There is a brilliant diary up by Denise Oliver Velez. www.dailykos.com/…
It is a fascinating diary on reparations. However something I have noticed in these diaries is that there seems to be this curious fascination with who is considered “black”. I had the privilege of attending a racial equity circle at my child’s school where we addressed these topics and wanted to share what I learned.
Race- Race isn’t something I control. It’s a descriptor that is assigned to me by other people. The government assigns my race. People assign my race when I walk into a room. I am treated a certain way by my perceived race. I am ambiguously lite brown. In California my race is perceived as black if I’m an all-white environment. Mixed if in a liberal, diverse area. I am perceived as Hispanic or Latino if I’m surrounded by other brown Spanish -speaking people. On the East Coast I am perceived to be Puerto-Rican.
You will noticed that I have never been perceived as white, even though my DNA results have me as majority white. That is because my race is determined by other’s based off superficial observations. My race is also subject to change.
Please see this chart: www.census.gov/…
The chart shows you how the government defined race in the US from 1790-2010. If born between 1790-1850 my race was slave. Between 1850-1930, I was a mulatto. Between 1930-1980 I was Negro. Between 1980-2000 I was Black or Negro. 2000-2010 I was Black, African- American or Negro. These days I can identify as Black, Mixed, AA or Person of Color. Again, none of these “classifications” are
Ethnicity- Ethnicity is your story. You get to pick more than one race. FYI (you get only one race). It’s is your family lore. It is how YOU choose to identify yourself. I was born to a white mother from Oklahoma, a black father from California and a great-grandmother who is Cherokee. As you can see in the diary picture above, my DNA results happens to match my family lore.
Family lore is what we pass down as our truths but it is not necessarily reflective of the actual past. Elizabeth Warren discovered this when discussing Native American ancestry.
You can also see that I am technically “majority white”. But I identify as mixed race, black woman. My ethnicity is based on experiences and how I perceive the world to understand and interact with me. I have NEVER been mistaken for white, regardless of what my DNA says.
Culture-
● Everyone has a culture. Culture is dynamic and powerful. It shapes how we seethe the world, ourselves, and others.
● Culture is like an iceberg; some aspects are observable, others are beneath the surface. Invisible aspects influence/cause visible ones. To really understand another culture, you need to understand both the visible and invisible aspects of culture. To be effective in another culture, you must first understand your own.
— US Peace Corp. Insights from the Field: Understanding Geography, Culture and Service
Culture is the one hard concept that is difficult to wrap your fingers around. What is your culture? Is it defined by your race or ethnicity or nationality or a combination of all these things. When we say “black culture” what do we mean. When we say “southern or mid-west or white”, what do those mean? What is American culture?
My culture is a mix between California, American, liberal, black, mixed race culture. I am deliberately handing down ideas and values to my children that I believe are important.
I would love to hear from you. What is your race, ethnicity and culture based on the above?