‘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?!

It is really frustrating, I’m mainly Balti (Dardic) we have one white British ancestor who would be considered my great grandad. In reality he was a rapist employed and encouraged by the British army, this is a reality for many families due to partition. I have the misfortune of inheriting his nose.

Most white Brits do not know what a Balti Dardic person looks like. While fellow Asians from the Indian subcontinent, arabs etc generally do and can very easily spot my ethnicity. The two girls in the attached photo are Dardic.

I have green eyes, dark brown hair and pale skin when I don’t have a tan, I sometimes get asked if I’m Italian. When I do have a tan, which I develop very quickly (I’m already very dark from the weather last Mon/Tues) I then look like what white British people would typically consider someone from the Indian Subcontinent to look like, a similar colour to someone like Riz Ahmed or Rishi Sunak.

Funnily enough I only get called a Paki, get told to go home etc in sunny months, mainly because racists are really really really stupid. Guess what guys, I’m not magically white in the winter! My DNA isn’t quite that impressive.

@Helendee

I sometimes wonder what people would be like if none of us could see and had to treat people on how we find them and how they act, regardless of age, sex, skin colour.

I have a ‘white’ name, I have a mix of a Nottingshamshire/North London accent.

People on the phone assume I’m white, I’ve had phone meetings at work that have been very good, I’ve also has various chats over email that have also been positive in tone. I’ve had the same person in a face to face meeting suggest that I’m not the person they are due to meet when I have introduced myself, or my favourite “I wasn’t expecting one of you” a line that David Brent would probably enjoy.

It's complex isn't it. This thread has made me think about my goddaughter.

She's only 10 and has never known her father. Her mother is white British, father is Tunisian.

I don't think she knows she's mixed race and definitely looks white (albeit tans easily and deeply).

I hadn't even thought about this as she grows up and starts to be asked about identity - I know she feels fully white but factually is mixed.

I don't have any opinions on it personally but just musing out loud really...not even sure her Mum has thought about this aspect.

I don't think she's actually asked about her biological father yet as her Stepdad has been around for as long as she can remember (since 18 months old) but obviously she will at some point.

@SimonJT it's funny you say that fellow Asians can spot your ethnicity.
My dh is half Iranian and in the winter white people think he's white. He gets comments in the spring / summer (where are you really from etc, has been called a fucking paki before and had a very uncomfortable incident with someone accusing him of being a terrorist on a plane!)
Other Middle Eastern and Asian people always seem to know what his heritage is, I wonder why that is?

We have 2 sons, ds1 has fair hair (although getting darker now) and blue eyes and he has slightly sallow skin that tans quickly even with factor 30. Baby ds has very dark hair and eyebrows and very sallow skin, so much so that several people have commented on it. They see me and assume my baby must be 100% white too so they're surprised by his skin. I think he's beautiful but I hope as he gets older the comments stop as it may make him feel uncomfortable.

a conversation I had on tiktok

Well there's your problem!

People on the phone assume I’m white, I’ve had phone meetings at work that have been very good, I’ve also has various chats over email that have also been positive in tone. I’ve had the same person in a face to face meeting suggest that I’m not the person they are due to meet when I have introduced myself, or my favourite “I wasn’t expecting one of you” a line that David Brent would probably enjoy.

Yes! I've had this too (and I think it will be worse after lockdown as I know have multiple new colleagues I've never met and I don't have my photo up on the company system). Or people are polite enough not to say everything, but they sort of do a double take when they see you. The sort of thing that you would be accused of imagining if you brought up.

I think I might have seen the same TikTok video as you. Was it a post about someone from Thursday Island? The comments were a nightmare.

I’m mixed race and my children have been told that they “have been diluted down to white”.
Their father is Māori and I couldn’t “pass as white” in a million years, so how people get to say my children have “never experience racism” is beyond me.

I’ve found a lot of conversations re race on TikTok seem to centre around US Americans being very confused that different forms of racism exist, other than the one they are most familiar with - racism toward African Americans.
They have no concept of racism toward indigenous populations in NZ/Aus and surrounding islands, and I’ve seen some really ignorant comments and complete lack of understanding, even many people outright stating it wasn’t true.

My Grandfather doesn’t know who his Dad is (his mother abandoned him with grandparents when he was born) we don’t know his heritage.

My sister and I couldn’t be more opposite I am blue eyed pale skin (I burn and return to the same pair colour) she is naturally tanned and tans further in the sun dark eyes and hair - she is quite stunning! Growing up we lived in a very white area she was badly bullied, when i was introduced as her sister people would doubt it - especially if you meet my two white parents.
My uncles have also both had comments directed at them - growing up have been called some awful names. One time my uncle returning from a 3 week break in Spain - they didn’t believe he was the person on the passport as he had tanned so much and caused a lot of confusion.

We now through DNA know a little more - my sister can now see the bullying she experienced was racism. It’s hard for me as I can’t understand it as I haven’t or will ever experience what she goes through :(

I'd like to post a link. I saw on FB this morning. Addressing different issues, but some the same.
It's quite long, but stick with it, worth it. He's a bit too pro Christian, for me, but many of his points are valid.

This all feels like a slippery slope to me. Millennials generation being 'entitled, everyone is cis/trans/something, new pronouns being created all the time. People questioning your heritage all the time? How is that anything other than rude? I mean really? Where is this going to end! We seem to have swung to the latest extreme of being obsessed 'self'.

truth66

Hi OP, I’m British with Dutch and Carribean grandparents on one side (I can trace British side goes back to the 16th century) I have curly black hair and white freckley skin and blue eyes so people think I’m either Irish or I’ve dyed my hair 😆 I have slave owners and slaves in my ancestry so I’m a very confused person. I do think it allows me to see both sides though.

Yes OP this annoys me too.

I have mixed heritage and so my ideal BMI is lower than it would be if both my parents were white British. This is a medical fact that pertains to my ethnic heritage no matter what ethnicity people think I look like.

“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.”

Xenia, I have observed you trot this sort of stuff out so many times on this site (especially last summer). It so often goes with a faux intellectual summation that white peoples are some now being diddled by the way equalities work in the modern world.

I gets really, really old.

@LongHotSummerJustPassedMeBy

Yes OP this annoys me too.

I have mixed heritage and so my ideal BMI is lower than it would be if both my parents were white British. This is a medical fact that pertains to my ethnic heritage no matter what ethnicity people think I look like.

Me too, BMI over 23 would be overweight.

I also have regular eye tests due to having type one diabetes. I was once told I had irreversibly damaged my sight and I was at risk of going blind. What they were actually seeing was pigment at the back of my eyes because of my ethnicity, I got to spend 6 weeks terrified that I was going to lose my sight. If they had ever asked my ethnicity or told me the symptoms I could have easily rectified their mistake (obviously, it shouldn’t be my job to rectify their mistake). I was also sent for various tests on my skin as I had a rash that wouldn’t shift, it was eczema. Doctors still don’t know that things look different on dark skin. There is currently a blue lip campaign as medical professionals are still seeing a lack of blue lips on a black or dark skinned person as a positive sign, our skin colour means we won’t show blue lips.

Some people feel that only black people can be subjected to racism, anything else is prejudice (I think that's the term they use). This might explain the Tiktok messages.

@SimonJT

That’s horrific I can’t imagine that fear for 6 weeks!

It doesn’t surprise me though. Medical professionals seem to skip reading notes these days.

I had to have a laparoscopy and put under general anaesthesia, it was only when I questioned the anaesthetist about my other medical condition that he said oh we need change your dose/anaesthesia then! I was then scared stuff about the surgery in case they’d overlooked anything else.

I have mixed heritage and so my ideal BMI is lower than it would be if both my parents were white British.

People were always telling me DS1 was "too skinny" as a toddler. He wasn't, he's always followed the same centile.

@Backtoschool101 people are still really ignorant about what Muslims look like and where they come from. You would have thought that the wars and genocide in the former Yugoslavia there would be more realisation that there are white Europeans who are Muslims and not recent converts.

SimonJT

So sorry to hear this - it must have been terrifying.

There seems to be more awareness in the USA of dermatological issues for darker skin.

@Happycat1212

Yep! I’m mixed race black and white but because I look white black people don’t accept me and see me as white. Told I can’t understand what it’s like to experience racism because I look white. The only negative comments I’ve had about race has been from black people. I had a lot of comments in school , told I was “begging” black, called “the Turkish girl” despite them knowing I was mixed black and white.

Sorry you have gone through this. Not sure about the black people you mix with, but my experience is that black people are black-begging of mixed race people.

The thing is you don’t seem to acknowledge where their backward thinking is coming from and I’m surprised by that. Colourism is a thing and people of darker hues do have a different lived experience to people of lighter hues. That’s just fact. It is not right that they behave in that way, but the mental slavery people are shackled to comes from not knowing or understanding the divide and conquer principle. And to quote MN, hurt people hurt people.

@The90swereadecadeago I've been told to always make medical staff aware of any genetic conditions or allergies regardless. Most of the time they ignore it even when I've brought proof and it does impact treatment.

@RedMarauder Yes I learnt that. I was naive to assume that they would read my medical notes before surgery

What? That’s ridiculous and dangerous. I have no words...

I have a mixed race niece. Her mother is half white British, half Somalian and her father is white Scandinavian. They live in her father's country. Niece is white but olive skinned and gets all sorts of comments about how she's 'brown'. Yes she's white but it's clear she has non-white ancestry and she has experienced racism as a result.

It's an extreme view that some people take. I think they think that they're taking the moral high ground of thinking they're focusing on certain more marginalized voices, but to me it's just a continuation of trying to create a very specific hierarchy (I'd say mostly a Western model though other communities have similar hierarchies) and a very specific cultural view of community that focuses more on bloodline, which isn't a universal view and in fact is damaging the very people they likely think they're protecting (see the US and Canada requiring blood quantum cards for federally recognized Indigenous groups, ignoring those nations which, prior to other government requirement, did not entirely base citizenship on bloodlines).

But you don't become something else because a person believes you to be so. You are who you are.

But who we are is in part our experiences and how others treat us, which is affected by what other people believe we are (or, as sadly shown in SimonJT and other's examples, how others think we should be).

I'm Mestizo, grew up being called a mongrel and a Heinz 57 'special' even by family members who are the same mix but identify and pass better as White. I've been mistaken for so many other different groups. I've had people do the miming at me because they don't think people who look like me speak English to those who see me as White British until I speak. It all depends on how the other person sees me and I guess in that Tiktokers view, whether I could talk about being called a mongrel would depend on how they saw me.

I've had issues medically where HCPs will make a note I'm pale and then go 'but that's probably just your skin tone' as I have lighter eyes and dismiss it when no, it really isn't, I go pale quickly all over when ill, but when well I'm an olive-ruddy colour.

There is also the issue that some of us grow with major gaps in 'who we are' sometimes because it's socially unacceptable or just downright dangerous to discuss certain types of heritage (Some people murdered others for 'White-passing' when not 'really White' so it wasn't uncommon for people to destroy any evidence to the contrary), some of which are never filled so while it won't change anything biologically, it makes a difference in our self perception and in wider society in how different groups are percieved and how society draws these various lines.

@Camomila

I have mixed heritage and so my ideal BMI is lower than it would be if both my parents were white British.

People were always telling me DS1 was "too skinny" as a toddler. He wasn't, he's always followed the same centile.

That must have been so annoying.

It was a bit, even if DS1 were white...I am a stereotypical "skinny Italian lady" and am 5'3 with tiny feet. I was very unlikely to produce big DC.

DS2 has gone the opposite way to tall slim DS1, he's short and chubby and runs about looking like a tellytubby (He's 14m).