By THIRSTY
Sarah Valentine’s educational
path was focused on Russian literature and creative writing. With a B.A. from
Carnegie Mellon and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton, she was fully prepared to
make her name in academia. However, after teaching literature and creative
writing for twelve years at Princeton, UCLA, UC-Riverside and Northwestern, she
finally confronted her personal heritage by writing a memoir entitled, When
I Was White. Raised as a “white girl” in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, her
life turned inside out when she learned that her biological father was a “black”
man who assaulted her “white” mother in college.
At this supercharged time
in American race relations, Stay Thirsty Magazine was very pleased to
visit with Sarah Valentine at her home in Nevada to learn more about her perspective
of growing up “white” and the consequences of discovering that she was, in
fact, biracial.
STAY THIRSTY: In
your memoir, When I Was White, you vividly recount the life you were
brought up to lead and the reality you came to know. What was the one moment
when everything changed for you and how traumatic and life-changing was it?
SARAH VALENTINE: Everything changed for me during the phone call I
had with my mother when she explained she had been sexually assaulted in
college and that the perpetrator, who would become my biological father, was
black. On one hand, I was relieved to find out that I was mixed-race and that
there was a logical reason for all of the experiences I’d had throughout my
life when others assumed that I was African American. On the other hand, the
knowledge was traumatic and jarring because of the circumstances of my
conception, the fact that my family had lied about my race and identity for so
long, and because I now had to go about the difficult and confusing task of
fundamentally changing my self-conception.
STAY THIRSTY: Race
in America has been an issue since the country was founded. During the past two
and a half years, old wounds have been re-exposed by divisive politics and
heated rhetoric. How do you feel as a person who identified as white because of
your upbringing but now accepts her African American origins as you walk down
the streets of America?
SARAH VALENTINE: The
fact of my white upbringing does not impact how I feel about or experience
racial discrimination now. I am intimately acquainted with the coded rhetoric
whites use to express racist beliefs without stating them outright, but the
blatantly racist rhetoric, that has surfaced in the last few years, does not
hide behind euphemisms. The years since 2016 have been frightening for all
non-Christians, immigrants, and people of color in this country, and as I walk
down the street, I am acutely aware of my racial difference and the potential
violence that could befall me or someone like me at any time. That need for
constant vigilance as I go about my day is emotionally and psychologically
taxing, and it is an added burden that few white people experience in their
day-to-day lives.
STAY THIRSTY: On
a personal level, how does racial identity impact your relationships and your career?
SARAH VALENTINE: My racial identity affects every aspect of my life.
When I identified as white, I was oblivious to the racial dynamics playing out
around me and, ironically and sadly, to those that affected me directly. To
identify as a person of color in America is to recognize how your body is
perceived by the people around you in all personal, professional, and social
settings. I have found that I cannot form deep relationships with people who
exhibit the same tone-deafness or obliviousness to matters of race as I once
did because I now understand how damaging those attitudes are. For years I
dismissed the racism and microaggressions that I experienced as isolated
incidents unconnected to how people perceived me. It took years for me to
process my pain, anger, and grief once I acknowledged that those experiences
were part of our society’s systemic racism and that, as someone with a
racialized body, such experiences would follow me for the rest of my life.
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| Sarah Valentine |
STAY THIRSTY: You
recount the anger you felt at your family upon discovering your true biological
history and at the discrimination you experienced from others that seemed
unjustified prior to that time. How have your experiences changed you as a
person and how has discovering that you have Bipolar Disorder complicated your view
of who you really are? Was writing this memoir therapeutic for you?
SARAH VALENTINE: Writing the memoir was creatively and personally
therapeutic for me. I experienced many ups and downs as I revisited the most
difficult and painful events of my life, but at the same time, organizing those
events into a narrative helped me gain distance and clarity in my feelings.
Growing up my racial identity had been marked by erasure. In writing the memoir
I knew my experiences would never again be erased. Discovering I had Bipolar
Disorder helped me make sense of yet another aspect of my identity as someone
struggling with mental illness. I realized I needed to care for myself and
protect my emotional wellbeing rather than cater to others’ beliefs about who I
should be. As difficult as my journey through multiple identities has been it
has made me more confident about who I am and has enabled me to own the
complexities of my identity no matter how confusing or unusual they seem.
STAY THIRSTY: Family
secrets and hidden pasts are not unique to you and your family. Does
forgiveness play a role in your future? Does acceptance of truths and
incorporation of them into your self-worth free you from the hostility you felt
at having involuntarily lived a lie? Are there broader societal lessons that
can be gleaned from your experiences?
SARAH VALENTINE: One of the most difficult aspects of my identity
transition was learning to forgive myself for having been caught up in a
colossal deception and for having internalized racist views. Even though I was
an unwitting participant in my family’s lie, I had to work through the shame,
guilt, self-loathing, anger I felt going along with their denial. I had to work
through what it meant that for most of my life I had passed as white. I have
come to accept that my story does not have the neat all-has-been-revealed ending
I hoped it would. I have accepted the messier and perhaps more realistic fact
that my personal history is made of fragments, conflicting accounts, and
lingering racial tensions in my family. Paradoxically, these rather
disappointing truths have strengthened my sense of self-worth because they freed
me from my sense of obligation toward my family and my need for their
validation. Discovering my identity as a black and mixed-race woman and
creating community with those who relate to my experiences and share my
interests as a writer, educator, and artist has smoothed the rough edges of my
feelings about my upbringing. As adults we are responsible for becoming the
people we want to be, and my experiences have empowered me to embody the best,
most authentic, version of myself.
The
broader lesson we can learn from my experience is that, even though we have
long acknowledged race as a social construct, it remains a force that shapes
people’s lives, sometimes fatally. Race shapes how Americans relate to one
another; it shapes our society’s laws, cultures, and institutions. I’ve often
heard that if we just stop talking about race it will go away. My experience
proves that is not the case. If all we needed to do to end racism was stop
acknowledging it, my claim to whiteness would have never been contested.
Instead, I was constantly made aware of my difference in my mostly white
community. My parents’ staunch refusal to acknowledge my race did nothing to
change that. The antidote to racism is not color-blindness as it exists today.
Looking squarely at racism and acknowledging the mechanics of white supremacy
and white privilege that keep it afloat is crucial as our society strives for equality
and justice for all.
(Photograph of Sarah Valentine credit: Marcello Rostagni)
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