What is your race? Check ONE.

By Mone’t Alberts

It was 2004, I was 9 years old. My elementary school sent around a survey every year at the beginning of the quarter with questions such as “What is your age?”, “What is your gender?”, “What is your race? Check one.” I got to the final question “What is your race? Check one” and raised my hand, My third grade Caucasian teacher came over to me and I asked her if I could check two because I’m half African American and half white and she responded with “Just check African American since that’s what you look like.” In that moment and the many more moments that came in the next thirteen years of my life, I had to decide whether I was African American, or if I was white, and act accordingly. When I was nine years old, I didn’t realize the sociological and personal problems that would accompany being African American, and furthermore the problems that would accompany being half white, however, this dilemma that I’ve dealt with throughout my life has had the most significant impact on shaping my code of ethics.

Through socialization, everyone creates their own unique code of ethics that they live their lives by. This could include things that are always changing as well as things that never change, but no matter how one was socialized throughout their lives, everyone has a set of ethics. In my personal code of ethics, there are a few things that I believe are more important than the rest, things that I try to do every day no matter the situation, and consequently those things are the hardest to stick with. There have been times where my principles have wavered because I had to make a choice where both decisions seemed right, times where I have questioned my purpose, and times in which I needed to make the decision whether or not to follow the code I’ve set for myself. However, throughout all of these challenges, I’ve found that I have not only become more stable in my beliefs, but everything in my code circles the theme of inclusivity, honesty, and openness towards everyone I meet.

When I was in high school kids and teachers would often ask me if I was “all black” or if I was “mixed”. Why was it important for them to know what my genetic makeup was? I always answered the question with  “My mom is white and my dad is black.” One time a kid asked me this question, and I answered with my typical answer and he responds with “So your nigger dad convinced a white woman to procreate with him?”. Before thinking about what I was doing, I threw my water bottle at his face, which earned me a trip to the principal’s office where they had already called my dad. When they asked me why I did what I did, I couldn’t tell the truth. I knew that as soon as I repeated what that boy had said, my dad would be broken, he would be devastated.  I couldn’t be honest, and I couldn’t cause my dad the same pain I was feeling.

Some of the values I have that I hold above the rest are to be loyal and honest to the people around me. I believe that the right choice in any situation is to be honest, however, I often find that the consequence of my honesty leads to the pain of the person I am being honest with. When analyzing this particular situation I ask myself the following question, “Is it more right to not be honest when I know that the honesty will only cause them pain?” It takes a lot of thought to determine which decision is “more” right. I understood that in the principal’s office, the more right decision was to take the punishment, and spare my dad the pain of the words that came out of that fifteen-year old boy’s mouth.

One of the biggest problems that I face stems from the value that I hold of being open, inclusive, and kind to everyone I meet, despite how they treat me. As one could imagine, it would be difficult to be kind to someone that isn’t kind to you. Every day I find that I run into a situation where my mind tells me that someone does not deserve my kindness based on how they’ve treated me.

I often run into people who don’t agree with the fact that I am biracial, as if it’s something that I can change to appease them. When I was in high school I had a Caucasian boyfriend, him and I stopped at a gas station and two men at the pump next to us wouldn’t stop glaring at me. When my boyfriend went inside to pay for gas, the men approached the car I was in, and began to yell racial slurs towards me. “You dirty monkey, you don’t belong with a white boy”, “You stupid nigger bitch”, “You black whore, you don’t deserve to be with a white man.” My boyfriend came out of the gas station and at that moment two grown men decided that they were going to beat up a sixteen-year old boy.

A few months later I saw their faces again except this time they were in handcuffs being tried for a hate crime against a fifteen-year old girl, and assault against the sixteen-year old boy. I knew at fifteen years old I had a decision to make. In the courtroom I told the truth of what occurred that day at the gas station, and I ended my statement by saying these exact words, “I do not blame you for the way that you feel about me, and I forgive you for the actions you took that day, I hope you find peace of mind.” I decided that the best way to battle people that view me only by my skin color is to forgive them and be kind. They have endured a cycle of socialization that I know nothing about and somewhere along the line they were taught to hate. The best thing I could do to combat that is teach them to love by showing them what love and compassion is.

My personal cycle of socialization begins and ends with racism. At a very young and impressionable age I was taught that because I looked African American that’s all that I was, as I grew up in school I learned that I am worth less to some people because of my skin color, and in my adult life I’ve learned that there are some people who will never see me as human no matter how much I contribute to my community or how educated and successful I am. As I entered into my adult life I decided that I couldn’t let the way people view me change how I view myself. Being African American and White are the hardest aspects of my life but the ones that I am most proud of.

Racism is a product of fear. I live in a country that was built on racism. Where there are people that fear what they can not control and what they do not understand, that racism runs everyday life as if it flows through the veins of everyone without them realizing. It flows through me, a half African American, half white, twenty-three year old woman. Racism has made me who I am, compassionate, forgiving, loving, and strong in my beliefs. Racism has made me a care-based thinker, and it is the backbone to my cycle of socialization. Racism has shaped me into a good person because I know what it’s like to be ostracized for something I have no control over, my skin color. I refuse to let a racist country turn me into the kind of person that doesn’t speak up when I am asked to check just one box. When I applied for college I was issued a survey, “What is your gender? What is your age? What is your race? Check One.” I answered the questions, and when I got to my race, at the bottom of the list was an “Other” option with a box for you to fill in your race. I checked “Other” and wrote “I am biracial, both African American and Caucasian. It would behoove you to change the survey to “Check all that apply.”