In the fourth grade, I transferred from a predominately white school to a predominantly black school.

I was as pale as some of the white students, and my hair, while nappy, was sandy, almost blond in the right light. The hair color and skin tone were both passed down from my blue-eyed mother. If that wasn't bad enough, I also "talked white" and, as a result, the remainder of elementary school was sheer hell.

"High Yella," "Red Bones," "Salt 'n' Peppa," "Half Breed." I've heard them all. I remember one lunch bell when the chief meanie counted heads then boldly announced, "We have 10 and 1/2 half black people and two and half white people." I was threatened with physical violence, received harassing phone calls, and according to the rumors they started, had serviced every male in the school by graduation.

There is nothing on this earth like getting "mean-girled" but a bunch of sistahs on a mission.The thing is, I'm not biracial. Both of my parents are black, as are their parents, and so on, all the way back to the plantation. Now, obviously, I have more than a little cream in my coffee, and it's apparent that people in my family have gravitated toward "the light." As a result, I look biracial and most wouldn't know otherwise, if I didn't tell them.

My heritage is African, Native American, German, French, Irish. Actually, it's probably easier to list what I'm not. And it all shows. My genetic makeup is so convoluted that I'm probably equal parts everything and could put anything on the Census, but I choose black.

I identify as black because that's how I was raised -- everyone in my family identifies as black, and I was always taught that, regardless of how I look, I am a black Woman. To identify as anything other than black feels wrong, like I'm lying to myself and the world.

Besides, if I were to go around calling myself white or Native American, people would either laugh at me or kick my ass.

I identify as black because that's how the world sees me. People may see me and think that I'm biracial, but it's always "black and..." I have a perma-tan and full lips. My nose is broader than the standard European issue and my hair, while dreaded now, grows out into a massively dense fro. Ask the clerks who follow me around in stores or the white women who clutch their purses tighter when trapped in enclosed spaces with me, and they will all tell you that I'm black. Or, at the very least, I am not white.

I suspect that President Barack Obama has similar issues. Whether or not he was raised by his white mother and grand parents, the world sees President Obama as a black man. The world responds to him as a black man. The world treats him as a black man.

Even the people who insist that he's "half white" are only doing so because they can see that he's "half black." They need to justify how someone like him got to be President--that it's the white part that accounts for his success. If President Obama had his mother's last name, coloring and features, these same people would not be saying "He's half black."--at least, not after he the election.

Because the world sees him as black, because his own white grandmother had expressed (with shame) feeling uncomfortable around black men - men who look like her grandson - it would be difficult for him to identify as anything else.

Of course, President Obama is different from a lot of biracial blacks, because his father was actually from Africa. A majority of black Americans are multi-ethnic to begin with. Some, like me, may have a few more extra ingredients, but unless they came from Africa recently, very few black Americans are 100 percent black. For that matter, there are quite a few white Americans that are not 100 percent white. So the term biracial (being of two distinct races) is not technically correct, especially when you factor in people like me.

Either way, it's not easy identifying as black (or white) when your outward appearance says, "I could be anything." And the moment you identify as anything, you have to meet certain criteria, even if it's antiquated, outdated or downright racist.

I have been accused of not being black enough, because I prefer Ani DiFranco over Erykah Badu or because I prefer the programming on MTV over BET.

I have been told, by whites, that I'm not like other black people because I don't act "ghetto."

I have had family members accuse me of "acting white" or "trying to be white" because I have dated white men.

I have had my reserved nature and penchant for $20 words branded as "siddity" or "uppity."

Of course, I don't help the situation. I feel completely out-of-place in hip-hop clubs and absolutely at home among my hippy, alternative, Steam-punk peers - most of whom are white. My personal style leans more toward Hippie Chic than Ghetto Fabulous and I look at most soul food and wonder why anyone, in their right mind, would eat that.

And then there's the way I speak.

If I had a nickel for every time I got the "bait and switch" look the moment people realized the voice on the phone doesn't match what showed up at their door, I could live up to the lazy stereotype and never work again.

I remember calling a hospital's diversity department to ask about a nursing scholarship for Black students. I talked to three people and they all repeated multiple times that the scholarship was for black students. After telling them multiple times that I Am Black they still refused to believe it. It was a truly sad situation on so many levels. Not the least of which is the fact that so-called diversity training only serves to reinforce stereotypes: "Black people are like this, and white people are like that, but it's all good," instead of educating people on the variety of differences not only between ethnic groups, but within.

Those are the differences that really matter.

I am not biracial, but I have a multi-ethnic background that makes me uniquely me. I identify as Black because, as of yet, there is no Census designation for Human, which most adequately describes who and what I am.