Is it that hard to respect it?

I was surfing the web, and came across yet ANOTHER news article about Obama and his self identification...I was not intentionally looking for it, it just kind of popped up when I was looking for something else...and well, curiosity as usual, killed the cat, and I looked.

There is one thing about biracial people that annoy me, and that is the lack of disrespect of other's self identification, and the need to rely on celebrities and politicians.

We should already expect and not be too surprised when people think we are black (or white, or whatever, depending on what you look like), and then treat you as such (we all know America will treat you however they want mostly based on your race). I have heard of accounts from other biracial people where some get mistaken for Mexican, Indian or Arabian, and they had to deal with racial issues from that situation. One biracial guy once said, its hell at the airport because he gets mistaken for a middle easterner, and America is still weary about that whole airplane situation (I am more scared of the plane crashing in an accident than I am of a terrorist attack on a plane again).

So because we should expect others not to know our race, we can therefore assume even after they know our race, they won't understand the dynamics of it.

But what irks me, is when biracial people get upset at how other biracial people self identify. I have seen some that prefer to say they are white, and others black, one guy decided he would bleach himself, and get with a white woman to "rid himself of any blackness". A different guy decided he would fully reject his white side, even his white mother.

I have already talked about the difference between self hate and self identity. Its obvious those two self hate, but there are some that do prefer to choose "white" or "black", and honestly to me, they have their reasons, and who am I to say that is wrong? Sometimes I say I am biracial, other times I will say I am black. I do not feel that close to my black side (my dad nor his family were in my life), but when it comes to racial matters, sometimes I feel as though I can identify with them (although not always).

But in articles (such as the most recent one), alot of biracial people want to force the "biracial" label onto Obama. I once said to my mom, biracial people can be the most least understanding of one another...and self identity is the very reason why.

Obama was born in the 1960s, a much different time period than 2009. My mom was in 7th grade when her school was desegregating...and that too was in the 1960s...

But I have noticed in some biracial people a strong desire to want Obama and even Halle Berry to identify strictly as biracial and not black.

One guy once said he finds it wrong for biracial people to identify as black, and says its demeaning, YET, he applauded this one biracial girl when she said she self identifies as white, and hates her black side, because of her father...

Pending on how you were raised, the need for biracial role models could be strong or weak. For me, I never really needed to have someone biracial, seeing a black person, regardless of shade, was satisfactory for me.

My mom bought me a few black barbies along with my majority white barbies. I loved the last black barbie I owned, before I gave up barbies. Oddly enough though, majority of my baby dolls were black, and few were white.

I find there is a great dependency biracial people have on politicians and celebrities. As if they expect them to use their "powers" to bring the problem to light. If black people had to fight as long as they did to get rights, and are still having to fight the battle...I can tell you now, trying to get a celebrity to identify how you want them to, won't do anything.

The biracial battle is not everyone's battle. Some people have bigger worries. And some people don't want to identify as biracial. Just as much as you want to be seen as biracial, someone else may not. Self identity is based on your life, and experiences.

Role models can be a bad thing, looking up to someone can turn into idolizing, and almost always ends badly, because the person puts them too high on the pedestal. Maybe the problem lies in the fact that, we seem to need biracial role models, when we do not. Maybe all this time one is looking at it the wrong way.

Why not have role models that each represent parts of your race?

Maybe the problem is, biracial people want to have a unity of their own the same way blacks have one and whites have one, but why not just be the group that breaks down that unity for an even bigger one?

I am not saying mixing will end hate and racism, it won't, racism will just merely become about what you are mixed with, and the shade you are within your own mix. But what I am saying is, maybe biracial people are going about the whole thing the wrong way.

I guess what I am saying is, we have to respect each biracial person's choice in self identity. We have to realize, that we are different in some ways from mono-racial people, yet we are similar too. Right now, biracial people are too dependent on celebrities and politicians to do things for them, many not even taking the initiative themselves. You cannot rely on celebrities to do it for you, in fact I doubt some of them even care.

I do this blog to relate to race and biracial people. But by no means is it the center of my life. Does it have a bearing on who I am in life? yes, but is it the only thing in my life? no.