[Kory]

Hey friends.

Am not sure if many of you all know about the "Natural Hair Movement"?
Basically, it's when black women stop manipulating their hair to make it straight. Such as, relaxers or perms.

Lately, there's been some arguing in the natural hair community... some "naturals" feel that biracial people are "hijacking" the movement. That biracial people can't consider themselves to be "black" because they are only half so...

I've struggling with racial identity for a really, really long time.
I'm multiracial; African American, German, Venezuelan and a wee little bit of Italian from my grandfather's mother. As a kid, I grew up in small-town, Minnesota and I was the only colored child in my entire grade up until 5th grade, and even then, the other "brown" kids were mixed like I am.

I was always very ashamed of my heritage growing up. My father tried hard to get me to learn Spanish and truth be told, it was one of the first languages I was exposed to when I was really small. I didn't have an opinion on it until I went to school and realized I was the only brown skinned child, not to mention, the only one who was familiar with Spanish. I started to look at my family, my black family always treated me poorly and called me "white girl" because I wasn't "black enough" for them... I didn't speak like they did, and most importantly, my hair was always fucked up because my mom never knew how to "fix" my hair. Meanwhile, my Latinx family were always really supportive and kind, but I grew up associating them with poverty and ghetto-ness because they were always living in poor areas, they are loud and they didn't fit into my "American dream".. The only German members of my family that I cared about have died. (The last fully German member of my family that is alive is my grandfather's sister, and she's mean as a snake, so I avoid her)


I didn't mean for this to get lengthy and about me..

But when I'm trying to say is, I rejected my family because I was ashamed.. and from all sides, I. got everyone telling me what I should or should not identify as.
"You can't identify as black because that means you are rejecting your other half"
"You can't identify as white because that means you have black shame!"
"You *don't* count!"

WELL.
I do consider myself black. And by saying I am black , I'm not saying I'm ashamed of my heritage. I am proud of my heritage and I'm very glad about my ancestors and what they've done.
My mom always tells me, it doesn't matter what my background is, I'm 100% Ava. 100% human and that's what counts. And if people around me only see me as a color, a nationality, an ethnicity... then they are missing the best part of me. And they aren't worth being my friend.


So....
I'm not sure if anyone here also has racial identity crises,
But how do you feel about things like this? Maybe you don't struggle with racial identity, but maybe identity in other ways?