What Are You?
By Avery Dean
Being biracial has always felt like a natural part of who I am. I’ve never had a problem with being mixed, but growing up it was often a lonely experience.
My mum and my grandma are the closest Black relatives in my immediate circle. All my other Black relatives live on the east coast and we’ve never interacted more than a facebook call to wish each other Happy Birthday or Merry Christmas.
I didn’t have a large black community around me and I rarely saw people who looked like me in my everyday life. Because of that, I spent a lot of time trying to understand where I fit, and how to celebrate my Blackness in a way that felt honest.
One of the tensions I carried into this project was the awareness that my experiences are not the same as Black people who face racism and oppression in more visible ways.
I recognize the privilege I carry with being light skinned, mixed, and racially ambiguous.
At the same time, that awareness sometimes made me hesitate to speak about my own experiences, even when they were confusing or painful.
I worried that acknowledging my struggles might mean taking space away from people who face more severe forms of discrimination.
Working on this project helped me notice the everyday experiences that have influenced how I see myself.
Many of those experiences showed up as micro aggressions...
"Is your dad still in the picture?"
"You don't care if I say the N-word, right?"
"I get just as dark as you in the summer"
People would blatantly say racist things in front of me because they believed my partial whiteness made it safe to do so. Being treated as someone who could dismiss those comments placed me in an uncomfortable in-between space;
where I was expected to tolerate racism despite being affected by it.
Over time, that shaped how I understood my place in the world...
Hair became one of the central symbols in this project because of its deep cultural significance within Black communities.
Braiding in particular represents history, tradition, and connection, with roots that trace back generations as both practical and cultural practice.
For me, it also represented a sense of belonging. I viewed it as an attempt to connect to a part of myself that I sometimes felt unsure how to access.
At the same time, conversations around cultural appropriation made that connection feel complicated as a light skinned mixed person who didn’t have tightly curled hair.
I worried about how I would be perceived and whether people would question my intentions.
Understanding that these styles carry meaning beyond aesthetics and are tied to cultural expression, resilience, and community allowed me to explore what it means to seek connection to culture while also navigating questions about authenticity.
Another symbol I used draws from the historical practice known as the paper bag test.
This reference connects experiences of colourism to a broader history of judging worth based on skin tone.
The symbolism highlights how social acceptance has often been conditional, and how those conditions can linger in our self perception even when they are not explicitly stated.
I also engaged with the concept of the “tragic mulatto”, a stereotype that has historically framed mixed race individuals as confused or incomplete.
Although the term is extremely dated and derogatory, I have been called it twice over the past year, and wanted to challenge that narrative.
Rather than portraying mixed identity as inherently tragic, I wanted to show how external expectations can create internal conflict, and how that conflict can be unlearned.
Understanding the historical roots of this stereotype can educate audiences on how long these narratives have existed and how they continue to influence how mixed people are perceived today.
In addition to these historical references, I also looked at research on the lived experiences of biracial individuals.
Identity development can be shaped by social environment, representation, and community.
That research helped me frame my own feelings of isolation as part of a broader pattern rather than a personal failure.
Creating this project made me more aware of the microaggressions I do experience as a mixed person. They are not always dramatic or overt, but they accumulate.
They show up in questions about legitimacy, in moments of exclusion, and in the feeling of needing to justify who I am. Recognizing these patterns helped me understand that my experiences are valid, even if they look different from those of others.
More importantly, this process helped me redefine what belonging means to me. I realized that celebrating my Blackness does not require permission, proof, or comparison. It does not depend on how others categorize me or whether my experiences match someone else’s. It is something I can define for myself.
Ultimately, this project became less about explaining my identity to others and more about understanding it on my own terms. It allowed me to acknowledge both my privilege and challenges without feeling like one cancels out the other.
My identity is not determined by how others see me.
It is determined by how I choose to see myself.
References:
- Önal, M.A. (2017). Blonde Braids and Cornrows: Cultural Appropriation of Black Hairstyles. Universität Bremen. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345036615_Blonde_Braids_and_Cornrows_Cultural_Appropriation_of_Black_Hairstyles
- Pilgrim, D. (2014). Brown Paper Bag Test. Jim Crow Museum. https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/question/2014/february.htm
- Pilgrim, D. (2000). The Tragic Mulatto Myth. Ferris State University https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/mulatto/homepage.htm
- Green, M.N, Winchester, L.B, Jones, S.C.T. (2024). Biracial, Black, and Proud: Can Racial Pride Protect Biracial-Black Young People From Identity Invalidation and Depressive Symptoms?. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. 94:2; 222-234. https://research.ebsco.com/c/h32qr5/viewer/pdf/6c3xfsszoz?route=details
