Battling Racial Imposter Syndrome

I am the amalgamation of my mother and father. Their genetics, beliefs, personalities, and identities are all at work within me. Of course, over time, I have created my own beliefs, chosen my own identities, and developed my own personalities, but a large part of who I am was predetermined by genetics.

As someone who is mixed race, I have struggled a lot with how and to what degree I am allowed to identify as each race. My mom is Black, and my dad is White and Native American. Today, if I am asked about my race, or more likely, someone assumes my whiteness, I quickly respond and say that I am Black, White and Native American. It is quite normal for White Americans to romanticize the past and claim their Native American heritage. No one questions my Lakota-Sioux heritage that comes from my paternal grandfather, but my fair skin makes it hard for people to wrap their minds around my blackness. On the one hand, I understand the curiosity behind the follow up questions like, “Can I see a picture of your family?” or “But why don’t you look Black?” My gut reaction is to get defensive – it’s tough to stomach this blatant doubt about my identity, especially when people are so transparent about their disbelief.

Besides the slight inconvenience of explaining my racial identity, it is hard emotionally to reconcile being both mixed race and white-passing. One of the first times I had to address the complexity of being mixed race was in middle-school when I had to bubble in my race for standardized testing. I was at a crossroads. Should I bubble Black or White? And what about Native American? I remember raising my hand in class to ask the proctor, “What do I put if I’m more than one race?” The proctor kindly told me I could bubble them all in, even though that would probably discount the data that was being collected. When I went home that day and told my mom what happened, she told me that I should always put Black. I don’t hold any resentment towards my mom for what she told me, especially because if I were in her position I probably would have said the same thing. But what this moment does shed light on is that America has built its society around such a binary racial construct, leaving people like me without the language to talk about my identity. I felt ashamed for not knowing what to do in that moment and conflicted that I should just choose one race to identify, especially because that identity is tied to real people that I love—my parents.

At the time, the idea of only identifying myself as Black felt like a betrayal. I felt I shouldn’t have to choose between parents. Even in the comfort of my own home, I never felt I could fully identify as one race or fully embrace one label. My mom and siblings have a sort of routine where if something about blackness comes up in the conversation, one of them will proudly say, “I’m Black,” and the rest will echo the affirming statement. What was born out of both pride and humor became a game I felt I couldn’t play. As the lightest-skinned of my siblings, the idea of declaring that I, too am Black was not an affirmation I felt I was allowed to participate in—even though the purpose of the declaration was meant to include me.

Because most people do not see me the way that I see myself, I find it hard to find spaces where I fit in. The universal feeling of wanting to belong but not being fully able to is what has been at the root of my internal conflict with my own racial identity.

One of the first people outside of my family to acknowledge and love me as a Black person was my friend Caroline. I feel comfortable talking about myself as a Black person with Caroline because she treats me as such. She doesn’t doubt my identity—she accepts it and creates a space for me to feel joy within that identity. Even though she might not know it, the conversations I have with her and my sister about blackness make me feel like I belong, whether it be a political issue or the celebration of Black excellence in a movie we just watched. There is something so radical in the ability to be yourself with someone who sees you the same way you see yourself. The joy that I feel when I get to actually be myself around the people that I love is what I strive to hold onto. That joy is the fuel that allows me to say, “I’m Black” each time my mom, sister, or brother proclaims that same act of love and pride now. It allows me to embrace all the complexities that make me, me.

By Lola Proctor

NYU Student, cool connoisseur and undercover revolutionary.