What's the base?

This is going to sound weird, if not downright stupid to some of you. Was it really a small moment in my life that had a huge impact? I guess I could say yes, but it was more about the realization of acceptance and continuous internal growth.

So? What's so special about it? Well, it's a phrase that deals with my identity and how I was raised. I come from a very loving family. There was always a roof over our heads, food in our bellies, clothes on our backs, and sound words going into our ears (I promise you that they didn't always fall out).

My family however, well, at least to me, was always different from the other families around us. At least, that's what I noticed, especially based on how people treated us. Sometimes they'd smile up front with high-pitched cheery voices, but when you looked into their eyes you could see a layer of disgust that they couldn't hide even if they were to wear several face masks. Other times we'd just be greeted with silence and stern judgment. The worst times would be when we were met with doors that were as closed off their hearts. So, my family may have been full of love, but I have a feeling that was mainly because the world seemed so devoid of it.

Now, why is that? Why was my family treated harshly by so many people, by so many backgrounds? It's simple, really. The reason is their reasoning is skin deep.

My family is biracial (at least on the surface, our lineage is a bit more diverse than it lets on). We're not homogenous. On both sides of my family, in the hometowns where my parents originated from, the difference is as stark as night and day. Besides the color of our skin, we're also bi-religious and tend to lean more bi-political as well. My parents have always been honest about their beliefs so that my siblings and I would be comfortable with speaking our own voices.

Since we don't tend to fit into any stereotypes that other people want to corral us in, we've unknowingly earned a lot of contempt, even from those that have never even met us.

So? What is this small moment in my life that seemed to have such a large impact? Allow me to explain.

The year was 2005 and the movie "Madagascar" had come out. As little kids we were overjoyed that mom and dad were taking us to the theatres that day. Once we were in the theatre, we sat down in our seats with buckets of popcorn and soda drinks, and the film began. Sure, as little kids a lot of the adult humor whizzed past our ears faster than a speeding dragonfly in mid-summer, but one phrase in particular stood out to me.

After the birthday party, the zebra, named "Marty," voiced by Chris Rock, was chatting with the lion, "Alex." "Marty" was distraught at never really seeing, let alone experiencing, the wild. Sure, "Alex" talked about how good life was for them in the zoo, but what "Marty" really strived for was a sense of freedom. In that discussion, there was one line in particular that rang out to me as a biracial child.

"I don't even know if I'm black with white stripes, or white with black stripes."

Boom...

Let that sink in.

As a little kid, I didn't like the color of my skin. As a little kid, I hated myself. As a little kid, I wished I was someone else. I always found it odd that you could never see your own face until you saw yourself in a mirror. For some people the mirror would be a blessing of an affirming gift reminding them of their beauty. For others, the mirror reminded them of their bodily imperfections that they were born with or newly acquired. Truly, a blessing and a curse. For me, I never needed a mirror to remind myself of who I was. All I had to do was look at my own hands, their palms, and their backsides.

My hands, my feet, my legs, my arms, my everything. I looked at it and I saw it as 'undesirable.' I wished that I was either one race or another, and not the ones that I am. Everytime I looked at myself, I never really saw that there were others like me. Even when there were, it seemed that they would have chosen a side, and I was always forced to pick one. To pick what they wanted me to be. Either "with them" or "against them."

"To pick or to be picked?" That was and continues to remain my reality.

The phrase "opposites attract" really only seemed to hold true to magnets in my mind. For elsewhere in nature like attracts and bonds to like. Oil and water do not mix. In nature, hybrids between species are rare and often not viable. However, even if they are viable they are infertile. Yes, I knew of the existence of animals such as the "liger," but these beasts would not occur naturally in nature. A stallion lies with a mare, as a lion lies with a lioness, as the bull lies with the cow. Looking at myself as some sort of "hybrid" between the races I thought that there would be nobody alive who would want to love me, let alone start a family of our own with me. The mere thought of this would make me break down and cry many a time.

"If I am not one, nor the other, then by loneliness I will be smothered."

I felt those words ring true to me in my heart.

Now, hearken back to the zebra's phrase.

"I don't even know if I'm black with white stripes, or white with black stripes."

Everything was made clear. For I am not one nor the other. For I am both. I have been both and I will always be both. I am mixed. My thoughts are mixed, my emotions are mixed, my imagination is mixed, my blood is mixed, my household is mixed. We are mixed.

There is no denying the truth that we simply live. One is not a base, a broth, while the other is a mere dash of seasoning sprinkled on top. For we are both. Sure, my parents are drastically different in their skin colors and in their places of origin. Yet, our family was what and where it needed to be. A place of love. It was filled with so much love in fact that it often poured out of us. We would always judge people by the character of their person and not the color of their skin. It was their actions and words that predominantly ruled supreme in our assessments of them.

It mattered not for the color of our skin, for we would always remain the same color throughout our natural lives. I'm born into one body, my body, as somebody else is born into their own body. It is our respective duties to take care of, cherish, and to love and nurture our bodies and the minds that inhabit them.

For if I am one thing, one being, one culture, one race, I know that I am no longer someone who straddles between two worlds with a mind ever present in three. I live in the world that I was born into. A world that is as beautifully, and sometimes ever so cruelly, mixed as I am. From its novelty, to its mundaneness, to its beauty to its horror, to its fairness to its injustices. This is all one world that we live in, despite us all having different view points and perspectives. We live in a mixed world with mixed perceptions of people from mixed bloodlines, ethnicities, heritages, histories, etc.

I am not Black with White Culture, nor am I White with Black Culture. I am me. I am not 'mulatto'. I am not 'dirty blooded'. I am Mixed.