Birth of a Nation: Looking Back and Looking Forward

As President Barack Obama completes his first week in office, I want to take this chance in my first column to discuss the implications of our president’s racial categorization. Like Obama, I am a biracial American. Over the years, I have struggled to understand what it means to be biracial and how my identity functions culturally.

Because of the embattled history between black and white Americans, double-consciousness is particularly pronounced when these two groups intermarry. My parents were married at a time when most states barred interracial marriages. My mother’s family disapproved and kicked her out of the family. My mother formed a new family with my father, but in breaking with her relatives and her community of origin, her consciousness was changed—she was no longer an accepted part of the Caucasian world, as she had left her world and was standing between the African-American and Caucasian cultures. She became an outsider to both racial groups but also possessed a double-consciousness. Ultimately, I would argue that being biracial means having a liminal consciousness even more than a double-consciousness. Mixed people are a liminal people that culturally live in the borderlands.

One hope for Obama is that he is a sign of racial unity in America, proof that we are no longer bound by prejudice. To some extent, this is true. But I hesitate to say that we have our first black president because the experience of a biracial person is radically different from the experience of someone who is Caucasian or African-American. America’s faith in Obama’s ability to create unity stems from his interracial background, even though most people simply slot him into the African-American category—he is a fulfillment of the dream of Martin Luther King Jr. because of his interracial background. I am pointing to the tendency of biracial people to be pushed into one category when the consciousness of being biracial is defined by the blurring of strict racial and social categories.

Would Obama have been voted into office if he had been entirely African-American? While this is a question that has no answers, it is worthwhile to note that biracial people are still forced to one side or another and that Americans still have a long road ahead before we can rid ourselves of black-white tensions. Therefore, another huge step toward racial unity will occur when biracial people can be recognized as such without enduring criticism for rejecting categorization as African Americans. Undeniably, biracial people experience the same kind of racism as African Americans. However, biracial people often experience racism from both Caucasians and African Americans. In this way, terms such as mulatto may be outdated, but they remain important in their acknowledgement that being biracial is as different as Caucasian is from African-American.

This “b’twixt and between” consciousness of biracial people is now becoming more typical of the American mindset. Growing up in Morningside Heights, I was acutely aware of living in an area that bordered Harlem. The view from our living room window eventually became a metaphor for how I viewed integration and being biracial. This top-floor window overlooked almost all of Harlem but seemed far removed—our building was perched safely on a hill and separated from Harlem by a large park. In reality, Morningside Heights is a borderland—a bit too far uptown to still be the Upper West Side but not quite Harlem either.

Integration in general has functioned in a similar way—whites and blacks are pushed up against each other until borders become independent categories. The ethic and racial diversity of America has demanded that we live in a cultural space where these strict racial dividers are fluid, and dividers are now borderlands with their own cultures, consciousness, and inhabitants. The cultural line between white and black cultures has long been blurred—from the jazz era to the hip-hop era, white and black people have been blending cultures and consciousness. Although our society is far from ideal integration, it seems that black and white Americans alike are embracing a liminal culture.

But this liminal borderland is most pronounced for those of us who are biracial because it is not a place we have chosen to inhabit—it has been culturally thrust upon those who will not cave to societal pressure to pick only one race and remain loyal to it. Obama is not only trying to walk the middle line in his policies, but he has lived in the middle his whole life in a borderland consciousness. It is my hope that he and other biracial Americans claim both sides of their heritage.

I chose the title of this week’s column because it is a reference to the film that sparked mass membership for the Ku Klux Klan and also because Obama’s presidency marks a new birth for our nation. The road behind us is shameful, and we must remember that the mentality that produced Birth of a Nation is still alive and well. However, Obama’s presidency is also a proud reminder that most Americans are plowing ahead in an attempt to overcome racial barriers. Biracial people are a product of Americans’ unique history of struggle for racial integration. Because of this, I resist being called black as much as I would resist being called white. For me, this is a way of showing pride not only in my racial heritage, but in my American heritage also.

Nicole Winter is a student in the School of General Studies majoring in Creative Writing. Borderlands runs alternate Tuesdays.