A tale of two “halfs”: being black, while being biracial

Abstract

Using counter-storytelling, this manuscript provides auto-ethnographies from two Black-biracial scholars. The authors’ narratives present an intimate account of how being half - Black is experienced by Black-biracial individuals. Specifically, this study details the accounts of how two Black-biracial scholars, who don’t fit into the rigid Black-white racial binaries of American society, construct their racial identity through intra- and inter-group conflict. Their counter-stories demonstrate how Black-biracial individuals must navigate the intersections of their racial identity formation while attempting to find solace in a racialized world with limited biracial examples. Their stories detail multiple intersections of racial acceptance and rejection from those within the Black community and outside of it; as well as the intersections of sexuality, the meaning of being Black, being a nigga, affirmation and otherness from non-biracial people, which all culminate to highlight the lives of those who are considered half something, but racially incomplete.

Keywords:

• Racial identity development
• black-biracial
• biracial identity development
• whiteness for biracials

Notes

Notes

1 In 1899 W.E.B. DuBois stated in his first footnote of The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study,

I shall throughout this study use the term ‘Negro’ to designate all persons of Negro Descent, although the appellation is to some extent illogical. I shall, moreover, capitalize the word, because I believe that eight million Americans are entitled to a capital letter. (p.1)

In that same vain, we too shall from this point on capitalize Black, as it is representative of a cultural, lifestyle, reality, and ideology of my people - so for that reason, we are entitled to a capital letter.

2 Conventions of writing, specific to APA formatting, would claim that if we capitalize the first letter of Black that we must do the same for white when referring to those of the white race. However, we intentionally use a lower-case “w” as a form of resistance to the inherent dominance of white-skinned privilege in the United States (e.g. Feagin, 2010; Harris, 1993) and in academic writing (see Bonilla-Silva, 2006; Fox, 1994; Hall, 1980).

3 The particular rules and socially acceptable guidelines for what it means to be Black are mediated by physical, emotional, social, and historical beliefs and assumptions. These beliefs are even more compounded by context (i.e. personal or professional setting), region (geographic location), and perspective (i.e. acceptance of the African Diaspora). Moreover, the arbitrariness of the rules and guidelines can be insignificant to the larger construct of Blackness, while simultaneously, being monumental to the individual defining those rules. Nevertheless, we use Blackness as an all-encompassing term that includes the variance and nuances of Black culture, the lived Black experience, and the historical residuals of being African in the Americas.

4 We use post-colonialist Alfred Lopez (2012) and Critical Race Theorist Cheryl Harris (1993) definition when discussing whiteness, which they refer to as the most prominent marker of international “hegemony and imperialism” identifiable by its set of “assumptions, privileges, and benefits” of being and obtaining white. Its entrenched nature into the narrative of our society provides a script for which we define reality, value, Truth (Foucault, 1980), and humanity in a postcolonial world (Hall, 2001).

5 Caroline is a non-binary individual who uses the singular they/them pronouns. The singular they has been in use since the 14th century but has more recently been used as a more gender-inclusive pronoun than she or he.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nathaniel Andrew Williams

Nate Williams is an assistant professor in the Educational Studies Department at Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois.

Caroline Ware

Caroline Ware was an undergraduate student at Knox College (graduated June 2018) with a major in Elementary Education.