I'm lucky because I have so many clashing cultural, racial things going on: black, Jewish, Irish, Portuguese, Cherokee. I can float and be part of any community I want.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I grew up in an environment in Birmingham that was really multicultural, with black kids, Irish kids, Indian kids.
I myself am mixed race - my mother is Korean, and my father is an American Jew - so I've always felt other.
If you're of multiple races, you have a different challenge, a unique challenge of embracing all of who you are but still finding a way to identify yourself and I think that's often hard for us to do.
So many people are of mixed heritage; everyone is from somewhere else.
It is truly not fun to be the family that sticks out in an all-white community. On the other side, I have five brothers and sisters; we all look exactly the same, and we're very, very tight. The lessons about race were not pleasant, but there are things that I loved about my childhood.
My features are completely ethnic.
A racial community provides not only a sense of identity, that luxury of looking into another's face and seeing yourself reflected back, but a sense of security and support.
I don't want to not be African. The goal is to live in a world where my race doesn't limit my access, where I can see myself represented in the highest level of society without any limitation.
I grew up in a neighborhood with blacks and Puerto Ricans and Italians, the whole gamut, so conveying unity has always meant a lot to me.
I grew up in an all-white community.