I haven’t really brought up the topic of race on my site but I figure that there is no better time than the present. It may give you a little more insight into why I am the way that I am. [That would be me over there on the right.]

I attended a panel at SXSW on Identity, Attention, Presence and Reputation. One of the big focuses was on using blogs as a tool to communicate identity.

I hope that by now you can tell that there are different people who write for this blog (although I write more often than the others). From our writing styles you probably couldn’t figure out all of our ethnicities or ages. But does that matter that there are 2 black girls, 3 white girls, and a half asian girl?

Back to me and my identity “crisis”. Here is the deal. When I go out I get cat calls and the occasional “Baby, What’s up?” from dudes that look like they belong in a rap video. I seem to attract the one thing that I am not interested in. I don’t dress anything like one of those girls in one of those rap guys videos. Do they not see the hipster glasses.

Forgive me for being blunt. I like tall dorky white boys. It’s been that way since I was a kid. I grew up in white suburbia. We were upper middle class. All of the schools were predominantly white. Although sometimes there is a bit of a problem when they want me to be their ghetto princess. I am not joking about this. They seriously thought that I had some inner ghetto princess and that I was supressing it. Silly boys.

Part of the reason that I chose to stay in Austin is because of it’s acceptance of interacial relationships (I wan’t to keep my options open). It’s pretty accepting of most things. I have only had a few run ins with the occasional racist bastard. There were a few landlords that wouldn’t rent out places to me and my white roommate (even after my dad volunteered to pay 6 months rent up front). But, for the most part it isn’t an issue (well, atleast not so much in Austin). If anything, I am discriminated against by people of my own race. Which isn’t new. Visiting my Dad’s family in the south was rough. My sister and I weren’t accepted by our cousin because we didn’t “act black” (whatever that means).

To be honest, I am a little afraid of black people. Another environmental thing. Being “raised white” I too was influenced by the way that black people are often portrayed in the media. I’ve tried to shed the images but it’s hard. The best thing I can do is try to remember that we are all human beings.