Is “Mixed-Race” Even a Race?
Do we actually have anything in common?
It’s a rude awakening to realise that you don’t look distinctly like either of your parents.
How is that even possible?
I mean, you definitely exited your mother’s uterus and your father seems overly occupied with keeping you alive, so you are certainly attached to them somehow. Yet when you stand side by side, to the naked eye you look nothing alike.
Gradually — if you look hard enough — you’ll start to see similarities. Maybe it’s the shape of your head. The small, but perfectly round pea head you inherited from your father. Or the nose, with it’s protruding bone jutting forth from your cheeks.
That’s the thing though isn’t it? It’s not obvious to the naked eye because your skin does not exhibit the same amount of pigmentation. You’re a different skin colour altogether and that — that is the struggle.
You don’t really look like either of your parents.
This can lead to people assuming your mother is your nanny or your father is your “sugar daddy”. Ew, I know.
Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to matter throughout your childhood. You don’t really notice colour and heritage. You become versed in different flavours, mingling with extended family, neighbours and school friends on play dates. Top of your agenda are toys, snacks and naps. Life is good.
It never stays that easy, though. Before you know it — bam! Say hello to your teens. As well as the curricular requirements amping up, you are thrust into a new social battleground otherwise named high school.
At this point it becomes downright tribal.
High school
In the early years of adolescence, we want nothing more than to fit in — to find our tribe.
Perhaps we’re quirky and introverted, so gravitate towards those with similar dispositions; or we’re sporty and extroverted, so we climb the invisible hierarchy and surround ourselves with an exclusive fan base.
My experience in high school was largely characterised by racial divide. A harmless one, but a divide nonetheless.
The majority of kids were white, from middle class backgrounds and typically lived on one side of the school’s catchment area populated with the concurrent demographic.
The rest of us lived in other suburbs, which were densely populated by Asian and African communities. So when we, as children of colour, ended up in the same classes, we instinctively banded together over our shared experiences and lack of whiteness in a predominantly white environment.
There was of course mixing and nothing that would resemble segregation. In fact, my class photo is like a stracciatella ice-cream. Yet, I ended up spending most of my time outside of scheduled lessons with the “black” group: a group of black kids from different classes across the cohort, due to my self-identification as black on account of my Nigerian heritage on my father’s side.
There were many conversations in which I heard phrases like “you’re not even black” when speaking in urban slang or “that’s definitely your white side” when scoring high marks on English literature exams.
(Confession: to this day I still blame not being able to dance well on my “white” genes)
My favourite moment of racial divide came towards the latter years of my high school experience when we played football on the field at lunch. The pinnacle of the British high school experience.
The quickest and most straightforward way to decide teams in a game with 20 kids playing was to play “blacks” vs “whites”, where yep, you guessed it — the teams were drawn along racial lines. This was fuelled also by an ongoing debate about which race had the best footballers.
I wasn’t any good at football, so I didn’t care to play on most occasions, but the one time I did get involved, I did think “so what side should I actually be on then?”
“Could we make a mixed-race team?”
I was met with puzzled looks.
Reflecting now, there were a number of mixed-race kids in my year at school, but I never felt much affinity towards them. The two of us that were mixed with black and white heritages did at least bond over the shared abuse we received for being called “half-breeds”.
Kids are cruel, right?
Don’t worry, I spewed back much worse. Either way, I shrugged and went to the library instead to cram in some homework.
Do we have anything in common?
American novelist and essayist Danzy Senna made an assertion in her essay The Mulatto Millennium that really irked me:
“We’ve decided on this one word, “multiracial”, to describe, in effect, a whole nation of diverse people who have absolutely no relation, cultural or otherwise, to one another.”
The struggle of being mixed-race is not to have an existing heritage categorised as a major racial group. Dependent on your specific mix of ethnicities, you will likely be categorised as the dominant one, although that inaccurately represents your identity.
Since the numbers of mixed-race people in countries like the U.S.A. and the UK are aggressively trending upwards, our visibility is growing.
Although our specific heritages might be different, I do believe there are facets of our individual journeys characterised by the same experiences.
For example:
Feeling torn
Why does it always feel like we have to choose a side?
We’re not one race, or another. We’re somewhere in the middle, confused and torn between two sides of an identity.
We’ve felt the feeling that we don’t fully belong to any of the races represented in our genetic makeup. Even if our appearance completely reflects one race, we know somewhere in the back of our minds that we’re neglecting part of our heritage and that chips away at our souls.
It’s made worse when we come into contact with people from that neglected heritage. We try to make conversation around cultural nuances, fearful that we’ll be found out for the frauds that we really are.
Looking different than family
In my opinion, I look nothing like my parents. (I probably do to some degree, but you’d have a hard time convincing me of it).
If we’re the only people of colour in the family, it can get downright awkward. Extended family can be a huge blessing, but also a burden when it comes to family gatherings since there’s always that racist [delete as appropriate] uncle / aunt / grandparent even.
When it comes to that time that controversial topics come up, they’ll start with “I’m not racist, but…”
Or even better, they’ll start bad mouthing a particular race, somehow forgetting that you are a token member of the race in question. Or that you just don’t stand for racism as a whole. Imagine that.
Thinking of yourself as one race
I’ve read countless stories of mixed-race experiences and there is one trend that I see countless times. Up until a certain age, we don’t realise that we have a different racial background to our peers.
We’ll see ourselves as white (if light skinned), black (if dark skinned) or even Asian, if our heritage reflects that. It’s dependent on the dominant ethnic group of the country we live in. We’ll assume we’re the same as everyone else, until someone points it out to us.
People deciding your race for you
People will look at us and categorise us as one race or another, dependent on how strong specific genes manifest themselves in our appearance.
They will feel entitled to label us accordingly and feel completely validated in arguing that stance.
Why they feel they have the right to do so, I have no idea. But here we are.
In some cases, we may even welcome this approach, since we just want to feel accepted by a dominant racial group. However, with the growth of mixed-race communities online and in person, this is the age of embracing the mixed-race experience.
Discovery
There comes a point when we consciously accept that our genetic makeup is different and it’s liberating. For some of us this happens earlier than for others. It can largely depend on the level of diversity in our local environment, our exposure to other people who are mixed-race and the rhetoric our parents / wider family have used.
We carve out our unique identity, embrace every facet of our heritage and live it with pride. It’s what I would term a racial rebirth.
We no longer need external validation, nor do we seek it. If someone misidentifies our race, we politely educate them. We enjoy mixing between cultures and the rich nuances they bring to our lives. We create our own space and become hella comfortable there.
That’s where the magic happens.
In Conclusion
As mixed-race individuals, the choice to categorise ourselves is our right and our right alone. We may be labelled as a particular dominant group be any individual and at that point we have three options:
- Reject
- Accept
- Educate
Personally, I choose to educate.
I choose to educate because my story is unique and I refuse to have it minimised, incorrectly categorised or misrepresented. I encourage you to do the same.
As people of mixed race, we have unique stories that capture the struggles of being influenced by two (or sometimes more) racial identities, cultures and customs. These stories are now starting to surface in greater detail and it’s our moment to seize.
Whilst we may not be connected through one common specific, we do share common elements on the journey to self-discovery and acceptance that are unique to the mixed-race experience.
These experiences imbue us with the ability to connect with others who are mixed-race and bond over shared experiences.
We have more in common than we don’t.
