ABSTRACT
I was born biracial-the son of a black Jamaican father and a white Canadian mother who eventually divorced. In their eyes I was not a half-black/halfwhite kid who had to be warned of the prejudices I might encounter in society. They raised me as someone who could achieve anything he wanted. Therefore, my identity was shaped almost free of any notion of race in my earlier years. I saw myself as no different from anybody else, and therefore I was able to discover for myself the meaning of life and who I was. Once I had discovered that my natural athletic ability could make me stand out as an individual, it became very easy to define myself mainly in athletic terms. Thus, since race did not play a major role in my earlier years, understanding myself as biracial was not a central goal. Not until I realized that skin color could make a difference in how I was perceived in my relationships and how I saw myself, did I really begin to explore who I was.
