A Secret Third Thing: Identity in 2024

You are four and your mother pulls a paddle brush through curls and you screech like a banshee between her knees. Before you were born, she learned the basics of Black hair care but your hair came out a curly amalgamation no one was prepared for.

You are ten and learn about MLK Jr’s life and death. And you finally realize your father and your family are Black in the way means something outside of them simply being who they are.

You are fourteen and one of the Black girls in your class leans in in the moments before the bell rings and asks: “Is it your mom or your dad?”

“My dad,” you say.

She nods in confirmation, without judgment or confrontation. It is just simple fact. “I thought so.” Black women will always be able to tell.

You are sixteen and there is another girl with your same first and last name. When your mother comes to pick you up, the office staff asks her if you are “the black one or the white one?” And  she doesn’t know how to answer.

You are seventeen and you watch Return of the King in theater with your dad, who founded your love of sci-fi and fantasy. And it’s not until years later you realize upon the millionth re-watch, there are no people of color on screen. It’s a strange, slow sort of a realization that kick starts something in you.

You are nineteen and live on the Colorado Front Range. The girls you fall into friendship with are Christian and Mormon and you try to match their devotion, even though it feels hollow to you. They are kind, in their way, but their view of the world is very black and white. Their view of their future very similar and suburban. And you know that you cannot be one of them.

You are in college away from home. People like to play the “Let’s-guess-your-ethnicity” game. No one ever guesses right.

A friend drunkenly whispers “Are you a Mulatto?” at a French movie night.

“Yes,” you say through gritted teeth. “But we don’t use that word.” 

She doesn’t know that you have been studying the origin of your family’s being; Black enslaved women settling in the New World. You read your ancestors’ fates described over and over again that you need to take breaks and sit outside in the sun. And when you pick those books back up you read about those children, your family, classified and sold Muatto, Quadroon.  It finally answers the question as to why you and your brothers all have hazel eyes instead of brown.

You have a coworker who does not address or even look at you. A friend tells you it’s because he knows you’re black and he hates you for it. It’s the first time you’ve ever been confronted with the harsh truth of that hatred that brought your family into being.

You are twenty three and strangers at the bus stop ask you: “What are you?” You are in a new city, navigating the world without your parents. This question has been asked all your life and yet, you still don't quite know how to answer.

You are twenty-five and in graduate school in Portland and are sitting in a program-wide meeting and realize that you are the only person of color in a room of at least sixty people. And it finally clicks for you, why Publishing is so very white. You spend the rest of your time in school learning as much as you can, finding as much data as you can about race and publishing and where things could change. This is the a major part of your career but you don’t know that yet.

You are thirty and you realize you wear your womanhood like a mecha suit. It's good body for the most part. You've made your peace with your thighs and acne scars. You decorate in tattoos and piercings and flirt with dying your hair every few years. Each act begins to reveal a you that looks, well, like...you. But the you narrating this, the you that thinks and perceives and feels is more like a little light that powers the suit that is your body. It is seperate but not displeasing. You are not angry at the gender of the mecha you live in, nor are you dissapointed. But it is simply a tool for navigating the world and you thank it for doing it's job well.

You are thirty-two and are attending an online intro to Judaism class. You learn the prayers, the Shema (and being to say it under your breath when things become overwhelming), learn that to be Jewish is to exist in both ancient ways and the modern world. When you go to the Mikvah three years later, the Rabbi sings prayers over you and you float in the water's warm embrace. You let it cover you, seperate every hair on your head, you flex your fingers and toes and make sure it touches every inch of you. When you emerge, you add another identity to the growing list.

And you begin to see a pattern of your life; often caught in the middle of two solid points on the line of "who are you?" You find the most comfort in the grey area, where names are difficult and are many windows where one can be perceived. You are not black or white, you are not a woman or a man. You are find that you have always a secret third thing.