Melanie, born abroad and raised in the South, has found a home in New
York City. Living in Brooklyn and working in Manhattan gives her the
 great pleasure of seeing the city from many different vantage points.
Music, film and books occupy much of her time. Dancing, food and nature
are three of her loves. There is a restlessness present in her life at the
moment... it has led her here. She can be reached at madlux@gmail.com.


 

    
One Woman's Journey to answer the question, "So what are you anyway," leads her to embrace her bi-racial heritage... bringing her a sense not only of belonging, but also of wholeness.


 
 

On April 7, 2002 I wrote this in my journal:

During my last year at school I lived with Andy. On Monday nights we would have "family dinner." Robert would come over and the three of us would have spaghetti and hang out for a few hours. On one particular Monday we got to talking about high school. Robert and I went to high school together. We were talking about Shauna... I was relating a story of a time she was particularly cruel to me. I remember all three of us laughing at this story, sitting around our dining table. I also remember feeling this creepy, cold, withdrawn sensation. After dinner I went into my room, alone, and closed the door. After a bit Andy came in and found me laying on the bed crying. After a few minutes of prodding on his part, I finally told him that the feelings that I had in high school hadn't really ever left me. I still felt like I didn't belong anywhere, with anyone. He said to me, in the most heartfelt tone I ever heard him speak "You belong with us."


I was raised mostly in a suburb of Baltimore. During my first 9 years of life I was pretty much unaware of race, the power of race in society. My friends during those years in Maryland were Tiffany, Keisha, Sheena, Rose Mary, Stephanie, Erin, L.D., Chay and Lori. Tiffany, Erin, Stephanie, Chay and Lori are white, Rose Mary is Phillipino, Keisha, Sheena and L.D. are black. There was also Rosario, the Italian boy I was hopelessly in love with. We spent our afternoons riding bikes, playing Atari and the flag game & roller skating until the sun set. My direct neighbors were a Chinese family with beautiful, huge white dogs. In the summer we all went to vacation bible school at a black lady’s house at the end of the road. I thought not about the fact that my mother is white and my father is black. It didn't strike me as strange, unusual, or different then. Those thoughts didn't creep into my head until I moved to North Carolina. In the fifth grade my friends were Beth, Suzanne, Jennifer, Ashley, Kylie, Jesse, Brian, Brian and Brian. The others I don't recall by name. I lived in North Raleigh and all my friends were white. It was in the 6th grade that this question was first posed to me -- "So, what are you anyway?" I hated that question. It made me uncomfortable. I didn't know how to answer it the "right" way. The question alone implies that I, she who is being questioned, is something "other." Something outside the norm, something that which doesn't wholly belong. With whom do I "belong" then?


Toward the end of Black White and Jewish Rebecca Walker writes "I was never granted the luxury of being claimed unequivocally by any people or "race" and so when someone starts talking about "my people" I know that if we look hard enough or scratch at the surface long enough, they would have some problem with some part of my background, the part that's not included in the "my people" construction." I suppose "my people" would then be people like Rebecca Walker, Lenny Kravitz, Halle Barry, Lisa Bonet. I can recall being fascinated with Mariah Carey for a while. Not because her music was all that great, but because I felt she was singing from a place I knew. I remember watching the Cosby Show and Different World and seeing myself in Lisa Bonet, identifying with parts of her that were reflected in myself. Most of the beauty that I see in Lenny Kravitz comes from seeing him as one of "my people." When Andy said "You belong with us" he was referring to my inner circle... my urban family... Stacey, Robert, Andy, Chuck, Kevin, Greg, David, Derek. The circle is composed solely of gay, white men. Why? It is within the folds of their friendship that I was able to let go of the fear. I saw in all of them another aspect of "my people." I saw in all of them a struggle to be... exactly who you are, without shame.

It is now August 2008 and I recently reread Rebecca Walker's memoir Black White and Jewish. I don't exactly remember what lead me to buying the book, but can only imagine that it had something to do with wanting and needing to find connections with people who I believed could shed light on my experience through telling the story of their own. I needed to feel a sense of resonance with someone, anyone... it was a feeling I was lacking greatly in my life. Between my first and second reading my perspective changed greatly - during the first reading I was a few years out of college, just getting my footing as an adult, living in Raleigh with Robert. Now, I am nearly 8 years removed from my college experience, working in education and living in New York City. The growth I've experienced in that time enabled me to see Walker's story as one that's both similar and vastly different than my own. One thing didn't change though - the resonance. Her words of struggle, questioning, uncertainty and, in the end, conviction still reached out and grabbed hold.

For better and sometimes for worse, I am a highly self-reflective person. I spend obscene amounts of time thinking about my feelings, my actions and what I could have, should have and would have done. I think about if I'm happy or not and why. I think about my future, what I want to do, see, taste, feel. I'm analytical... and it's not always a good thing. But, it hasn't always been like this. Looking back, growing up I spent most of my time trying to not think about how I honestly felt. I spent a lot of time reacting to those around me, trying to fit in, trying to fade into the background. In her memoir Walker writes "When I get there I do what I do everywhere else, I heighten the characteristics I share with the people around me and minimize, as best I can, the ones that don't belong." Did I realize I was doing that? Of course I did; but it was a survival tactic. I had to do it in order to appear comfortable in my own skin because I wasn't ready to face or embrace who I was then. I didn't feel as though I had a choice.


Somewhere along the line, probably in and just after college, my thinking changed. Around that time I began looking at myself in the mirror and seeing beauty where I once didn't. I began to embrace the characteristics that made me unique - my crazy curly hair, the freckles the dot my nose and cheeks, the curves of my body... all physical manifestations of the joining of two ethnicities. Of course I am not just what you see on the outside; my values also began to shift and I became more open with the people closest to me. I was getting much closer to shedding the need to hide.

In November 2003 I moved from Raleigh to New York City. At the time I think I wanted to move here to gain the ability to fade away right out in the open. I knew there were others here who looked like me superficially. I thought about becoming one of the millions, fading away into the crowds, away from the questions I always saw in the eyes of others. Having lived here close to five years now, I think my motivation, the one I held deepest within my soul, was a search for camaraderie. Yes, being around more folks like myself does allow me to fade from view at times; I take advantage of that every now and then. But even more powerful is the sense that I am not alone in my struggle. I am not the only one looking for familiar faces, stories, experiences and life lived. Everyday I see bits of myself reflected in the millions of people who share this space and time with me.


I would be lying if I said the questions ever stopped coming, the judgment no longer existed. What's different now is how I respond. I no longer allow myself to be placed in a box. Walker writes "I do not have to belong to one camp, school, or race, one fixed set of qualifiers, adjectives based on someone else's experience." I wholly agree. As recently as a month ago someone said to me "You're so white." I went through a whole cycle of emotions upon hearing that - hurt, shock, disbelief, anger. It took me back to middle school, high school. For probably a day I felt let down, not by the individual, but by the fact that what I thought I'd finally gotten away from had found me once again. This time, though, I could face the judgment head on and actually feed off of it to strengthen my spirit. I didn't question my own actions and words; I questioned his. After cycling through those emotions, what I ended up with was an even stronger sense of my individuality. I am who I am - a product of nature, nurture and society. The color of my skin doesn't predetermine my character, values or personality.


The "what are you anyway" question that constantly plagued me in my adolescence was so hard to answer because I believed my response could only be one of two things. I was either black. Or I was white. My discomfort with the question didn't stem from not knowing the answer, but from the assumption that my truth wasn't what anyone really wanted to hear. I don't identify as white or black. I am both. While the questioning of mixed race people hasn't completely ended, there is much more celebrating going on within the community. Even using that word - community - makes me feel like I am part of something... a quiet movement, a shared understanding. I like to celebrate Loving Day (www.lovingday.org), MAVIN magazine excites me and I recently discovered Mixed Chicks, a hair product company created by two mixed race women.


One of the last sentences in Walker's book is "It all comes to this. I stand with those who stand with me. I am tired of claiming for claiming's sake, hiding behind masks of culture, creed, religion." We are all individuals, so much more than the sum of our parts. We all have a tale to live and tell. The beauty of humanity shines brightest when we're each given the opportunity to do just that, without fear.

 








all photo and article copyrights belong to Melanie Dorsey