Sep 16, 2026 · 6 min · 5 segments
When people tell someone of mixed heritage to “pick a side,” what are they really asking that person to give up? Grace Fooden-Correy explores the emotional cost of having other people define your…
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A few weeks ago, I watched a reel with a young mixed woman, maybe 20, saying something that stopped me mid scroll.
She was describing a conversation with a group of her black friends, people who were supposed to be on her side, and they told her she was black.
A mixed race woman with a black father and a white mother sits with a group of black friends and the group decides for her, she's black, not mixed, black, because that's the only version of her that gets treated as safe, as legible, as truly welcome in that circle.
The other doesn't reflect how she will be perceived in the world, but is still a part of her.
Her mother raised her, taught her how to move through the room as a woman, how to talk, how to carry herself, and taught her what softness and strength were both supposed to look like.
A huge amount of who she is didn't come from an abstract idea of blackness or whiteness.
It came from a specific woman who held her and loved her day after day for years.
Every daughter has a right to see herself as an extension of her mother if her mother loved her and she loved her mother back.
It doesn't get revoked because her mother is a different color or from a different country or raised with a different set of cultural cues.
Love and influence come from both parents, but this is how a mixed person is seen in the world.
Nobody in her black friend group is asking her to denounce her father's influence and the culture he passed down.
If you've ever told a mixed woman she needs to pick a side to be accepted in your friend group, I'd ask you to sit with what you're actually requesting.
You're asking her to publicly disown a parent who raised her in exchange for your approval.
A few weeks ago, I watched a reel with a young mixed woman, maybe 20, saying something that stopped me mid scroll.
She was describing a conversation with a group of her black friends, people who were supposed to be on her side, and they told her she was black.
A mixed race woman with a black father and a white mother sits with a group of black friends and the group decides for her, she's black, not mixed, black, because that's the only version of her that gets treated as safe, as legible, as truly welcome in that circle.
The other doesn't reflect how she will be perceived in the world, but is still a part of her.
Her mother raised her, taught her how to move through the room as a woman, how to talk, how to carry herself, and taught her what softness and strength were both supposed to look like.
A huge amount of who she is didn't come from an abstract idea of blackness or whiteness.
It came from a specific woman who held her and loved her day after day for years.
Every daughter has a right to see herself as an extension of her mother if her mother loved her and she loved her mother back.
It doesn't get revoked because her mother is a different color or from a different country or raised with a different set of cultural cues.
Love and influence come from both parents, but this is how a mixed person is seen in the world.
Nobody in her black friend group is asking her to denounce her father's influence and the culture he passed down.
If you've ever told a mixed woman she needs to pick a side to be accepted in your friend group, I'd ask you to sit with what you're actually requesting.
You're asking her to publicly disown a parent who raised her in exchange for your approval.
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