“Please check your child’s Primary race.” This is followed by a list, including “White”, “Black”, “Hispanic-Mexican”, “Hispanic-Other”, “Phillipino”, “Asian”, “Native-American” and the list goes on. Next, “Please check your child’s Secondary race.” This is followed by a somewhat shorter list, but one which includes all of the above options. In June 2013, when I completed this registration form for the Los Angeles Unified School District, I was a bit stumped. In a hurry, I checked off both “White” and “Black” for both primary and secondary races. The administrator at the (very diverse) public school in which I was enrolling Kai pulled that form out of the pile and handed it back to me. “You can only choose one Primary race and one Secondary race for your child.”

“But how do I choose?”, I asked, almost involuntarily, somewhat feciciously and just as seriously.

“I’m not sure honey. It’s up to you.” I gave it a few moments thought, and on impulse I checked off “White” as the Primary race and “Black” as the Secondary race. I am not wholly sure why. I – the White parent – was there registering him. I was the one taking care of most of his needs, especially at this point in time. I was the one sitting there right next to him. Was it because I felt like I was the bigger influence in his life? Or because historically, the One Drop rule would dictate that my kids are Primarily Black, and I wanted to buck history, feeling ignored and overlooked by that rule. I’m not sure — I did it mostly on gut reaction. When I completed my daughters’ registration a couple months later, I initially checked the same boxes – but then decided to switch it. The switch was also on impulse. My daughters received special services in New York and I was completing forms to ensure they would receive the same here in Los Angeles. For some reason I felt that checking the reverse boxes would better help secure those services for them. Some would argue that the reverse would have been true. I am not sure.

I had since forgotten about these registration forms. Recently, a friend asked me how I identify Kai – Do I identify him as a black child? – and the forms didn’t even pop into my mind as I thought out loud about my response, as I struggled to figure out the answer. And then, today, I had to complete the forms again for the girls (with all appropriate special services in place, though barely needed). I wanted to check both races for Primary, but knew this would create more work for the administrator, so resisted. This year, the girls switched to being primarily White, because I had to choose one, and because I was the primary parent sitting there, filling out these forms, taking care of most of their needs most of the time, and the one that fought to secure the Individual Education Plans and the one that carefully selected the very racially, culturally, and socio-economically diverse school that they go to.

Yet the questions raised by the forms, by my friend, by the world around, remain unanswered regardless of the box I checked today. How do I identify them? How will they identify themselves? How will they be identified by others?

“Do you identify Kai as Black?”. I was, honestly, stumped. Despite how thoughtful I am about ensuring they have a diverse community to create their sense of self and sense of others, I had never thought about how I identify him. It seems silly – cliche really – to say he is just Kai, but if I’m honest, that is how I’ve thought of him. And Sasha and Gemma as well. They are my kids, a mix of me and their dad. Uniquely themselves, so very different from even each other (even in the face of identical DNA). They are brown, and could be Black, Mixed, Hawaiian, Phillipino, Indian, Samaoan. The reality is that whatever box I was checking was not reflective of their innate little beings, and no options would exist that could capture that. I struggle being shoved into boxes, the suffocation feels life threatening in moments, even when the box comes with privilege and even when the box has no negative implication. So how do I identify them? How do I fit them in a box? Jumping forward to the conversation, and after trying to strip all political correctness or self consciousness away, I said that I’d say Sasha is black and Gemma and Kai both white.

Do I start with looks? They are brown. Kai has a nose that is uniquely shaped, maybe a little longer, a little smaller, a little thinner, though quite different than mine. His skin is lighter than his sisters’, just barely. His hair softer – wavy, but not curly. He uses my shampoo and conditioner. The girls are identical. But for a freckle, nothing is different physically about the two of them. They have rounder noses, fuller lips, their skin just the lightest touch darker. Their hair is curly, but not kinky, and soft. I use a brush similar to my own to comb it. Gemma’s is knottier – but not kinky or curly enough or thick enough to be called nappy. I could never use their conditioner without my hair looking like a grease pit. The girls’ round noses might come from their dad, but they look a lot like my sister’s perfectly round nose too. Their full lips from their dad, but the shape of their lips and cheeks when they smile from me. All three of them are strong, dense kids, full of muscle and bones and heavier than they look. That comes from me, their dad agrees. People ask me all the time what race their dad is – to me it seems obvious he is Black, but I’ve seen kids of other races (Indian, primarily) that look very similar to my kids. In Brooklyn, it meant they fit in perfectly with my mixed community where very few were not mixed with something. They blended with my friends, a wide shade of white, brown, dark black. With their friends, the same range, even broader. In Los Angeles, even in our very diverse community, it will mean something slightly different because this is not the melting pot of Prospect Heights/Crown Heights. In the world, this will mean something different depending on who is doing the treating and when. It will be depend on who they are walking next to, who is juding them, who they are being compared to, what they are doing. But for me, it seems disconnected from how I identify them. We frankly discuss that they are brown, their dad darker brown, I am peach. All fact, all clear, all objective. There’s no doubt this influences and molds their identity, their inner self. But how? And when? Is identity as simple as checking a box that matches the color of your skin? I don’t think so. In fact, I know it is not, even if I’m not sure exactly what it is. And the boxes offered to me, on the LAUSD forms or in conversation, aren’t shades of white to black, varying shades of brown. They are not a spectrum of color, without history and implication, socially and politically, without expectations and data about what they might mean to the school considering who its population is composed of. (That said, I am still unclear about how the Secondary race is tracked or used by LAUSD). There is something more to it when I check “Primary” race, when I identify them in a particular way.

Where do I go from there? The girls often sound like they have English accents, possibly because they idolize Peppa Pig, or maybe as a result of being enticed out of their twin-world by speech therapists who spoke very clearly and crisply and slowly with inviting intonations. They speak very properly, even more properly than me. Kai speaks like a little, worldly adult. He didn’t speak early but spoke abundantly and clearly from his very first word. All three of them say “mirr-ra” instead of “mirror” because they learned that word by listening to Michael Jackson sing Man in the Mirror. If I were to hear their dad talk on the phone without knowing him you wouldn’t necessarily be able to identify his race. He speaks differently depending on the audience. I believe his natural voice is very crisp, not high but not as deep as he would like it to be. He sounds nice, it is a kind voice. When he goes back into Harlem, or when he’s around people who he wants to prove something to, he shifts his pronunciation and adds depth to his voice. I spent years trying to figure out what he tries to prove or establish with this – I am still unsure (his Blackness? what does that mean?). The kids haven’t integrated any of those adjustable speech patterns into their language (yet). As they run like banshees with crazy energy through the playgrounds, they sound like proper English children who might have spent some time in Boston thanks to Peppa Pig and the inflection of Michael Jackson’s singing voice.

What else do I use to determine if a mixed child’s Primary race is black or white? The kids all love when they hear an R&B song, and remember a rap better than any lesson they learn in school – able to repeat it with the appropriate whips of their heads, hands and hips – and scoff at my desire to integrate country or singer/songer type music into the rotation. They were upset to find out that Iggy Azalea was “peach” and not “brown”. They do not believe me that Joss Stone is white. Kai has tried to figure out whether Justin Timberlake sounds like the “older white Michael Jackson” or the “younger brown Michael Jackson” (the former is the unanimous decision). How does musical taste play into it? I’ve exposed them to all sorts of music, so their preferences aren’t simply nurture. Their dad a more limited selection, but they go crazy for his James Brown songs and want to pass over the house music he plays. There is no doubt that they tend to like music that has roots in Motown and Baptist churches and urban areas, more black than white. Music speaks to our souls, reflects our souls, pulls our souls out. All of this. And yet, as their white parent, one of my most vivid memories was listening to R&B music on my parents’ old stereo in my basement, learning that Marvin Gaye died, and crying. The news didn’t impact my sister at all, who rarely listened to the radio when I turned it to the Motown channel for Marvin Gaye or Curtis Mayfield. While I pretended to like Depeche Mode in high school when around others (and could appreciate their music), I would much rather listen to Johnny Gill or Bobby Brown or R Kelly alone in my car. While my friends fell in love with Pearl Jam, I fell in love with Jodeci. One of my favorite soundtracks was Love Jones; most of my friends are at a loss for what this movie is when I mention it. That I now appreciate the honesty and heartbreak of country music (I in fact, love country music!) doesn’t negate my love for the more soulful, rhythmic music that has always drawn me in. But I am white, there is no doubt. The box is clear. Music spans souls but doesn’t qualify them. That said, it is interesting that Gemma likes Taylor Swift. Sasha’s anthem is Girl on Fire and calls herself Alicia Keys, pretends to be a young Janet Jackson on Ed Sullivan. Kai, in addition to loving Michael Jackson, loves Macklemore. I did not think of this when I let my gut say that Sasha was “black”, Kai and Gemma “white”.

I had thought of who they are drawn to, who they are friends with, who they idolize in real life. Their world isn’t split into a dichotomy of black and white, but every day they are around both — an environment that would be important to me no matter the race of my children (because it is important to me), but certainly is even more important given their mixed race. It is exactly why I live in Venice, leased a condo in the school zone I did. Rooted down into a community that is diverse and integrated; a community where just this week, Kai’s birthday party was a balanced split of white, brown, black, mixed race; a community I sought out for my kids and for me. Who do they gravitate to? Kai falls in love with smart girls, with a slight preference for blonds or “Hispanic-Mexican” girls. All kind, all so composed. His best boyfriends have been Jewish – Drew Cohen in New York and Yoni Feldman in Los Angeles. Funny little sweet animated beings. He idolizes a few older mixed-race boys, and loves hanging out with his basketball teammates who are mostly black and mixed race. Gemma likes girls who wear pretty accessories and have well groomed ponytails, girls much tinier than her and any girl that her brother has a crush on. It crosses all color lines. She loves to befriend adults and she loves black females, including her current teacher and the principal of her school last year, both darker skinned, both reserved and easy to be around who wear beautiful accessories. Sasha certainly has a strong preference for anyone she can make laugh. But most of all she loves boys, of all races. I have found her at the age of 2 sitting on the lap of a white bass player giving him kisses on the cheek. I have seen her bat her eyelashes at the black basketball coach at Westchester Recreation Center. She has been a flirt since she was old enough to make purposeful eye contact. I can’t narrow down her social preferences any more narrowly (the thought of her as a teenager does scare for me, for anyone left wondering). So how do these facts leave me thinking Kai and Gemma are “white” and Sasha “black”, if I had to say? To be honest, I would say Kai and Gemma are more like me, a bit reserved (but not always), thoughtful in their approach to things. Sasha, on the other hand, is a bit more like her dad, who at his best is a huge flirt. But I’ve always believed Sasha and my sister had a special bond, a shared feistiness behind their eyes. There are in fact qualities their dad and my sister share.

My sister and I were raised by the same parents, in the same house, less than two years apart in age. Part of a huge family, mostly identified as Irish Catholic, some inter-marriages to Italians and Mexicans. We are white. We lived in Denver, Colorado, then the smaller town of Pueblo. We were both given Nipsy Russell dolls as presents in 1975. I have nothing but a picture with both of us holding Nipsy to indicate who liked the doll more. My sister’s long time high school/college boyfriend was black, though no one would describe her as someone who dated black men. I have, in fact, never heard her described that way, even when she was dating a black man. On the other hand, as soon as I kissed and had a short relationship with a black man in college, I was quick to be labeled with a preference. This isn’t exactly a statement on our race – there is no question we are white — but it does relate to our identities (as well as the identities of these two men with the same skin color). Why the difference?.

I was the little girl who wanted to be the black Solid Gold dancer (she was the best one!), watched American Bandstand and Soul Train every weekend, who liked Donna Summer (but Blondie too), who liked braids in her hair, who thought of less traditional sounding names for her baby dolls. I was also incredibly smart and precocious, and a very good athlete – everything came easy to me. My sister liked the GoGos and Bananarama, wanted to be an architect. As we grew up and then moved to California, I longed to go explore Washington DC, New York City, Chicago. I was pulled to urban areas. My sister longed for the familiarity of Denver. Until I lived in Brooklyn, I didn’t have more than one black female friend, but I also didn’t have the opportunity to develop many. Neither did my sister. In elementary school, I had a huge crush on a white boy named Chris who won the breakdance contest at a school made diverse through bussing efforts, as well as a good looking black boy named Donald who I never once spoke to and a neighbor from a big Mexican family named Jason. Jason was an amazing athlete, far superior to most boys and certainly all other girls. When we’d play tag or dodge ball or soccer or football, there was no girl that could challenge me. Most girls wouldn’t even play. I was tough physically and emotionally. Steady and even, but tough. Jason could challenge me, and it didn’t bother him to be challenged by a girl like it did the few other boys who were good athletes. I often felt like I had to hold myself back when I was growing up. I felt some external pressure to not show how smart I was, not let on that things were so easy for me, go a little slower in a race than I was capable, drop down from the chin up bar long before my arms were really going to give out. It felt suffocating even when I didn’t know what I was supposed to be holding back, even when I resisted holding anything back. Though I obviously couldn’t vocalize it, I was very aware when I was around Jason that he didn’t want me to contain or limit myself. He liked to be challenged by me and smiled even when I outdid him. In a very pure way, I recognized for the first time separate from my family, that I didn’t need to hold myself back to be valued or lovable. And I craved the way he made me better, made me try harder, made me faster and stronger and think more sharply. When I’ve been attracted to anyone throughout my life, the feeling of chemistry is bound up and twisted with the feeling that the look in Jason’s eye conjured in my heart beats way back when: I like men who don’t want me to ever, ever, hold back, but rather to give more. (That my marriage ended up lacking this at some point is another post, for another time, but was likely the hardest thing for me to digest when it came to the story of my marriage). Maybe that kind of permission to be fully yourself is at the root of chemistry for everyone?

One of the guys I loved in high school, in addition to being extremely kind, charming and smart, ran track, set state records in the hurdle events, listened to R&B music with me, wore his hat backwards on many occasions, could hold his own on the dance floor. We talked music constantly, we encouraged each other’s athletic and academic endeavors. He envied my ability to ace any class, any concept, without having to do anything but simply listen in class. He wanted to be an Emergency Room surgeon. If you saw him, he looked like an average, blond surfer, though with a great smile and strong legs. He was white, as well as the few others I dated throughout high school. That first black boy I kissed wasn’t much different than my high school crush. He ran track, though the 800 not the hurdles. He was a kind, unassuming guy with a great smile and strong legs. He saw me out dancing one night after weeks of flirting and told me if I “kept dancing like that” (meaning with some level of rhythm, which I acquired from aspiring to be a Solid Gold dancer) he’d want to give me a kiss. We’d talk for hours and he’d inquire and question the deepest truths of me I was willing to reveal (I was less forthcoming with them, less knowledgeable about them, as a 19 year old than I am today). They both shared qualities that I was drawn to – their athleticism, their love of music, their kindness, their intelligence, their reserved nature balanced by a willingness to open up and beautiful glimpses of flirtatiousness. And they were drawn to me in similar ways, liking similar qualities, similar contradictions in who I am, being drawn to something in me that showed in moments. Something physical, but something more nuanced as well. Neither of them ever asked me to hold back. In fact, they both asked me not to. These men add a context to my own experience I cannot separate from my thoughts on identity. My taste for some things generally identified with a black culture — even if just superficially — was noticed by people since before I ever had met anyone black, certainly before I had kissed or dated a black man. It somehow shaped the way I was described and how the men I’ve been attracted to are described, although the common thread between all of them isn’t the way they look or the color of their skin but that chemistry that materializes when I feel like I don’t have to hold myself back. Maybe there was something similar in our core identities – unrelated to race- that caused this chemistry between us, regardless of who was White Black, Hispanic-Meixcan. Sometimes similarities can be aligned with race, sometimes not. I know if some people were telling my story, the story would be through the lens of “liking black men”. Not just because I have dated a black man or married one, but because there is something in me and in the men I have liked (Black, White or Mexican) that makes it easier for them to see me through that lens. It has never been my lens, but I am perfectly comfortable with it. I love white, brown or black skin wrapped around the right soul. Both are beautiful, and I hope I can pass that love down to my children as they look at their own skin and care for their own souls and find others that give them a feeling of permission to not hold back. Who I am attracted to – or how people view who I am attracted to – doesn’t change the box I would check for myself. But this may be different for my mixed kids, whose Primary race is not as clear as mine or my sister’s: will who they date and who they are attacted to swing their identities? Will their identities influence how people view the people they date? I don’t know.

At the end of the day, the reality is that I am the parent that spends the most time with them; that structures their social circles (for now), their social opportunities. For the most part, their world. I am white. My family is white. It is the family they know, the family they spend time with, the family that they associate with love that is physically present. They hear me speak each night before they go to sleep. They hear my voice during the majority of breakfasts and dinners they have. They see me do my hair and makeup and want to be like me, because that is what they know right now. But that does not mean their world is white — even mine has never just been white. I want daily to do the things that will help foster in them a sense of confidence and perspective and esteem to love who they are as they figure out who they are separate from their white parent and separate from their black parent. I want to give them the tools to know and proudly identify themselves based on whatever it is inside of them that makes them feel themselves. I want to teach them, by example, to be proud of the stories that grow out of their experience, no matter the lens through which those stories are told. I want them to know that whatever box is checked, there is freedom to shine, freedom to be uncontained. I want them to know that Primarily, they are Loved and Lovable.