to not understand how I could possibly be perceived as racist?

[MissFranklin]

First mn post but have been an avid reader for a while now.

Me and DP are expecting our first baby. Was at work last week discussing what our child might look like with a colleague. It was a very interesting conversation as I am mixed race (Caucasian and Afro-Caribbean) and DP is white. I have dark Afro hair, green eyes and fairly dark brown skin. DP has dead straight, blonde hair, blue eyes and very pale skin. I find it interesting thinking about what our child may look like (I'm sure the majority of parents to be wonder about this at some point during their pregnancies).

Apparently, a colleague of mine was offended by this conversation. Felt that I was focussing on the race of my child too much and what he/she will look like, and didn't seem at all interested in whether my baby was healthy (this is not the case, of course that is the most important thing to me and I've actually had a very complicated pregnancy, I just don't discuss it with my colleagues). Apparently I was being racist in saying that when a person has a mixture of races they are often interesting looking and it's hard to pin down where their heritage stems from. Now the only comment other than the above that I made about race, was that it's interesting that our child could look white, black, or somewhere in between and that I'm just really curious to know. I thought this was a fairly obvious remark. It was a really brief conversation and didn't really progress from what I've said above. I think I ended it with 'I don't care what my baby looks like as they'll be beautiful to me regardless'.

Now I'm not usually one to confront about things like this as I'm quite thick skinned and am not usually bothered, but I'm not happy with being called racist and would be furious if I was referred to as that again (I feel pretty furious as it is). The person who told me this has asked that I don't say anything, which I never understand - why tell me if I can't respond to it?

AIBU to think I really need to speak to this person face to face as I am so confused as to how I could possibly have offended her? I am no racist and have no idea how to approach her about this. Am I overreacting?

Did she actually say you were racist or that she thought you were focussing on the appearance of your baby too much? Either way nothing for her to be offended about - as you say many parents to be wonder what their baby will look like!

I have a friend with the same set up as you. She is white and her husband mixed. They have 2 children with olive skin and dark blonde very tightly curled hair. Their third child has very pale skin and straight light brown hair and the fourth is very dark skinned with dark brown wavy hair. The youngest has dark skin and dark blonde tighly curled hair. Beautiful family.

Do you think she's misconstrued your comment? Or heard a little bit and ran with it. There is this awful insidious fetish on social media for mixed raced babies. I think it's internalised with ethnic minorities that mixed race is beautiful because of light skin ect the same praise and interest is never given to dark skin who are rarely represented. I imagine she's heard one little bit and gone On a misguided tangent

On a related note, should your child have any areas of darker pigmentation, be sure to let any care givers know. A friend arrived to collect her child from nursery and was ushered into a room where she was questioned. A social worker who was brought in fortunately knew that it was totally normal for a mixed race child to have darker areas on their back and that they were not bruises.

Also make sure the midwives know. I was seen with DS alone once by a midwife who didn’t know us and they assumed he was jaundiced and were confused when the readings came back normal.

They were mortified when I told them he was mixed. We found it funny but they were worried they’d offended us.

when a person has a mixture of races they are often interesting looking

This is seen as racist by some, "interesting looking" can be used in a derogatory way. And on this point you weren't talking about your children, you were stereotyping.

Wouldn't bother me, and in the context used I don't think it's racist. But imagine Nigel Farage saying it and the connotations behind it. It's all about context.

Thanks drseuss - always good to know! I still have these dark patches and they can be misconstrued as bruises! I believe it is called melasma.

princess this also happened with my sibling! Midwives thought she was jaundiced. My parents still laugh about it now. Must be a common occurrence..

I don't think it's offensive to wonder what your baby will look like.

You said you described mixed-race people as being "interesting" - I'm not sure how I would feel about that, especially if I'd only heard part of the conversation. I'd probably dismiss it as badly-worded though rather than malicious - for me, racism is where there is an intent to injure or look down on someone.

What I would take away from this though is to not discuss personal things at work - life isn't worth a grievance from the professionally offended, especially not when you have a new baby to dedicate your thoughts to. You've been given a tip-off that you have a member of the professionally offended in your workplace - watch your back.

drspouse My dad's mixed race, I'm dark skinned and DD2 takes after me in colour, DD1 is really pale like her dad although she has the curls. The amount of people who think I've had kids with different dad's .

@missfranklin Sorry for using that term, then. I’ll do some research into it. I understand white is also a colour; I didn’t want to make any assumptions about the ethnicity of the woman’s you were talking about. Thanks for pointing that out to me.

If she’s black, personally I’d want to have a conversation with her to find out what she actually said and what she meant.

Let them fuck off, don't waste energy on them. Clearly a sad person ignore.

On the ‘interesting looking’ comment - I don’t think that racist but it really annoys/worries me as it’s something I get ALL the time, and when people are drunk they are VERY persistent when they ask me where I’m ‘really’ from. FWIW I’m black and born to black African parents - but keep being told I look ‘different’ 🤦🏾‍♀️ It does sometimes worry me that my kids will get this even more as my DP is blonde with blue eyes

MissFranklin I suppose it must be difficult from their view to tell who has darker skin due to natural colouring and who is jaundiced! We got excellent treatment at the hospital and we always wonder how much was down to them trying to overcompensate for “offending” us (as I said we found it funny)

bombadier I don't think this is stereotyping at all. It's quite clear that I didn't mean it in an offensive way (being mixed race myself it's hopefully clear that I wouldn't refer to 'interesting' in a derogatory manner). If I said ALL mixed race people are interesting looking I would then be applying a stereotype. I genuinely believe it to be fact that many mixed race people receive interest from others in regards to their heritage. You'd do well to find a mixed race person who hadn't been asked at least a few times. Just my two cents however.

I don’t think that racist but it really annoys/worries me as it’s something I get ALL the time, and when people are drunk they are VERY persistent when they ask me where I’m ‘really’ from.

I get this and I’m white, but often get told I look Persian (light skin, dark eyes and black hair) and I get people outright disbelieving me when I tell them I’m white and accuse me of “trying to pass” . I think it’s just rudeness at that point rather than the curiousity some have.

No, because I had an idea of where your conversation went wrong from her perspective.

I don't think you had any intention to offend her, I'll say that from the outset, but I think colourism is definitely in the back of her mind. It's a topic that comes up regularly elsewhere but not so much on mn. It's a sore subject for a lot of black women.

I'd just be honest with her, say you didn't mean "interesting" in a way that would devalue anyone else, that you literally meant the way genetics work is interesting.

Oh don't worry kolo it doesn't offend me. It's a commonly used term and rarely used in bad faith.

Have not read the full thread but I have read about this. It depends on what you were saying and whether you were exoticising the baby. The idea that mixed race children are more beautiful started based on the fact that the children would have acquired more white features, such as lighter skin, lighter eyes, narrower nose and less curly hair. Hollywood still favours lighter skin female actors, for example, and if you look up 'beautiful mixed race children' you get more children with lighter skin than dark skin, and usually the combination is light skin, green eyes, narrow nose; very rarely the 'beautiful' attributes are associated with black race.
That person should have talked about colourism and not racism, because you have Afro-Caribbean heritage, in any case. In some countries lighter skin gave more rights, and people were categorised in relation to how races were mixed (see "Latin American Castas"). So it originated in a racist context and it persists in society through the "mixed race children are more beautiful".

It wasn't what you said, though, I understood you were saying "interesting" it in relation to make people wonder about their background and start conversations, which is not a racist comment.

Tell her to fuck off and mind her own business!

My siblings, nieces and I are all mixed race with Afro Caribbean features, Brown eyes, dark hair but my mixed race 15 month old nephew has bright blue eyes and hair that goes golden in the sun.

PrincessPear, I get that too sometimes! My dad is Italian and mum English, I have light skin but brown hair/eyes. I find it so weird when I get comments on how I look like X ethnicity or where am I ‘from from’ - it’s never from white people either. I once had a taxi driver accuse me of lying because he thought I was something else

MsChanandler I totally get that, I've been asked that before. I think that's an entirely different issue however. I think there is a massive difference between someone talking about how some mixed race people gain interest from others in regards to their heritage as it's not always obvious, compared to those who make mixed race people feel 'other' because they are 'exotic' or 'different' - the latter I do not like.

I do so agree. I once forgot the name of one of the 5 or 6 people in an office I visit and was asked to describe her. She happened to be the only black person, all the others being caucasian. If I had said this the person I was talking to would have known instantly who I meant. But I was reluctant to because of this paranoia about the subject. Whereas if Id said "she's the one in the red dress" that would have been innocuous but Id have meant no more nor less than saying she was black. Incidentally, I hadn't seen the person concerned that day so I dont know what she was wearing

Yanbu. My husband is black but quite light skinned I am white very pale, our children are golden skinned with grey/blue eyes we both have brown, they both are blonde too I used to always wonder what they would look like too. That is not being racist at all

NameChange I’m Irish and Welsh so pretty much “Celtic” but I get it usually from several people. My partner is Indian and thought I had an Indian grandparent when we first met, and I’ve had several racist white people make misplaced racist comments towards me (which I always think proves how silly racism is - people of the same race can look completely different, it doesn’t matter!)

Larry completely. But this really was not what you just explained. It's something that bothers me also. There's a particular Instagram page which really bothers me (won't advertise it) but it exoticises mixed race people in an extremely overt way. Lots of comments underneath 'I need a black man to make babies with' or 'I want a baby with an Afro' etc. I absolutely would never take part to such fetishisation as I have been subjected to it myself.

My niece is half Trinidadian and half white British. She is married to a blue-eyed, red haired, pale skinned chap.

She has just had a baby girl who,is the image of daddy!