September 23/12

I don't know if you follow PostSecret at all, but I do.  The Sunday Secrets are a part of my Sunday.  I'm usually up long before Etienne, and in those quiet minutes or hours before he gets up, I get some time with my cats, and I check the new secrets.

This morning, this was the first secret on the website (Image from PostSecret, September 23, 2012):

It reads, "Sometimes, being an interracial person who ONLY looks WHITE is really embarrassing and lonely.

Obviously we don't know who submitted this secret, but wow, did that ever hit me like a tonne of bricks.  It's the first time I've ever been able to look at a PostSecret and think, "Fuck, I could have sent that!"

I feel I need to clarify that it's been many years since I felt any embarrassment about appearing white but being mixed-race.  Lonely, yes, I've felt that, but I've learned that I have no reason to feel embarrassed about my appearance.  However, I have felt awkward and even shunned.  I remember an occasion when my white appearance put me in a confrontational situation.

I had a rough go of my first experience at college in a small community in Alberta, being away from my home in the Northwest Territories, and isolated.  I found myself in trouble, and had to leave school after a semester.  So I went back to Yellowknife and set my sites on applying to the University of Alberta.  My application was not successful under regular circumstances, but the University Admissions office took the unusual step of sending my application over to the Native Student Services office, because they offered a program called the Transition Year Program for Aboriginal Students (as I am a Status First Nations member), and I gained entrance into the University through this program.

At that time, the Native Student Services office shared an entrance with the Dean of Student Services, and each office had its own separate reception areas and student lounges.  At one point, only a week into school, a friend and I went into the Native Students’ Lounge to make a phone call, and when we walked in, we found three First Nations' ladies in there already.  They started to whisper amongst themselves; I was oblivious to this as I was on the phone, but my friend was aware of it, and when I got off the phone, she sort of tilted her head to indicate that something was going on.  To understand the dynamic, I have to explain something about our physical appearances: my friend was a Metis student, with fair skin, blonde hair and green eyes.  And even though I am considered a Status Indian by the Canadian government, the fact is that my father is half-Cree, half-Metis, and my mother is fully Caucasian, so I come out with fair skin, blonde hair and brown eyes. 

We had no sooner settled in to have a snack, when one of the older ladies finally spoke, “Do you even belong here?  This is the Native Students’ Lounge.”

My friend and I looked up and exchanged a surprised look, and for a moment, neither of us could believe what we were hearing.  White people have been in Canada for over 400 years at this point...isn’t it possible that there would be some mixing of races by now?  My friend looked quite upset once the full impact of those words hit her.  I could feel my cheeks starting to burn, and was aware that one of my hands had found its way into a fist position.  My heart was racing, and my breathing sped up, as I felt what I can only relate as the beginnings of a small anxiety attack, which I’ve had before, but this was slightly different, in that it was not anxiety that was getting me worked up, but indignation.  I was being confronted AS the OTHER by people I would have ordinarily not considered to be MY OTHER.  I grew up in Yellowknife, which is a small place, and everyone knows Jack Poitras’ kid, and doesn’t question that she looks white, but is Aboriginal.  But this was not Yellowknife.

Not always being one for a coolheaded response, I muttered to her that yes, we belonged there, and ended my statement with a somewhat defamatory cursive, grabbed my bag and dragged my friend out of there, fearful more than anything that this was what I could expect from now on.  This cultural response was foreign to me.  Experiencing racism from the other side was very much the “other” to me, and it was one of the few times when I was unable to keep my cool.  It was a poor response on my part, but I had so rarely encountered something like that before.

I never went back to that lounge.  Indeed, I cut my ties to the Native Student Services office, and I isolated myself from my Aboriginal peers.

That's not embarrassment.  But it is lonely.

Understanding...

...Wish you were here.