Embracing all of you

I am against black nationalism. I love, respect and tolerate each race, culture and even religion. However that said, I do believe in an appreciation for your individual race and culture. The problem comes when you exalt your culture above another. Sadly, this has been the response of the extreme black nationalists. They have tried to fight fire with fire, which burns everyone involved. They have tried to counteract oppression with more oppression. I love being black, but being black is no better than being white, Asian or any other race. Being black and proud does not mean I must disdain other cultures and races.
People with low self esteem tend to suppress others. Putting down people is actually a defense mechanism. They are anxious about their own identities, and try to reaffirm themselves through undermining others. Therefore, I do not envy or feel offended at racists, I actually feel sorry for and pity them. Those who are comfortable and can embrace all of themselves, are the ones who are more happy in life. But to embrace yourself surely you must know who you are? I think this has been a difficulty in being black, particularly for those in Diaspora. We sometimes feel that we have been assigned an ambiguous and conflicting identity. When we are asked 'Where are you from?', many Diasporian black people have difficulty answering this question. I believe the difficulty with providing an answer to such a question is that we often think in a singular fashion, rather than an holistic one. We put all put people into boxes, but the problem is that we all do not think into one box. Personally, I know that I am made up of parts, that have their origins in different boxes. Therefore, I cannot ultimately say that I am from one particular box. The secret to embracing ourselves is valuing each and every box that we came from. We should not discard, and undermine anywhere we came from.
In my case I was born in Britain, however, my Grandparents were born in Jamaica. Does this mean that I must cling to my Britishness and shun my Jamaicaness? Or Vice versa? I argue that to do so is to undermine your own self identity. It is to suppress yourself, a self that cannot be escaped from. Personally, I embrace all of me. Just because I am British does not mean I cannot be Jamaican. It is the same with race, we can often put mixed race people into boxes, and encourage them to deny their whiteness or blackness. We adopt an either or mentality when in reality they are both. We do not have to choose between one or the other. Therefore, whether we are mixed raced, or mixed cultured we must embrace all sides, all boxes, everything that makes us up.