A multiracial son chooses to embrace his Black identity
This week, Aidan decided he is Black.
He announced this at the family dinner table, as we served mashed potatoes, green beans and meat loaf. Aidan used to like my meat loaf, but everything changes.
Aidan’s Black now. Partly because he feels more comfortable in his skin at Compass High, whereas I think he felt that he needed to be white while he was at Riordan. Partly because of teenage rebellion. If my husband, Brian, and I were Black, I’m pretty sure he’d say he was white.
When he was little, he used to insist on his whiteness. One afternoon, after kindergarten, he got into the front seat of the Griffin (our old family car) and announced, “Zane’s the only one who has to sit in the back of the car.” Aidan had missed the nuances in his teacher’s lesson about Rosa Parks. It is one of the few times I’ve ever seen Zane cry.
Aidan’s Black now. Partly, I hope, because he knows that although he and Zane have challenges, underneath it all, they are brothers.
This is one of those third-rail conversations. When we fostered Aidan back in 2006, the social worker had little information about his health or family history. He appeared vaguely Latinx, but in our family the exact designation didn’t matter.
Aidan’s Aunt Amanda is Jewish. His Uncle Ming is Asian. His Tita Ann is Filipina. So, we gave him the smorgasbord of culture, lighting the Shabbat candles for the menorah on Hanukkah, and then again for the kinara on Kwanzaa. He went straight from Dia de los Muertos through Lunar New Year and into Pride.
When we got to the race box on school applications, I wrote, “Your guess is as good as ours.” Only once. Brian stopped me after that
But then our fairy godsister sent us a 23andMe DNA testing kit. It involved a lot of spitting, and a few surprises. Zane turned out to be three-quarters subSaharan African, a little bit Native American and just a teensy bit Celtic. Brian turned out to be a lot less French Canadian than he claimed. Me, I turned out to be the whitest person in my family, a distinction I take no pride in, other than to say a little bit of French sneaked into my gene pool when no one was looking.
Aidan is roughly half British Isles/ half sub-Saharan African.
Much of the talk about race in this column has been about Zane. Zane is Black and will always be seen as Black. He embraces the music and the language. And he pays the price. Deputies in Sonoma County treated him differently than they would treat a white teenager. From Zane we learned that Black Lives Matter.
But Aidan is in a strange space. Although he is not socially adept, he could navigate either world if he chose to. And this week, he did make a choice.
According to the U.S. census, in 2010, the multiracial population was measured as 9 million people. In 2020, it was counted as 33.8 million, a 276% increase, the fastest-growing demographic.
This week, Aidan reminded me that we are who we choose to be.
There is more than one truth to each individual. We choose which of these truths to reveal. I am, in full disclosure, half leprechaun, one-quarter Viking and one-quarter whatever mystery genes Grandpa Wise brought to Johnstown, Pa. (some of which may have been French), but I present as Irish. Culturally I am Irish. We celebrate St. Patrick’s Day but not Midsommar. We cook farl but not lutefisk.
Brian danced with Sean Dorsey Dance for a very long time, and he brought home an understanding about the challenges of the transgender community. I came to believe gender was a construct, and that each of us is who we are, not who we are assigned at birth. More importantly, each of us is who we become.
Race may also be a construct, but as a white man I can see the argument only through my own lens of privilege. I am blessed to be a part of a family that challenges my own perceptions.
For Aidan, he’s not “passing” as Black. He is who he has decided to be.
Aidan’s Black now. This week at least. And this is what he’s taught me: Biracial lives matter.
This week, Aidan reminded me that we are who we choose to be. There is more than one truth to each individual.