Reflected Identities

I can remember as a young girl looking in the mirror and wondering who I looked like. There was not really a strong urge to find my biological parents. I simply wanted a picture of them so I could inventory my nose, mouth, lips, eyes…

I can also remember walking into the bathroom and being startled by my own reflection. It was like I had forgotten what I looked like because no one around me looked anything like me. It was not a desire to look different or to be white; I had simply misplaced myself. It is like when you cut your hair and are startled when you look in your review mirror to see someone totally different than the person who resides in your head, the person with the old haircut.

I also remember feeling sad. I felt sad because I didn’t look like my mother and that made me feel removed from her; it made me feel less hers. I worry about this with my daughter. She and I both get very excited when people tell us we look like each other even though we both know, or at least I do, that people are telling us that because they know there is a NEED there… Perhaps it is a human need to be able to visually relate yourself to your people, your tribe, and your clan. At nearly 21, my son still points out the things we have that he “got from me”.

I really started thinking about this because I am finishing that dissertation and came across some work I had done on reflected identity. Reflected identity has been located in some work as the way we know who we are…. Our gender, our faith, our race… Basically reflected identity speaks to understanding yourself through the reflections of yourself in others. This is how human beings understand where one body ends and another begins, this is how I understand that you are white and I am black and I must be black because I do not look like you… This is way over simplified, but it triggered these memories for me.

I remember feeling so very excited about having my first son and for the first time in my life at 20 years of age I would have someone in my life who LOOKED like me. I don’t think I was disappointed when I held my son for the first time….I do remember noting that I was still the only black person in the family.

My niece is getting married tomorrow. As we parted company the last time I saw her and her fiancé, I joked … Hey now I am not going to be the only black person in this family. It has been a running joke for four years. My niece has a son that her finance is raising and one day my nephew said… I am going to grow up just like Daddy… well… except I won’t be brown. I feel you kid.

More soon….