Be your true self

Dec 03, 2017 Features / Columnists, Food For Thought

My dad is Caucasian and my mom is African American which makes me half-black and half-white.
“What are you?” is a question I get asked almost everyday of my life…
I grew up in a neighbourhood in LA that wasn’t racially or ethnically diverse at all.
People asked my mom if she was my nanny, because she was dark-skinned and I wasn’t.
Once, someone called her THAT word, to her face, right in front of me, mom’s eyes filled with tears.
I was so angry that I could only whisper “It’s OK, Mommy.”
When I was 12, I had to complete a mandatory census at school. One of the first questions asked if I was white, black, Hispanic or Asian.
I had to check one box. I was confused. I had curly hair and a freckled face and I was both black AND white.
I stared at the question, not knowing what box to check. I had to choose one. But that meant choosing one parent over another, choosing one half of myself over the other. My teacher saw that I was confused, she walked over to me and said: “Check the box for Caucasian.” When I asked her why, she said: “Because that’s how you look.” I couldn’t do it. I put my pen down.
I pictured the sadness Mom would feel if she found out which box I checked, so I left the box blank. “I left my identity blank – a question mark, an absolute incomplete – much like how I felt.”
Dad never got angry, but that night, when I told him what happened at school, that I didn’t know which box to check, he was very, very quiet, like he was struggling inside.
And what he said next had guided my life. He said, “Draw your own box, and always be your true self.”
I’m now the first bi-racial person to be welcomed into the British Royal Family “Reflecting from where I came from helps me appreciate what I have now.” Be your true self – Meghan Markle

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