Why I don't want to take an ancestry test
Something I've been noticing lately, is that people are more commonly asking me to elaborate on the white side of my family, in addition to the black side. So, alongside the questioning of why I look this way in the first place, there comes this second line of questioning about why I look exactly the way that I do, and what specific country can we narrow it down to in order to make my appearance make more logical sense.
I know that I am very German, because my grandmother emigrated from Germany, my aunt was born there and spent her first five years with her German grandparents, and because my dad speaks fluent German when he talks to our relatives. But this is not my white side of the family; my dad is the black one. Because I am not describing my mom's side of the family, this story is not really answering the question the way that people want it answered. They want to know exactly why my skin tone mixed together in the way that it did, why my features revealed themselves in the way that they did, why my eyes are green, why my nose is small; they want to rip me apart, piece by piece, and put me back together after they have held my body, my features, my identity up to a very bright light, one bright enough to solve the mystery of my appearance. I don't know the answers to these things, and honestly, I don't want to. It's gotten to the point where the mystery of my mixedness is really the biggest aspect of my identity that remains as mine, without the constant interruption and interpretation of other people who want to make sense of me.
It hurts the most when black people say that I have a nice tan. When they say this, I want to scream at them that it is not just a tan, that no I am not descended from olive-skinned Italians picking grapes in the countryside, no I am not something exotic and interesting, with a backstory to match, that I am American black, just like them. I don't know my history, I don't veil to a certain African country, I don't know why I am the color I am, because my family is a hundred different shades of brown. Being called "tan" is another layer of not feeling accepted, of being labeled outsider, though it is veiled in a compliment. I realize that I am not supposed to feel prickly about it, I am supposed to accept the compliment, feel pretty, be thankful, move on. But I hate having my identity called into question, being picked and chosen by the day, by the hour, by the people who take a few looks at me and decide to force me into a box into which I don't fit, just so they are comfortable enough to move on to a new topic of conversation.
A few months ago, I was with a friend in a bar outside of Oakland, and a black guy started hitting on me. I was a little drunk, and so I was a little feisty, and clearly communicated my disinterest. After I had moved four to six feet away from him and back with my friend, I overheard him telling his friend "Yeah, she was wayyyy too white for me." I'm a bit sensitive about this, because I am always getting my non-white identity called into question and I hate it the most, and so I snapped. It's like the times people have taken one look at me and called me racist for being in certain spaces, or the times when I explain my ethnicity and people correct me, saying "oh no you're not, you must be something else." I get very angry because what is more shame-inducing, more hurtful, than being denied your right to choose an identity?
I don't want to take an ancestry test. I had an interest in it initially, but the amount of times people have asked me to get one in order to more clearly articulate what I am beyond "black and white" has made the idea seem so far from being about me, so distanced from giving me clarity, and so centered in giving other people clarity, giving them a neatly constructed answer that must be right because it is from my DNA, and because it is country-specific. I don't want to have an answer to give people, because I want the answer I have had to live with my entire life to finally be enough for everyone else. Why do conversations about my skin, my face, my eyes, my hair, my lineage, my family have to be veiled in such distrust of my own ability to identify my identity and my own appearance. Sometimes it's fun to watch people squirm in the discomfort of having a racially unlabeled person in front of them, but most of the time it just makes me feel like I'm floating in space, unconnected to any semblance of identity until I know where the other person stands, and what they would like to see me as. After all, in many conversations how they decide to listen or not listen to me as I've told them my ethnicity often defines how the rest of the conversation will go.
I know that I am very German, because my grandmother emigrated from Germany, my aunt was born there and spent her first five years with her German grandparents, and because my dad speaks fluent German when he talks to our relatives. But this is not my white side of the family; my dad is the black one. Because I am not describing my mom's side of the family, this story is not really answering the question the way that people want it answered. They want to know exactly why my skin tone mixed together in the way that it did, why my features revealed themselves in the way that they did, why my eyes are green, why my nose is small; they want to rip me apart, piece by piece, and put me back together after they have held my body, my features, my identity up to a very bright light, one bright enough to solve the mystery of my appearance. I don't know the answers to these things, and honestly, I don't want to. It's gotten to the point where the mystery of my mixedness is really the biggest aspect of my identity that remains as mine, without the constant interruption and interpretation of other people who want to make sense of me.
It hurts the most when black people say that I have a nice tan. When they say this, I want to scream at them that it is not just a tan, that no I am not descended from olive-skinned Italians picking grapes in the countryside, no I am not something exotic and interesting, with a backstory to match, that I am American black, just like them. I don't know my history, I don't veil to a certain African country, I don't know why I am the color I am, because my family is a hundred different shades of brown. Being called "tan" is another layer of not feeling accepted, of being labeled outsider, though it is veiled in a compliment. I realize that I am not supposed to feel prickly about it, I am supposed to accept the compliment, feel pretty, be thankful, move on. But I hate having my identity called into question, being picked and chosen by the day, by the hour, by the people who take a few looks at me and decide to force me into a box into which I don't fit, just so they are comfortable enough to move on to a new topic of conversation.
A few months ago, I was with a friend in a bar outside of Oakland, and a black guy started hitting on me. I was a little drunk, and so I was a little feisty, and clearly communicated my disinterest. After I had moved four to six feet away from him and back with my friend, I overheard him telling his friend "Yeah, she was wayyyy too white for me." I'm a bit sensitive about this, because I am always getting my non-white identity called into question and I hate it the most, and so I snapped. It's like the times people have taken one look at me and called me racist for being in certain spaces, or the times when I explain my ethnicity and people correct me, saying "oh no you're not, you must be something else." I get very angry because what is more shame-inducing, more hurtful, than being denied your right to choose an identity?
I don't want to take an ancestry test. I had an interest in it initially, but the amount of times people have asked me to get one in order to more clearly articulate what I am beyond "black and white" has made the idea seem so far from being about me, so distanced from giving me clarity, and so centered in giving other people clarity, giving them a neatly constructed answer that must be right because it is from my DNA, and because it is country-specific. I don't want to have an answer to give people, because I want the answer I have had to live with my entire life to finally be enough for everyone else. Why do conversations about my skin, my face, my eyes, my hair, my lineage, my family have to be veiled in such distrust of my own ability to identify my identity and my own appearance. Sometimes it's fun to watch people squirm in the discomfort of having a racially unlabeled person in front of them, but most of the time it just makes me feel like I'm floating in space, unconnected to any semblance of identity until I know where the other person stands, and what they would like to see me as. After all, in many conversations how they decide to listen or not listen to me as I've told them my ethnicity often defines how the rest of the conversation will go.
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