I Am Not a Junior Mint

It is not a unique experience, to feel conflict in one’s body. Particularly with one’s skin where tint and hue inform identity. The assumptions that follow close behind, so tightly linked and heavy, start to make you wonder whether conflict and skin are synonymous.

Such was how I thought of myself as I weaved through my youth, safe in a suburban bubble, and isolated. The isolation was made obvious by something I didn’t know was so humorous, so fascinating, so skeptical by some around me. My skin sparked innocent comments that unsettled me, like a distorted praise. A rigid question then formed in my body that I didn’t know how to hold nor release.

Who am I?

Well, first off, I'm not a junior mint.

A memory. It was sophomore year of high school, my second year on the Varsity soccer team and it was the season's end banquet, the night of accolades and recognition. As a newly formed tradition, every player was given a candy by the captains to describe some feature that made them unique, some trait that contributed to the team atmosphere. I was given a pack of junior mints. The inspiration behind the choice?

Because I am black on the outside, and white on the inside.

what makes for enough Melanin

I am bi-racial, my Dad is black, and my Mom was white, of mainly Irish and German descent. I grew up in Bellevue, WA, which at the time of my formative years, did not have a large black population. In sports, I was often one of maybe two or three people of color and in school, most of my peers and friends were white. Even with my Dad's family, whom I have always had a close relationship with, I typically only saw during holidays and birthday celebrations.

The eco-system I grew up in, where the black experience as I could name it was small, left me to always qualify and question my blackness. And not question as in unearthing its history but question its validity against my whiteness. They were always two separate selves, one showing itself in my stride and the other in my tongue. So, there was and remains still, an external pressure and internal vollying of which side of my race to lean into. I am still hyper conscious of what kind of words and gestures suggest what kind of character to others, how that character naming affects how I live my life, how misconceptions and privilege become muddied. Is it safe for me to call myself black when others point out a word from my mouth, like it is a marvel of an archetype? The words aren’t real enough coming from me, as if they don’t belong.

I must say, though I might be mocked for how I express myself, I know I am safe in my light skin. I won’t pretend that I haven’t benefited from white privilege because I believe I have. Even if along the periphery, I still got to walk in the same sphere as my white peers. Societal judgement of dark black skin is cruelly deep and the tolerance, even sometimes celebration, of lighter skin has created a further divide and separation. I have no overt experiences of racism to name and so I have doubted the misconceptions I want to name. Seemingly so small, I brush each one aside while my mind dissects and my body consumes the tension that harbors in my chest.

See, I don’t know whether that white man pulled his daughter closer to him when he saw me because of my age, my choice of dress, my skin. I could rule out physical distance, there was so much between us, but it seemed he needed more of it, his eyes suggested he needed every kind of distance.

I don’t know how to feel when I think on my Mom’s words around race. The ones drawn when I called myself black. Don’t forget about me. She spoke them out of a yearning love and I paused each time I made that claim. I felt bad, guilty even, to have hurt her. I wonder if it is because neither she nor I could see that owning my blackness did not negate her. I still feel that I did.

As a mixed woman, I want to know if it’s possible to own my blackness without undoing the white make-up of my body and experience. I want to know how to hold the moments where I wonder at that questioning look and not feel a lesser human.

melanin & shame

I would describe the mint and oreo as micro. The subtle kind of aggression that can feel so innocent but plays into a greater damaging narrative. It is a narrative that says melanin can be metered for meaning, and all human complexity then tidied up to reaffirm bias and perceptions. When I say that my black experience has been small, I’ve in fact metered my own melanin for meaning.

I remember a moment while attending a rally event in Capitol Hill in celebration of Juneteenth. One of the speakers requested that all the white people stand along the perimeter of the field and for every black person to sit in the middle. She was requesting that those who claimed to be allies give space for black bodies to feel safe to process all of the racial injustice and murder. I was sitting the moment she called out to the white allies and felt conflicted as she explained why this act was so important.

“Black people leave their homes with an alarm for danger constantly.”

My insecurity of not being black enough flooded through me. I have not been victimized as many of my brothers and sisters have, I have not felt unjustly targeted, at times I feel so “other” from them that I don’t feel confident to even call them my brothers and sisters. I believed in that moment, I belonged on the perimeter with the white allies — wasn’t I more white than black? Didn’t I hold privileges those darker than me could find less access to? My few recollections of micro-aggressions are hazy impressions that don’t have clear scars, so I don’t think they should take up the same space. So again, shouldn’t I be on the edge?

I was stuck in my patch of grass, unable to commit to either, and then I really took in everyone around me. Black looked so varied. Melanin was a spectrum of beautifully dark to light, and though I grappled with this disconnect from a community I’ve always wanted to be a part of, the truth slowly settled in my mind that the insecurity existed because I continued to invest in it.

I don’t have to feel ashamed for my predominately white experience, nor fear that my experience is simply an archetype of black or white because I am not actually full enough for either. Instead, I can feel safe to sit in the center and peace to stand along the perimeter because one does not undo the other. Like how my mother asked me not to forget her in fear that I might lose her, I know my blackness does not undo her, I am bridging the two worlds together by proclaiming, listening, simply being. There is nothing to forget or forgo because both identities are too much a part of me.

After the speeches ended, I took notice of how it felt to take up space in an area inviting POC to be celebrated, and it felt good. The conflict still existed, but with less intensely. It was as though there was a new pride making claim.

melanin & pride

What if I could notice the disparity, privilege, and pride all together. The mint perception, the joke that I am black on the outside and white on the inside, was a minute moment with lasting effects. Effects, though, that have not hindered me from getting jobs or owning my home. Perhaps the best stance is to recognize language’s power, its influence, and what I choose to own for empowerment.

My value lives within the fluidity of my person. I recognize the beauty of multiple cultures because I have had the awesome fortune to know two beautiful ones. It has not always been balanced, the lens through which I view the world is heavily influenced by that predominantly white suburbia. But that is not everything. I am black, I have rich black history and ancestry coursing through me, beautiful black people surrounding me, guiding me.

The junior mint award reminded me that I wanted to belong to a single group. I did not want to be split into different faces with different voices, pulled into different roles. The compliment was confusing as it made me reflect on these two selves that seemed polarizing. Now I wonder if holding the identity of multiple selves is actually the richest choice. How could one be mixed and not have two distinct selves to name? With all the ancestral tradition, the colonial oppression, and responding resilience, to shy from the complicated tribes I come from is to divide myself into a flat form with no expression.

I am recognizing then that my blackness and whiteness can blend and remain individual in whatever way feels honest. I never found it easy to be a fluid member of both groups, but I find acceptance as I shift between the eco-systems. I have vernacular that ebbs and flows continuously, the ability to code switch when necessary, and a growing confidence to let words fall from my lips unashamedly.

My conflict was milky, like my skin, hard to name at first glance and blended with complexity. With every year, I grow more familiar and more distant from this conflict as I determine what I am, and how to answer when I am asked, what are you?

I hope I will never forget nor cringe at the question. I am distinctly and beautifully mixed.

.Kels.