Wednesday, September 06, 2006

The Hottest Biracial Bitches


"What are you" -White Queen
"Red?" -Red Queen
"White?" -White Queen.
"Pink." -Alice.
"PINK!" -White Queen
"Pink is hardly a color." -Red Queen
"It's a pastel." -White Queen
Thirza Cuthand's Through The Looking Glass

I was surfing around looking for online writings by and about the biracial experience when I came across biracial.com. Wow, I thought, a whole website devoted to biracial people!!! Well, I click on it and it's got total pussy shots and a huge headline proclaiming it to feature "the hottest exclusive biracial bitches on the net." Who knew? And why isn't my face on there?

Really though, I've been thinking a lot about the parallels between bisexuals and biracial/multiracial people. Although I'm not bisexual (I've tried and it always ends up being dumb), my primary romantic attachments have consistently been bisexual women. For a while I thought it was because I consider myself to be a blend of male and female genders, and that I wanted the possibility of transistioning to male without losing the love of my partner. But recently I've begun to think that it is also because I'm biracial. Being someone who straddles the boundaries of race, I find people who do not fit into neat little boxes incredibly sexy.

I also understand the pressure from society to pick a goddamn side and stick to it. No willy nillying around with something as sacred and clear cut as race. White folks think because I ended up with light whitey skin that it erases my ethnic identity and that I should just live as a white person, even though I have very defined aboriginal facial features and grew up within the Aboriginal community. Aboriginals accept me with a certain tinge of animosity, sometimes they think I'm white, sometimes they hate me because I have white privillege due to my skin (nevermind that racism hurts me just as much), sometimes they just want me to deny my Scots/Irish blood altogether. I have trouble filling in forms which want me to choose one race only. Biracial and Multiracial people are emerging as one of the most important aspects to dismantaling the barriers of race, yet so many are closeted, ashamed, and rejected by both or all of their cultures, and critical writings on the biracial/multiracial experience are sorely lacking.

Not only that, but people have the nerve to ask me "but which race are you more?" People assume because I'm so light that I would naturally be mostly white, but ironically I'm nearly three quarters Aboriginal. That all being said, chopping myself up into percentages and measuring out my race is kind of a sick and twisted way of thinking. Kind of like the stupid question people ask bisexuals "but which gender do you like better? Are you more homosexual or heterosexual?"

Another thing I've noticed in the Stupid Things People Ask category is the classic "Which of your parents is white/aboriginal?" This is fucked in a few ways. One, it assumes that interracial relationships is a relatively new phenomenon, when it's been going on for thousands of years. Another is that I'm a third generation biracial person, maybe even fourth generation. My ancestors are Scots, Irish, Cree, Red River Metis (which means I'm partially French as well), and Saulteaux. I have as much affinity for traditional drumming and fancy dance as I do for bagpipes and Irish step dancing.

There is something really revolutionary about people stepping forward and creating communities and dialogue about being on the borders, whether it's bisexuality, mixed race, or being both male and female. My dream is to see a day when all of these different groups band together and tell the world to knock off this divisive shit.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Very late comment, but I was perusing the web on bi-racial stuff, too (didn't come across the "pussy shots", but then again, I wasn't exactly looking either), and any talk of biracialism is always of intrique to a biracialite, no? So I just thought I'd agree with the irritation and general disdain for "picking sides", in any regard--sexual, racial, political, etc. Go bi-biracialites! Whoo-hoo!