“What Are You?”: Racial Ambiguity and the Social Construction of Race in the Us Page: 67
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their lives and gave extraordinary insight into the challenges they face, even with their closest
loved ones living as racially ambiguous people in the U.S.
Brenda is a black woman who is racially ambiguous and who has only dated black men,
but she finds that her partners often inflict pain on her by teasing her and telling her that she is
not black to the point that she sometimes breaks down in tears. "So I don't know I just cope with
it. I just go 'whatever, they don't know me.' But even people who know me, even my boyfriend
and stuff, just joke about it all the time. I just really have to act like it just doesn't bother me.
That's how I cope with it. I don't know." Racial ambiguity was also a sensitive issue when
Brenda was in high school and a cheerleader. Some black students accused her of being too
white, and they disapproved of her, even though she saw herself as having a black identity.
There wasn't that big a split, but I still had some black friends in high school. I had a
black boyfriend. I've only dated black guys, so I mean it wasn't that I had to choose one
or the other, but I guess you can think of it like there was one large group of black people
that I couldn't be around them because they were kind of like the stereotypical kind of
black people, and then there was like the in-between and then there was like the white
kids. I would never be around them (the stereotypical blacks) I would be around these
two (the in-between blacks and the whites), because it made everything easier, than to
conform to be the acceptable kind of black people. Oh my gosh, that sounds horrible but
that's how people think.
For Theresa, the dating rituals of high school led to beginning to appreciate and
understand her black heritage. Although she is biracial, and her mother is white and her father
black, her father was in the military and away at war while she was going through formative
experiences as a child, and she did not have positive black role models or peers growing up until
she had a high school boyfriend who was black.
Well I didn't really date in high school. I just went out with friends. I didn't like anyone
because after freshman year, my love went away. (Boy's name) went away. He was a
senior and he was a dark, dark black man, but he was oh so beautiful. He played the
saxophone. He could sing. He could dance. He was just oh...And after he left, it was like
what do I have to look forward to?67
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Smith, Starita. “What Are You?”: Racial Ambiguity and the Social Construction of Race in the Us, dissertation, May 2012; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc115163/m1/74/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .