Two Halves

(The title of this blog post comes from the title of one of my favorite songs by awesome folk musician Pamela Means.  Love her.)

I came across some racist graffiti on my way home.  Its funny to have it in my face like that, because its something I don't see all the time.  But I do think about my racial identity a lot.  Seemingly innocuous situations thrust it into my front brain all the time.  Things as simple as what hair products I should and can use, or how difficult it is to find make-up to suit my skin tone (which is why I don't really wear any.)

Racially speaking, I am comprised of two halves.

On the one sides, I come from a resourceful Hungarian family who was able to escape Austro-Hungary before it fell to communism in 1956.

On the other side, I belong to a strong and resilient Black family from the American South; a family who survived and thrived through one of the ugliest parts of U.S. history.

I understand all too well how someone can inhabit two racial identities.  The existence is often tenuous.  

The tension comes from several members of both racial groups that try to remind me that because I belong to both racial groups, I cannot truly belong to either race.

On the one side: A Neo-Nazi assaulted me almost two years ago in a busy train station in Toronto.  I was defending an elderly Black woman against their slurs.  For that, I was punched in the face, kicked in the side and spit on.  For good measure, he called me a "filthy" N-Word, as if I wouldn't have know why I got that beating.  No one helped me.  Some commented that I should have minded my own business.  (Side note:  When I told people what happened, the common response was this it was "unbelievable."  What is unbelievable about racism and hatred?  It happened every day.  I was so angry by these responses.)

On the other side: When I was a student, I was awarded a scholarship by a cultural group to which I belonged.  I ran out of the ceremony weeping being some of the other winners complain about my receiving the same award as they did.  I didn't deserve it because I wasn't "Black enough."

To confront this tension, I have lived my life asserting and self-identifying myself as a Black woman.  I am closer to members of my family in the South, 2000 miles away from me, than I am with the Hungarian part of my family that live 30 miles away.  And with my afro hair, and dark features, it has worked for me as a way to feel like I belong somewhere.

But of course, race is not that simple.  I am both Black and White.  I should not have to choose with which race I more identify.  Will society catch up with understanding the complexities of people, instead of  the simplistic, dated understanding of race?  When do I get to celebrate both halves of my racial identity without needed explanations?  When will my race cease to be a guessing game for ignorant strangers?  When do we start talking about the stupidity of racialized categories?  

Graffiti like this makes me think, that we still have a long way to go in terms of thinking and talking about race.  As a multi-racial person, I  exist, and I'm not  going anywhere.  As Black feminist Audre Lorde once said, "Here I am.  Deal with me."