In many countries in Latin America, it is common to say that we are a mixed-race people: we honor a Spanish father and an Indian mother of our nation.
I perceive UUs, also, as a mixed-heritage people.
If you ask UUs about the experience of living in two worlds, almost all of them have a story to tell. At first this really surprised me. Then after while, I thought, no, it makes sense. I mean, something made all of us weird, or we wouldn't have joined this church, right?
I began exploring this question as part of my quest to discover the spiritual journeys we might share if we chose to see our people of color as central and collective instead of special and peripheral. Like other questions I explored in this way, it turned out to be core to who we are as a people.
We are the children of the marriage of the Unitarians and the Universalists.
We are the children of both the dominant culture and the UU circle culture.
We are, many of us, members of interracial families.
Or, we are people of color living in white community.
Often, we are members of both our UU congregation and another religious
community that is important to us.
We may live with one foot in both gay and straight worlds.
We may be the children of a marriage between a Jew and a Gentile.
Or, we are someone who grew up poor, but had a privileged education.
We might be in the United States, but remembering the spiritual home we found
in Mexico, or India, or Germany.
To be "bi" is a really special thing, a source of deep spiritual journeys, anguish, and wisdom. I believe that if UUs were to hold a few workshops and start giving each other permission to share our bicultural experiences, a lot of our "whiteness problem" would drop away really fast.
Just as a possible discussion starter, here is a list of images, stereotypes, and experiences associated with biracial people. My thanks to my sister Anna for the work she did on this in college and shared with me.
A biracial/bicultural/mixed-heritage person is...
A "tragic mulatto," doomed to frustration
An exotic erotic attraction
A traitor
Not real
Never at home, never really belonging anywhere
At home everywhere
A rebel, revolutionary, an empowered fighter for equality
A bridge walker
A bridge
A future ideal of a world without categories
A bringer of special gifts from other places
A racial Queer (just like gender Queers), thus linked to trickster gods, messenger gods, doorkeepers, translators, clowns, spiritual healers
A shaman, an artist, a prophet, a walker between the worlds