Singer Halsey knows what it feels like to not belong. She recently opened up to Playboy in a wide-ranging interview that included her experiences as a biracial woman and how she has learned to navigate the racial space between worlds.
“I’m half black,” she said, adding that her dad was a car dealership manager. “I’m white-passing. I’ve accepted that about myself and have never tried to control anything about black culture that’s not mine. I’m proud to be in a biracial family. I’m proud of who I am, and I’m proud of my hair.”
She talked about how she does have moments where she experiences what she calls “racial blips.”
“One of my big jokes a long time ago was ‘I look white, but I still have white boys in my life asking me why my nipples are brown,” she said. “Every now and tthen I experience these racial blips. I look like a white girl, but I don’t feel like one I’m a black woman. So it’s been weird navigating that. When I was growing up I didn’t know if I was supposed to love TLC or Britney.”
She also had some interesting stuff to say about white allyship in the time of Trump.
“White guilt is funny, but this is really hard time for white allies,” she said. “People don’t want to do too much but want to do enough, and in my bubble of Los Angeles I’m surrounded by a lot of good people with a lot of good intentions. But as I’ve learned in this past election, my bubble is just a small fraction of how this country operates. That is ultimately my greatest frustration with the public perception of any sort of activism: the mentality of “Well, it’s not affecting me.” Open your f***ing eyes.”
Read more from Halsey at Playboy.
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