Theresa, I loved your story! You're sort of the reverse me, if that makes sense. I as also born to a white mother and a black father. I was subsequently adopted by a black family. However, I very easily passed as white. My skin is paler than most white people's and I have blue eyes. But I have crazy thick curly hair and a curvy body. The odd looks I got were because people wondered what the white child was doing with the black man. There were instances in which people tried to take me away from my father when were were shopping back in the 70's because they assumed he'd stolen some white kid.

I have very little to do with my mother's side of the family. That's not a choice I made or was given the opportunity to make. They made it abundantly clear that my siblings and I were not their kind. So be it.

My guilt comes from the fact that while I get it, I'll never really get it, if that makes sense. I've been the subject of racism, but only after people find out my lineage. I walk in a different world than my siblings and I'm aware of the privilege that a simple accident of genetics has afforded me. I've never had to fear for my sons' safety when they go out the way my sisters do. I've never been subjected to police harassment like my siblings have. It's a strange place to be.