‘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?!

@Ritasueandbobtoo9 oh that made me cry!! I have a (white) friend who lives in Japan, and he’s teaches English out there, but also loves you teach them some welsh and he sends me videos of his students and it’s amazing.

. But that's not racism. I experience no systematic discrimination due to the colour of my skin.

The Equality Act defines racism as:
^In the Equality Act, race can mean your colour, or your nationality (including your citizenship).It can also mean your ethnic or national origins, which may not be the same as your current nationality. For example, you may have Chinese national origins and be living in Britain with a British passport.

Race also covers ethnic and racial groups. This means a group of people who all share the same protected characteristic of ethnicity or race.

A racial group can be made up of two or more distinct racial groups, for example black Britons, British Asians, British Sikhs, British Jews, Romany Gypsies and Irish Travellers.

You may be discriminated against because of one or more aspects of your race, for example people born in Britain to Jamaican parents could be discriminated against because they are British citizens, or because of their Jamaican national origins.^

@VladmirsPoutine

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

You can't be serious

I don't know if you are trolling or if you genuinely have no imagination/ability to keep up with current events in your own country:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/anti-english-prejudice-rife-in-scotland-survey-finds-skgqpmmlsw5

Plenty of anti-english sentiment in wales. Lots of anti-welsh sentiment in England too.
Though as a welsh person I would argue our irritation with England is entirely justified given the decimation of our language.

Nationalism isn't the same as racism though. As a mixed race person living in Scotland, if I experience discrimination because of my race it's racism; whereas if I experience discrimination because I'm English then it's prejudice due to nationalism. If I'm disadvantaged because of being both English and mixed race then that's where intersectionality comes into play.

Is all of this emphasis on racial differences
Meant to stop racism?

When I was at school it was meant to be that we didn’t treat people differently because of their skin colour. Now it
Seems to be about doing just that or telling people they can or can’t do or say something because they aren’t from X background.
Divide and rule?

@StuntNun

Nationalism isn't the same as racism though. As a mixed race person living in Scotland, if I experience discrimination because of my race it's racism; whereas if I experience discrimination because I'm English then it's prejudice due to nationalism. If I'm disadvantaged because of being both English and mixed race then that's where intersectionality comes into play.

Whatever label you put on it, the relevant crime will still be a racially aggravated offence and the civil offence treated as race discrimination. The law doesn't use a hierachy of different types of racism.

Thanks Circles. I'm just trying to clarify for a previous poster that anti-English discrimination in Scotland is not racism despite still being prejudiced since English and Scottish are nationalities rather than races.

@WoolieLiberal

Is all of this emphasis on racial differences Meant to stop racism?

When I was at school it was meant to be that we didn’t treat people differently because of their skin colour. Now it
Seems to be about doing just that or telling people they can or can’t do or say something because they aren’t from X background.
Divide and rule?

And how do you think that darker-skinned classmates felt about how they were treated?

@OverTheRubicon I’m sure there are many of us who are aware the ‘don’t treat people differently due to skin colour’ happy clappy thing really was bollocks, but I don’t think the current trend of telling people they are not their race based on one photo, and have no business discussing racism and to ‘stay in your lane’ is any better.
To end racism it needs to a conversation ALL people are involved in. ‘Othering’, gate keeping and exclusion are exactly how we ended up with bullshit like slavery and apartheid in the first place.

I'm just sick of telling people we are a race and having to justify how and why we shouldn't be criminalised for other peoples actions.
Racism is prevalent in all societies, for my race it's actually justified by government and society, so sad.

I'm curious about the full exchange.

@lap90 my exchange on tiktok?
It was a video of a black South African lady stitched to a white woman with dreadlocks saying she (the black lady) had no issue with it because this white woman had researched and learned about locks and how to take care of them, and she felt it was not done maliciously, but respectfully.
Lots disagreed. I commented that I felt the same about people wearing traditional clothing from other cultures ie if it’s done respectfully and not to take the piss I love it when people want to learn my culture (I did not specify what culture at this point).
This guy replies that it’s not for me to decide or comment on it being ok and to stay in my lane. I replied that it’s absolutely my business as a Japanese woman. He then said if that was me in my PP I’m clearly white. I replied, yes it’s me and not entirely white no. Which is when he said my phenotype decides my race, ergo I’m white because I look white and ive clearly lived ‘a very white life’ so my opinion is invalid.

it’s not for me to decide or comment on it being ok and to stay in my lane

Wow OP. I agree that the current approach to tackling these issues is likely to do more harm than good in the long run.

whenthebellsring tell me how you can "ramp up your Asian side" please.

I agree that the current approach is exacerbating differences. However, the notion that someone's racism experience is more valid than another's based on the colour of their skin is so offensive, I don't know where to start.

However, the notion that someone's racism experience is more valid than another's based on the colour of their skin

Did I say this?

If you think I did then you read my post all wrong.

that many people 'ramp down' their racial or cultural background in order to fit in / get along / not be hindered by the very overt racism of some and the unconscious biases that we all carry to a greater or lesser extent - but then they open up more when specifically discussing racism?

You learn to ramp it down. And now, with more discussions, when you do raise it, your childhood friends hint that maybe you are "ramping it up" for some kind of diversity hire or general coolness advantage.

This is also true for some, sadly. I agree.

@Devlesko You’re right it’s not a competition so please do not equate indentureship to chattel slavery. They are not the same thing and have not produced the same legacy. Sure it should be talked about but suggesting they were the same and the treatment of indentured workers and slaves was the same perpetuates a false narrative which is damaging to black rights regardless of your intentions.

As I and someone else above have quoted teh Equality Ac 2010 is an equal opportunities statute in the UK - black, white, blue or pink you can all be discriminated against. however there will be degrees of everything as there are with sexual assault from someone who puts his hand on your leg to full on rape - all are bad, some are worse.

They were considering making caste discriminatio also illegal in the UK as it had been brought over from India and apparently occurs in some Indian companies which is another discrimination but like class discrimination the UK or indeed discrimination on grounds you are extremely fat is not actually unlawful most of the time.

[quote BluesInTheSun]@Devlesko You’re right it’s not a competition so please do not equate indentureship to chattel slavery. They are not the same thing and have not produced the same legacy. Sure it should be talked about but suggesting they were the same and the treatment of indentured workers and slaves was the same perpetuates a false narrative which is damaging to black rights regardless of your intentions.[/quote]
My ancestors worked on the same plantations, exactly the same, no difference.
500 years at least, oh and it was Oliver Cromwell.
It's well documented and I wouldn't talk about something I wasn't an expert on.
t hasn't produced the same legacy unfortunately, but more people are becoming aware through education. No false narrative, check it out.

[quote BluesInTheSun]@Devlesko You’re right it’s not a competition so please do not equate indentureship to chattel slavery. They are not the same thing and have not produced the same legacy. Sure it should be talked about but suggesting they were the same and the treatment of indentured workers and slaves was the same perpetuates a false narrative which is damaging to black rights regardless of your intentions.[/quote]
But surely comparing two similar things (or things which started out almost the same and then diverged) which have had different legacies/different levels of impact on later generations is worthwhile? You can find out more useful information about why the present is the way it is than you can by keeping things in completely seperate boxes. I agree that it is wrong if it used to downplay the legacy of slavery or somehow sidetrack the conversation (and I agree it is used a lot to do this.) In the same way that, for example, I might be annoyed if someone responded to a conversation about the holocaust with "Jewish people shouldnt complain. Germany behaved just as badly in Nambibia several decades earlier". That would be a clear attempt to downplay/divert from the holocaust. It would however be entirely appropriate to look at the Herero and Namaqua genocide and the holocaust toagether and find (often quite chilling links)- in fact many have argued that the first set a precedent for the second.
So why how the experiences of Devlesko's ancestors were similar to those of enslaved africans, and how they might have differed, is a perfectly valid thing to discuss. I do agree though, that with things as they are (and given how emotionally charged the topic is) it can be hard to do it without eithe causing (understandable) offense or playing into the hands of racists. I don't think it is helpful to shot down those discusions or avoid them altogether however.

It's a difficult one because very few people realise that it was the same time, for the same reasons. For Black people it was the colour of their skin, for Romany it was being born.
It followed a time where British Romany were branded on first sight and if seen again they were hanged.
Here it mentions being transported to plantations for being "habitual Gypsies" [[https://www.travellerstimes.org.uk/features/feature-roma-
and-gypsy-slavery]]
Not many people know about this, because of course we are a minority, although the largest in Europe.
Hopefully, our history is to be included in the NC, soon.