VERY GOOD ARTICLE. Didn't paste the whole thing, but enough of the "they're not really Black" nonsense already.
No Apologies
Growing up a biracial child has always served to affect both Barnes' self-esteem and others' perception of him, which he has long lamented.
He was confused and did not feel normal. It was exceedingly difficult for him to find love or acceptance. He became quiet, reserved, angry.
The marriage of his black father and white mother was not popular around his native Sacramento. They would receive taunts and disparaging remarks when they went out. People would stare.
The union also caused endless infighting within the family, which led to near-constant unrest and anxiety for Barnes. His grandfather on his mother's side threw around racial epithets and wouldn't accept the children until Barnes was well into elementary school.
Then the name-calling started.
"These kids would be calling me n----r left and right," he says. "It was everyday. So I fought everyday. I was never black enough or ever white enough, so I got picked on constantly. And my dad told me to never come home crying. I had no choice but to fight."
The ones who didn't pick on him bombarded Barnes with questions about his ethnicity. His teachers did, too. It seemed to perplex them.
"I was kind of like an oddball," he says. "I wasn't white, I wasn't black, I wasn't Puerto Rican, I wasn't Asian. People kept asking, ‘What the fukk are you?’
"To this day people think I'm the tallest Mexican in the NBA."
After leaving Will Rogers Elementary, the trouble really began.
Racial tensions decimated his social life. He lost his virginity at 14 but wasn't intimate again until his senior year of high school. Nobody could figure out what he was—but he was black if he wanted to date.
Despite everything, he became an athletic star. As a senior on the football team, he hauled in 58 catches for 28 touchdowns. Still, they yelled "******" when he found the end zone on game-winning drives. On the hardwood, his nightly near-triple-doubles were interrupted by opposing fans throwing bananas on the court.
At Del Campo High School in Fair Oaks, California, 18 miles outside of Sacramento, his battle with racism made the local papers. During his senior year, Danielle, then a 15-year-old freshman at Del Campo, was spit on by a classmate who routinely peppered her with the N-word. Several moments later, with saliva still in her hair, she told her brother, who spotted the attacker and proceeded to give him the beating of his life.
Days later a skinhead-laden white-power movement vandalized the school with racist graffiti. They spray-painted the word "******" and swastikas on school walls. Die Matt Barnes was sprayed on the school's front entrance. There was a mannequin hanging by a noose from the tallest tree on campus. Confederate flags were laid out in the courtyard.
The local chapter of the NAACP worked with police on the investigation.
The experience hardened Barnes. Demanding respect for himself and his family, just as his father had taught him, became a paramount theme in his life regardless of the consequences.
Shortly after the incident, he began to embrace his identity.
"That's when I knew I was black," he remembers. "While I identify with my Italian heritage, I'm black because I'm not treated as a white person. Still to this day I'm still discriminated and profiled against."
No Apologies
Growing up a biracial child has always served to affect both Barnes' self-esteem and others' perception of him, which he has long lamented.
He was confused and did not feel normal. It was exceedingly difficult for him to find love or acceptance. He became quiet, reserved, angry.
The marriage of his black father and white mother was not popular around his native Sacramento. They would receive taunts and disparaging remarks when they went out. People would stare.
The union also caused endless infighting within the family, which led to near-constant unrest and anxiety for Barnes. His grandfather on his mother's side threw around racial epithets and wouldn't accept the children until Barnes was well into elementary school.
Then the name-calling started.
"These kids would be calling me n----r left and right," he says. "It was everyday. So I fought everyday. I was never black enough or ever white enough, so I got picked on constantly. And my dad told me to never come home crying. I had no choice but to fight."
The ones who didn't pick on him bombarded Barnes with questions about his ethnicity. His teachers did, too. It seemed to perplex them.
"I was kind of like an oddball," he says. "I wasn't white, I wasn't black, I wasn't Puerto Rican, I wasn't Asian. People kept asking, ‘What the fukk are you?’
"To this day people think I'm the tallest Mexican in the NBA."
After leaving Will Rogers Elementary, the trouble really began.
Racial tensions decimated his social life. He lost his virginity at 14 but wasn't intimate again until his senior year of high school. Nobody could figure out what he was—but he was black if he wanted to date.
Despite everything, he became an athletic star. As a senior on the football team, he hauled in 58 catches for 28 touchdowns. Still, they yelled "******" when he found the end zone on game-winning drives. On the hardwood, his nightly near-triple-doubles were interrupted by opposing fans throwing bananas on the court.
At Del Campo High School in Fair Oaks, California, 18 miles outside of Sacramento, his battle with racism made the local papers. During his senior year, Danielle, then a 15-year-old freshman at Del Campo, was spit on by a classmate who routinely peppered her with the N-word. Several moments later, with saliva still in her hair, she told her brother, who spotted the attacker and proceeded to give him the beating of his life.
Days later a skinhead-laden white-power movement vandalized the school with racist graffiti. They spray-painted the word "******" and swastikas on school walls. Die Matt Barnes was sprayed on the school's front entrance. There was a mannequin hanging by a noose from the tallest tree on campus. Confederate flags were laid out in the courtyard.
The local chapter of the NAACP worked with police on the investigation.
The experience hardened Barnes. Demanding respect for himself and his family, just as his father had taught him, became a paramount theme in his life regardless of the consequences.
Shortly after the incident, he began to embrace his identity.
"That's when I knew I was black," he remembers. "While I identify with my Italian heritage, I'm black because I'm not treated as a white person. Still to this day I'm still discriminated and profiled against."
So if he was treated as a CAC, would he have denied his black heritage
