In 2021, I thought a lot about being mixed-race

Published on 7 December 2021

 

If you met me you might know right away that I’m mixed-race. Or you might not. My skin is fair but my eyes and hair are dark. You might think I’m Spanish maybe. You might not think about it at all, but you might find yourself wondering and guessing. You’d probably be too polite to ask, but I have met people who can’t quite let it go. Some of them have guessed at part Chinese or Japanese. In fact, I’m a mix of white European and black Nigerian.

My dad was sandy-haired and white. My mother is half Nigerian and half British. Her black father strove to fit into his new country and her white mother encouraged her 9 children to keep their heads down. My mum isn’t one to keep her head down. When she encountered racism she strode over it with her superpower – a self-confidence I have never been able to emulate. She is proud of her African-ness, but has always been determinedly undefined by it. I, on the other hand, seem to want to define myself and have always struggled to do it. I’ve never felt white, but I’ve never felt ‘black enough’ either.

Of course racial identity isn’t entirely about how you look. It’s also about lived experience, about cultural background, about how you feel and the choices you make. If you ask me what it’s like to be mixed, I could tell you about growing up in the 70s with Motown on the record player and my older sister’s Black Power posters on our bedroom walls; about the years it’s taken to accept the frizz in my hair and how my half-Barbadian best friend Sharon and I basically wished hair straighteners into existence. I would tell you how Sharon and I were constantly mixed up by our white teachers or treated as one entity, despite the fact that she was small, and beautiful with dark skin and strikingly pale blue eyes and was basically the complete opposite of me; how I grew up alongside kids who called me ‘chocolate block’ or ‘cocoa’; how I’ve challenged racism and been told ‘I didn’t mean YOU’ and how I can’t even begin to explain to people why that’s so utterly wrong and just how much they DO mean me and my mother and my brother and my sister, my cousins, my aunts, my uncles, my nieces and nephews, my great-nieces and nephews, my friends.

“I seem to want to define myself and have always struggled to do it. I’ve never felt white, but I’ve never felt ‘black enough’ either.”
 
 

But, because I look fairly white and my husband is white and many of our friends are white and I live away from my family and work in the very white industry that is publishing, my mixed-ness just doesn’t come up much. It’s easy for me to not think about it, and I do realise how much of a privilege that is. I didn’t even realise that I wasn’t thinking about it until last year. Until the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement made me feel that I had lost touch with something that is vital to me and until a conversation with my mixed-race cousin reminded me how much I’m part of my wider family and how much shared experience we have.

Gradually, I’ve realised that I sit in an uncomfortable place where my skin colour has meant I haven’t had to face the barriers that exist for black people around the world and I have had access to white privilege, but my life experience and the experience of people I love connects me strongly to my home, to my huge extended family and to black and mixed-race people everywhere. I don’t want to ‘pass’ for white, because I’m not. History is littered with fair-skinned, mixed-race people who left their families and heritage behind in a deliberate and heart-rending decision to become white. That’s not me. The idea hurts my heart.

“If I want to be defined, I can be, but only I can do it. No-one else can decide for me. Even within my close family, my brother and sister, so similar genetically and in upbringing, would define themselves differently.”
 
 

And yet, I’ve felt so uncomfortable that when I decided to write about this, I was scared. What do I know about it? Do I have enough claim to write about mixed-raceness? If most people see a white woman, does that make me white, really? Do most people see a white woman? Even the black and mixed-race people that I meet? 

So I’ve been thinking about this a lot in 2021 and, through writing this and reading other peoples stories and some fabulous articles (see footnotes), I have realised that it’s a complicated thing and that in the end, I am whatever I feel myself to be. 

My genes are mixed.

My life experiences have been mixed. 

I feel mixed race. 

I am mixed race. 

I don’t know why it gets so tangled up sometimes. If I want to be defined, I can be, but only I can do it. No-one else can decide for me. Even within my close family, my brother and sister, so similar genetically and in upbringing, would define themselves differently. 

So, there’s my final point: we humans like definitions, we like to label and pigeonhole because it’s easier for us. Holding lots of ideas at once is hard work and kind of gives you a headache, but we really, really need to do that work and I’m happy to see lots of people trying – not just around ethnicity but sexuality, gender, disability and any other issues that have the potential to divide us. There are almost 8 billion people on this planet and every single one has their own genetic mix, their own experience, their own view of themselves and their place here. So we need 8 billion labels, right? Luckily we already have them. If you want to know what you should call me, (or anyone else you meet, for that matter), it’s easy: just ask me my name.