5 Realities Of Being A Mixed-Race Child When That's Illegal

I spent time with my father, but almost never in public. It would be at his apartment, or with my mom at a house in the country on holiday. Once in a while, when I was really young, I would see or pass my dad while out and about. Being three, I wanted to scream out "Daddy!" when I saw him at a red light in his car or something. But my mother would squeeze my hand and say "Don't say anything."

The cops were the worst. They had to question us, because a black mom with a brown son was suspicious. Many believed the rape story, but my mom and I spent a significant chunk of time in police stations over the years while they checked. Her records stated that she'd been raped, of course, and my parents taught me a few key phrases to allay suspicion ("I don't know my daddy. You have to ask mommy about him.")

If you were mixed-race, the police gave you the pencil test. If a pencil could get through your hair without getting caught, you were white. Otherwise, you were mixed. When I was younger, I thought the test was funny -- some cop sticking a metal pointer in my hair. Then when I got older, I realized how cartoonishly evil the whole thing was.

I tended to get lost as a child. Invariably, some employee would find me and the store would do a PA call. But since my race was indeterminate, they'd have to guess. Sometimes I was Malay, sometimes black. Since our races weren't a perfect match, my mother would have to bring official papers documenting my parentage. She had to keep these on her at all times. If she forgot them, and the people felt like being dicks about it, the whole situation might take hours to clear up.

My father had it worse. As far as the government was concerned, he couldn't be my father, so whenever we spent time together out of his apartment, he had to be on the lookout for police. The two of us going on a walk in the park was, for him, as risky as if I'd been an adorable sack of cocaine. If a cop questioned us, he wouldn't be able to admit he was my father, and thus he'd wind up in jail for abducting me. Every father/son moment we had involved a game of "Let's avoid the police!"

Since I had a black mother and, on paper, no father, the authorities just listed me as "black." Unfortunately, the Xhosa people I lived around didn't put a lot of value on what the police paperwork said. To them, I was white. And they made sure I was unwelcome. One time in school, we had to give a presentation about our heritage. All the kids had cool stories about their tribes and people. When I told my teacher that I wanted to be part of the Xhosa group, he told me that it would be unique to tell people about white culture. Most of my knowledge of white culture involved Magnum P.I., so I gave a textbook speech on Afrikaners and the importance of glorious mustaches and garish shirts. To zero applause.

Obviously, white people weren't happy with me, either. After Apartheid ended and my very existence stopped being illegal, my parents finally made their union official. I started going to a majority-white private school at that point, where I was insulted on an almost hourly basis. But that was actually a step up for me. At the black private school, I was seen as being on the white side -- aka the oppressors. But some of the kids at the white school thought I was cool, because this was the early '90s and rap was starting to get huge. Fresh Prince was on TV, and I benefited greatly from Will Smith's playground combat ineptitude. In fact, when I was mocked at my new school, some kids defended me because of my "hip" skin color. Yes, I was a literal token. But you know what? Acceptance based on your nonexistent rap skills is better than no acceptance at all.