The Duplicitous Liberty of Mixed Identity
By Tyler Adamson
Growing up, I was always acutely aware that I was “different”. While I did not have the terminology or knowledge to describe it, the feeling became something of an old friend — surfacing regularly, bringing thoughts of inferiority and isolation along with a plaguing sense to “prove” myself, but to whom?
I grew up in a loving and supportive home, though my mother recollects numerous instances of the scornful questioning she received when being seen in public as a white woman with a brown baby, especially in the deep south of Georgia where I was born. However, such disdain wasn’t restricted by geography. My dad was even turned away from the nursery when he came to visit my newborn self because I didn’t look like him. I would come to learn that this difference I felt was more than just skin-deep.
It was more than just feeling a little out of place at family gatherings. It was everything from being called “uh-oh oreo”, the suspicion from cashiers at stores as to whether I was actually my mother’s child, or being called a “fag” for not liking sports — and while such things seem trivial to me now, at a time when I was so uncomfortable in my own skin, every comment, question, or second glance was a strike to the fragile glass that was my individuality.
Thankfully, at the time, my young faith provided a sense of solitude and escape from all of this. (Or if nothing else, a distraction.) Yet, as a young non-white man struggling with his sexual orientation, it also plunged my identity into a deeper state of precariousness.
In his book The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois discusses what he deems double consciousness — the idea that, as individuals, we exist with multiple identities, which can make it difficult to establish a single sense of “self”. I’d take it one step further. For me as a mixed person, I exist in multiple worlds — one of whiteness and non-white (though not limited to racial/ethnic identities either) — that is to say, it is impossible to completely divorce these irreconcilable perspectives or consolidate them into one.
Such a reality affords a duplicitous liberty; where I can exist in several spaces but rarely discover one of my own; where I move easier in some environments but not in others; where I may see parts of myself in others but never my own reflection.
As a mixed-white person, I have the privilege of passing, or being seen as a part of the majority without question. This extends beyond race and also means that I’m rarely, if ever, a target of homophobic remarks. People largely assume I am just more tan than others. Passing allows me to gain access to spaces that I may have not otherwise been a part of. For example, at a recent workplace meeting on diversity where I was the only person of color invited, I was able to speak to the importance of having adequate representation at the table because my experience is not all-encompassing. It’s pushing back on transphobic comments from colleagues to have them respond, “I always forget you’re gay”.
Such privilege allows me to advocate on behalf of those who are not present, both to be included and heard, but lest we forget: I am not a replacement for those individuals.
As I’ve searched for my own community throughout the years, I found solace in my commonalities with other POCs and LGBTQ folks, but they’re not superimposable (thanks for that vocabulary Organic Chemistry!). Even in more diverse circles, I feel like a mixed identity is still an abstract topic, and one not often integrated into conversations of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
We must continue to recognize these stories and how they fit into larger dialogue, be it through highlighting related initiatives or providing opportunities for mixed individuals to speak to their experience.
One of my favorite examples of this in recent history was a National Geographic piece that sought to depict “the changing face of America” by highlighting part of a larger project called the Race Card Project. It’s exciting to see myself reflected in these photos and reassuring to know that the future is diverse as f*** (sorry mom).
This also worries me, because, while there are shared stories in how we experience the world and the world us, they are not all one in the same. It is frightening to hear of the rampant colorism that plagues our communities, especially when it is wielded to minimize others. Our collective experience as the “other” should be the springboard that allows us to a celebrate the differences that make us unique and the empowerment to continue advocating for our communities — never as justification to invalidate one another.
Inclusion without critical self-reflection only serves those already at the table. Inclusion demands solidarity with one another, as well as a willingness to challenge ourselves and have difficult conversations about where we need to improve.
We owe it to our ancestors who fought to exist in the spaces we currently occupy, and to the generations who will come after us and continue this fight for full equity and inclusion.
About the Author
Tyler Adamson (he/him) is a mixed, gay man of color hailing from the rolling grasslands of Vancouver, WA. A graduate of the University of Washington (Go Dawgs!) and Johns Hopkins University who is currently finishing up a Policy Fellowship at the U.S. House of Representatives. A Pacific Northwesterner at heart, he is a lover of reading, food, human rights, outdoors, social justice, Harry Potter, basic human decency, and most of all his black cat, Minerva.
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