 Hi there, lovers and friends. Permission to be imperfect, please. Permission to not use the right language or say the right things or say some problematic things in this video because I'm going to be honest with you, race and identity politics is not my area of expertise. It is an area that I'm fascinated by and it is an area that I've talked about a lot on my channel. And so I wanted to continue the conversation, but with the allowance that I'm willing to learn. I'm willing to be proven wrong. And the comment section is there for a reason. You can school me all you want. Just be compassionate and your schooling is all that I'm requesting. This video is in reflection to the TV show Mixed Dish, which if you didn't recognize, that's where the crown is from. It's a headband, but I'll call it a crown. The show premiered yesterday and Mixed Dish is the third iteration of the ish family. There was Blackish, then Grownish, now there's Mixed Dish. And Mixed Dish is the unique perspective of what it is like to be a mixed person specifically, what it was like to be a mixed person growing up in a time where interracial marriages were just legalized. And that's the story of Beau in the TV show. And so as somebody who is hella Mixed Dish, I was obviously very peaked by the idea of this. And I was obviously very excited to check it out. And when I did watch it, in many ways, it didn't disappoint. I can tell. And mind you, you cannot make an assessment of a show based on this 30 minute pilot, but it did obviously hint at a lot of underlying topics it's going to bring up. But the one thing that kind of rubbed me the wrong way, I don't want to say rub me the wrong way. I just want to say like, gave me cause for pause is the storyline that I think that we perpetuate a lot when it comes to the mixed experience, which is the mixed person doesn't belong anywhere. You've got, in the case of somebody who is biracial, half black, half white, you have two very established dominant races that are very identifiable and distinct. And then you've got the person in the middle who is a mixture of one of each group member. And the mixed person in the middle, their story usually is depicted as the whites didn't accept them fully and the blacks didn't accept them fully. And so because there is no identifiable or communion of mixed people, that'll probably change the next 10, 20 years. But currently, there really isn't any identifiable mixed community. There are no mixed scholarships. There's no mixed activist groups. And if there are, again, maybe I don't know, but because of that mixed people are sort of this mangrove, just their own individual island with just floating around with no true sense of belonging. And belonging is massively important. Identity politics matter. And you can go to any natural habitat and see that the birds of a feather do flock together, that we are biologically wired to want to be around people who look like us because subconsciously we feel safer because we understand those individuals and they remind us of people that love us and treat us with love and respect. So we are drawn to those who look like us. And so if you don't look like anybody, that's where you can end up becoming that mangrove who's got nowhere to go. But when we say that story of mixed people don't belong, we're really slapping in the face. I think the community of people who have truly embraced those who are mixed with black and have been so gracious and so welcoming and so warm in many ways beyond reason, which is the black community. The black community has carved out such a beautiful door for mixed people to feel welcome, to feel a part of. They've created, to me, just like a beautiful sense of belonging that has made all the difference in my life. And I'm such, I'm a better person because I have been loved by black people, specifically black women. And I am somebody who is mixed with black, but I can never be a representative. I can never stand in the soapbox and try to tell that story because of the way that I look. I have not experienced the same adversities in that way and nor have I experienced the same sense of welcoming, but even just the percentage that I do get has literally made all the difference in my life. And sometimes I totally feel undeserving of it. So that's just one particular thing about the show that miffed me and I think that we should be cautious of. So anyhow, I just wanted to share what my experience has been as a mixed person and how my attitude towards race and identity has changed over time as a result. So I grew up in a West Indian family. My dad is Guyanese and my mom is Dominican and Irish. Now her Irish side, which is her father, left when she was born. So she had no connection to her white side. But my dad on the other hand, who was Guyanese and predominantly Indian, he had a massive family. He's got like eight to 10 brothers and sisters and tons of cousins and they were all in Toronto. So I grew up really predominantly identifying as Indian, identifying and being around and seeing my family as Indian. And it wasn't until I got to the school age, I started identifying and mixing with others that I recognized that unless you were at Christmas with me, you don't see me as one of you as an Indian person. You don't look to me as kin and as community. And that just became very clear to me early on. I am not identifiably Indian in any way. And I shared this on another video. I literally have had one experience in my whole life where somebody has looked at me and been like, oh, where are you from north or south? And I was like, north or south Toronto? Like no, like India. And I was like blown away just because I just have never received that kind of community, which is neither here nor there. Again, it goes back to identity politics. So I actually went to an all white school, not all white on purpose. Just it was a suburban school and majority of people were white. I didn't like go to like a white supremacist school. That's how it sounded. So in this white school, I can say I have never felt so ugly, other and insignificant, probably in my life. So much so that when I got to grade nine, I genuinely acknowledged I was starting over because high school is bigger with more people. And I was like, at this point going forward, it's not a single person from my elementary school that I need to continue a relationship with. I just always I never was anyone's first choice, not to like, not to sleep over, not to partner with. And when I did feel accepted by white people and I did feel like I was being embraced, it was usually because of my athleticism. I was really good at track. And so that time of year I was usually popular. But other than that, yeah, just I was never really seen for my gifts. I was never really seen for my greatness. And in high school, I adopted a very mixed ethnicity, but majority black and Indian, but West Indian in general community. And it was there that I found a sense of belonging. And it was there that I was told I was beautiful. And it was there that I really started to I did develop my place in the world as a black woman as a West Indian woman as a person of color. So so much so to the point that in college, I actually went to a historically black university for a year. I went to Coppin State University in Baltimore. And I think that's where my relationship with blackness started to really get damaged. I did not fit in visually at all. I think we're in my high school because it was a mix of black and brown and also to like in Canada, there's a really wide acceptance for racially ambiguous people to still be a part of community because Guyanese people are like very largely like racially ambiguous and mixed with black, Portuguese Indian and to some extent white. So I've never really I've always been understood there. But when I went away to school in Baltimore, the question I got almost daily is what are you black or white? And it was such a confusing question to me because I was like, cool. Kind of both. You know what I mean? Like I just I didn't know that I had to choose in that way. And like there was no understanding for how to identify me. I think that when we don't understand something is cognitive dissonance, right? It creates it an aversion in us. Like if you see something that you don't quite get, you don't know how to put your finger on it. You don't know how to categorize it. It can actually make you uncomfortable. And so I think that I made people uncomfortable and I got bullied a lot at Coppenstay and I got talked about behind my back a lot. I was disliked a lot and it didn't help that because I was one of few people who has the quintessential exotic girl looks like the light eyes and the wavy to curly hair that the 3B I don't know 3B hair. Black men were very very attracted to me because again they've been socialized through music videos to view somebody with my archetype as attractive. And so I got all this positive attention from the men and that's all this negative attention from the women and both of those extremes just really made me feel very uncomfortable and very othered. And I didn't like it. And so at that point I feel like I didn't have enough empathy for black women in particular. I feel like I expected black women to do all of the work. So instead of me acknowledging that I was someone new, someone different and maybe there was an education on my part that I had to give, I expected for them just to understand me just to get me and just to make a space for me. And if I go back in time I do that differently. I think during college I was very reclusive. I didn't talk a lot unless you knew me well. I had very, I talked to my roommate, I talked to my boyfriend, I had a very very small group and I didn't try to challenge people or educate people or create conversations with those who I felt didn't really understand me. I just accepted that they didn't want to talk to me and so I didn't talk to them. And I guided and make the, I didn't create a solution and I definitely if anything made the problem bigger but mostly for myself. And through that experience I feel like if I've talked about my mixed ethnicity or my position in blackness it's always been with that slant of well it's been hard for me too. Like well I've also been discriminated against. I've also experienced marginalization. I've also felt like the way that I look determines how people treat me but mostly through the black experience versus through the rest of the world. And god damn it how insensitive. You know what I mean? Like I think comparative pain is so immature. I think comparative pain is so regressive and just doesn't actually speak to what's actually happening because the truth of the matter is the reason why that black people had the most opinions about me is because black people are the only ones who cared, who gave a fuck. You know who were again acknowledging and thinking of me at all. And instead of looking at it from that lens I chose to see it from the negative one. And as I got older and race becomes less important I think the older that you get. That's again that could be a very privileged statement to make but in my experience my race has become less important as time has gone on. Like I said there was a time in my life where it wasn't like hey how are you? Where do you go to school? It was like hey what's your name? Are you black or white? So race was like at the forefront of every single interaction that I had and identity and asking to identify myself was always the first question. As you get older and especially in LA the question is more what do you do? Where do you live? Where are you from? So now I think that the pressure has come off in that area. I'm able to look at it from a bird's eye view. I can take that weight off and then elevate myself and look over the whole entire picture and see how I was the cause of a lot of the problems. And to see how the my racial insensitivity caused me to blame rather than embrace. And again like I said the top of this video I just think that when I look at it as a whole black women in particular have just gone out of their way to embrace me and to try to understand me and I think at this point in my life that's something that I am interested in learning how to give back. That I am interested in learning how to reciprocate. Not to say that other groups haven't embraced and given me space but there's just a difference. I'll give a loose example like the two big Hollywood jobs that I've gotten before. One for MTV and one for Facebook. In both cases when I got the script like their first rough draft of like what the show breakdown was. Both times it wasn't my name on the sheet it was another white expert's name. And not that they that's probably an oversight on on their part but that's just to let me know I wasn't their first pick. That another white expert said no first and as a result they were like oh you know it'd be good actually if you got that person of color because that they're also good. Hey this person can't doesn't want to do this job. It's gotten enough money. She'll probably do it and it's good. It looks good for us or whatever their reasoning was. Maybe I'm just their second pick or just second best in general. I'm not sure but it's just those moments like that that just let you know that you're not their first pick. And when my book came out there was a very large conversation as to whether or not I should be on the cover because the idea is my book The Game of Desire is not a book that is about or is for any particular race. And I if you've read it know that there is an Asian person there is a Latino person there is there are three black women and then there is a white queer woman. And so making sure because again I understand how important identity politics are making sure that there was representation so you can open the book and hear from somebody who looks like you was important to me. So my book to me is not I hate to use the word colorless because there's no such thing as that but I tried to make it as universally appealing as possible. And so the conversation around whether I should be on the cover or not was really like well do we want to make this like an urban book right because even just presenting my face in general signifies to a certain population that I'm not for them. I think that is a lot with I mean power to you. I mean power to people in a position of privilege where you're so accustomed to being able to identify precisely with somebody like not just skin color but hair texture and hair color and eye color because you have so many different options like your identification gets to be so much more nuanced and so as a result of that you tend to throw away people who they don't think you're a type at all. And so when you see a person of color on a book it signifies to a certain portion of the population that this book is not for them when in truth it is. And so ultimately we decided not to put me on the cover but all that to be said guess who showed up for me guess who was there guess who supported guess who showed out black women that is who said yes that is who embraced me that is who said like this is our champion this is our expert and this is our first pick and furthermore I think through this entire experience this book I've just become so and just so grateful and wrapped up in the love of people in general but really specifically black women like bossy ickpe who is a writer who I should have her book I don't have it on me right now and if I pronounced your name wrong I'm very very sorry but she has a book called I'm lying but I'm telling the truth it was a number one it was a New York Times best-selling book which less than probably decimal two percent of books get to have that title in front of it a massive breakout success huge critical acclaim and I've never met this person before in my life and I don't know why like we were just able to connect and create community I saw her book at the airport and I was like this is the thing too no void of the fact that our books don't have anything to do with each other if you go on Amazon her book is related next to mine as well as Elaine Welter Roth which I hope that's how you pronounce your name but Elaine Welter Roth's book you're more than enough and once again we're not in the same category or vertical but just because we are women of color we are suggested related because black women are just buying books to support black women so I saw a Bassie's book at an airport and it is my dream to one day be in airport in the bookstore because like ten books get included at airport bookstore so if you're there you really really made it so I saw a Bassie's book there and it was just a moment to say good good for her like I'm really happy that a black woman in such a short span of time because her book actually came out after mine by like maybe even a month or two was able to accomplish this feat and so I put it on my story and she immediately reached out and she said I'm also gonna buy your book and then since then has just gone above and beyond to try to find ways to partner with me to plug me in to assist me and the statement that she made is black writers have to stick together you know black women writers and creators have to sit together because it's very different for us and I honestly cried and not just just reading that you know I'm so I think again as a mixed person you're very accustomed to sort of feeling a little alone a little other and so those moments where somebody like claims you as one just you it is invaluable for all the stupid reasons that I probably should be more evolved then but it was just like a really nice nice and kind gesture so that to say that has been my experience as a as a mixed black person still navigating this space of how do I be as proud and as contributive as I can to black women in particular while not taking up their space or their opportunities to tell their story from their vantage point which the world needs more than anything else and so that's it that is what this whole thing was about mixed ish looking forward to watching the show and I'm looking forward to seeing how that conversation evolves and yeah in the comment section below I would love to hear from you I don't know what on because I've covered a couple of different things in this video but if you are a mixed person you know where have you felt the most at home who has opened their arms to you the widest and have you been paying attention maybe you don't care about stuff at all and so yeah that's the conversation I want to go to if you're not a mixed person and you want to give some advice and you want to give some pointers for how you would like to see people who are mixed with your identity best represent you let's do that too