Grappling with Race Mentally

            Everyone has a certain way that they identify themselves. Whether it’s through our personality, your hometown, sexuality, or etc. We all use different aspects of our lives, which makes up how we identify ourselves. For many of us, whether we know it or not, our race plays in many ways how society views us and how we even view ourselves. This idea of identity was explored in Racial Formation when Susie Phipps lost a court battle to try and become legally identified as white. She thought that she was white her entire life, and now that she has found out that she has some black ancestors, she now must have to face this inner identity battle, to which she must decide whether or not she will be willing to embrace her blackness or live the rest of her life as a white one. Each of these decisions has both their pros and cons about them. This question of identity mixed race identity has been a tricky idea to completely grapple for centuries within texts, both fiction and non-fiction. What does it mean to be mixed race? How does one mentally grapple with the mental notion of blackness?

            To her this newfound blackness as a complete alteration of your identity, and has even bothered her so much that she even goes as far as to find legal vindication of her race. She needed the legal system to validate her complete and pure claim to her whiteness. She can easily pass in society as white woman, however this new identity has altered how she views herself. Now she now has to have this mental battle within herself. This highlights to many of the battle of thinking about what blackness is, and what it means to identity. To this woman it is obviously not a good thing to acknowledge because she goes to great lengths to prove her whiteness, even though she is only trying to prove her whiteness to herself. This shows us the mentality of what blackness is in society. Blackness is something that is not to be admired or celebrated because many in society have been conditioned to view blackness of undesirable and of no value socially.

            Mixed-race identity in America has been an ongoing discussion for centuries, because for many you cannot be more than one race. We have constantly been told that you have to choose one or the other. For Susie, even though she could choose to be White, now that she knows that she’s partially Black, she must mentally come to terms with this part of herself. She lived her whole life thinking that she was a White female, now she must wrap her head around this new identity that she has obtained.

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