iHeartSummer 2017 at Fontainebleau Miami Beach – Day 2
Featuring: Halsey
Where: Miami Beach, Florida, United States
When: 11 Jun 2017
Credit: Johnny Louis/WENN.com
Even though the number of individuals in the U.S. who identify as Black and white doubled to 1.8 million from 2000 to 2010, the debate over “blackness” and “whiteness” continues to persist with the only qualified individuals to speak on that identity being routinely silenced in the conversation and told to choose.
But it’s not that simple said 22-year-old singer Halsey who was born into a biracial family in New Jersey. “I’m half black,” she told Playboy magazine as the cover subject for their music issue. “My dad managed a car dealership, wore a suit to work, had a nice watch, was always clean-shaven, handsome, played golf on the weekends. And people would come up to him like, ‘Yo, brotha! What’s up!’ And my dad would be like, ‘Hi.…'”
Asked how that experience affected her, she wrote:
“I’m white-passing. I’ve accepted that about myself and have never tried to control anything about Black culture that’s not mine. I’m proud to be in a biracial family, I’m proud of who I am, and I’m proud of my hair. One of my big jokes a long time ago was “I look white, but I still have white boys in my life asking me why my nipples are brown.” Every now and then I experience these racial blips. I look like a white girl, but I don’t feel like one. I’m a Black woman. So it’s been weird navigating that. When I was growing up I didn’t know if I was supposed to love TLC or Britney.”
Not knowing what one is supposed to love, like, or even do continues to be a theme, particularly in the social media age where “Everyone’s goal is to be the one to find out that someone’s doing something wrong,” Halsey said.
“A girl will post a photo of herself with braids and the first response will be ‘This is cultural appropriation. What the f-ck is wrong with you?’ And the girl will say, ‘I’m half Black.’ Then the person’s like, ‘Oh, sorry. You look pretty.’ We’ve become traumatized because so many people have actually committed cultural appropriation, but our instinct is too reflexive.”
It’s for that reason Halsey claimed “This is a really hard time for white allies.”
“People don’t want to do too much but want to do enough, and in my bubble of Los Angeles I’m surrounded by a lot of good people with a lot of good intentions. But as I learned in this past election, my bubble is just a small fraction of how this country operates. That is ultimately my greatest frustration with the public perception of any sort of activism: the mentality of ‘Well, it’s not affecting me.’ Open your f-cking eyes.”
Check out Halsey’s full feature here. What do you think about her “white-passing?”
