of assimilation rather than miscegenation,  don't have a great deal more (and most have less) consciousness and pride in the culture from which they came than I do.  If keeping up with slang, wearing certain clothing, and listening to hard core rap are the sole criteria for one's cultural identity, what happens to that identity when those windows of identification are no longer trendy?

 What bothered me about the characterization of my behavior as "trying to be white"  was that blacks criticized me mostly for positive things.  For example, I am often told that I "talk white."  That using the language properly is regarded as exclusively a white characteristic is an example of self-hatred by blacks.  This brings to mind Molina's letter to Gloria Anzaldúa about how we all perpetuate racism. 

People have bought into the framework of racism whenever they see themselves as better or less than anyone else.  One reason I think that blacks have often been offended at my asserting the duality of my heritage is they say that, by doing so, I am trying to be superior to them.  I think this confused me for a long time because I don't see the races as hierarchical, just different., and not really very different at all.

 The notion that one must "choose" is the epitome of racist logic that really just seeks to remind mulattos to "know their place."  For centuries, states had "one-drop" rules which legally classified people as black, whether they knew they were or not.  Inherent in these laws, and the choosing doctrine which follows from them, is the belief in the subordination of non-whites.  If one drop of black blood (or one-sixteenth (6.25%), as was often used) makes one black then, by definition, something is wrong with that blood if it is strong enough to taint the other 93.75%.  By denying their whiteness (as well as if they denied their blackness), the biracial accept and contribute to the structure of racism.

 Finally, the concept of choosing is akin to telling a woman she must choose her loyalties, that to be a lawyer, for example, means one cannot simultaneously be a woman.  If she shows feminine or even "womanist" traits her role as a lawyer is compromised; if she is objective, rational, and analytical, her womanhood is questioned.  The illogic of this reasoning is not the cure for "confusion," but an effort to impose conflict between roles which can be complementary.  Being biracial is not inherently confusing or tragic, but using it to prevent connection between women  and "others" is.

INVERTING THE IMAGE OF THE TRAGIC MULATTO:
POSITIVE ASPECTS OF DUALITY

 Various friends, and even my own mother encouraged me to "choose," telling me that I would be better prepared to face a world that saw me as a black woman if I learned to think like one.  It is telling to note that the only "choice" encouraged was to identify as 100% black, so there was no choice offered at all.  I think the reason I am most able to not be confused is that at a very young age I realized this statement, which I would hear repeatedly throughout my life, was fraught with myth, fallacy, untruth, and racism.

 It first struck me as odd that so many people, none of whom happened to be biracial  themselves, had such a strong need to define me, to sell me my own self image.  Next, I realized that this allegedly "healthy" definition of self was to come exclusively from my external appearance, rather than from the broad intellectual and emotional possibilities which I found in myself.  It also assumes that all black women (and implicitly, all blacks and/or all women) think alike.  Lastly, I concluded that any world which would rob itself of the complete Erica Jackson needed a lot more help, guidance, and pity than I ever could.

 This self image, in my mind, is naturally connected to my belief in the American ideals we all learn to recite as children, but don't always learn the meaning of as adults.  I took those things to heart partly because I embodied the melting pot image of American society, still a popular analogy when I was young.  My own racial integrity, combined with a somewhat less sex-typed upbringing have contributed to a unique idealism in me.

 The fact that I am biracial, having a wide assortment of ethnic and religious identifications, has made the interconnection of humankind a very strong reality for me.  I have found it impossible to discriminate on racial grounds because I see myself in others and their experience in me. 

Diversity within my family is another possible explanation for this.  My cousins range from blue-eyed blondes to white/Filipinos who are usually mistaken for Mexicans.  (Following the typical pattern of logic I face makes me wonder:  because they appear to be Mexican to some, does that make them so?  Are they then "sell-outs" because they don't know a syllable of Spanish?)

 I do not deceive myself by saying, as I have often heard others claim, that I do not see color.  I do see color:  the color of eyes, hair  and skin, I just don't give any of it a great deal of weight in my assessments of potential friends.  People flippantly remark that "we're all the same," but often don't believe it on a very fundamental level: the one at which they buy into assorted models of hierarchy.  There is something more comforting about believing oneself to be superior to rather than merely equal to others, and sometimes vice versa. 

 Most people very adamantly deny that they are racists, "I'm not prejudiced at all," they might say.  Another thing I frequently hear is "No offense, but..." which is always followed by a terribly offensive, racist and/or sexist remark.  Saying "no offense" is analogous to saying "excuse me" after belching; it doesn't erase the offensive behavior, but merely  allows the offender  to feel better about having done it.  My purpose on this earth, however, is not to make other people feel better about their racism.

 Often people try to use me to affirm their avid assertions that they are not racist, which usually begin something like,  "I'm not prejudiced, but why do black people..." or "I don't mind black people, but (Vietnamese, Mexicans, Jews, etc.)..." as if the only prejudice that affects me is that which is violent or directly aimed at me.  Part of seeing all humans as interconnected is also seeing that all oppression is likewise interconnected.  Prejudice against anyone is prejudice against me, I have no dignity at all if it is gained by denying another person's humanity.

 I sometimes wonder how and if I should go about pointing out these things.  My convictions easily mutate into the unpopular and unrealistic realm of moral superiority.    For me, racism and prejudice are not defined only by overt actions like name calling, segregation and lynching, but by the assumptions we have all bought into, to one degree or another, about the experiences of ourselves and each other. 

I suppose that is why each of us was given our own voice, so that our stories are not told for us.
 

Works Cited

Anzaldúa, Gloria, ed.  Making Face, Making Soul:  Haciendo Caras.  Aunt Lute  Books:  San Francisco, 1990.

Barrett, Eileen, and Mary Cullinan, eds.  American Women Writers:  Diverse  Voices in Prose Since 1845.  St. Martin's Press:  New York, 1992.

Berzon, Judith.  Neither Black Nor White:  The Mulatto Character in American  Fiction.  New York University Press:  New York, 1978.
Blackwell, James E.  The Black Community:  Unity and Diversity.  Harper &  Row, Publishers:  New York, 1975.

Jewell, K. Sue.  From Mammy to Miss America and Beyond.  Routledge:  London,  1993.

Loftis, Anne.  California:  Where the Twain Did Meet.  Macmillan Publishing Co:   New York, 1973.
Reuter, Edward Byron.  The Mulatto in the United States.  Haskell House  Publishers Ltd.:  New York, 1969.

Simms, Richard L. and Gloria Contreras, eds.  Racism and Sexism:  Responding  to the Challenge.  National Council for the Social Studies Bulletin 61:   Washington D.C., 1980.

TeSelle, Sally, ed.  The Rediscovery of Ethnicity.  Harper Colophon:  New York.,  1974.

Williamson, Joel.  New People:  Miscegenation and Mulattoes in the United  States.  The Free Press:  New York, 1980.