Edgewalkers

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So is the world ready for a new look?

"What are you?" is not a pretty question. Race mixing, understood by some to contribute to the threat of mongrelization, is still seen as negative. Half-breeds, mixed bloods, metis historically have been objects of scorn--as if having two parents who match ethnically is a requirement for being whole. These genetic edgewalkers often identify with one side of their heritage or another rather than claiming both. When Tiger Woods publicly asserted the legitimacy of his racially mixed background, he broke the mold.

Edgewalkers typically don't feel they are part of the unifying center. They see themselves as outsiders, different, yet they care deeply about making our country better for everyone, and they see the potential for doing so. Many of them want to be part of a new center, to develop a new sense of what it means to be American.

"Right now, 'American' still conjures up an image of baseball-playing, apple-pie-eating, Chevrolet-driving people," says Basho. He and his friends are direct about being "fitties," creating a forum for confronting the ugliness of the Ku Klux Klan slur, "mud babies," and other insulting attitudes toward miscegenation.

"It definitely is about trying to find a place where voices can be heard. For us, it's in the music," he says. "We sing about being 'fittie' and make jokes about it. We say, 'We're the Free Association and we officially sponsor race mixing!' People are shocked. They like it. It gives them a chuckle. But they're uncomfortable. In what other situation would you hear someone say [that]? It's kind of an inside joke for us. We try to do it in a positive light.

"Yet the whole thing can be frustrating--finding your identity and having to deal with figuring out what it means to be black, Japanese, Native American in a society where you don't have your traditional culture. People look at you and assume you must be culturally astute. That can be a detriment, leaving me blank, or feeling left out, or feeling like a sellout, or at a loss. It is almost like there is a responsibility to reiterate the old and be traditional, without being able to explore a new self.

I don't identify with being white, Basho adds. "It has to do with my own life with a lesbian mother. She can't lump herself in the mainstream of everything I think white stands for. A lot of confusion comes up in the definitions of white, especially in our discussions about race with friends and colleagues and other contemporaries.

"My friends and I are mixed bloods, but we're not a new race. People have been mixing for a long time. It's just that in our country right now we're part of the first generation where it's OK."

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