When I was in elementary school, one of my best friends was biracial and you couldn't tell us that we weren't sisters. We liked the same things, wore matching outfits whenever we could convince our parents to buy us the same clothes, and we spent much of our time together plotting how we could spend more time together (sleepovers, play dates, weekend trips to my grandmother's house, etc.). Like most children, we didn't see color or shape or size or anything like that. We had to be told that she was just a little taller, or had a lighter complexion, or that our hair was different textures, which was why we couldn't wear it exactly the same.
Around the time we started being told of our differences, she moved away and we were forced to discover how much we differed from everyone else without being able to rely on one another for moral support. And that's when the fight began. During my adolescence, I stood out for being one of the first girls in my class to get boobs and hips. And the dark hair that cascaded to my mid-back didn't help divert anyone's attention away from me. In the 90's, girls my age didn't just have naturally long hair. Moms were still opting to relax their daughters' hair and/or keeping it short for easier maintenance. My hair was easily maintained by washing it, moisturizing it, drying it, and keeping it combed and brushed. Needless to say, this process didn't allow me to be beige. To the girls in my junior high, it made me white. According to them, I had a white-girl body and white-girl hair.
After graduating from a predominantly black junior high school, I went on to a predominantly white high school. As you can probably already guess, this was a culture shock for me and for many of my non-black classmates. And, as you can also probably guess, I was no longer the "white girl" I had been in junior high. To everyone around me, I was black...or something non-white. I was regularly asked "can I touch your hair" or "is one of your parents white" or "were you adopted by white people". There was clearly a significant amount of confusion caused by my appearance and even more confusion in reconciling my appearance with my use of proper spoken English; I was accused of "sounding white". I didn't understand any of this at the time and I didn't want to; I wanted to blend in, fit in, and be just like everyone else. I wanted to be beige.
Like many people, I didn't really start to come into a sense of self until college. Suddenly, I could explain what it meant to be me when my white roommates asked and my black friends sounded as "white" as I did. But, I still couldn't explain what it was like to be black and I definitely had no way of explaining what it was to be white. However, I felt like my friends allowed me to be my regular, beige self. They accepted me in a way that I had never felt accepted before and introduced me to their other friends and family members as just "Reece"! And that's who I was -- regular old beige Reece. I blended in, I fit in, and I was just like everyone else.
Say what you want about the accuracy of Zodiac signs, but sometimes they get it right. Cancer's are known to reinvent themselves every few years and I have definitely done that. But one thing remains quite constant. My desire to remain beige in a world that focuses so much time, attention, and negative energy on making things black or white issues is something that I'm proud of because I don't think that anyone else has gotten
it right. I'm not saying that I've figured out some secret of the universe, but I've figured out what works best for me.
I'm beige. I stand out when I need to. I blend in. I fit in. I'm me and I'm just like everyone else.
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