The system of racial classification is fiction, and we need to thoughtfully evaluate whether perpetuating it rigidly or allowing fluidity across the spectrum best supports human rights and social justice.
In order to really move toward what people really think of as some sort of Utopian post-racial society or somehow to really challenge the racial hierarchy, we're going to have to allow some fluidity.
My husband didn't want me to wear any black hairstyles. Nicole Kidman was his standard of beauty.
What I believe about race is that race is not real. It's not a biological reality. It's a hierarchical system that was created to leverage power and privilege between different groups of people.
From a very young age, I felt a spiritual, visceral, instinctual connection with 'black is beautiful.' Just the black experience and wanting to celebrate that. And I didn't know how to articulate that as a young child.
I think that it is too common for white feminists to say, 'We want some diversity. Come join our movement about gender, but we want you to check the class and race at the door.' And you can't undo that braid of race, class, and gender: all three intersect with each other, so it's important for more education to be done about that.
If people feel misled or deceived, then sorry that they feel that way, but I believe that's more due to their definition and construct of race in their own minds than it is to my integrity or honesty, because I wouldn't say I'm African American, but I would say I'm black, and there's a difference in those terms.
About five years old, I was drawing self-portraits with the brown crayon instead of the peach crayon and, you know, the black curly hair. That's how I was portraying myself.
I would pretend to be a dark-skinned princess in the Sahara Desert or one of the Bantu women living in the Congo... imagining I was a different person living in a different place was one of the few ways... that I could escape the oppressive environment I was raised in.
I'm this generic, ambiguous scapegoat for white people to call me a race traitor and take out their hostility on. And I'm a target for anger and pain about white people from the black community. It's like I am the worst of all these worlds.
My life is not a sound bite.
