Sick of being told I'm black

[Notjustblackandwhite]

Just this really. On Friday a white friend asked me what I thought of racism in the UK as a black person. I'm mixed race, I'm not black. My mum is white and my father is black Brazilian, but it doesn't seem to matter and I frequently get called black ''for ease'', by white people.

I have nothing against the ''black'' part of my heritage, but I'm at most one or two shades darker than Meghan Markle, and I feel as though an identity is being forced upon me, similarly to how your name might get changed because x and y have decided that your name is too "ethnic" to pronounce. I'm getting more and more worked up over this, and recently someone decided to tell me that I was being racist for being dismissive of being black.

AIBU to think that is really grating and makes me want to punch people sometimes (metaphorically of course)?

You’re purposely misstating my position so I’ll leave you to it. Everyone else who can read can decide for themselves what I’ve said.

I’ll say again my comments were about generalisations that black women en masse have issues with mixed race people

People weren't talking about generalisations, you were. You were making their personal experiences into generalisations, and then denying them completely.
I don't care about en masse. I care about the actual people.

Okra is god's own food

Especially when dredged in cornmeal and fried, as is the custom in the American South.

@SenecaFallsRedux

Okra is god's own food

Especially when dredged in cornmeal and fried, as is the custom in the American South.

No way!!!

It's best with lamb in a tomato-based stew-how the Iranians and Arabs eat it!!

I like it every way!

I swear my dad used to serve it to me as a punishment. Or maybe he's just a terrible cook...

I am also mixed race and since we are comparing to Meghan Markle, I'm probably about the same colour as her. I feel your pain in terms of being told which race box I belong in. I should add that this was my experience while living in New York & Miami for a period but I was often told I was black because I have black blood and white people will see me that way, no matter how pale I am. I've also been told that I'm falling for white propaganda by convincing myself that I'm anything other than black.

Meanwhile back in the UK people can't believe I might be mixed race because I'm so light skinned. They always ask whether I've been working on my tan or using fake tan. I've even had people telling me I'm Spanish, insisting I must be wrong even after I've corrected them So from that point of view, I disagree that Meghan Markle is clearly black.

I don't judge people for their own judgements of me but what I don't like is that when I then tell them that I am mixed race, they question it as though I am wrong. Whether thats a black person telling me I am in fact black or a white person saying I've just been tanning, it really makes me angry. Both my mother and father were equally important. One blood line does not cancel out the other!

Quotes from this thread are in today's Daily Mail. They never quote my posts whenever this happens...

Yep, Daily Mail today. What percentage of the people on this site are actually journalists looking for the next story to rile people up with now then?

Meghan gets to call whatever she like. She was raised by a Black American mother, not her white father.

Sigh. No part of me wanted to be on the Daily Mail. Can this thread be deleted so that the link back to it no longer works?

So journalists are too lazy to ask people personally so they just go to sites to get their stories

I absolutely agree with you, OP. I never understood why people of mixed racial heritage were automatically pigeon-holed as black if they were 50/50.

I looked into it a bit and it seems that it's a hold-over from slavery, when having 'a drop of black blood' meant you were considered automatically black and therefore 'lesser'.

I always refer to someone as mixed race if they don't look obviously black. My own DH is mixed (Middle Eastern / White) and I'd get annoyed when people made assumptions about his heritage. He'd rather people just asked!

I agree this comes across to me as a Black women hating thread a mixed race person can chose to identify how they chose but if their skin is darker and they said they were white would this be accepted?

I agree this comes across to me as a Black women hating thread

How? Because it isn't, in any sense at all

Well its black women this black people that it's always one way blame

No it isn't. Did you actually read the thread?

Yes I have thanks and that's how I perceive it everyone is entitled to there own opinion I said what i said.

You perceive it wrong, and therefor your opinion is invalid

[quote RedMarauder]@Gwenhwyfar when someone self-identifies, find society treats them as they self-identify, marries a black woman and has children who look how they self-identify then you are rude calling them something else.

OP stop being polite - you need to speak up with your "friends" about your identity, and as with your colleagues stop taking shit from them about race matters.[/quote]
What has marrying a black woman and having children with her got to do with anything? It doesn't change a person's own heritage.

I've even had people telling me I'm Spanish

I've had this! Also Italian and Greek. Erm, no.

DNA is a funny thing and race is a social construct. I'm mixed race with everything under the sun except East Indian. I've been mistaken for a native in South-East Asia, Spain and Latin America but I'm from the Caribbean. According to Ancestry DNA, I'm 25% African but I don't look African, don't consider myself to be black and no one has ever assumed that I am black. I always tick Mixed Race, "Other" on forms ...and then spend the rest of the page listing my racial composition. I like listing my Amerindian heritage. But getting back to the OP, I wouldn't be happy if someone, friend or otherwise, decided to choose my racial identity for me. I am proud of being mixed race - the vigour of hybrids and all that. I tell people that it means I can insult all races equally (except Indians of course). ;P

"I wouldn't be happy if someone, friend or otherwise, decided to choose my racial identity for me."

Fair enough. However, total self ID isn't accepted is it, otherwise there wouldn't have been an outcry over Rachel Dalzeal saying she was black.

There was a very interesting video in the Guardian about a group of totally white-looking people, some of whom identified as black because they had some mixed heritage, and others who felt that was totally embarrassing.
I'll see if I can find the link.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2019/jul/25/you-dont-have-to-look-black-to-be-black-the-complex-racial-identity-of-a-tiny-ohio-town-video

I’m whiter than white, genetically, but frequently over the years people have insisted I must be mixed race because of how dark I am. It hasn’t bothered me but I have found it odd how insistent people have been that I MUST be!

I’ve also had people insist that I am ‘posh Scottish’, ‘posh English’ and ‘very obviously not posh English’ based on my accent. I’m probably none of these! But people live a large a label and a box...