Feeling that I will never belong anywhere because I am mixed race.

I'm not mixed - I'm white - but I just feel heartbroken to read this.

We're all a funny muddle of all sorts. Northern / southern, working class/ middle class, British/ 'foreign', functional family background/ some dysfunctional stuff too - etc etc.

The one thing that we all have in common, if we only but knew it, is that we're all struggling with something and that we can all sometimes feel that we're on the outside looking in.

I don't minimise what you are going through but I wish I could give you a big, in-Mumsnetty hug.

I hope you can work through these and that you soon feel more settled in yourself ❤️

Have you read BRIT-(ish) by Afua Hirsch OP? You might find it interesting on identity. She writes brilliantly.

I would say that anyone who is racist to you for being black or not black enough is an utter raging racist who you should have nothing to do with.

I agree.

This is an interesting thread. (Haven't read all of it yet).

I have a mix race child (adult now) and of course he's had experience of racism - me too! - but in general we live in a very tolerant city (not UK), so that's great.

@something2say Yes, very exciting the Aquarian Age. It's been talked about for years and on the 20th of this month Pluto moves into Aquarius staying there until 2043!

I'm mixed, and my DC are a different mix.

You're not fully black. You're not fully white. Those are not the only two boxes in the world. You're in a different one. As it happens, there's a massive pre-existing one for your particular mix. Growing up, I had to make up my own.

I agree with pp that you're mixing with the wrong people. Anyone who can only see you in terms of black or white, isn't seeing YOU. That may be deliberate, it may be born of ignorance. Doesn't matter, ultimately, as the net result is the same.

More than anything, you need to figure out who you are, be comfortable and confident in that. Other people (including your children) will take their lead from you. You can't let other people tell you who you are, whether on matters of race or anything else, because they don't know and they're not you.

I can imagine this may be tough

Identify is hard thing.

My son has a friend. His mother is half Indian, the dad is white. Son's friend looks very Indian, even more so than his mum. He has two sisters, one who looks very Latino, and the other one is pale/freckly Auburn hair.

I imagine they have a completely different interaction with the world.

.

I am mixed but white: half Eastern European Jewish, half British. Because I appear white it took me a long time to realise why I don’t feel I quite fit in. It’s obviously not the same as being half black in that I don’t look ‘different’, but there is a strong feeling of not being quite one thing nor the other. I have veered backwards and forwards in trying to be completely one thing and rejecting the other, but that doesn’t work. Latterly I have accepted that the discomfort and uncertainty is just inherent in the experience of being mixed and can’t be got rid of.

In some ways I think it’s easier to be 100% something, even if that something makes you an outsider, but at least you are ‘whole’.

Yeah I have this. Neither side see me as from them. I also don't understand racism in a textbook way because I've seen it from both sides.

I'm mixed - black African and white English and love being mixed and identify strongly with both.

You're not neither one or the other you are both and need to be proud of that.

Wurh your mention of black.and white community, it sounds like you are subjecting yourself to other people's labels.

I am mixed race (different to the OP) and felt like I was neither one side or the other growing up, including from my own family
I grew up in white British family and didn't really have involvement with my other side.

As I've grown older, I've learned to embrace parts of both cultures and also to ignore the micro aggressions. Including the 'Where are you really from?', if people push for the answer they want, I just want to say 'My mother's vagina'.

My DH is from another country and the DCs pass as white, they don't feel part of my heritage as they are a 'quarter' of it.

There's no right answer, just do what you feel is right for you and try to ignore people telling you you're not enough.

@Keepthosenamesgoing my children are mixed heritage as well, passing as white, but when they go to their other 50% country they stick out like a sore thumb there as well! I think in their case, we brought them up as British and that's how they see themselves, but with a different heritage, and that seems to be easier than if there are two parents from a different country that then move to the UK and be brought up here. It's hard if the family have expectations you will be part of the original culture and you don't quite fit there. I've seen so many friends struggle with this over the years, including those with both mixed race and mixed heritage together, which makes things very complicated.

I don't know what you can do except let your children lead the way, offer both cultures/heritages and listen at times it gets difficult for them.

Thanks so much for this link. I appreciate it.

Sorry that's what you've experienced @fiftiesskin, sounds tough. This was a research paper I read recently about existential loneliness - interviews with people and starting to define it and identity how it's different from either social or emotional loneliness - https://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40359-023-01452-4

Same boat as @JacqueIineHyde

Having people who understand you and share similar experiences as you and have your back is important to all of us. if we don't see our experiences reflected in other people, we can feel what's known as existential loneliness, which some studies indicate is one of the worst sorts of loneliness to experience

@MurielThrockmorton This is completely true. I have been through two, related, very traumatic experiences. Not only do I know no-one who has been through these, but there are no support groups or ‘community’ for this. Frankly, it’s awful, it’s like a third intense trauma. Existential loneliness is a very good description of it. Thank you for giving me this descriptor. This sense of separation from others it has given me is so profound that I get bouts of intense disassociation, which is hard to describe but is like suddenly being shifted to a parallel state, where I can see the people around me but I am not part of their world, I can’t connect to them, I can’t feel what they are feeling, or feel in response to anything in the world, and I don’t know how to get back to the world.

Thank you so much for posting this. It’s made me feel a bit like I do have a shared experience with others, which helps, and I will look further into that phrase existential loneliness.

I’m so sorry to hear about your experiences of racism and exclusion. Makes me very disappointed about the society we live in. But honestly you are better off without people who behave like that in your life.
I’m white and I know that in the past I’ve been one of the “ I don’t see colour “ people but I’ve been educated a bit more now - largely by one of my mixed race pals. He was sometimes very blunt on calling me out on things I said that were uneducated , thoughtless and ( unintentionally) hurtful and I am so very very glad he did.
Thoughts on mixed race people - I don’t know. Everyone is an individual. Everyone’s stories are different.I suppose mainly I think of the richness of heritage, the different cultures that you are part of you , that you can choose to identify with a little, a lot or none depending on your preferences .
Be proud of who you are. Have no tolerance for racism in all of its guises. I don’t have any useful advice but I really hope you are able to not just accept but to love who you are

I am a mixed race woman with brown skin. I found it incredibly difficult growing up in a small town where there were very few other brown or black kids in my school. I didn't get bullied but i saw a few other children being called the P word in school. It felt quite isolating and I really could not wait to go to uni and move to a big city. There's always been an issue with race with almost every boyfriend i've had, particularly the ones when I was a teenager - worried about what their parents would think, not wanting me to meet their colleagues because i wasn't white etc. Not to mention the name calling, being called a mongrel by customer when i was 18 and working as a waitress.
I felt alot more accepted when i moved to London. Now i live overseas and still have problems, ive been mistaken for a prostitute by a police officer because of my race (i was in a car with my son and DH), mistaken for the nanny because im a different colour to my son, repeatedly stopped in airports because im a different colour to my son.

Well as I am too that's my opinion so we'll just have to agree to differ.

I was going to say something similar - I am not mixed race, but I also have a mixed cultural background. English father, mother from an EU country (and my first name comes from that country), and I grew up in a third EU country. I am also now living in London and think that one of the nicest things about it is that everyone is from somewhere else - so everyone belongs.

The thing I struggle with the most is being seen as a foreigner in my Mum’s country, when growing up and even now I very much class myself as half my Mum’s nationality and half my Dad’s. I recognise the feeling of not really belonging anywhere. I think this comes from having grown up in the third country where we were definitely foreigners.

My kids on the other hand are mixed race but have grown up in a very diverse part of London and went to a relatively diverse school - they mainly feel that they are from London with a mixed heritage that they are - truth be told - not that interested in.

It is a word that is used mostly by mixed race people to partially identify that we don't fit into a tick box
But that's what seems to trouble OP.

When I say that I see it as a separate race, what I mean is that there is a growing number of mixed race people and no-one should make assumptions on anyone's race just looking at them.

This is different to how mixed race people identify themselves though.

Please don't consider those of us who are mixed race to be a whole separate race. It invalidates our individual and often unique ethnicities and cultures. Views like this are part of the problem and why many mixed race people don't feel fully apart of their ethnical make up.

Mixed race covers a multitude of races, cultures, and shades. It is a word that is used mostly by mixed race people to partially identify that we don't fit into a tick box. Has anyone actually ever looked at the many different boxes you can tick under mixed race for the NHS for example? My children are classed as "Any other mixed British/multiple ethnic background " now that's a mouthful and I don't know a single person that when asked if they were black or white etc would spout that out. They have several different categories for white, black, and Asian as well.

We all just need to be seen as people and, before anyone asks...Yes I do 100% understand the clinical need to categorise race. And am grateful it does exist. But even that has thrown up several issues around racism, prejudice and confirmation bias.

Mixed, I think, aptly describes what and who we are in the simplest term. How we choose identify is down to us as individuals. If other people from different orientations are allowed to choose how they Identify, we should be able to so as well without throwing yet more new classifications of people out there.

One box does not fit all.

I may not be the OP, but the thread is about race, specifically the experience of mixed race people. I am mixed race and I thought that the PP's comment was inappropriate.

There is research on this. It’s common for mixed race people, or second generation of immigrants, to feel they don’t quite belong in either community, and this is associated with poorer mental health.