How do we represent mixed-race in the media? PICK ONE!

As a person of mixed-race, I was always bothered by the lack of families on TV that looked like mine. My dad was brown, my mom was yellow, my brother and I were different shades of yellow-brown. Actually, it never occurred to me that we were strange until I was about 8 years old. When a little Caucasian girl at school told me that my dad couldn't be my dad because he was a nigger. I had to go home and ask my mom what that meant. I never heard the word before that I could recall. I mean sure, my grandad use to call us kids "nigglets" but I didn't understadn the word or the connection. Before that, I was always with my (also very mixed) cousins, and all of us had brown dads and pale moms. In my world, it made sense. But after that exchange with the little blond girl in the playground, I forever understood that my family and I were different. (Apparently, not everyone has four grandparents that are all different colors...who knew?) It hurt at first, but then I grew to embrace my difference. No one had a name like mine and no one looked like me. I always stood out, and I am big ham so that suited me just fine.

I became more an more aware that there weren't people like us on TV. It felt like every show had White families with a token "fill in the race" friend like Silver Spoons. When there was a show on with a Black family, like The Cosby Show or The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, all the Black folks were different colors. Dark parents with light kids, light parents with dark kids. The Black families on TV definitely didn't look quite like each other so I began to identify more with them. While this did not bother me as a child, it really did start to bother me as an adult. Why do people of mixed-race always have to identify with the darker of the races they are mixed with? Is it because we identify the race that most people view us? And if so, which race should I identify with? I am not enough of any color to say for sure "yes, that child is Black" or "yes that child is some kind of Asian."

An example of this societal identification is Halle Berry. She is a gorgeous actress of Mixed-Race. Her father was Black and her mother White. Her father left home when she was 4 years old and she was raised by her mother. In the media, Halle is identified as Black. When she won the Oscar for Best Actress in 2002, she said her he acceptance speech that the award was for all the "nameless, faceless women of color that now has the chance because the door tonight has been opened" but the Oscars Website, lists her as the first African-American actress to win the Oscar for Best Actress. I remember an interview on TV when I was younger hearing her speak about being Mixed-Race, and I was proud to have at least one representative in the media I could look up to. Unfortunately, that seemed to change around the time she was up for the Oscar. She seemed to rally around the Black-only identification. In 2011, she was quoted as describing her daughter and herself "Black" even though her daughter is 3/4 White and 1/4 Black. Berry stated that she believes in the one drop rule, referring to the Jim Crow laws that originated in the south during the late 1800's. The so called "laws" state that "one drop of African blood is enough to color a whole ocean of Caucasian whiteness." She, like many other Mixed-Race people in the media PICKED ONE.

This strikes me as so odd to only identify with one race when you come from multiple. It can be very painful as well. In my case, at home with my mother's side I was viewed as possibly Mexican. Real Japanese people weren't "used to" Black people. After all, they live on an exclusive collection of islands where everyone looks pretty much the same. My grandmother didn't want anyone to know we were Black, it was "bad enough" she married a White American and had "half-breed" kids. That was the mentality of the 50's and 60's. So whenever our extended family on the Japanese side asked what we were we would say "American" but we were so dark in the summer they assumed we were Mexican. When I finally "came out" as Black to one of my cousins as an adult, he said "Wow, we always thought you guys were Mexican! This is huge!" It was tough not being the real me with part of my family. It was also difficult to find out it was big news that we were Black. When I was home with my father's side I could be Mixed. They weren't kind people but we did at least celebrate our varied races. We drank afternoon tea with our British grandmother, and we had cookouts on June Teenth. We weren't enough of one thing to identify with so we identified with everything. I still carry that as being the only good thing I got from my father's side of the family.

I think you'll find that most people will identify with how society views them such as Halle Berry, President Barack Obama, Louis CK (Mexican-American viewed as White), Keanu Reeves (Asian-White), the list goes on. As a person that wears my Mixed-Race status on my sleeve and face, it is important to me that we shake things up, be Mixed-Race, check every box, tell people what we are, learn to identify with all of it. We will soon out number Mono-Racial people, if we don't already. The sooner we blend thing up, the better off we will all be.