A Mixed Chick and Proud of it!

Fanshen Cox is half Black and half white – a Mixed Chick and proud of it – but she didn’t always see things that way.  According to Cox, her life – and her story – can be told in several different phases. 

“Race was always an issue from the very, very beginning,” said Cox.  Living in Washington, D.C. and growing up with a Jamaican father and a mother of Danish and Native American descent, Cox was very aware of her mixed racial background as a child.

When her parents divorced, Cox moved around with her mother and brother until they finally settled in Cambridge, Mass.  According to Cox, it was there that she felt most comfortable.  In Cambridge, she was surrounded by many dynamic and progressive people and she proudly identified herself as mixed. 

Going to college at the University of Michigan completely challenged how Cox identified herself though.  She was introduced to the concept of the “one drop rule” and began to strongly identify herself as a Black woman.  At first, this identification was a survival tactic, according to Cox.  As a freshman entering the new world of college, identifying herself as Black gave her a place to fit in. 

Over the next seven years of her life, Cox accepted this role, doing all the she could to embrace her Black identity – wearing braids, getting her nose pierced, sporting Malcolm X t-shirts.  She focused entirely on Black people and their oppression, which in turn produced a lot of anger on her part. “I went through a period where the only way I could be Black and proud was to make white people feel bad,” said Cox. 

After college, Cox joined the Peace Corps and traveled to West Africa as the ultimate way of showing her “Blackness,” as she put it.  There, much to her surprise, with her light skin and blue eyes, she wasn’t viewed as Black.  “There’s only so much pretending you can do until someone calls you out on it,” said Cox.  Her experience in West Africa really reminded her to have a broader way of seeing the world, according to Cox.

“There’s only so much pretending you can do until someone calls you out on it......”

An actress, Cox moved to New York City after the Peace Corps.  On an audition for a show called HybridEyes, Cox looked around the room and sized up her only competition – Heidi Durrow – also a light-skinned woman with blue eyes.  They both landed roles on the show, ended up becoming best friends and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Over the years of their friendship, Cox and Durrow had many great conversations about how they saw themselves in the world, their identities and how they had both changed over the years.  A year ago, they decided to take those conversations public and Mixed Chicks Chat was born. 

A weekly live podcast, Mixed Chicks Chat focuses on the mixed experience.  There is no agenda, according to Cox.  Each week, Cox, Durrow, special guests and callers all weigh in on topics relating to the theme “It’s a forum,” said Cox.  “It’s this positive, open place for people to talk about the mixed experience.”

Cox and Durrow also founded and produced the Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival, the only festival dedicated to showcasing stories that depict the mixed racial and cultural experiences.  Before, these stories were put into festivals that didn’t specifically cater to them, according to Cox. 

The first festival was held this past June in Los Angeles on the weekend of Loving Day (a day which commemorates the legalization of interracial marriage).  The three-day event averaged 250 attended per day and Cox has received amazing feedback.  “People felt like for the first time, they had a place to share their story,” said Cox. 

And sharing her story is exactly Cox’s mission now, so that others may learn from her experiences. “For the first time in my life, I’m in a very different place,” said Cox.  “Not only is it okay for me to identify as mixed, but it’s important.”

One of the mediums that Cox has recently used to tell her story is through stand-up comedy. “You don’t get to hide from who you are when you’re doing stand-up,” said Cox.  According to Cox, when she’s standing alone up on that stage, she can’t deny who she is. Her background is something that has to be talked about.

As someone who has gone through all the phases of wrestling with her identity, Cox appears to have finally landed at the phase labeled acceptance. “I feel like I’ve gotten to a place where I don’t have to deny anything anymore,” said Cox.  “I can accept everything that makes up who I am and that’s beautiful.”

Read on for some additional background on Mixed Chicks Chat and the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival......

Mixed Chicks Chat

Mixed Chicks Chat is a podcast focused around the thousands of topics relating to the mixed racial and cultural experiences.  Hosted by Fanshen Cox and Heidi Durrow, the show is all-inclusive and everyone is invited to participate – those of mixed races, those who were adopted, those who are in interracial relationships though not actually mixed themselves and those simply interested in the discussion.  Mixed Chicks Chat broadcasts live each Wednesday at 2 p.m. PST. 

Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival

Sprung right from the discussions on Mixed Chicks Chat, the Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival celebrates all the rich stories that the multiracial and multicultural experience yields.  Held on the weekend of Loving Day, the inaugural year’s festival included readings, workshops and film screenings; the plans for next year’s festival are already in the works.