This is the part I did not have and as I read your account this is what jumped out at me:

You had a black mother who at the least defended you and boosted you with encouragement about your heritage and worth.

I was raised by my white mother, who preferred telling me to ignore my heritage, to keep trying to befriend the white girls, even though most of them didn’t want to be my friend. When I opened up how they didn’t like my brown skin, she didn’t say they were wrong. She just told me to keep trying.

When I said I preferred my black friends, she frowned on that and insisted I socialize with white girls.

And this is why the “mixed experience” is so vast because the socialization and elements of our environment create a variety of experiences within the paths we take to navigate our identity in a world so insistent on “black” and “white.”