While there is consensus that racism is harmful, it is difficult to eradicate let alone discuss due to false narratives and fear. A recent National Collaborative for Health Equity survey reported that people want to “work through differences and find lasting common ground”. However, separation and dangerous generalizations ignore the complexities of human identity and potential. This fuels anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, and an unwillingness to acknowledge racism in the 21st century. At best, people have incomplete narratives about groups of people through limited engagement. At worst, people do not consider others as human beings capable of feeling, responding, and experiencing life the same way.

In addition to the visible and invisible system of oppression, racism and white supremacy are also held in place significantly by unhealed hurt. A white child, treated with respect, taught compassion and connection, educated with an honest and full version of U.S. history that includes what was done to the Native peoples and enslaved black people, and allowed to feel their feelings as they grow up, would never grow up to willingly participate in or agree to the oppression of anyone. But most white children never get that upbringing since we get born into an oppressive system that pits many groups against each other for the purpose of protecting the wealth and power of the few. So racism and other oppressions keep us fighting among ourselves rather than unifying to transform a corrupt, unjust system based in greed, fear, and insecurity.www.kosmosjournal.org/kj_article/freedom-and-energy-from-healing-our-white-racism

If you’re Mixed, that could mean coming to terms with your whole blend. We’ve learned to choose a side or piece of ourselves as our complete identity. Oftentimes, that changes depending on our environment, circumstances, and company. It’s as though we’re cultural chameleons. For example, when you’re with one side of the family you completely identify with them, dismissing your other side. Drive across town for dinner with the other side of your family and vice versa. Go to work and you’re the part deemed as the most professional. Go out with friends, and you’re another version of yourself. Rarely do the lines cross. You never have the luxury of just being yourself. In fact, you don’t even know who that person is because you’ve never met them.