ON ADRIAN PIPER

When reading her essay on self-awareness and watching "Cornered" I felt I had to defend myself for some reason. A statement she made on how there are only a handful of purely "white people" and that everybody is black was true but not true. I t was kind of vague for me . Did she consider the other mixes that might run through us because the human race is not just black or white. There are things to consider before claiming a race like how much of that race is in you and which are you more entitled to claim. This reminds me a little of the " one drop rule" but in a way it makes sense that if you only have one black person in your history and the majority is Asian yet you look white, what do you claim? I think Native Americans run into a lot of trouble with this when receiving help because they have to be a certain amount of Native American to be considered one.
The other concern I had was that if you did find out you were part of the handful of pure whites, why couldn't you be proud about it. I think everyone should be proud of there culture/s no matter what it is. I know these statements are exactly the statements that make me sound racist or as the racist who didn't know they are being racist , but these statements are meant more for inquiry than to defend the white person. If I found out I was black I would embrace it and I would do the same if I found out I was all white or any other. I feel we are separated by our cultures and we like it that way because it does make us different from each other. Who wants to be all the same? With all the choices we make everyday we strive for individuality, and I feel our differences in culture( not the actual color of ones skin) allow us this mass individuality. Some people use their culture as a means of validation of being better than another race while most just feel special that they are part of something in history associated with that certain culture if that makes any sense.
So being black or white doesn't create your identity but it is used as representation of it and opens a self awareness of who exactly we really are. Our identity is multifaceted and it takes more than the color of our skin or our culture to provide who we are.