biracial

When This Is Us debuted, I was all in. What I didn’t expect is that it would touch my heartstrings in a way I hadn’t prepared for.

Drag queens, like Lady Bunny, teach outsiders to embrace ourselves and to embrace others. That means doing more than demonstrating tolerance.

For years, my white father called my mother’s beauty an “exotic” beauty. When I started to come into my own, he began calling me “exotic,” too. It wasn’t until high school that I began to understand why this word bothered me. Though my father meant it as a compliment, the word “othered” my mother, younger sisters, and me.

Fetishizing women of color isn't a compliment. It's just another form of objectification.