‘If you look white, then you are white’- what is this now?!

[OwlBeThere]

I’ll start this by saying this is a conversation I had on tiktok. Yes,it’s mostly younger people on that app, but there is also some fantastic political discourse and discussion around linguistics which is my field so that’s what I use it for.

I am mixed race. My mother is Asian (Japanese), my dad is Welsh. I have the kind of skin that is very pale until I see the sun then I tan quickly. I don’t ‘look’ very obviously Asian, I suppose. I do have very straight, very dark hair from my mother, and I do have a relatively flat bridge to my nose. In my welsh village where I was raised from age 4 (born in Japan, moved to Denmark when I was 2, then to wales) I was ‘that Chinese kid’ a lot in the 80s, I had my share of casual racism thrown my way. I speak Japanese, welsh and English.
All that backstory is just to explain why I was completely baffled when in a discussion around racism I was told that because my ‘phenotype’ is white and I’m ‘white passing’ then I am white and have no business taking part in a discussion on racism as I’ve ‘probably never experienced it’.
Many people ask me my heritage, so I think it’s pretty clear to most people that I’m mixed in some way because otherwise they wouldn’t ask, right?
Have any other people mixed race people come across this as a thing? This phenotype argument that appears to negate half of my family?!

Sorry if this has been discussed earlier in the thread, but is there any functional definition of black or white that isn't based on how someone looks or by self identification? I can't think of one. Defining black as being of African heritage leaves out a lot of people who think they're black and includes a lot of people who aren't, and creates lots problems for people of mixed race.

VladmirsPoutine
There is plenty of anti-white racism too

Do you understand how racism works? confused

*Why don't peoole understand that nationality is protected under equality laws, not just race?

I'm sure you must be aware that for example, a white Polish person can be racially discriminated against in the UK? Or a white Scottish person in England, or vice versa*

White people can be racially discriminated against or abused by non-white people as well. Not sure why so many people have trouble understanding that either.

[quote VladmirsPoutine]@RedMarauder Very true! Western entertainment also has a fetish for headscarfs 'slipping off' Muslim women; and generally women of colour being 'saved' by white men in some way or another. It's all very tedious and formulaic.[/quote]
Yes! Hijabi women are always being ‘saved’... the storylines always go the same way:

Episode one: 🧕
Episode two: 👩🏻👙

Either that or Muslim = ISIS, there’s no middle ground!

@SimonJT currently watching the BAFTAS on BBC2. Interesting...

@VladmirsPoutine

There is plenty of anti-white racism too

Do you understand how racism works?

Do you? There are races of white people you know. Not that it's a competition but thousands of white people were also transported as slaves, to America, Jamaica and Barbados. My ancestors were among them.

My children are white. Two of them have blue eyes and blond hair. However they have a Jewish grandparent. So they would be slaughtered in the holocaust. I'm not trying to be dramatic, I just want to back you up on this idea that race is far far more than appearance.

@Staffy1

VladmirsPoutine There is plenty of anti-white racism too

Do you understand how racism works? confused

*Why don't peoole understand that nationality is protected under equality laws, not just race?

I'm sure you must be aware that for example, a white Polish person can be racially discriminated against in the UK? Or a white Scottish person in England, or vice versa*

White people can be racially discriminated against or abused by non-white people as well. Not sure why so many people have trouble understanding that either.

Or a White English person in Scotland or a white English person in Wales.

' White people can be racially discriminated against or abused by non-white people as well. Not sure why so many people have trouble understanding that either'

I don't think it's trouble with understanding its just that they don't care.

@Blueberrymuffin40

' White people can be racially discriminated against or abused by non-white people as well. Not sure why so many people have trouble understanding that either'

I don't think it's trouble with understanding its just that they don't care.

This. It doesn't suit their agenda.

Can you be racist against a nation though?
Surely, it has to be a race by definition.
That's not to say that people aren't hostile to other nationalities.

I don't think it's trouble with understanding its just that they don't care

Who is/are 'they' in this context?

Not caught up since I last posted sorry.

On the recent posts. If a white person is discriminated against in the UK then 99.9% of the time it won't be the colour of their skin. It will be their accent/ clothes / something like that that's the problem

EG the discrimination against Irish people here in the 70s/80s wasn't because they were white.

Dev hostility towards other nations is xenophobia

Feeling- yes.

This is what I posted ages ago..

'Not read the whole thread.

This idea comes from America. Jim crow, one drop etc.

The way that USA ideas are being picked up and universalised is weird.

It also ignores /trivialises

Anti semitism
Atrocities like srebrenica

It's cultural hegemony. And it's shite TBH'

Antisemitism is common. My part of London has a large Jewish population. DH has seen swastikas painted on bus stops in Jewish areas. Some synagogues don't put their address on their website, many have security.

The whole oppression Olympics thing is shit.
Anyone who is not the norm can get trouble. Whether it's skin colour, clothes that suggest you're eg from travelling community, accent etc.

The way that anti semitism is somehow seen as different, is really weird. And it's been that way in lots of places for an awfully long time.

And last point. I'm a white woman from London. Yes an individual who is not white might say something (have had this very occasionally). But that's not racism. I experience no systematic discrimination due to the colour of my skin.

(And tbh if a person of a different race has decided white people are pretty shit, then in a racist society, they probably have their reasons).

If you are perceived as black, you can be lighter skinned than a given "white" person and you'll see be treated as black if someone sees that as problematic.

It's not essentially about pigmentation, it's about a type of class category tied to certain ethnicities.

"Black" was invented as a racial category to divide the slave classes, which were not differentiated by pigmentation, into two groups, to prevent their active solidarity. But it was about ethnicity more than colour, colour was just a useful facet of ethnicity.

if a person of a different race has decided white people are pretty shit, then in a racist society, they probably have their reasons

We cannot condemn prejudice whilst being prejudiced. It doesn't make sense

OwlBeThere The whole world has gone mad. Loved the Rugby people in Japan singing the anthem in Welsh. You are proper Cymranese.

On the subject of representation by UK TV makers, I'm of mixed Greek Cypriot heritage. We are very much a small minority, less than one million according to data, although as there is never a box for Greek or Mediterranean or Southern European (I tick white other), I'm not sure how accurate the data is.

But it's still bothers me that I have never seen a Greek character or family on UK TV shows. There's been Stavros, the chip shop owner, created by Harry Enfield, and Mr Opodopolous, the never-seen invisible launderette owner in Eastenders, but that's it, as far as I know. There actually were a lot of Greeks in London's East End in the recent past. Some representation would be good.

@Blueberrymuffin40

' White people can be racially discriminated against or abused by non-white people as well. Not sure why so many people have trouble understanding that either'

I don't think it's trouble with understanding its just that they don't care.

That's why intersectionality is important. You can be white and still significantly disadvantaged - for example due to disability, or nationality, or by carer status or all kinds of other reasons. But the colour of your skin is not one of the reasons. There may be someone who is mixed race but comes from a privileged background and is in amazing physical and mental health and has all kinds of 'privileges' that you don't have.. but they will almost certainly have faced discrimination due to the colour of their skin.

That's why this isn't, when properly applied, any kind of 'Privilege Olympics'. Instead it's about taking consideration of our different circumstances and what this might mean, and treating people properly.

Staff lets flats is about a Greek family - very funny!!!

@Ritasueandbobtoo9

Staff lets flats is about a Greek family - very funny!!!

Ah thanks hadn't heard of that; will give it a watch

@Feelingconfused2020

My children are white. Two of them have blue eyes and blond hair. However they have a Jewish grandparent. So they would be slaughtered in the holocaust. I'm not trying to be dramatic, I just want to back you up on this idea that race is far far more than appearance.

Technically you needed 2 Jewish grandparents for the Nazis to define you as Jewish. So they might have been OK (so long as you could prove the other 3 grandparents weren't) but one of their parents would have been killed so not much of a win.

@OverTheRubicon Agree! the problem is, intersectionality as a concept, has a lot of nuance in it and detailed thought (partly because identities themselves are complicated). One thing Twitter and the internet in general are NOT good at is nuance. So it all gets a bit of a mess quite quickly. And thats not even considering the people deliberately misinterpretting it.

Or a White English person in Scotland or a white English person in Wales.

You can't be serious

@mustlovegin there is a degree of anti-white sentiment in Japan. They all accept me as Japanese though, despite my terrible Japanese accent these days.