Mauve Maude, Mauve Report creator, talks identity, and why she felt compelled to build the site.
Something had to be done with me.
I am both divisive and unifying by virtue of my birth. I’m not either/or, but I’m not neither/nor. I am both and neither. That’s the best explanation I ever came up with for all the people who questioned me about my identity in the earlier days, before “identity” was political. It seems that now nobody wants to know. But back then it felt like everybody wanted to know.
“What are you?”
Or they just stared. Nobody knew what to make of a brown kid with a curly mop of hair and a parent (is that her parent?) who didn’t match. When I was born there were all kinds of confusing shenanigans going on. One nurse got confused when she went to fetch a white woman’s husband and a black man stood up. She thought they just had the same name by coincidence. She couldn’t possibly usher a black man into a room where a white woman was giving birth, could she? Luckily it got straightened out before I made my appearance. When my birth certificate was filled out, my mom’s race was listed as “black”, because I was brown. My mom is the least black woman you’ve ever met. But it still says that. So maybe she’s the blackest white woman you ever met. Because I didn’t quite match either of my parents in skin tone or hair texture, I grew up well-accustomed to the open-mouthed, dumbfounded stare of full-grown adults who just didn’t know what to make of us, especially when we were all together, and when I had younger sisters too. We all grew up that way. All our lives. Still sometimes today.
“What are you?”
Adopted? Black? Mexican? Mixed? (Oh, they know that one.) Mixed with what? And rarely any payback for answering all the questions. No comment. Not exactly an approval. But occasionally a “me too!” Occasionally a moment of understanding.
“Are you black?”
I was actually asked in college, by a young Black man, after making a comment in class regarding black stereotypes. He had to establish my credibility before he could interpret my comment. I should have had a card, or my birth certificate. See? Says right there!
“What are you?”
What am I? Definitely not white enough, but not black enough either. Definitely not right enough, but not always left enough neither. Not religious enough, not atheist enough. Not straight enough, not gay enough. Too loud and too quiet. Passive and aggressive. Social and introverted. Withdrawn and intrusive. Unfamiliar with real wealth, and inexperienced with real poverty. Overeducated and unread, or too well read and undereducated, depending on the topic. An independently dependent woman. And a voter. That for sure. But a study in contrasts, as I was once deemed by one man who tried to figure out exactly what it is I want. A big gray elephant in everybody’s room, trying and failing to be either accepted or unnoticed.
“What are you?”
The question I spent so many years trying to answer, until I turned it into a “who” and started seeking the answers for myself. Who is this girl who sees the sides and middles of everything? Who’s always walking there, looking for hands to hold, like a little girl in overalls with parents who don’t match, but do match? Who forgets little? What is contained in her body, her mind, her heart, her soul? What holds it together? What breaks her apart? How does she best love? How is she best loved? What is she here to learn? What is she here to do? And what does she fear? What will stop her? Will anything?
“Who are you?”
Well, something’s got to be done with me.
Nobody wants to know about identity anymore. About what we all are. It’s driving everybody crazy. Because the only time we’re ever asked is when somebody doesn’t understand us, and even when we answer, they still don’t. They don’t understand what they see. Like we’re strange trees in the woods we’re all walking in, trees they’ve never seen before. And they have to stop, puzzled, get out their field guides, and start studying our trunks and branches and leaves. What’s its age? What’s its color? How does it breed? What family is it from? Where did it originate? Can I plant one? Can I cut it down? Can I use the wood? They find a name, find a label, maybe take a picture or some other souvenir. Perhaps when they get home they can ask someone else if they’ve ever seen one like it. Or post it on social media and get answers right away. Or speculation. But only when they feel like their superficial questions are answered can they walk away and leave us alone. Without pausing to just enjoy the beauty they’ve never seen.
And then they can form an opinion, superficial and meaningless. While the ones who really understand, or mean to understand, don’t ask. They just stay a while, look, listen, and support.
Who are We?
I am a person with beliefs. We all are. I am a person with opinions. We all are. I am a person who has anger. We all have. And our beliefs, our opinions, and our anger come from all the different things we’ve been taught, all the different places we’ve been, and how much attention we paid. And we simply do not always understand each other. And try as we might until we’ve all left this planet, the only home we know, we will never change our beliefs or anyone else’s, or soothe anybody’s anger, by trying to un-teach others, or change their experiences to ours. The only way anybody’s beliefs will change, is by attentive experience, as ours have. The only way anybody’s anger will be soothed, as ours has, is through empathy, understanding, love, and time. Opinions, intrinsically superficial, don’t help or matter. At some point each of us must make the choice to change ourselves from the inside out or stay where we are. Otherwise it isn’t really valid.
So that’s what’s to be done with me, by me. I will share my experiences, with those who will listen, and I will also listen. I will share my light, with those who will see, and I will also see. I will teach what I know, when I am called, and I will learn what others know. I will seek solace in my darkness from those who understand it. I will continue on, where I’m meant to go, and I will stop to see new beauty in others.
That is, at least, who I want to be. And that’s enough.
Maude, 2019
published September 25, 2020
What’s mauve got to do with it? Read here.