I am a light-skinned Black woman. My mother is African-American, and my father is mixed white and Black.

One essential fact to understanding America is that this country doesn’t care who you know yourself to be - the only thing that really matters is what people perceive you to be. What they perceive is which race best fits your features, your face, your skin color. Considering race is a fabricated social construct, this makes a degree of sense.

My entire life, two very different versions of who I was lived inside my body. At home, I was Black. My entire family is Black, me being the palest of my siblings (I think God was trying to test me), but at school and out in the real world, I was something else entirely.

“Mixed”

“Mutt”

“Oreo”

Imposter.

The North Star with Shaun King

Mixed In Media: How Mixed Race People Are…

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