To hate my colour

As someone who grew up without a dad, I wonder if it’s because of that? Obviously very different as both my parents are white but I feel strange when my mum says things about me being like him physically.

You've got a dad problem. Not a skin colour/hair type problem.

But for what it's worth, all the mixed race people I know are annoyingly gorgeous. It's like they got the best features of both races.

Acceptance is a different thing again.

@MuslimMumInDespair - yes they sound well meaning but I don't think they are well meaning at all! Quite a bit of goady fuckery around race, talk of flat noses etc on this thread that's quite unpleasant. And indeed demonstrating the very attitudes that create negativity about non white features

As others have said, you have a lot to learn about racism. FWIW you sound well meaning but what you describe in this post is exactly the issue. "Everyone wants small everything" is a problem because you are saying that western standards of beauty are what everyone wants. Actually as a Pakistani woman it took me a long time to accept my prominent nose because it did not conform to the acceptable (white) standards of beauty growing up. Similarly you saying that everyone wants small everything automatically puts wide and flat black noses into some sort of 'ugly' category. If children are hearing all their lives that everyone wants small everything then of course they'll hate that they have big something. We don't all want small everything. Some of us embrace our big something (although it's taken 30 odd years and learning about self acceptance to get there).

The post is literally titled ‘to hate my colour’ - how can you say this isn’t a race issue?

I've always felt abandoned by him and have issues around that as a seperate thing but never realised it's probably a major contributor to how I feel about my colour too.

I'm close to someone who was in proper clinical psychotherapy for years, not mere counselling. It came up in therapy that she had issues of being abandoned even though her father had died not left, when she was a baby.

The 'abandonment' was that her dead father had left her with a diverse appearance but wasn't around to guide her through life as she faced difficulties caused by this, being brought up by a white mother in a very white area, with none of the father's relatives in this country.

I hope you find peace with yourself and eventually come not to hate your colour

I didn't read the OPs post as a race issue for her. Pretty sure she said she had received no discrimination over the years. I read it as an appearance issue combined with being pissed off about her hair..and wishing she looked more like her white sisters.
Maybe people are right about the dad issue and therapy being needed maybe I'm being too simplistic.

There are so many things wrong with this post .
I really don’t know where to start tbh..:

@Losingmymind432

I’m late to the thread and I suspect I have nothing new to say, but I honestly feel that not having contact with your ‘minority’ parent can be really problematic for the child.

My mum was black and my dad fucked off (never met him) so I was brought up with black family and a diverse wider family so never felt a disconnect like I might’ve in a solely white family.

Therapy is really the best thing for you and will help you to unpick all of the feelings you have.

I love my mixed heritage and I’m glad my children got to have all the influences from my family as well as my husband’s.

I think you need to do some research as to what racism actually entails .

@Princessconsuelabananahammock9

Ideal? You're making it white because that suits your argument. Nothing I says in my last post had anything ti do with being white.

"When you describe their noses it’s insulting and shows a lot of racial bias."

That's so not true. I wasn't referring to any sort of nose. Black, white, a wart on the end of your nose like the Uncle Buck school teacher? (Actually that's her chin! ). Most people would prefer a small nose. A not pointed chin. Anything that makes you pretty, good looking. Most male models eg David Gandy have very symmetrical face and people find that attractive. Most people who are considered to be attractive often don't have very huge anything : they don't have enormous ears, they don't have enormous noses. They don't have enormous chins. They don't have enormous anything, as per my previous post. and nothing about my previous post had anything to do with being black, nothing at all You've only made it so.

I’m mixed race, was raised more with the white side. I am also bloody ancient for a mixed race person as there were not many about when I was born in the 1960’s. It’s never really bothered me, I have experienced racism, I remember my white sister absolutely kicking off on my behalf and a white friend at school because I was being picked on.

If anything it made me more confident. I was raised by a very confident white Mother. Saw her have a go at a group of skinheads back when I was really little who were picking on a woman with learning difficulties. I’m from a long line of strong women on both sides of my family.

You clearly don’t understand how power works. Just because some women and some black people have some power doesn’t mean the power disparity goes away. It’s the Oprah Winfrey argument. Just because she’s one wealthy powerful black woman doesn’t mean that changes who really holds the power at the very top. Which is mainly rich white men.

Op I sense that because you’ve grown up in a predominantly white world your internalised racism makes you feel the way you feel. If you’d grown up around beautiful black women and black culture being normalised and celebrated you may feel different. I agree with the pp who talked about counselling. You need to learn to love that part of yourself.

@Losingmymind432

This is a real issue and you deserve any help or support you need or want to work through it.

Don't feel you have to get in line behind more 'serious' problems or 'deserving' issues.

A counselor is what you need.

Do you have a relationship with your dad at all? If yes, how would you rate it? If no, what are your feelings around that?

You are describing an abusive individual who manipulatively drew on race as a tool. It was one individual. This is nothing at all to do with racism which is a whole system, not the actions of some individuals. The bullying you suffered sounds awful but getting away from the single person who inflicted it would make it stop. Actual racism against black people is totally embedded in the system. You can encounter it at any time in any context and it is very often ‘nice’ ordinarily non abusive people who inflict it, often even unintentionally without realising. It is inescapable. This is why white peoples experience is totally different.

The ideal according to who?

European white standards of beauty?

That’s the issue. Mixed race kids get fetishized for their diluted blackness and white feature’s

When you describe their noses it’s insulting and shows a lot of racial bias.

I don't want to dismiss your feelings OP, and be flippant, but fwiw I hate my pasty complexion and fine, thin wispy hair. I go red easily and burn never tan. Acne shows up horribly and some colours look awful on me. I'm also overweight and have always thought pale overweight flesh looks so much worse than tanned or darker skinned overweight flesh!

Agree there are deeper issues for you with your dad and your identify, but just on a surface level I'd love your colouring! The grass is always greener.

OP, I am a white parent of a mixed race child, and I can see how the disappearance of your Dad may have led to complex abandonment issues, you being the ‘only one’, maybe him being blamed, even subtlety, over the years, the context of a society where racism is still evident, maybe as a child you even took on done feelings of guilt of some kind. The black parent having gone. I don’t know. But counselling could maybe help you find out.

Because none of this is about anything ‘wrong’ with you. It’s just about finding out why you might feel so.

I am so grateful that I had my DC’s father in the family. I know I wouldn’t have been able to provide as much in the way of support, understanding, role model, access to wider community as a sole white parent of a mixed child. I mean none of us ever can. As women we parent boys, most children who grow up gay are born to straight people and so on. None of that makes it wrong, IMO, to recognise issues of being ‘the only one’ , away from a support network.

As for the ‘mixed race people are beautiful’ thing, it makes me tear my hair out.

Many m/r people are beautiful. Many mono-racial people (of all colours) are beautiful. Are black kids more beautiful for having the blackness of the black parent ‘diluted’???? How offensive is that?

OK the whiteness of the white parent is also ‘diluted’ but in the context of a still-racist society, where western beauty standards as are heavily biased… it’s not the same.

And there is a hint of exoticism, fetishising M/r kids. “Oh m/r children are so beautiful’ … so when this is said around your child about ‘their category’ as a generalisation (even though it would probably not be said if the child in question was not noticeably ‘beautiful’ in the default definitions) they are actually being othered. And told that they are separate from their black or white parents.

It’s a complex issue. People might disagree with aspects of things I have posted here. And will have different experiences or perspectives. But one way or another, glossing it away as not an issue would be disingenuous or unaware.

OP, you are not alone. There are novels and theatre pieces about growing up mixed race. I saw a show called Colour by this artist and it was beautiful. Her experience may be very different from yours but she explored the fact that there are things to be explored.

All good wishes for your own onward journey.

FFS.
Pick apart every word.
I'm small with thin hair. I had to accept that. We all have to accept what we've got. Ideally most of us want to be the ideal. Tall, thin, beautiful, clever, nice, sporty. Few us are.

Good luck with setting mn criteria: posters are only allowed to post if they are : ..... what? men . Or black. Or white. Or can relate, because they've been through EXACTLY what op had been through, (excludes practically all of us because we are unique).

Whereas most posters were very nice to op, and encouraged her to get counselling.