I was recently called a Coon by a rather malicious person. And I was shocked. Shocked, not that I had been called a degrading racial remark; no, I was shocked at myself because as soon as I heard that I did not take offense. The only thing I thought was, “Who the Hell says ‘Coon’ anymore?!” Racial slurs are not foreign to my ears, but this time it made me think about myself. I am a mix—a mutt. And though I know the regions of my heritage, I do not know what they mean to me. Does blood really dictate action? My tongue denotes the brawling backgrounds—bubbling against my changing landscape, stretching against space and time, and still I wonder whether my roots hold weight in today’s society? Slanted eyes woven from the Orient see only a young woman fighting for her place. Tortured, electric locks stretching toward the sun, as rich and sacred as the first-nation’s earth give way to distant memories of a bleary-eyed vision quest. And though the flesh is tinted more like the plantation fruits of my forefathers, the lips swell with the pride of Mother Africa’s stolen children. My feet find comfort in the clapping pattern of the flamenco just as easily as they do the hidden deer trails sliding into the forest, but on these concrete sidewalks their wandering heart has been stilled.
In the pumping pulse of my bosom, many a hatchet has been buried. Grand Wizards openly greet the Panther and embrace in a long await kiss of life. The Geisha entertains the Brave in the crawling space of my veins while the Conquistador proclaims the walls golden with a new era. Who knows if the hand of my ancestors stretches across the earth to touch pyramids? Does it even matter? What if I was birthed from the Wailing Wall? Or in the snowcapped peaks of Tibet? Do such backgrounds, ultimately fading into obscurity by societal pressures really hold any cards in their hands? We are Half-breeds. We are a Mosaic. We are the Melting Pot.
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Submission Name: Lineage Deciphered
