‘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?!

I totally get it, OP. I'm also half-white, half-East Asian.

I've experienced white privilege before. But I've also experienced racism. Being mixed race can be lonely because sometimes you end up in a situation whether neither side can relate to you as you're just a little bit too foreign.

I personally think racism against East Asians is the last acceptable form of racism in this country. People have been hugely unpleasant over coronavirus, but that's apparently OK, because anyone with East Asian ancestry is to blame for the pandemic.

I understand the phrase 'white passing' - it's pretty obvious what it means. Sometimes I pass for white, not always. A lot of white people think I'm vaguely Mediterranean, whereas most East Asian people can tell my actual ancestry.

I've spent my entire life being asked "where are you from?" with the follow up, "no, really, where are you from?"

If people were to point at me and ask, "why do you look like that?" it would at least be more honest.

Yes it's complex
It could be classified as bullying.
Bigotry is bottomless
Notwithstanding, disability, gender, religion, and sexuality.
And dietary preferences, accent, education, the list goes on and on. We could go so far as pretty not pretty.
Most people experience bigotry in one way shape, form or fashion.
Black movements are just the tip of the iceberg before people can just accept people that aren't the same as them.

It's the lazy stereotyping that ethnicity is based on skin colour, and skin colour alone. Many of us have pale skin that passes for white, but non typically white features. But some people seem to think that only black, or mixed race black and white people experience racism.

It's based on a ridiculous premise anyway, given that white cultures and races can be just as much subjugated by others.

My ancestry includes a lot of Jewish heritage and Irish - my Jewish ancestors had to pretend to be Catholics to survive and my Irish ancestors considered terrorists and masked their history to assimilate. Forced assimilation - direct and indirect - is a form of racism.

My research specialism is race relations and genocide. Behaviour and attitudes like this are very much part of the problem. And to be honest, the BLM movement is riddled with the kind of actions that exemplify and accelerate deteriorating race relations, all bound up in a pithy slogan that you can't disagree with. This intensification of the need to classify people being quite an alarming one.

I think it this may come from people who are say 90% European and 10% another race claiming that they are oppressed etc.

When to the average person they are just another European.

@Nothingyet

If someone has white Caucasian ethnicity, can they identify as black? Or vice versa? In the same way as people can identify with another gender. Well, why not? You might get the odd quizzical look, as do the people in dresses with stubble and Adam's apples, but so what?

This is an interesting question, as per the transgender argument it is possible!!

The problem with all this is we seem to have lost sight of racial equality legislation's protection of white and non white people - the secret is in the word - equality - cannot discriminate on grounds someone is white or that they are black etc. There is nothing per se evil about being 100% white (whatever that means) nor black.

Nor under English law are there hierarchies and the darker you are the more the law applies to you. It is a simple test - were you discriminated against on grounds of race.

Dividing people into groups whilst useful for data purposes such as the census we just had in England, Wales and NI, is very useful to work things out but it is not useful on a psychological level. If people feel pitted against others they live less in harmony with each other whether that be Brexit v Remain, Tory v Labour, women v men or whatever.

As I always say if we go back far enough all humans are from Africa - which is true, even those like I am who are the whitest peopel coming back from a holiday abroad (or bright red) and with brown spots (the many freckles) which probably mean I am 2% Neanderthal. We are all one. We are all human and indeed even with other animals we are in a sense part of the same whole - the earth, the planet.

[quote caramellia]@AlexaShutUp I never saw Megan Markell as mixed race then once I knew it was quite obvious. Her son is then quarter black would he identify as black.
The white passing phrase makes sense as I don't think MM would have got where she is know if she looked darker. [/quote]
I agree, in the1950s it was literally "passing" a secret that had to be kept,
Now, a pale skinned mixed celebrity like Meghan has the privilege of appealing to all audiences. Just the way i see it.

I think this issue is called "colourism" - the idea that there are different layers of privilege associated with different "shades" of skin colour, even amongst the same races/ethnicities/heritages. I don't know too much about it though as I'm a white woman. www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/09/colourism-is-finally-being-taken-seriously-thanks-to-celebrities-like-lupita-nyongo

I’d also ignore what randoms say on Tik Tok, you don’t even know the person you’re speaking to snd it’s likely someone you’d not wish to converse with in real life.

On a separate note, my family is Italian. I look very stereotypically Italian, and people either guess it immediately or ask my heritage. I even had a British telecom engineer who asked me where I came from then drilled down about my family when I eventually responded Italian he said “I knew there was something, you don’t look British” . He meant it nicely (before anyone reacts).

People asking about heritage is really very common.

I don't see why it is offensive asking people about their ethnic background and where they are from. I regularly hear our West African and Arab doctors asking the same thing of each other!

I remember when I went to Poland and our guide was cetainly striking. She had an olive looking skin and a bright red afro! To me though she looked like she came from Cyprus. She reminded me of a turkish-Cyprian school friend. However she was Polish-Trinidadian!

As a white woman not subject to racism or colourism, it seems to me that colourism is the issue now. I know my experience as an ordinary, short, plump,unqualified low paid single white mum means i still have privilege, an idea that i am not dismissing, but it's counterintuitive to me because ive spent so much of my life struggling to just find employment. But if you tell me that i have privilege a woman with much darker skin than meghan markle has, i 100% get it immediately.

It is certainly something it is best not to ask about. People can put their foot in it so easily. Talk about the weather instead and you are on safer ground..,. although even there never get into - it must have been very hot where you come from.

The Queen starts conversations sometimes with "Have you come far today?" Even that might be dangerous if you are assuming someone has flown in from Africa but their family has lived in the UK for generations. On the other hand if we get too scared of talking to people we think are different because it can cost people their jobs if they say the wrong thing that would be sad.

There is a general interest for many people into where they are from. I did my first family tree when I was about 14 and my parents did them too which has been useful so I could build on that now we have the internet. It is very interesting. I have got back to about the 1700s on just about all sides although none of us had any money really so records before that are harder to find, no census then etc and every single one of the lot of them back to 1700s are boringly from the UK or Ireland. Orkney is my most exotic and the DNA test says something like 2% Nordic so those vikings probably did some raping and pillaging (or peaceful settlement ). I thought as I am from the NE and we had black soldiers on the Roman Wall in parts there might be something more interesting. We shall see. The hunt continues unto death (and beyond if there is a beyond).

I think what probably irks people in the black/mixed race community is that recently lots of nationalities are trying to claim they're black
You get people from Spain or Greece trying to make out they're black.
They have no idea of what it's like to experience the racism that black or mixed race people suffer.
This is how it was explained to me by a black friend.

Interesting debate OP. My DD has experienced a different but related issue. She is white, DH and I are both white British for a good few generations back. However she has very olive skin (as did my mum to be fair) and very dark, almond shaped eyes. She doesn't look typically white and is often asked about her background, and doesn't quite know what to say. She generally goes with "I'm just white British, nobody really knows why I look like this."

I like What SmokedDuck said and what newstart1337 said. It's like we need to discuss "What is Race for?"

There can be fierce ethnic prejudice between communities whose ethnicities are impossible to distinguish physically and have huge shared cultural traditions (Greeks vs. Turks, Arabs vs. Israelis, Bangladeshi vs. Pakistani, Protestant vs. Catholic in Norn, Serb vs. Croat etc). All of these sectarian prejudices are technically racism, too.

Pride in ethnic heritage is a different thing from problems encountering prejudice -- so back to "What is Race for?" When is this concept useful?

One of my DCs is blue eyed, has light brown hair and fair skin and people have absolutely no idea he's mixed race if they've met him without his father and I. One of my other children has more obviously mixed race features and what looks like deeply tanned skin, the other in-between.

Many people, including older white people in my own family, don't consider my 'white passing' DC to really be mixed race. I disagree. He certainly faces less discrimination in himself, but he's being brought up seeing discrimination against his parents and hearing disparaging jokes and stories about people from his heritage and family. It can be the big things, like watching a big drunk guy racially abuse his parents in public, but also all the little things that add up, like hearing unfunny jokes about people of his racial heritage, or the way that people give his father a wide berth when he's wearing a cap and a black face mask or how the security guard follows us in Boots, but doesn't follow him with his (white) nanny, or the double take that some people do when they exclaim in surprise that he and his much-adored grandmother are actually related.

Would I be keen on him going for scholarships aimed at under-represented groups? Probably not, it seems unfair - but it's also always concerning to me when people see white-passing as white.

Identity politics can be very intolerant and ironically silencing imo.

Disclaimer: I am white so some might say I have no reason to get involved here but...

It seems to me that people in the OP's position are damned if they do and damned if they don't. I see a lot of conversations online where people are being told that if they look white, it's pointless to insist they're not, and on another day someone will be told not to "deny" their non-white heritage. People have strong feelings about this and it's probably impossible to please everybody all the time.

If I was in that position I think I would describe myself as mixed race, and politely try to explain my position to anyone who disagreed. But I haven't been there.

It is very common, especially on social media, not face to face for people to be absolutely dismissive of other people's experience. No one knows whether or not you have suffered from racism except you. (But being 'that Chinese kid' when you are half Japanese, half Welsh is clearly racism. Not being seen as a person but a type - incorrectly categorised at that. If you can be bothered, you can challenge it. I think I'd choose better company. I don't hang out with men who have zero interest or belief in women's issues. I wouldn't waste time if I were mixed race being told by strangers what my life experience has been.

Not the same, but I often get read as very wealthy because I have a posh voice. In fact I grew up without even the basics and went to a rubbish state school. I just ignore the assumptions that I went to private school and daddy helped me out.

I get it OP. I'm mixed too. Half black (African American/Native American) and half white (English) I look white but like I have a permanent suntan, although I have certain 'black' features that show that I'm not fully white. I've had many arguments with people who say that I'm white even though they know my siblings are dark skinned. I've also experienced racism. My brothers and sisters are all very dark and look more black, with brown skin, afro hair etc.

Is this not in itself racist excluding you from a conversation because you're not 'asian enough'...........
Discussion on race these days seems to be so full of high horses and contradictions

How sad that people hold those views.

I look white. My ethnicity is Romany gypsy and I've had far from a "normal white" life. Also my heritage is from all over the world, I wouldn't consider myself to be white.

It is relevant what race you are perceived as. A friend of mine is half Indian half white British. She looks like she is Mediterranean, her sister looks Asian. They had different experiences with the level of racism they have received. However that isn't to say she hasn't take on some impact of racism. There has had several occasions when she had to tell people to stop being racist when they didn't realise they weren't talking to an entirely white audience. Of course as a white person I have had had the same and called it but it's different I imagine if you are that race.

@Bluntness100 British != white.

People from Britain went around colonising other countries and so many people from these other countries ended up being British Citizens.

I've worked with French, Belgians, Dutch and Portuguese people who aren't white. Going out with them for lunch or after work with them I've been amused about how ignorant some people are about really quite recent history.