How important is your racial identity to you?

[Number23]

What do you say, AAIG? I'm curious.

How do you identify yourself? What component of your identity comes first?

Is it your gender? Is it your ethnicity? Is it your sexual orientation/place of geographic origin?

For me, I have always considered myself black before anything else. Now that I've been out of the States for so long, I now consider myself a "black, female, American" in that exact order. If I was home, I'd probably be a "black, female, Southerner." :)

Anyone else put their race first?

[cyndensco]

1. BLACK........female, mother, wife, daughter, sister.

Transplanted New Yorker would definitely make my short list if it had been NYC as opposed to upstate. I have never identified with the "American" designation, though with the election of President Obama, I am closer to claiming it.

I have always embraced my blackness first. Always. For much of my early life, I was forced to do so: I was raised in the suburbs, was part of the 1% in K-12, and stood out. I was different and forced to own it. I did so proudly.

All my other components are secondary. I feel society continues to see me as black. If they look close enough, they might see me as a woman. Maybe.

Things are changing. My sons are way less race conscious. I guess their attitude is a good thing. I often wish they were more like me. :shrug:

[Number23]

4. Exactly

I have always embraced my blackness first. Always. For much of my early life, I was forced to do so

Even though I was raised in all black environment, I still feel I was forced to embrace my blackness first as well. All-black environments were usually born of necessity, not just because of desire.

I will always see myself as black first. Whether the reasons for that are right/wrong, good/bad it is what it is. In my mind, my blackness was driven into me as a means of protection from the larger community and I'm actually pretty damned grateful for that.

[jmm]

2. It's sort of difficult for me to separate the components.

I can be proud of my entire family but when people look at me they see the black side before anything else. I can't really say that's seen before or after my being female is. Both have a huge impact on how people view me. I don't really put anything first when I think of myself but I'd be foolish to think that other people don't.

Alito can have empathy based on his Italian family's experience with discrimination but Sotomayor can't. Is it because she's Latina and many love crying about "reverse discrimination" as of late or does it have more to do with her being a woman and the idea that we're ruled by our emotions?

When I was 19 I worked at a toy store and once had a customer admit while he was trying to flirt with me that he assumed I had kids because of "my people." Of course he couldn't understand why I was offended and walked away or why my manager banned him from the store the next time he came in but I digress. If I looked just like my mom when she was a blond haired green eyed 19 year old he wouldn't have assumed I had kids and if my brother was at the register I highly doubt he would've gone on about how pretty he was.

[Number23]

5. Bingo!

I don't really put anything first when I think of myself but I'd be foolish to think that other people don't.

Beautifully said, jmm. And at the end of the day, isn't society's perception of us a driving, critical component of how we perceive ourselves? Even if we perceive "society" as nothing more than our family homes, neighborhoods or cultural communities?

Is it because she's Latina and many love crying about "reverse discrimination" as of late or does it have more to do with her being a woman and the idea that we're ruled by our emotions?

I personally believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt, it is because Sotomayor is Latina. I believe the paranoid white men of America have made it plain that their perception of her as "unintelligent" and the "affirmative action candidate" are based on her ethnicity. The fact that they can't seem to stop themselves from mentioning Eric Estrada and Sotomayor's alliances with respected Hispanic legal groups that they have decided are "terroristic" would seem to confirm that.

[jmm]

12. I definitely believe she's treated different because

she's Latina but I doubt the word empathy would've been brought up so much if she were a man. I know Lindsey Graham asked if she had a temperament problem (I wish he would critique the temperament of his colleagues when they were going after her) and said to her unless had a meltdown she'd be nominated. I don't believe if Bill Richardson was nominated he would've been talked to like that.

Edited to add I think you put it well when you raised the question-

And at the end of the day, isn't society's perception of us a driving, critical component of how we perceive ourselves?

We're all products of our environments.

[Number23]

15. Good point.

I definitely believe she's treated different because she's Latina but I doubt the word empathy would've been brought up so much if she were a man.

She, like many of us, carry the dual curse of melanin AND ovaries. So sometimes it's hard to tell which one is carrying the most weight at a particular moment.

To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if the respective bigotries towards those two components of her identity actually tag-teamed. Racism flares up and then when it dies down, sexism rears its head followed again by racism. But I honestly believe that when the Pat Buchanans and Limbaughs and Grahams of the world whine about her being the "affirmative action" nominee, their whines are much more targeted towards her ethnicity.

Harriet Miers as unprepared and unsuited as she was for that job, never got the "affirmative action" label tossed at her.

[bliss_eternal]

19. the whole thing...

...brought back bitter memories of Anita Hill. is that strange?

the way she was relentlessly grilled and asked questions that felt 'inappropriate,' in condescending ways.
:scared:

[bliss_eternal]

16. Well of course...

...can't have someone they've been trying to keep from crossing the border in their precious Supreme Court, can we?

:eyes:

[Number23]

18. And the fact that she's PUERTO RICAN and not Mexican

(and thus an American citizen) doesn't even factor into their tired little brains.

[bliss_eternal]

20. Yes--exactly!

It really bothers me that they tend to treat certain factions of people identically. Margaret Cho touches on this in her work. When she jokes that people refer to her as other asian actresses, that aren't Korean (and look nothing like her). Like someone asking her what it was like being in Charlie's Angels. :wtf:

Or the way *really* ignorant people ask you if you know some other person of color they encountered once? Who consequently doesn't live on the same coast, much less in the same state...but it seems appropriate to them, because we all know each other, right? :crazy:

Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Spanish, Guatemalan...it's all the same to those guys.
How sick is that?

[Number23]

21. It's just like that movie Memoirs of a Geisha

Somehow, we weren't supposed to notice that all three of the main actresses in that movie were CHINESE despite that geishas were from JAPAN.

You just get the impression that the (presumably) white folks making that movie were probably saying "hey! Nobody will notice! As long as they look Asian, what's the difference???" And if there were any Japanese people who helped make that movie, the fact that they didn't raise hell about that should haunt them forever.

[firedupdem]

6. Isn't that something? I know what you mean. My oldest is away

at school and has only been here in Nebraska 3 times since we moved here. It's amazing how the people who don't mind asking me a million probing questions assume that he's from another marriage. One lady asked me point blank if my oldest had the same father as my youngest? I guess, it's uncommon in their view, to have a long term marriage and then kids have the same Dad. Ignorance makes me sick.

[Number23]

7. What??!

One lady asked me point blank if my oldest had the same father as my youngest?

How long did it take you to get your foot out of her behind?

Girl, you got me thinking about Boyz in the Hood when Angela (Cuba's mom) was on the phone with her son's school and they were shocked, SHOCKED I tells ya!, to find out that the boy's father was actually involved and a part of the son's life.

Damn, has that little changed in 20 years??

[firedupdem]

10. YUP!

Can you imagine? I guess he couldn't really be away at school! I asked her why? she quickly switched to how she moved and her oldest, from a previous marriage, didn't join her. Yeah right...she was just covering. Couldn't believe these cadillac driving black folks from DEtroit moved here married and both the damn kids have the same father. Something just wasn't right with that picture!

[Kind of Blue]

3. I consider myself a spiritual being

having a human experience. I couldn't resist this question tho my husband is anxious for us to leave for a function. Be back later.

[Number23]

8. Well, post more when you get back!

This sounds interesting. :)

[Kind of Blue]

22. Thanks, Number 23.

Well, I was raised in a family where spiritual and paranormal activity was part of the norm (seeing ghosts, precognition, et cetera). For instance, in the summer of my 16th year, my grandfather's ghost appeared to me while I was busy cleaning the kitchen before my parents came home from work. I didn't know who the man was but he was smiling at me and slowly faded away. We didn't know that he had died but my parents used to write down time and date of anything unusual. When we got the letter from Africa a few weeks later, we found out his time of death where a few minutes before his appearance. My mother was prepared for it and was ready to be consoled.

I guess my point it is, after growing up always in between cultures, I'd developed a good deal of dislike and distrust of Blacks (including Africans), Whites, Asians, Pacific Islanders, I mean every damn body :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: well, maybe not Eskimos. But on the other hand, I've met absolutely fantastic people from each group and all walks of life. So I'm also in love with humanity.

Well, certain life events have led me on spiritual journeys, perhaps all of life has, but the bottom-line for me is that we are all the same and I'm not trying to minimize the struggles of people of color. It's just that my philosophy has expanded to include all of our plights as in the category of the condition of humankind, how man treats each other. I believe that we are evolving, just as we evolved from a single-cell organism to complex beings, our evolution also includes that of the mind, the spirit, and that basically our plane of existence is a school for spirit.

Okay, y'all can go ahead and laugh. It won't hurt my feelings :)

[Number23]

23. On one thing we do agree, the similarties between respective groups and cultures

are far greater than the differences.

At the end of the day, people want to be able to live the way that they see fit and provide for themselves and their children. That crosses every racial, cultural and socio-economic category that we find ourselves in.

But what I'm interested in is how you see YOURSELF. I've been around lots of different cultures too and like you, I have found members of every group that made my flesh crawl. :) But that has never stopped me from identifying myself as a black woman.

The story about your grandfather is beautiful. Love can do absolutely anything. My family has its share of ghost stories too. Did I ever mention the one about my grandfather and the footsteps coming down the stairs??

[Kind of Blue]

24. But that's Exactly how I see myself.

I even go as far as to check other in the race boxes of forms and write in Human. Let those who it is important to "correct" it. As far as I know, identifying as Black and or/female is not the complete story, because I've never fit in completely with Africans here nor African Americans. I am a human being first and expect to be treated as such. I had a racist incident with a White woman on Friday but an African American woman I worked with in hospital literally and deliberately gave my own blood, I donated for an operation, away to another patient. I died on the operating table. I won't even start with Africans who think I'm waay too Westernized.

What do I make of these incident? Just that both women above did me big favors that I won't go into for the sake of brevity, and I forgive both of them completely. Not, that each didn't get their just desserts... hehehehee But I am a spirit and I am learning because this existence is not all there is :hide:

Please share the story of your grandfather and the footsteps coming down the stairs. Because I believe, too, that Love is the key. When I asked my mom, Why would he come to me? She said when we were leaving, I was 3 years old and only grandchild, he wept at the airport and said that he knew he'd never see me again. He begged my parents to go and leave me in his care but they refused.

[Number23]

26. KOBlue, I'm confused by something.

I had a racist incident with a White woman on Friday but an African American woman I worked with in hospital literally and deliberately gave my own blood, I donated for an operation, away to another patient. I died on the operating table.

What does this mean?? Girl, what happened?? Did you have to go to the hospital?? I don't understand this! Please explain.

I understand what you're saying about being human first. Believe me, I understand and appreciate the idea of what you're saying here. In a world that has caused so much pain and misery based on how somebody looks, what religion they practice, who they love etc. I really do GET what you're saying here.

But I guess I am too grounded in the pain of my particular family and of my community to not consider myself a black American woman, and to not wear that identification as a badge of honor. But that has been because of MY upbringing and MY experiences and I completely understand that you and I have not had the same experiences and thus, our means of identifying ourselves may be completely different.

[Kind of Blue]

28. Yeah, I think you're right.

How we identify ourselves is really based on our experiences.

Oh, I'm sorry about your question above. I was writing emotionally and forgot about making sense :rofl:

Well, I used to be a lab tech working in the chemistry department in a hospital lab. The new supervisor of the blood bank was a young African-American woman, perhaps a few years older than me. There weren't many of us at the time and I definitely cordially welcomed her though we were in different departments. At a certain point, I got the strongest sense to steer clear of her, mainly because of the way she spoke to me or didn't, even when passing each other and I'd say hi, just a lot of little things.

I needed to have a simple operation, no more than 1/2hour, and I donated my own blood about 2 weeks in advance of it, should I need it. Of course, all the blood transfusion products are kept in the blood bank. During the course of the operation, something went wrong and I literally slowly bled to death and was clinically so for a few minutes (I think my surgeon said about 2 minutes). My blood should have been handy but at some point previously, the BB supervisor had ordered it given it to someone else who needed my blood type (which was low in the area at the time). I can go into how many protocols she broke but this wasn't some random sample. Donors' own blood are kept separate and specific for them. And there's a system of checks to make sure everything that is supposed to be available is. Believe that I checked for everything myself :rofl: I mean I worked right there.

My brilliant surgeon, also an African-American woman, refused to declare death and she worked to find my type that was flown by helicopter from a hospital in Baltimore. We were in Bethesda, Maryland at the time. She is a miracle worker and gave thanks to my strong life force, when actually it was her work that saved my life. But it was news in the hospital and also a shameful one. But as I posted before, the experience really taught me about love, peace and how I've chosen to live my life from then own and I wouldn't trade it. BB's peers doled out her punishment.

There are too many experiences to count from all kinds of people that leads me to believe that it is all not just Black and White. To me, there's a huge gray area that only my personal spiritual path is able to fully bridge and the bridging began as I stood outside of my body seeing my own dead face and watching everything that transpired. But that is another story :)

[Number23]

29. Well.

Well... what?? What can anyone possibly say in response to your post??

All that I can say is bless you, bless the donor and bless the surgeon who saved your life.

It probably means next to nothing, but I'm glad, terribly glad, that she did not give up and that YOU did not give up and that you are still here.

[firedupdem]

9. Great question.....I had to really think about it for a minute...

Black first, mother, wife, geographic origin

Black first, has never been at the forefront of my mind as it is now, in this community. Since the boys were little, we lived in pretty diverse areas. I think the people we were around were used to a diverse world, and I didn't get the amazing questions and stares that I do now. Not only are we just about the only color here, our experiences are so different as well. I'm more interested in visiting a museum than I am in looking at fucking corn or hearing someone talk about the "land" they grew up on. So, I guess my geographic origin has moved up in rank like never before.

So.....at the end of the day, I'm a black female, mother/wife and CITY girl!

[Number23]

11. Life is funny...

You move to less racially diverse town and it made you embrace your blackness more. Which I think makes perfect sense.

I move to a less racially diverse country and it made me embrace my AMERICAN-ness more. Because even when I'm with other black folks, most of whom are African, it's still very different. Life is funny. Perception and perspective is EVERYTHING.

I'm more interested in visiting a museum than I am in looking at fucking corn or hearing someone talk about the "land" they grew up on.

Please tell me that is not how people pass the time in Nebraska. Girl, I would lose my DAMN mind.

[kwassa]

13. I'm just passing for black.

kidding, of course :rofl:

but I've been treated as "honorary" on a number of occasions.

Racial identity, not so much, but despite the fact I've always been interested in culture, it has been tough to escape my WASP-dom, not so much consciously as unconsciously. I am an English-Scots-German mutt, a common mix here, but most of us have zero knowledge of our mother countries, and call ourselves American. (not recognizing the default of white privilege).

I identify as American, in the wider sense of the word, as part of all the diversity that is this country. That's all. I love the diversity because it makes our country a lot more interesting than a re-creation of England, or northern Europe, or whatever. Not just African-Americans and Native Americans, but every single person that has moved here, become citizens, and brought their culture with them. It just enriches all of us. Maybe I am just becoming more of a world citizen.

[Number23]

14. Kwassa, I do believe that most here would be happy to grant you "honorary" status!

:)
Boy, you're gonna have a looooooot of folks jealous of you now! :rofl: :rofl:

It's great that you live in America and identify as American. Maybe it's because I'm black that I've never identified very fully with my "Americanism" quite as much as my "black-ism" and "woman-ism." But that would be fairly in line I think with the status in which people of color and women have been treated in American society.

It wasn't until I started visiting and living in other countries that it really hit me that the rest of the world viewed me as an American before everything else. I have to say, it was really quite liberating. To not be viewed as a color first was very new for me.

[bliss_eternal]

17. he knows we love him.

:loveya:

if kwassa wasn't honorary by then, he certainly earned it after prop 8. i don't think i've *ever* seen him that upset.

[Fire1]

25. I've always identified myself by race first and have done so

without really thinking about it. It just came naturally. I have to agree that gender is always followed by 'American.'

[Number23]

27. Exactly. It's someting done so naturally you don't even realize you're doing it.

[NOLALady]

30. I identify as

a black woman from New Orleans.

[Number23]

32. Thanks, NOLA!

:hi:

[FrenchieCat]

31. I identify as a Black-French Woman Immigrant!

[Number23]

33. Thanks, Frenchie! The stories you've told about your childhood/upbringing have been very interesting

Neither one of your parents are American, are they? It's cool that you ended up in Uncle Sam territory. :)