to hate it when people refer to their duel heritage children as.....

[Parachute2011]

1/3 of this, 1/4 of that, 3/4 of the other. People are people and I hate to hear them being referred to like slices of pizza. If someone is going to be racist to you, they would ask if your grandfather was Swiss before insulting you.

I do think that the many cultures that are part of the child's life should be celebrated. But IMO referring to a child or adult as anything less than a whole person is insulting.

What's wrong with the term mixed race?

Doesn't dual refer to 2, so what would the correct term be for someone who decends from more than 2 different races/countries?

No-one has said that if someone is half english they are half a person, why would you assume that?
I refer to myself as 1/4 this, and 1/2 that, I am not saying I am not a full person. I would find it really patronizing if someone else told me I could not refer to myself in a way that I saw fit, as they thought it made me sound like a pizza. To me that is racist.

I'm not keen on the term dual heritage anyway.

I don't see an issue with people describing themselves as half one thing, a quarter something else etc. Although I do think somebody describing themselves as part Roman is odd. How could you possibly know?

Scrambled race?

*descends

mumblechum I'm still not entirely sure to be honest. Different people get offended by different things I guess. But I do remember one rather heated conversation on another site where it was deemed by some to be a no-no... I'm typically English and terrified of offending anyone, so more often than not offend people by not asking questions. We did the whole freshers thing of 'where you from' and I didn't ask the 'asian looking' girl because I thought she'd think I was being rude (my excellent most awesome asian/welsh friend mentioned above).... its something that really bugs me about myself.

Defiantly overthinking it. It's just a quick way of explaining your own or your child's background.
Saying the far Easten DDs friend is half English simply explains why she ls come to live in a most unexpected corner of rural England. I'm really glad she has, mainly because she is lovely, but also because children round here are far too likely to associate ethnic minorities with cities and the problems there in

Although I do think somebody describing themselves as part Roman is odd. How could you possibly know?

Wrap yourself in a bed sheet and tie it off at the shoulder, see if it feels comfortable.

I don't think a bed sheet would look good with the massive Viking shield I am currently wearing as an accessory.

I think her point was, that in her English hereditory line, its possible there's a bit of celt, viking, roman in her genes - as in there become a point where its 'unknown'. lol

YABU.

"Scrambled race?" hee hee hee - I must remember that one.

I sometimes describe DS as mixed race and sometimes as cenral asian (as it covers a multitude of races and no-one in the UK tends to know what it means).

Really I can't get too worked up about it as long as they're not trying to be offensive.

But that is true of everyone in the world.

Sorry, my post was to AW.

"We did the whole freshers thing of 'where you from' and I didn't ask the 'asian looking' girl because I thought she'd think I was being rude" - just ask!

DS replies either "kew" or "kazakhstan" - either response tends to confuse people but both are true (depending on which time line you are using)

makes me laugh when people describe themselves as Turkish/Greek/Pakistani etc when they & their parents have lived here all their lives, never set foot in Turkey/Greece/Pakistan and wouldnt know the language if it bit them on the bum.

I guess they want to seem more interesting somehow.

spiderpig8, no you can't get to 1/3. You can get closer as the number of generations approaches infinity, but it will never be exactly a third. You're right, the denominator has to be a power of 2.

Yes I know! She has a very 'romanesque' nose so maybe she's simply mocking herself in a lighthearted way.

kew I learned that very quickly... and got mercilessly mocked for 3 years by my new friends.

and anyway you aren't really asking people where they are form because you care are you? Just to make conversation any question would do - ask "are you fairly local" might be a way of not implying that they might be "forrin" just because they are darker than beige.

I don't think most people think of mixed race as offensive. I sometimes say dual heritage but tbh in RL I only really hear social workers use this term.

Half caste definitely NOT ok, though.

I think that if you have a grandparent that was born somewhere different to you, or you have a physical appearance that is different to that of most of the people who live around you, there is a good reason to have a way of describing your ethnicity as something other to, or in addition to your country of region.

Oh, and I agree with others who say the pizza thing is kind of how children's minds work. My dd1 loves talking about being half Irish and half Jewish, and her sister being half Caribbean and half English, but both of them being all British and all people. I could refuse to quantify it in that way, and just talk vaguely about her having different things in her background, but I don't think she'd find that anywhere near as SATISFYING.

I'm fuel heritage.

I go like the clappers.

I am English by birthplace, Scottish parents, but I class myself as English

DH is Scottish by birth, Scottish parents, classes himself as Scottish.

The DCs are English born to Scottish/English parents and class themselves as Skinglish