[yonaguska]

I'm mixed but to most people I appear white. It's usually only black women for some reason that pick up that I'm mixed. My life experience has led me to take advantage of the luxury of passing and keep it a secret that I'm half black. When you're white, people just tend to see "default", then they look for other identifying attributes about you, like your skills. Otherwise you become the black intelligent guy, not just the intelligent guy.

My younger brother is going into the tech industry but has a much darker complexion than me. I'm not sure what to tell him to be honest.

My older brother is an engineer. He is by all appearances black. His approach was similar to mine but to a greater extreme, he disassociated himself from anything resembling black stereotypes in America down to the very music he listens to, the way he dresses, everything. Unfortunately he takes it a step too far and is quite often jokingly(or not, I can't tell) racist himself. He's finding success in his career but I don't know how much of that is due to the way he presents himself or due to his merit.

I have friends that do the same thing, they have a work face and a home face. I try not to think about it. It's very distracting.

[kwamenum86]

I was lucky enough to grow up around black scientists, engineers, and intellectuals. So I have deep self belief and, to me, emulating behaviors of non-blacks (or other genders, or even athletes) feels natural - I just want to be exceptional and I find inspiration everywhere.

To the extent possible, I've always tried to shape my identity based on what feels right for me instead of what's expected of me, even from my own race. With practice, divorcing yourself from other peoples' opinions of you becomes second nature. When you don't adopt that mindset you're allowing other people to write your story, which some people are fine with but I personally find that intolerable. I can definitely relate to feeling like you have to disown part of your identity but I just can't accept that. It happens in many subtle ways we don't think about. For example, when we sense someone else's self doubt if evokes feeling of self doubt, anger, or sadness in ourselves. In reality, other peoples' flawed opinions don't pay my rent so I try to live in reality and disregard ignorance unless it affects the outcomes I care about.

I chose tech (over politics!) because it seemed like more of a meritocracy and, although I've dealt with some race-related challenges, focusing on doing my best work, creating value, and writing my own story has led to pretty good results.

I do still get distracted wondering whether my story would be different if I weren't black - it's tough.