Dear Dad,

You’ve told me that from the moment you saw me you loved me. I imagine that’s how most fathers feel when holding their daughters for the first time. But fewer fathers hold daughters that have a different skin tone, hair texture, eye color, and features. Fewer fathers have children that are biracial.

I know that before I was born, you and Mom were the subject of excessive bigotry from both black and white men and women. Black men hated you for ‘stealing’ my mother; white women hated Mom for ‘stealing’ you. Black women told Mom that I was too light to be hers and that I was too dark to be yours. White men said you were a disgrace as a couple.

So few people could celebrate your love and our family.

And then there was me — somewhere in-between — usually black in America, but not without some privileges afforded African-descent people with fairer skin, a curl(ier) hair texture, and a face that didn’t look black West African.

Because you raised me in a semi-affluent upper-middle class neighborhood, I was constantly surrounded by white people — aside from our interracial immediate family and a very colorful circle of extended family and friends.

Later you told me that Mom wanted to raise me in a black neighborhood — Hunter’s Point — but to be honest, I’m glad you guys didn’t. I couldn’t imagine being surrounded by disenfranchised black people with a black mother that favored fur coats and pearls, and a white father that simply did not understand black or mixed-race experiences. We would have stood out more than we did in our neighborhood.

Telegraph Hill was a good choice at the time — full of old hippies, progressives, and beatniks. Despite the whiteness that surrounded us, you and Mom balanced it by surrounding me with diversity in our social lives and exposing me to culture-rich experiences.

Still, we never talked about race as a family and I know I would’ve been stronger if we had.

You both grew up in poverty, but Mom grew up in the hood, and I’m glad that she was still able to teach me about black heritage without living there. It was important to know blackness was rich and something to be celebrated and to think positively about outside of an impoverished context — especially in the face of ever-present whiteness.

But somehow, my identity — the way I identify — was lost in translation, and you never anticipated the struggles I would face as your mixed-race child outside a community where everybody knew us.

When I was 14, I discovered that people were mean — absolutely vicious — and you had insulated me from that until that point. Now that I was in high school, I had to cross the city and interact with a variety of people on a daily basis, for the first time in my life. I was sheltered, and it was a class issue.

After Mom died there was so much more explaining to do — before no one needed to know why there was a ginger-haired brown face in-between you and Mom. Now, many people could see no relation between you and me — thinking I was your young, broke girlfriend, dating a rich, white man. At the grocery store it was always “separate or together?’’ The time we went to Ireland and brought Jackie, and when the flight attendant checking our boarding passes told Jackie to hand hers back to ‘‘Daddy,’’ my heart sank. When I finally moved out and you’d come to take me to lunch, people in my new, ‘‘urban’’ neighborhood stared as if I was a young, black prostitute. There was one time when we were stopped at a traffic light, and two black men crossed the road and yelled, ‘‘You don’t need him! Leave him! It’s not worth it!’’

After awhile I didn’t want to be seen with you, because it seemed we couldn’t go anywhere without trouble and you were completely clueless. But that’s white privilege, and after all these years, I realize how, unknowingly, you’ve exercised this advantage to the fullest. Of course you would never try to hurt me, but that’s exactly what white privilege is — something that most people don’t even recognize they have and adamantly deny so they can evade deeper introspection and guilt.

You had a black wife and a biracial child, but you simply weren’t prepared for the challenges we would face as a family, or rather, I would face on my own. Every time I’ve cried to you about this, you’ve dismissed me, and demanded that I get over myself, calling my abusers ‘‘assholes,’’ claiming that I’m lowering myself to their standard by even reacting. I understand that response in theory, but in reality, racism and prejudice are very fucking real, and I wish that you would stop fighting that. What’s more, I wish you could see that prejudice and bigotry transcends black-white colorlines, and that there are certain experiences that only mixed-race people have.

By ignoring my pain, you deny me the right to fully express myself and invalidate my struggles as your mixed-race daughter — struggles that are completely different than yours, and those that you shared with Mom.

I still love you, but have grown to hate your ignorance regarding these very real issues. I wish you could see how your whiteness affords you the privilege of escaping constant criticism and judgement, and that because you’re white, living in a white-dominated society, you don’t really have to deal with anything. It doesn’t affect your power, your reputation, or your self-esteem. You’re white and those inherent benefits allow you to never think about race. As you said, you’re “colorblind,’’ but please know it’s your whiteness that allows you to be that way. Unfortunately, Mom and I could never be colorblind because our color never allowed it, and I will always be reminded of it because we do not live in a colorblind society.

I never wanted to be completely black or white — I just wished we lived in a society that truly did not see color. I can appreciate the beauty and diversity across ethnic, color and cultural lines, but it’s exhausting to constantly be questioned and attacked for how I look. And I love how I look, and that my heritage is what makes me ambiguously and unambiguously this or that. It’s not something I want to erase, but again, I wish it wasn’t an issue. If we lived in a colorblind society, we’d find other things to fight over, and at this point, I’d rather fight over other things.

Thankfully, I was raised in the 1990s in one of the more progressive enclaves of the West Coast, but I still know damn well that racism is real. You do too — you just don’t want to deal with it, because you don’t have to.

In a funny way, I get it — you had to face the barbaric racism in the South in the early 1980s. I remember the things you told me about your time with Mom in Florida, and it scared me — I could also see how upset it made you.

Now that I’m old enough to consider settling down and having a family, my greatest fear is that I will continue to bear the brunt of racism. I’m also terrified to be with anyone that’s not black and white like me, mixed-race, or some mysterious brown. The only time I wasn’t targeted for being too this or too that, is when I dated people that were also some African/European mix. Nobody gave a damn. They just looked at us like we actually belonged together. It was the greatest feeling, to be with someone of the same tribe, of sorts.

My entire life, between you and Mom, I’ve been the only member of my tribe. You and Mom could easily walk out the door and find your kin, but I had to search a bit harder.

So, even though I am angry that you’ve been unhelpful, unsupportive, and downright hurtful in the face of my struggles with problems that other people have with me, and you, it’s a gift of sorts — a battle that I wish was shared, but has become entirely my own. And ultimately, I have no choice — I can’t force this on you.

Whoever I have children with will have to be strong — much stronger than you are and proactive about working through all the emotions and trauma that accompanies living in a racist society. And no matter who that person is, my kids — like me — will be mixed-race, or lesser or greater degrees of black depending on who their father is…depending on who’s looking.

Genetics are a funny thing, so I’m anticipating the unpredictable. But one thing I can be certain about is that, when my kids come into this world, and if they look like me or an alien with no resemblance whatsoever, I will make sure that I am there for them. I will try my best to raise them in an open-minded, multicultural community where, even though I cannot guarantee that their peers will accept them, I can be damn sure that I will always be there to listen and help them through the taunting, jeers, dirty looks, verbal and physical abuse, and outright bigotry. I can only hope that we’ll be living in a different time by then, but I’m also prepared for the worst.

So thanks Dad, for never being the support I needed you to be. You could’ve done a lot more as a father, but I will be so much more for my child and certainly be a better mother for it.

Love,

Your Daughter

Check out my follow-up interview with my Dad here.