Am I Black or Biracial?

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Recently I had a biracial woman watching some videos on my YouTube channel where I was discussing issues pertaining to biracials.  One particular video I made was about me ranting on how black people are obsessed with biracial people due to way too many black people going all out to mandate to the best of their abilities that biracials who are mixed with black (especially those of who are black & white) are seen as nothing but just black.  The other was a podcast I recorded 3 years ago where I was talking with another biracial guy about growing up mixed to where I told this dude basically that no matter how hard he attempts to run from his blackness in order to declare that he is ONLY biracial, he will still ultimately be seen as black.  As a result, I got biracial people in my comments who pretty much only want to be viewed and seen as biracial declaring that I am a hypocrite.  One could accurately come to that conclusion if all you had to go off of was 2 YouTube videos.  But the reality is, it’s more complicated than that for a biracial person in this country.

You see, I am biracial.  Can’t hide it even if I wanted to.  I’m not one of these biracials who doesn’t look like he’s mixed.  I’m mixed all day long from the texture of my hair to facial features to light skin.  I’m mixed to the point where people often mistake me for being Hispanic (especially since I live in Florida).  But on the other hand, I live in a country where historically biracial people have been classified as simply just black.  Can’t deny it or even attempt to argue that point.  It is what it is.  So basically…I’m both and I claim both.  One day I might say I’m just black and the next day I might say I’m just a mulatto.  And the reason I do this is mainly thanks to social media.  What I mean is (and I’ve said this numerous times on this site), depending upon what the topic is on social media that day that has black folks all in a frenzy will dictate how I choose to identify.  If black people are out there on some positive shit, then I’m black.  If niggas are out there on some nigga shit, then I’m mixed.  It is what it is.  I got those options and I use them at my discretion.

Now some of you are saying, “Well, how can you claim both?!”  Easy.  I grew up in a black household.  My mother is black and my step dad who adopted me and raised me since I was 3 years old is black.  I grew up predominately around black people.  Hung around predominately black people.  I went to an HBCU (shout out to Tuskegee University).  I’ve dated 99% only black women.  I’ve been married to a black woman for 12 years now.  I say the word nigga extremely fluent to the point where I think I need to refrain from saying the word nigga so frequently.  Every form I’ve ever filled out asking me what my race is I’ve always checked BLACK, mainly because there was no other option to check mixed or biracial (until recently I just discovered).  Basically, I’m just a light skin biracial black person.  No, I’m not a light skin biracial WHITE person.  In the year 2018, I feel no need to explain why I can’t run around and try to declare that I’m a light skin biracial WHITE person.  We all know the rules and how this country gets down.  Plus, I’ve never once a day in my life woke wishing I could be white.  It’s just never happened.

Now some may be wondering, “Well, why don’t you just claim strictly biracial?”  Simple.  I just don’t.  You see, despite me being biracial, I’ve never really walked around going out of my way to inform people that I’m biracial.  If people asked me what I was mixed with, I would tell them.  If people just assumed me to be just black due for whatever reason, I was cool with that too.  I never had this burning desire to stand atop of some mountain and shout to the world that I AM BIRACIAL!!!  I saw no point.  Now don’t get it twisted, I always knew I was biracial as did most other people because like I mentioned earlier, it’s very obvious that I’m not JUST black.  But for me to run around and declare “biracial pride” like some other biracials are doing these days…meh, that was never me.  It was never me because I didn’t grow up around other biracial people.  Meaning, often times I was the only biracial person in my class or my circles.  I didn’t grow up hanging around in a clique full of biracial people where we had our own biracial squad repping the biracial gang with our tan bandanas hanging out of our back pockets.  I didn’t know any grown easily identifiable biracial people who could “mentor” me on being biracial.  I just grew up around mostly black people.  That’s it and I just happened to be the lightest nigga in the bunch most of the times.  It wasn’t until I got on the social media and discovered this whole other world of biracials trying to unite like Voltron to form an official biracial coalition.

Me creating a Facebook account opened up a whole new world to me showing biracials running around trying create a biracial nation of sorts.  I guess that’s cool.  I don’t know.  If they want to do that, then who am I to tell them that they can’t.  What I chose to do is talk about biracial issues from MY perspective every now and then based on my life experiences to which I’m sure a lot of biracials can identify with.  Most of the things I talk about when it comes to biracial issues has to deal with black people and their bullshit towards us biracials.  So one person on YouTube made comments to the effect questioning me on how can I make a video saying all of the things that we biracials deal with from black people but then have another video up of me talking to another biracial man and essentially getting on him for trying to declare he’s ONLY biracial.  Well, that’s simple to.  Biracials do deal with a lot of unnecessary foolishness from black people.  The overwhelming majority of us deal with more shit from black people than we do from white people.  I’ve also stated this many times in the past that I honestly can’t recall too many instances in my entire life where a white person gave me shit for being biracial, however I’ve long since stopped counting the number of times I’ve received shit for being biracial from black people.  Now when it comes to me getting on the other biracial guy for strictly declaring that he’s ONLY biracial, well, I never really got on him for wanting to declare that he’s ONLY biracial.  I did however get on him for running around thinking that just because we are biracial that we are somehow above black people in the overall scheme of things as far as racial constructs are concerned in this country.  Sure, we biracials are not JUST black and we all know we possess some light skin biracial privileges, but I’ve never been the type to use my “privileges” to purposely try to shit on black people in a manner similar to that of a racist person.  This guy I was speaking with did (at least in our discussions after that recording).  He ran around with some biracial light skin superiority complex.  And I honestly believe this stemmed from him primarily growing up around mostly white people.

In my experiences when encountering mulattos, those of us grow up around mostly black people tend to really not view ourselves differently from black people.  Sure we understand that we are biracial but truth be told, most of us probably just see ourselves as some sub-category of black (if that makes any sense).  We identify with black culture, pain, struggle, lifestyle etc even if we don’t directly have to deal with 100% of the bullshit most black people have to deal with simply due to our skin color and genetic makeup.  For those mulattos who primarily grew up around white people, well, in the same manner how those of us who adopt the black culture mentality, same goes for those who grow up with mainly whites…they adopt the white culture mentality (Colin Kaepernick is not the norm).  I’m not saying this to be a bad thing.  However, I am saying that historically white Americans have had a pretty shitty disposition towards black people for the last few hundred years.  So if you are a biracial person growing up mostly around white people, chances are you might adopt their mentality for how they feel about black people, especially if that mentality exudes hints of racism.  If your white mother, father, relatives & friends directly or indirectly tell you that most black people are ghetto trash and criminals etc, then you as a kid will internalize that and begin to believe it to the point where despite you sharing 50% the DNA of black person, you somehow believe you are truly different in all aspects.  The same could be applied to a biracial who grows up around mostly black people who tell him everyday that white people are racist or this country is highly racist etc.  Sure some of that may be true, but even the biracial kid who grows up with black people often times recognizes how he’s treated differently from the rest of his black relatives/friends (like me).

Another “issue” I see with other biracials is this calling to declare that being biracial is its own unique race.  The problem with that idea is that people of any race can produce offspring of the exact same race.  Meaning, 2 black people get together, a black baby will be born.  Two white people get together, a white baby will be born.  Two biracial people get together, another biracial baby will NOT be born.  It is literally impossible.  We’ll create another mixed race baby of course which could literally mean a bunch of things from octoroons to quadroons to whatever and etc.  But a biracial man and a biracial woman cannot create a biracial baby.  It’s impossible.  So I fail to see how biracial people can be classified as truly a unique race when the race can’t reproduce copies of itself in the sense of creating more biracial babies.  Maybe a “mixed race” category would be better, but then exactly what would be the qualifiers for determining who gets to declare that they are mixed race?  Because if you got back far enough into a black person’s DNA who is a descendant of a slave, you shake that tree hard enough and a white person is bound to fall out.  So while I get the idea of a “biracial race” and “biracial pride”, I’m not necessarily 100% in agreement with it simply because I’m not trying to separate myself from the culture I was raised in all because I may have dealt with some shit from black people for simply being biracial.  Sure, I may create content getting on black people’s asses who take issue with me being biracial and this may bring about cheers from fellow mulattos who can relate, but truth be told, the vast majority of black people I interact with in real life or online have absolutely no issue with me being biracial.  Typically, the content I produce going in on black people who take issue with me being biracial is mostly reserved for the pro black crowd, which they are a minority in black society.  If I really felt like black people as a whole took an extreme issue with us mulattos, I’d have way more content on my site dedicated to this issue than I currently do.  Hell, truth be told, I had a separate site from my Onyx Truth site dedicated to mulatto issues, but after about a week or two of running it, I cancelled the site because I realized my issues weren’t really that serious to the point where I felt like it required an entirely separate site.  I mean, I’ve been called zebra, dirty white boy, graham cracker, mixed breed, mutt and every other biracial slur you can imagine from black people; but none of that ever truly bothered me to the point where I felt like I needed to completely separate myself from black people and exude strictly biracial pride.  How I normally handled these attacks was just to simply clown them for being just black.  I’ve called plenty of niggas “African booty scratchers”, “nappy headed hoes”, “crack babies”, “dirty foots”, “midnight” etc.  And after it was all said and done, we went about our business as friends or we never spoke again.  Point is, I got ammunition for days and often times I’m going to win because an attack on me for being biracial has nowhere near the sting as an attack on a black person for being black.  I recognized this early as a child, but I never ran around launching attacks all willy nilly.  What was the point?

I guess the overall point I’m trying to make is this:  yes, I’m biracial, but 9 times out of 10 I tell the world that I am just black.  I don’t run around pretending that I’m not biracial but I also don’t run around going above and beyond to make sure everybody and their mama know that I am biracial.  I grew up with black people, in black culture, doing stereotypical black culture shit (whatever that means).  I’m just as black as the rest of you knee grows….just slightly lighter with a different texture of hair (good hair 😬) and brown skin and dark skin black women love my high yellow ass, always have and always will.  But regardless, I’m both.  I’m biracial and I’m black.  And if you have a problem with that, then…too bad.  Deal with it.