Apparently I'm racist

[Charlieandthechocolatecake]

I should have name changed but I'd like to think I'm made of tougher stuff.

I asked to be added to a WhatsApp chat advertised on MN for people with no friend.

All was well until I asked 'why' people believed they had no friends. I was very honest in my answer.

I'm mixed race (pretty much equal parts black, white and Asian) and I'm from Croydon. I now have a black DP and 2 sons with him.

In the chat I said that I believe the reason I have no friends is because of my race. I grew up around a lot of mixed race people and I was honest when I said most of them had a superiority complex. I was often told by people that looked like me that we had the best of both worlds, we were more beautiful (I definitely am not!) and that we could pick and choose what we wanted to identify as.

Anyway, these opinions have always had an affect on me. I don't agree with them at all even though I can see why they believe it's true. As I've got older I've avoided many people with a similar race to my own. I've always struggled with my own identity and although those opinions came from people when I was in my early to late teens, I'm worried about meeting those same kind of people again. I feel like whenever I have, they use me as some kind of confidant to air their views.

Anyway, I said on the chat that I think people will judge me because of the same way I judge others the same colour as me. Hence, why I have no friends. I was being honest. I know it's something I need to work on but it's hard. I'm not racist. Prejudice probably.

The chat was going so well until then. I was called a racist and I was told I was disgusting. I apologised and left the chat.

I don't know what I want from this.

Do you want to be friends with people who are so easily offended?

Maybe that’s why they’ve got no friends.

@Sadie789 no, I don't. A couple of people did message me to say I'd said nothing wrong. I suppose my honesty offended a few.

If it was a bunch of strangers in a WhatsApp group I would just delete and forget about it.

There will be other groups to join.

I personally don’t see how it’s racist at all.

I don't understand what was racist by what you said?

I'm from Croydon too , completely irrelevant

I am close to someone who is mixed race and to be honest the person is very much like what you explained so there are definitely still people like that. It makes me uncomfortable at times but I feel I can't say anything because I'm white and the person is "half white" so can get away with saying things that others can't without being called racist if that makes sense.

I can understand your point OP, are they saying you're racist because you are unwilling to make friendships with people who are mixed race despite the fact they may have similar views to you? I sometimes struggle with people from my community just as much as I struggle with people from other communities, based on their values and opinions which don't align with mine but it doesn't come from an off the bat decision based on skin colour or background but once I've spent time and had a conversation with them. I think you were just being honest based on your past experiences which may have come across as prejudiced.

I don't think what you said was racist, and even if it was, I feel it was a reasonable answer to the question.

Maybe you should look for an interest group with more in common with you - 'no one likes any of us' is no reason you should enjoy their company!

On the other hand, if you are mixed white, black and Asian and you avoid people of a similar race - what does that leave? Smurfs?

I can’t imagine choosing friends based on their race.

I think this is odd tbh, I am mixed race and don’t know anyone who is mixed race that acts the way you described. I was bullied badly in school by some black girls who seemed to have issues with mixed race girls but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who was black now and I now have black friends who are nothing like the ones I knew in school.

Well you are making a negative stereotype? Surely, you cannot claim all mixed race persons have a superiority complex.

@Sk191 I'm not unwilling to make friends that look like me, I'm just very cautious because the majority of those I've met, having seen that I'm the same colour, feel obliged to bring up the so-called positives. I don't appreciate it at all.

@FlamedToACrisp 😂

@Happymum12345 I don't chose friends based on race, I've just been unlucky.

I think the racial politics of Croydon are too complicated for any WhatsApp chat. Particularly a virtue signalling, Mumsnet, WhatsApp chat.

I wouldn’t worry about it.

@PumpkinP I understand your point of view. I really do. My issue is that I'm worried people won't like me because I'm mixed race. I thought I'd get over it years ago but it's still an issue.

Being a dickhead isn't exclusive to any one ethnicity. Or, for that matter, solely confined to people on Monks Hill, off Davidson Road or lurking in the badlands of SE25 and drinking cider on Woodside Green by the War Memorial.

Trust me, there were plenty of girls that thought they were the Best Thing in the Whole World in the same ethnic group as I am. Maybe they were bolstered up by their parents because there were always people around who were prepared to try and knock them down? The racism of 30 years ago was far, far more overt - it was risky to walk along the road with your mates, never mind a boy, in some parts in case you walked into a group or a van drove past. I heard some horrible things from people I had previously thought were normal, decent human beings about biracial children and particularly their mothers.

What do you actually like doing? Yes, you have children, do you have any interests or hobbies? What music do you like? Can you talk about that, rather than what teenage girls (of all kinds) can be like?

@Cheeeeislifenow I'm not. I take everybody on face value regardless of race, I've just been unlucky when it comes to people that look like me assuming I feel the same way they do.

Thanks @ArriettyJones for the most part, everybody was lovely, it was just a couple of people that decided I was racist purely because race was the subject.

So you have a fear people won’t like you because you are mixed race because YOU don’t like mixed race people due to (most of) them having a superiority complex?

I am mixed race, you are extremely prejudiced and that’s what would put me off of you. Also you say you avoid people your own race but are a third black/Asian and white? Do you avoid all of them equally or specific ones?

You were wanting strangers to reassure you that your prejudice was okay and justify, no wonder they told you it was not. If you work on overcoming your prejudice towards specific groups of people, you will quickly realize that most of them are very pleasant and that you suddenly become much more approachable/ likeable!

@MitziK I lived in SE25 as a child. An estate off of Tennison Road to be exact.

I have many things I like to do, none which I want to share if that makes sense. For example, I love drawing, I don't want to see anybody else's🤣.

I suppose I just want friends with my same sense of humour, where all goes. I'm not in the politically correct category. The few associates I have are generally the same.

Justified*

What a bizarre question. You wouldn’t go on a dating app and text a potential date asking why they think they can’t find a date/partner, would you?

Sadie789 I was thinking the exact same thing! Or does OP mean she only mixes with the pure 'aryan' race?

On the other hand, if you are mixed white, black and Asian and you avoid people of a similar race - what does that leave?

I wonder this too? I do sympathise in a way, I wasn’t born in the UK and sometimes struggle to feel a sense a belonging in my birth country or in the UK.

I see your point OP. You weren’t racist. Maybe the conversation was a little uncomfortable for the others? FWIW, I have mixed race relatives who find it a struggle to be fully accepted by any race.