Why I am not white

(abuse tw)



I might be mixed with white, but I am not “white”. You can call me mixed, or you can call me Japanese or asian, but never white.

I spent most of my life believing I was ugly, regardless of what other people would tell me, because I grew up in the USA as a mixed race person who was never really white passing. The media is full of white people. You can see beautiful white women everywhere. Nearly every important character in movies, on TV shows, and on billboards and advertisements is white. Even when people who look “different” are picked, they’re still almost always white.

I compared myself to them, like most everyone else does. The problem was, even though I am mixed, I still never saw a single one that looked anything like me. None had my facial features. None had my body shape and type. Some people might think I look close enough that it shouldn’t bother me. But it did. I thought my face was ugly. And when I was thin, my body didn’t look like thin white womens’ bodies. The fat I had sat in different spots, and my belly area was a different shape than everyone on TV, and even different from my peers. Other people might not notice much, but I did, and it had a huge impact on how I saw myself. Clothes never fit the same way on me as they did on my white peers.

I also grew up in an abusive household. My (white) dad was manipulative and abusive. He made sure my mom and I never formed any kind of decent relationship. I’m trying to repair that now, but I don’t think me and her will ever have the same relationship as she has with my sister (who was born later). The best and most important person in my life, until she passed away when I was 12, was my Japanese grandmother. I spent a lot of time at her house, and I looked up to her. I don’t speak Japanese, but she did try to teach me. She would cook for me when I would be at her house, and some of the snacks we had would be food that her brother sent over to her from Japan. The movies she would watch, and the kid’s cartoons and shows she would put on for me would all be from Japan. I don’t remember what they were, but I remember watching them. I remember admiring her beautiful Geisha doll she had displayed in a glass case in the entryway.

It wasn’t until after she passed, and I didn’t see that side of the family much anymore and didn’t see other people that looked like me anymore that I started to have negative views on how I looked. After that, all I saw were white people.

A few years ago, I finally learned how to combat these feelings. If I ever feel myself comparing myself to white people, who I look nothing like, I will do a quick google search for Japanese women. On the first page, I can find multiple women who share some of the same features I have. I can find lots of women who have the same body shape and type, who’s fat rests in the same places as mine does. And though I might be mixed and I might not look completely like they do, and I do have a few features that are considered “white”… I still resemble any of them much more than I resemble any white people I see. And suddenly I feel more beautiful and comfortable with how I look.

Calling me “white” just because I am mixed takes all of that that away from me, as I imagine it does to anyone else who is mixed with any race.

Please don’t call me white.

Please don’t deny anyone of any of the races they are mixed with.