Both/And: Belonging, Identity, and the Bridge-Building Superpower with Annemarie Shrouder

In this rich and candid episode of Our True Colors, Shawna is joined by Rachel, returning co-host and fellow deep thinker and wonderful guest Annemarie Shrouder, international speaker, facilitator, and bestselling author of Being Brown in a Black and White World.

Together, they explore what it means to hold a “both/and” identity—especially as mixed-race or multiracial individuals navigating a world obsessed with binaries. Annemarie shares the powerful story behind her personal “aha” moment, the birth of the both/and framework, and the bridge-building superpower that comes with embracing complexity. They also talk about parenting multiracial children, code-switching across cultures, internalized shame, and the liberating work of self-acceptance.

We laugh, reflect, and get real about everything from childhood perms to generational healing, from the politics of hair to the power of poetry—and yes, even resting as resistance.

Topics include:

• The emotional journey of embracing multiracial identity
• Both/and as a tool for belonging and bridge-building
• Raising confident, culturally rooted children
• What happens when whiteness is the assumed default
• Why identity is a lifelong journey, not a one-time decision

Mentioned in this episode:

• Imagined Communities:
  Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
• SPECIAL EPISODE: The Little Mermaid of Color
• When Black Girls Watch “Wicked,” It Hits Differently
• Wicked’s Elphaba Has Always Been Black. Cynthia Erivo’s Stunning Performance Cements It
• JK Rowling tells of anger at attacks on casting of black Hermione
• Who is Black?
• ‘One-drop rule’ persists

Don't forget to subscribe and follow us on Instagram and new for Season 5, check us out on and YouTube and keep up with True Culture on LinkedIn.

If this is your first time with OTC, check out EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show.

Our True Colors is sponsored by True Culture Coaching & Consulting. Head to our website to find out how True Culture Coaching and Consulting can support you and your organization, and subscribe to our LinkedIn Newsletter, The Culture Clinic, for more great content. You can find us at truecultureconsulting.com where you can also contact us to schedule a free consultation.

Transcript

00:00
Music.

Intro  00:06
Welcome to our true colors, hosted by Shawna Gan. Join her as she explores the challenges of being a racial riddle, an ethnic enigma and a cultural conundrum. Let's dive in.

Shawna  00:20
Rachel, what's up? How are you? You can answer honestly, or you don't have to.

Rachel  00:26
If I answered honestly, would take longer than the time we have. I will just say that I am drinking water and minding my business. How old are you? I am

Shawna  00:34
doing that too. Actually, I've kind of discovered lately that I think I'm more of a homebody than I used to be. I am okay with just drinking my water and mind my business at home, in my house, by myself or with my family. Is that an age thing? It could be an age thing, um, life stage thing could be, I don't know, but I actually am not sorry.

Rachel  00:59
I have found that, yeah, as I've aged, it's the same thing. It's like, let the young people be outside. I'm definitely my auntie era, and with this new mumu I got the other day, yes, I said, moo, moo. Most liberating place of clothing, I feel like, from a feminist perspective, but

Shawna  01:16
I'll give it to you. I'm not. I'm not. I have not embraced the moo, but I do have my, my Bob's comfy slippers that I dig.

Rachel  01:24
I'm into it. Yes, I love that. For you, are you reading anything good these days? Oh, well, I'm reading everything because I'm like, in the second semester of my PhD program. Wow. So you're moving along. So in addition to the readings. I'm a graduate assistant, and I have an independent study class, so right now I'm reading, I don't know the exact title, but it's like a pretty much the introduction to, like, Neo liberalism, oh my, and the political impacts of education and then some social justice stuff. So, like, my TV doesn't even turn on.

Shawna  01:59
What is your program again? What are you I don't want to say, because it's not the same as a major, but what is your your degree going to be in? So it's

Rachel  02:06
an educational leadership but the program and is designed for administrators, and I'm not one of those. So I'm kind of crafting it to be low key, whatever I want I did. So I'm really interested in the intersections of like, Christian fundamentalism, neoliberalism and educational policy, and how all of those three things converge to kind of get the educational landscape that we have today. I

Shawna  02:28
mean, that sounds amazing. That sounds amazing. Well, I asked you about what you're reading because our guest today is an author, and also kind of does what she wants to do, makes it hers and brings it to the table very authentically. Her book is called being brown in a black and white world. And also, she's my friend. I think she's a really great person knowing

Rachel  02:53
fun people. 

Shawna  02:54
No, I'm blessed. No, this is an awesome I'm gonna let her talk about it, because I'm about it, because I'm about to introduce her. But you know, not only does she share her experiences and how things absolutely are not just black and white, something we talk about a lot, but she does it in such a cool way. There's poetry, there are reflection questions, there's education for those who need to be educated in the things. So, yeah, I think she's pretty awesome. I'd like to introduce her. 

Rachel  03:22
I think that'd be a great idea. I already want to read the book, but it's probably going to make me

Shawna  03:25
want to read it more. So her name is Anne Marie Schroeder, and she is a best selling author, as I said, but she's also an international speaker, a consultant and a facilitator. She works with organizations and their leaders to build bridges and build belonging, which, you know, is my passion. That's my whole thing. I want people to feel like they have a place to belong. So she is super for this show on our true colors, because at the heart of her work is her biracial identity, and she taps into that to inform how passionate she is about holding spaces for coexistence, discovery and healing. Which folks we need so much

Rachel  04:00
Do they sell at Costco? What would you say Costco? Do they sell the healing Costco? I know they got audacity there, but do they have healing as well?

Shawna  04:09
I don't know, but she's trying to bring it. As a matter of fact, her mission is to reach 2 million mixed, biracial and multi ethnic people worldwide with her message of embracing all of who we are and also the superpower to build bridges. That's ours as a result. So when Anne Marie isn't moving the needle on both and which I'll ask her to talk about, what that means when she says both and she can be found reading, dancing and spending time with her 12 year old daughter and their two dogs, or hanging out somewhere in nature. So I am so happy to have her here. Welcome. Welcome Anne Marie. Thanks for coming and joining us today. Thanks for having me. It's nice to be here with both of you. Yeah, super excited to have this conversation. We've been sort of building up to it. As a matter of fact, I was like, comfy on my show, and she was like, Girl, I'm busy. And then later on, she was like, I. You still want me on your show? I'm like, Yes,

Rachel  05:02
did you not hear about the millions of people she's trying to meet girl

Shawna  05:06
like I know she is, and she's doing it too. Tell us about you when you're not dancing and reading, but also not moving the needle on all, like we need you to move the needle, but just when you're not working on that. Like, what are your favorite things? 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  05:22
My favorite things, hanging out with my kid is one of my favorite things. Love to read, and being outside is my happy place. So I like to get outside as much as I can and just sort of connect with the element. So where are you tell our listeners? Because I know that they're going to be like, Oh, okay, I'm in the Caribbean. I'm in Barbados, and so folks that are from the Caribbean will recognize the sound of the crickets of the frog.

Rachel  05:48
I'm so jealous.

Shawna  05:51
Yeah, you say you're jealous. Rachel, one day, she texts me in the mornings, like, Hey, what's up? Have a random question. I'm like, okay, cool. How are you? What's up? She's like, I just had some time before the grocery store opens, so I'm sitting here out on the beach watching the turtles. I'm like, oh, excuse me,

Rachel  06:08
that is like me texting and be like, Hey, girl, they didn't open up to Walmart. I'm just looking at these pigeons eating these McDonald's fries. It's cool.

Shawna  06:18
Yeah, I was like that. I don't remember what I was doing, but it was not as exciting as you were. 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  06:25
You were hanging out with dogs. 

Shawna  06:26
I was hanging up the dogs. Yeah, I probably was, because I hang out with my dogs a lot. They, I mean, they bring me joy, 

Rachel  06:33
Was it the turtles on the beach Joy?

Shawna  06:35
No, it wasn't turtles on the beach. Joy, but, you know, it's okay anyway. I just thought that would paint the picture, yeah, and 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  06:42
I try to do that, just because it helps me get grounded and remember, like, what's important, you know? Like, I could sit at my desk all day, or I could just be like, let's take a minute and remember all the ways that we're interconnected and all the things that help me get through the day. That is not the computer.

Rachel  07:00
That's such a good philosophy to have. It reminds me, I think it was age memory, Brown. She says small is all you know. And those things really kind of make up, like the the totality of our experience. And those are the things that you know. Me, I'm always on some revolutionary stuff, but it's like, those are the things that we're fighting for, right? Those are the things, those little moments, are the things that we are advocating to keep as we traverse through this journey called life,

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  07:26
 those little things are really easy to get rid of. We're too busy. We don't have time. I gotta write so, so all those small moments in quotation marks we we brushed aside. It's not important, and they, I think, are what help us to stay connected and be human.

Shawna  07:54
So Annemarie, at the start of our conversation, when I was introducing you, I mentioned that in your book, you talk about this concept of both, and can you tell us about that?

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  08:07
Both-And is a phrase that I stumbled upon about years ago, six, seven years ago, almost I have spent most of my life up until then as a biracial individual, wishing, trying, hoping I could be more black. My mom's white, my dad's black, so that's my biracial mix. And up until then, I was like, damn it, you know, like, I just wish I was more black. And I had a, I had a really profound moment where I was just like, oh, maybe I don't have to choose. Maybe I can just be both. And it sounds really simple, but it had never occurred to me, like, never, because I was always like, not black enough for the black kids not white. So it was always a push, pull, choose one, be one. And so, yeah, so that's what I call the both ant. I'm I'm both black and white, but I'm also mixed, which is a thing all of its own, and neither of those things, right? So that's, that's what the both and is for me personally, and and I'm still navigating that. I'm still kind of unhooked from the I want to be more of something or less of something, and just holding both and exploring what that is. 

Shawna  09:29
Yeah, I think what's key is that you said it's still something you're navigating. And I want folks who are out there listening to just consider that it is possible to continue a journey like this, you don't have to just say definitively, this is how I identify as a matter of fact. That's one of the things that comes up in studies, especially with folks who are mixed race or multi ethnic, or however they they identify, is that there is this, this fluidity in identity as a matter of. Fact, I kind of shape the way that I feel about my identity. The more I learn stuff, the more I talk about it in conversations like these folks who have been listening a long time have heard me say this a bazillion times, but I am what's called multi generationally mixed. I'm not biracial. I don't have parents, one of one, mono racial identity in one of another. My mixed ancestry happened truly in my ancestry, like my grandparents and great grandparents, but that means I look like I look today, but because so many folks have been raised in societies where there's this binary, they're like, aren't you mixed? Aren't you biracial? Aren't you? It's like, no, well, are you? I love that. Are you sure?

Rachel  10:43
Well, to you as an individual.

Shawna  10:48
So, you know, it's not one of those black and white I did air quotes. They're like things, right? It's it can change as well. And you know, part of that has been my discovery, learning more and more about my ancestry and what that means to be Creole, since I wasn't raised in the culture, just know that I've gotten a little bit more in touch as I've gotten older, because I've been intentional about it, learning about it. And it's a little bit freeing to think I can identify this way. But at first it was scary, because I felt almost a sense of betrayal. If I say I'm mixed, even if that means multi generationally mixed, am I betraying my blackness, you know, like, should I be leaning more into it? And so this idea of both and means, well, I can be this and also be this, and it's cool. If tomorrow, I'm leaning in a little bit more this way because of how I'm seeing the world or whatever's going on. Yeah,

Rachel  11:47
I think it's interesting. Yeah, we think we've talked about this before. You know, the human brain, it does a lot, and it's also lazy, because it does so much, so we have to make decisions very quickly. And that's why strict categories tend to people favor those things, and when you implement something else, it's a complicating factor for people that are already experiencing decision fatigue or not really, like you said, you read and then you learn, and then you change. We don't, as a populist, tend to do that. So most people like either you're this, you're a girl or you're a boy, you're black or you're white, you're this or that, and it's like, no, there can be two opposing things that exist at the same time and have truth in that. And we were talking, I was reminded when I was in my master's program, I was a graduate assistant, and there was a black woman that worked in the office, and I was studying like African American girls in the educational landscape. Anyway, she says to me, she's like, so you're like a trans black person. I said that is not a thing that abs, like, I'm really confused. Tell me more about what you mean by that. She's like, well, you're not such a term for me. Yeah? She's like, well, you're not black, but you're like, really into black issues.

Shawna  12:53
She was seeing you as trans racial Yeah. Like Rachel Dolezal, 

Rachel  12:56
girl, that's the first thing that came to my head. I was like, you not trying to Rachel Dolezal is because that is very different. That is a white woman. She is an entirely white woman. I friend, have a black mother, and therefore we talked about this before. Identify as a biracial black person, but because of how she grew up and experienced the world as a black woman, I think she's in her 60s or 70s, there was it's either this or that for her, and she had a very hard time understanding you don't look like what I think black people are, you know, presented as. So therefore, she had a hard time with these things I would be talking about. So in her mind, she just made it up that like, Oh, she's a trans racial person. And she said, you know, kind of like the transgender people. And I was like, I cannot have this conversation with you in this little video office today. And I, like, still sometimes think about that comment and how, like, what are we to do with that? 

Shawna  13:51
Well, I think sometimes it's hard to find words to describe things that are new to us. And so it sounds like she was trying to come up with some vocabulary to make sense of this, right? Like, because that is a lot of it is sense making sure. How do we come up with what it is that is new that's before me? So speaking of which, Annemarie, I'm curious. Did you have an aha moment to bring you to your both and realization? I know there's a little bit of poetry in here. I'm like, shall I open my book... 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  14:23
Yeah, the poetry is the way that I get my sort of guidance, for lack of a better word. And so, yeah, there's poetry in the book, because I really wanted my my heart, to show up in the book. And that's the best way that I that I know how there was a poem involved in that aha moment. And and three white men. How about that for a joke? Beginning of a joke? 

Shawna  14:44
No, just I know I was gonna say, what do you get when there's a poem, it's three white men? Annemarie's aha moment. 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  14:52
It's kind of ironic. I think. Yeah, I was, I was in Winnipeg, in can I'm Canadian, so I was in Winnipeg at a retreat, and I chose not to go to breakfast that day with everybody else, so I had to go walk by the river. And I I had a little notepad and pen with me, and all of a sudden I got this poem. So I have, you know, I have to write furiously when they arrive. And literally, they do arrive. If I don't write them down, they're gone. I can't remember them there. I can't reproduce them. They're either they're just they come and they go and, yeah, it was called holla at me. It was a poem that that was about an experience I had had with my daughter's teacher just, I guess, a few weeks before, because school had just ended. But that poem, because I took it into the workshop that I was part of and shared it. I'm like, I wrote a poem today, and they're like, Would you like to share with us? I'm like, not really. 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  15:46
I should preface like, these were three white men that I knew, right? We were friends. But it didn't just drop into the retreat, not knowing anybody. But the amazing thing that happened for me in sharing that poem was that, like, first of all, you could hear a pin drop in the room, tears...and I'm like, why are you crying? Like you're not biracial? Like, what do you but there was something about it that really spoke to them, and that allowed us to have a further conversation, that allowed me to excavate a little bit more about what that pain was for me. And then before I knew it, I was like, bawling my eyes out, and had had this moment of like, Oh my gosh. Like, I've been trying to be more black all my life, which also means I've been trying to be less white. Never thought of that before. Never I was so focused on trying to be more this that I didn't even realize I was trying to be less. That it makes sense totally. And then discovered that I just like, what if I just hold you know, both of them, what would that be? What if I didn't have to run back and forth depending on where I was or who I was with or where I was? 

Shawna  16:51
As you talk about your moment, I think about experiences I've had in life, and as I've reflected that actually, and this is for me to work through, but it bring me some shame, like I feel shame for having felt a certain way and trying to as grown up Shawna, tell younger Shawna, it's okay, actually, that you thought those things, because what else were you supposed to think? So I have vivid memories when I was in I'd say middle school, pretty much early high school, when social groups were super big, everybody wanted to be popular, and I was not. I knew a lot of people. A lot of people knew me, but I wasn't of the favorite group, if that makes sense, right? Yeah, but that favored group was all white kids, blonde cheerleading type or the basketball players that were white kids. It was a Christian school, so I assumed that people would almost be intrinsically inclusive. But that was not the case. Because outside of that school, my social world was primarily black. I lived in a primarily black neighborhood, went to black church, that kind of thing, right? 

Shawna  18:09
And so that was, I was bused to that school, which was in a completely different county. And my point is, I never felt like I fit in there. I had a few friends, which that some of them are still friends today. So that is a fantastic thing, but I found myself like wishing and praying, actually, to be white, not black, because I saw the privilege, I saw the favoritism, and I saw what happened when you are black, there were these tracks, track a and track B. I didn't have to be a demographer to notice the differences in the tracks. And so I would literally like, pray, God tomorrow, what if I could wake up and I could have long, straight hair? Y'all, I have long hair today because I paid for it. And I didn't know in the future that future Shauna could make it like how she wanted to make it anytime she wanted to. But the point is, I had what I had, and I knew what I did not have. And so when I think back on it, I wrestle with feeling ashamed that I actually wished to be white, but I try to forgive my little me, because I know that the reason that I wanted to be white was because I saw what came with that. I saw that it was a pass to an easier space to be in 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  19:26
interesting that you share that. Because my daughter went through that wanting to be white as soon as she started school, like instant, and I didn't get it. I was like, what that was a point of shame for me. Okay, like I teach about diversity and equity, and I've, you know, done my very best to surround my child with people of color, most of like, many of our friends, and all the things, books and blah, blah, blah. And then out of her mouth comes Mom, I want to be white. And I was like, Oh, right. All of my, you know, I'm all of my I'm not black enough. Came, like, was right here, plus, plus what I do for a living. And I was like, that was, that was part of my tears at the retreat. But I remember talking to two friends of mine, and they're like, yeah, like, hello, who? Of course, like, look around. Like, this is what she's seeing. I'm like, never, never did I want to be because, because my my black family was already telling me that I was not black enough and too white. So why would I want to be more white? Right?

Rachel  20:32
That's so compelling. 

Shawna  21:00
How does this work, the both-and concept, when you're working with organizations, is there a part that this plays in work? 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  21:08
Yeah, it's, it's a part that's growing and that I'm leaning more and more into as time goes on. For me, it's, it's two things. It's the interpersonal between two people. How do we how do we bridge a gap? How do we connect when we are feeling or believing different things, experiencing different things? What's the opportunity when we create that space for what I can hear about you and learn about you, and what you can hear about me and learn about me? And how can we move forward in a different way? So that's the both, and, you know, between individuals, but also between groups, because we learn a whole bunch of stuff about each other that isn't 100% accurate. We don't know a lot of things about each other. We have misinformation. We have things we have to unlearn. So that's what I try to do in organizations, is to help people see the richness of what we have to offer. If we would just make the space to listen and share and move forward in a different way, rather than what we think we know about each other. You know, you also talked about when we can do that. It's some kind of superpower, especially for folks who are mixed race or biracial, multi ethnic and so on, right? Because it's almost built in. So there's this unique experience, or this unique strength that sort of comes with being a person who holds multiple racial identities. I would even extend that to say multiple fill in the blank identities, right? Because there's, there's other ways that this can make someone not just shine, but be of strength to others too. Yeah, and I think your point is amazing, that it's like we are talking about being mixed and being biracial, but you could be a mixture of anything and have the same superpower. I think because we grew up in spaces where we need to create those bridges to, in some cases, to survive, but in some cases to just, you know, connect with family. It looks different than us. Help family members connect across difference, like with for me, it was like my dad and my grandma did not get along, right? So I learned really early how to, like, what kind of bridge can I build to that these two people that I love and that love me can be in the same space together. Like, what can I do? What can I do? I think we learn that unconsciously as part of our ability to navigate those spaces, that in some cases, we feel like we belong in in some cases, we feel like we don't. And I think that that's something that we could cultivate and use, because we need more bridges. I agree. 

Rachel  23:33
You know, there's such division in our country and because we don't build those bridges right, and then politicians capitalize on that to be able to get across whatever agenda they have. By this infighting that we have between ourselves, we actually have more in common than we do that are different, you know, but we make these differences, whether it be race, gender, religion, identity very salient as a means of saying that person is different from you, they are the problem and othering people. When you really sit down and have conversations with folks that you have assumptions are very different from you, then you've you see that we're actually quite similar in the things that we want. We want to be able to feed our families and take care of ourselves and live in a place that's clean and all these different things, but we receive alternative messaging on why we don't have those things and who's at fault for it when, as you were saying, if we could have the opportunity to build more bridges, then I think we would see less of this division and rhetoric that's so harmful and toxic right now. 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  24:36
Yeah, I think by building bridges and sharing the way that we're often able to see different perspectives. It's one of, like, it's one of the things that can be a blessing and a curse at the same time, right? I don't want to hear that other perspective, but, but it's there. Like, it's right, it's right there. Not everybody can see that. I don't think, yeah, I. So I think by just sharing that, by being who we are, we provide the opportunity for people to think about things differently. And it's that thinking about things differently, being able to come out of what I think, and even entertain the fact that there's some other way to look at something starts that bridge building process. And then if we can, you know, walk with, you know, figuratively speaking, walk with the person along that bridge, and, you know, help them to sort of tease out what perspective they may have and what a different perspective might be, and what it means to just listen, just, you know, open your heart enough to believe that somebody else may think of something or experience of something completely different than you. What doesn't mean you have to change your mind. You already said that doesn't mean you have to change your mind. Doesn't mean you have to be wrong. Mean you have to be wrong. But one of the things I tell my clients in workshops all the time is you can be in the same situation as somebody having a completely different experience and what, oh, yeah, sit in that space just a little bit and ask a question, what is it like for you here? You know, because I'm thinking, I'm having a great time, and so you must be having a great time. Do you know? Maybe not just sit in that. It's a beautiful thing. 

Shawna  26:09
That is so true. One of my dearest friends years ago, I should, I should say this. She's racialized as a white person, and we were talking about something, and she was like, Oh, my God, wouldn't have been amazing to grow up in the 50s. Like, so much fun, so simple, so like all this. And I was like, well, maybe for you, not for me. Like, I'm not gonna say I wish I grew up in that time

Rachel  26:37
She wanted to be June Cleaver so bad.

Shawna  26:41
She was like, Oh, why? Because we're such good friends. Like, for her, me, being a black person did not even register, because she assumed that, why wouldn't I have the same happy sock hop kind of situation that she would have? I was like, Girl, we've not even been in the same building. Oh, do you understand I had a different entrance, different seats, right? Like, and that didn't register to even imagine that there could possibly be a different perspective. Yeah,

Rachel  27:11
yeah, not on the radar. And I find that, you know, I'm in one of my closest friends is actually, gosh, she must be 30 years older than me, and so she's lived a long life. She's seen so much, she's protested she was a hippie. And even though she's still on that journey learning, there's so many things that she'll say and she'll like, she said something to me the other day that I thought about, and she was like, I never thought I would feel like I had more in common with black people than white people than my own people. And part of me was like, Girl, what do that mean, I was like, Oh, I think because, as white folks, you're the imagined reality and the dominant imagined persona and experience that you don't think about other people's because you don't have to, yeah, and so when somebody forces you to do that with that good old intersectionality piece, like you can look the same and have completely different experiences based on a number of, you know, different intersecting identities that perhaps you don't have to consider when they don't affect you. So it kind of was you thinking like your situation, like you were like a co opted white person for a couple minutes, like, in her mind, it was like, oh, this person is so much like me that her experience must be so similar that I'm equating her to another white woman, whereas no friend, the reality is, it would have been very different for me. Yeah,

Shawna  28:26
and I'm certain she didn't even think of herself as being white in that moment either. She was just thinking of what it would be like to be, you know, in poodle skirts at saw cops and whatever. And that, I get it, because that's what media shows us. That's what supposed to be the ideal for them, you know, it was all happy. 

Rachel  28:42
And meanwhile, a woman couldn't have credit cards and couldn't go places without their husband's permission and all this other nonsense. 

Shawna  28:49
Also that. Okay, so we didn't even get into that part, but just the idea of, wouldn't you have loved to oh no, no, ma'am.

Rachel  29:00
Yeah. Leah, it's like, you know, Benedict Anderson talks about imagine, I think it's imagine communities or something like that. And it's like, when we think about the world it we think, typically think of white people because they are the quote, unquote, standard by which everything is measured. That's why y'all wilding out, because Ariana Grande was in Wicked and Cynthia Ariba was Elphaba, and it was like the imagination people have about that iconic story is that these were white people, even though it's fiction.

Shawna  29:31
Oh, it happened with the Little Mermaid. It happened in England, somewhere in the UK, they did a Harry Potter stage production, and Hermione was black.

Rachel  29:40
When the author legit said that she she imagined that person to be black. But so when you think about like, that's why, when you're having conversations with folks, and they'll say, you know, I was at the store and this black woman hit me their cart, why did you have to qualify that? Why couldn't you just say it was a woman? Because they're anticipating you imagining that experience with all white people, and they want to make sure you knew. It was not a white person that did that, because the ways that we think about the world is through the lens of whiteness, even when you're not white, because of how it is presented, at least in, you know, American European culture, that that is the dominating like racial identity, and then therefore everybody exists in orbit to that in some way, yeah, centralized,

Shawna  30:23
which that takes me back to the way I was talking about how I wished, and I never told anybody that, y'all that was a secret, how I secretly wished to be white, right? Because I did feel like I felt ashamed then, because I'd be betraying my blackness. I feel ashamed now that I even, like I didn't have enough self pride that I had wished that I was something that I wasn't, even though, like I said, big me tells little me It's okay, girl, you didn't even know Right? But I come back to you, Anne Marie, because you mentioned your daughter's experience and how it was kind of a surprise for you. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about being a parent. You're not a monoracial mom, so to speak, right? So you've had your own experiences in your parenting. What can you share about that? 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  31:09
Well, so many things we could we could talk again. It's a whole other thing. So I am queer, so I wasn't gonna get pregnant by accident, and I wanted to be a mom, and I didn't, didn't want to go to a sperm bank, so I had to consciously find guy that wanted to be a dad. And so I got to choose. I have many experiences of people not knowing my mother. Is my mother. When I grew up, I would I in the store. I would purposely go into the store with her if we were shopping for anything, and I would purposely distance myself from her so I could call her from across the store, so that when we got to the cash register there would be less weirdness when people tried to figure out why I'm with this white woman, right? So that was how I handled that, one of the one of the ways that I handled that didn't work, but I tried. So I was like, Okay, I want to be a mom, and I am not having a child that doesn't look like, No way, no how. So, and you know, genetics, you can't, you can't plan it, but it just so happened that it worked. It worked out in my case. 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  32:10
So I had to be, I was very purposeful in looking for a sperm donor who was black, because I wanted to increase the chances that my because I have like 50% of my DNA, maybe more than 50% because slavery, right, is white. So I knew she was, I knew y'all can't see that you're just listening, but she made a face, and I knew exactly what I was referring to. So I needed to up my chances of having a kid who was at least the same shade of brown that as me, right? It would have been fine if she was darker, but she had to be at least the same shade of brown, because I didn't want anybody asking me whose kid that was, if I was the nanny, if I was the babysitter, rather than that. None of that. But it was a very conscious decision on my part, and it just so turned I think I said it enough times, I want a kid that looks like neilie. We have almost the exact skin tone. Our hair is different, and we look very similar. So I got like, it checks off all the boxes when we walk around. People definitely know that we're, you know, biologically related. And then to go through all of that, and to then hear my kids say, Mom, I want to be white. I'm like, Girl, please. What? You know how hard I worked.

Rachel  33:19
They don't just sell these down at the Rite Aid girl, come on,

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  33:22
but, but I have to say, I have to say one other thing about your story that connects with my story. Because in my wanting to be more black as a kid, I straightened my hair, I relaxed my hair right, which, on the one hand, means that you want to be more like the white girls, because you want your hair to be and I don't have very, very, very curly hair. It's less curly than it was when I was younger. But for me, the whole relaxing procedure was like an initiation into more blackness. It's cultural, right, right? And add something to talk about, and how it burns your scalp and all that, and all the things and so, I mean, it again, didn't work, but, but that was, for me, that was a big thing. Like, oh, getting my hair relaxed, like, I must be black enough to, you know, and, and probably, you know, the very few black friends I had at that time would have been like, Why? Why is she doing that? What? 

Shawna  34:15
also, probably were like that, because it, well, I got asked all the time, you got a perm? Did you get a perm? And said to me, I always thought a perm, because I grew up like, you know, all these girls had spiral perms. And so it used to be very confusing to me when a black person asked me if I had a perm because I didn't wear my hair naturally curly. And I realized that they were referring to the relaxer as a perm, because I guess it is still permanent. You know, a permanent so to speak. But Annemarie, do you know my dear Mother—bless her—Twice tried to help me do an at home spiral hair perm kit like so we're at home with this at home kit. Mm. You guys, my hair is curly, like my hair is so curly, and my mom's sitting there with the rods trying, and I know she did this for me. And as I look back, I'm like, what that it wasn't looking like theirs. It didn't have the, you know what I'm trying to say,

Rachel  35:17
No, you can't wake early shake. It goes and does it's own thing

Shawna  35:20
My hair gets big. It doesn't, it doesn't swing, yeah, and so it's so funny that your experience was done even though you didn't need it to tie into to be part of a black cultural experience, right? And I was trying to do something that did need to be done to try to fit into some social experience, which wouldn't have worked anyway, 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  35:41
and you had your mother to help you, right? My mother had no clue I was at this a lot by myself, because my mother's white, right? She didn't know about relaxing. 

Shawna  35:48
My mom never did a spiral curl. I'll tell you. We're in the living room. She's trying. She's like, Baby, I don't know, like she we're gonna try this. You know, I remember, hair is another one of those things that just is such a big part of identity that we could probably talk about for another three hours. 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  36:06
That is true. Well, I was, I'm glad that at least I had the shared experience of understanding from the hair perspective, why my daughter wanted to be white. I got that right. I wanted straight hair, all that, and we have that in common. We can, we can, you know, I finally learned how to do my hair properly, you know. And so I can pass that along to her and help her love what she's got and explore and do all the things. But as soon as she started school, her beautiful, full hair went right into a ponytail, and that was the end of that, because somebody told her she had crazy hair, like about a month or two before kindergarten started, and that never came out. 

Rachel  36:21
Oh no - kindergarten?

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  36:46
Kindergarten, Junior Kindergarten. She was four. Oh, yeah. And now that we live in the Caribbean, it's out all the time, right? And she loves it, and she's right. She's it's one of the reasons we're here, because she just turned into this self, loving, confident kid who identifies as black, being mixed in a in a country that's predominantly black is way different than being mixed in a country that's predominantly white. 

Shawna  37:09
Can we talk about that? Tell us. 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  37:11
Well, in Canada, I am seen as a person of color, and in in the Caribbean, I'm seen as somebody with, like, less color, right? Like, I may as well be white. I don't have the lived experience. I don't have the access. I know some of the foods because my dad is from the Caribbean, but not from this island. You know, my privilege is showing all over the place. Plus I'm an expat, so I am, like, not part of that community, this community. I gotta find my own people. And many of the people that I'm finding are white, wow. And I have to, like, came all the way down here, you know, and now I'm hanging out with white. What? What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you?

Rachel  37:54
That's bananas. 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  37:56
It's bananas! We came because of COVID. We didn't plan to move here, and because my daughter was so happy, I'm like, Okay, let's do this. And there was a part of me that that was like, my dad's gonna be so proud of me because I'm here. I finally did something black enough, but I'm not even because my experience here is like, so like, out of the circle of blackness, because I'm not black enough again, still,

Rachel  38:22
that's wild, yeah, because my assumption would have been different. 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  38:26
What would your assumption have been? 

Rachel  38:27
I would assume that you've been, like, embraced, you know, as part of, you know, the diaspora in that space, and that that is that that experience is different, it's really interesting. 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  38:40
I want to say my roots are showing that's what it feels like, right? 

Shawna  38:44
I that I like that. That tracks, you know? I asked, okay, so I go get my hair done. In this place, this local place. I have a Nigerian "Auntie" that does my hair. And every time I'm there, I'm like, bring in my stuff to read, which is all my research and stuff. And so I was talking about, there's this part in my book where I talk about my ancestry, DNA and 23andme experiences. And so I said, you know, 33% or something like that of my ancestry is Nigerian. Specifically, there's other all. There's different regions in Africa too. But I said that, and I said, I'm just curious like our history, at least in the US, is so rooted in racism and marred by the enslaving industry and just how awful it was, I know that it can't be the same everywhere. Like what would happen if I moved to Nigeria, right? I see myself as a black person in America, though. What would happen to me if I were there? Would I be embraced that way? Would I be seen that way? And her response was basically like, you. Could come home. You could come home anytime you would be embraced. You'd be taken in, just because of how messed up our history is here, or any of the places that have been damaged by the enslaving industry, like the fact that there, I think it was Mississippi. There Louisiana, 1/32 black blood made you 100% black. But then in the communities, sometimes 50% don't make you black enough. And so like, gosh, how do I know how to belong or where I'm not going to belong? And just to speak with her, and she told me, yeah, if I went to Nigeria, yes, I would look different, whatever. But why would they not embrace me? And I'm like, Well, I don't know, because I'm not this or whatever. And she was like, we don't, we don't get caught up in all that well, was her basic response. 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  40:44
Well, you know, I think I should probably qualify that. It may be me that feels like I don't belong, and I'm keeping myself separate in the US, you have the one drop, but in the Caribbean, if you're a little bit of white, you're not black. So I grew up in Canada, but my dad's family is from the Caribbean. So it could just be me, that I'm just like, I don't belong here, and so I'm removing myself. How would I know I don't know my co parent that I live with? She, she would tell you a completely different story. Oh, we embrace everybody, really, because I'm not feeling that. But it could just be me. It could be the 54 years of you're not black enough that is stuck in my heart and my right, that I just don't think I can't be accepted. 

Rachel  41:26
And what would it be to like liberate yourself from that? You know? I mean that that's takes work and probably a therapist, which I am not. But also I would think about like that when you talk about healing, how you know how that liberating that could be for you if that healing were to come along in that space,

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  41:43
I think it's coming along. It's, I feel the difference, but, you know, it's a it's a work in progress. 

Shawna  41:50
I think that's something that a lot of people experience, like when I did my study and, you know, I had surveys and interviews with folks, there are people who often felt like, I'm actually not sure if what I'm experiencing is otherness, because it's like you've come to expect it, so it's hard to know if it's really there or not. And I think you know, when I lived in the Czech Republic, which is super, super white, I probably did some self sabotage with some friendships or or things where I was afraid to get too close, because I just knew I was going to be othered. So I think it's sometimes hard to weed it out. But with Rachel's point, perhaps, if we can liberate ourselves from that where we're not so focused on how we're being perceived and whether we belong or whether we're being othered or separated, you know, maybe we can, at the very least, not do it to ourselves, but you're right, Rachel, I mean, I think it could be incredible to do that, but when it's been this tape playing over and over and over, it's really hard to get a new tape. Man, yeah.

Rachel  42:54
I mean, internalized oppression is is real, like oppressive systems work because of the internalization of our oppression, right? Like it works in concert with structural oppression and interpersonal oppression. So like this, this purpose in that to kind of check ourselves in many ways, to maintain these hierarchical systems no matter where we go. And I would argue then that in addition to feeling liberated, then it's potentially a revolutionary act in many ways to dismantle that internal oppression,

Shawna  43:23
We're 'bout to have a revolution. Yeah, no, no, I think you're right. And there's all kinds of sort of social activist models and frameworks around that very thing, where you know even the basics of rest is resistance, right? If you can be at peace and at rest, then you aren't being afflicted by the racial trauma. So they say in itself that rest is resistance. 

Rachel  43:51
In particular, like black women, like black women, are taught that you're not supposed to be able to rest. You are to do all of the things and then some, and then, you know, wear the cape and try to save democracy and all and all that that entails. So rest as a framework I cannot for black women in particular, is like something that you know has not been afforded to that part of our population, because it's seen as something that is reserved for a certain type of person, and that once we talk about the collective imagination, we don't collectively imagine that black women deserve that. When I would argue that black women deserve it more than anybody,

Shawna  44:28
except for Karen White, who, back in the 90s, said, I'm not your Superwoman.

Rachel  44:36
Put it on repeat.

Shawna  44:39
Oh my god. Well, I think out of this conversation, one of the things that resonated with me the most is this idea, because it's something I've wrestled with so much, is the being enough of like, enough of this, enough of that, accepting it for myself, but also understanding that, you know, the way I'm perceived might mean I'm not enough of X, Y or Z. And I just wondered Annemarie, before we close. If you could give any piece of advice to someone who's still waiting for their aha moment, or they're trying to embrace both and in some kind of way, what could they do? Or how could they get themselves on that path to both and so they're not worrying about struggling of with enough of something, 

Annemarie Shrouder (she/her)  45:18
There's something magical about the both and space and and considering not having to choose. And I think if we just let ourselves imagine that just just for a minute, then we can approach it. And if we can approach it, we can maybe sit in it for a little bit. And if we can sit in that then, then the push and pull, even just for that instant, can stop and we can and we can consider just who we are.

Shawna  45:53
Thank you for this conversation. Thank you so good. Thank you both tell folks where they can find you and about your books and all the good things. Well, they can find me at Anne Marie schroeder.com that's where my my that's where my work sits. My book is there. You can find the book there. I'm on LinkedIn. If that's where you live, find me there. Once in a while, I'm on Instagram, but not not so often, but I do have an Instagram handle called the mixed advantage. So in my foray into the world of mixed folks and wanting to reach those 2 million and just remind ourselves who we are and the gifts that we have, yeah, spend a little bit of time and that idea. Awesome. Love it. I'll make sure to link everything. All right, what about you? Rachel, anything?

Rachel  46:44
Yeah, I have been reflecting on this. I've heard this parable of the hummingbird. I think it originated in Peru as everything just seems like it's going left at a very rapid pace, and sometimes it feels very overwhelming. And in the parable of the hummingbird, essentially the forest is on fire, and all the animals are running away, and the hummingbird goes to the water and takes a little drop and puts it on the fire. And the animals laugh at her and say, Why are you doing that? It's just a drop. And she says, I'm doing what I can, which then inspires the other animals to do what they can and put the fire out. And sometimes I feel like a hummingbird with just a little drop, but I feel like it is our responsibility to do what we can where we are under the circumstances that we are currently living in.

Shawna  47:24
 Thank you both. I so appreciate y'all. Take care. Everybody. Bye.