Who Are We? New Dialogue on Mixed Race

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March 31, 2008

By MIREYA NAVARRO

Jenifer Bratter once wore a T-shirt in college that read “100 percent black woman.” Her African-American friends would not have it.

“I remember getting a lot of flak because of the fact I wasn’t 100 percent black,” said Ms. Bratter, 34, recalling her years at Penn State.

“I was very hurt by that,” said Ms. Bratter, whose mother is black and whose father is white. “I remember feeling like, Isn’t this what everybody expects me to think?”

Being free to choose your race

All in the Family.

Barack Obama's half-sister talks about issues of identity, (New York Times magazine, January 20th, 2008)

Issues of Identity and Race

Tumi's Constitution.

I have not, and refuse to pick a race in which to fall into, or have others pick one for me. It is my desire to not be given a race, because the race I’m given is not worth the journey it took me to settle with one. What my race can be is very controversial, so to keep me happy for not having to argue with everyone on what race I should have, I’ll keep it simple and not have one.

It is not a law for me to be categorized into a race. Having a race will not increase my quality of life, nor will it benefit me in any way. I have the right to say who I am and to define myself. I have been declared a colored by authorities during apartheid on my birth certificate, because my mom is black and my dad is white. I was labeled this, when in fact the people known as coloreds have a culture of their own and are a group of people generally living in Cape Town, South Africa – speaking Afrikaans. Since my skin color looks similar to theirs, they assume I am of that ethnic group, when in fact I’m far from it. Others determined my race for me, and did so incorrectly. Fellow peers have called me “half” a person because I am not one whole (black or white) race. People make comments like “There are twenty seven and a half (being me) people in the class.” I have suffered when I was little trying to understand why I was so different from everyone around me, making such a fuss over my race. I told my mom very innocently at the age of four that I wished she were white, so I wouldn’t have to go through everything I was, because at that age I knew something was wrong, and I was tired of being an outsider, because of my race.

I was considered an “other” at school in South Africa. I never fully fit in with the white kids at school because they saw me more as black. The same was true with the black kids, who never really considered me a part of their group because I was seen more as white. Both sides considered me the other. As a result most of my friends were Portuguese, or not South African. I was excluded from my peers because of my race.

I was humiliated in my class when they would do a race count, and I never knew which to raise my hand for – black or white, so that my teacher could count me. People would look at me like I was a different species, wondering how the likes of me could ever have happened. I was constantly stared at when I went out with my parents.

I have told people that I can be considered different races based on different peoples perspective. A race one-person sees me as, can be different from what another thinks my race is. I told people that I am both black and white to resolve the problem, but they question me, and still take it upon themselves to say what they think my race is.


I have warned various people in the community that I am confused as to what my race is, and that many different people have told me that I am a number of different races – ranging from being black, white, both or something completely different. I have warned them that picking my race is frustrating because it depends on what you want it to be determined by – genetics, phenotype, or genotype. I have made people aware that this has been an issue for me my whole life and to this day I still don’t know what my race is, or what to make it.


Therefore, I Tumi McCallum, citizen by birth of South Africa, do, by the authority invested in me declare that I will not choose a race nor have one chosen for me by others. That it is not essential for me to have one, and I will be free of frustration, by living my life without a race.