"I am black and I am white. I’ve lived with my white mother my whole life and up until about 6th grade never associated myself with my black culture. Even once I did, I would tell my white friends that their racist jokes didn’t offend me because I ‘wasn’t really black.’ But in the past few years, I’ve associated myself more and more with the black community. Though I don’t have many black friends, they are still a part of me. It has taken me years to unlearn white supremacy and privilege. I still live with my white mother, and her white boyfriend, and their white daughter. I associate myself with them less and less every day because their opinions about everything are fueled by “old fashioned ways”: racism, privilege, homophobia, transphobia, etc. But this past week has been the breaking point. To have my mother share a picture of Michael Brown being “a thug” as a point of saying he deserved to die and to have her say aloud that the people in ferguson are “living up to their ghetto stereotype” has outraged me. I am black. When people see me on the streets, they don’t know I was raised white. I don’t have privilege. I’d rather never go out in public with my family again because I’d rather never be associated with them again. I’m disgusted and wish I could do more to protest for the race I should more commonly be associated with."