I'm biracial, Black dad, white mom, but I was adopted and raised by my paternal uncle and his wife in a Black home. I loved the sitcoms of the 80s that showed successful Black families and people. I can remember loving Jasmine Guy and Lisa Bonet. They were beautiful and biracial, like me.

Although they presented as Black, I still remember my mother (adopted mother) growling at the TV and saying things like..."Hmmm, girl got white in there somewhere," or "cream in that coffee, mark my words."

Unlike Jasmine or Lisa, I could never be considered Black. I look whiter than actual white people. Yet I embrace both sides. I'm proud of my Scottish/English/Jewish heritage and I'm so very proud of my west African heritage. I'm not one or the other. I'm both and biology gave me the right to claim both.

That's where it gets sticky. People like categories. They like everyone and everything to fit into neat boxes. Jasmine has brown skin, she played a role as a Black student at a HBCU. Because they, and let's be honest, the world, saw a Black woman, that's what she should claim and be done. Just like the world sees me as a white woman so that's it.

There's a pressure to choose a "side" when there's no side to pick. It's both confusing, hard and beautiful to be biracial. I feel like I have the best of both worlds and protest as anyone may, they can't take that away from me. And they can't take it from Jasmine either. I for one, as a fellow biracial woman, applaud her her speaking her truth.