‘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 guess we need to separate identity ?which we define for ourselves) from racism (which others do to us because of how they perceive us and their prejudices). I'm white and family are all too as far back as we know. I was bullied repeatedly at my small village primary school for being 'Chinese' (I am very dark and yellow toned skin).

Garlic if I meet a bloke with a London accent who is black and I ask where are you from... When I wouldn't ask a white person with a London accent...?

And he says 'archway' then what have I learned and why did I ask?

My mums white, blonde hair and blue eyes and my dads mixed race but I'm dark with frizzy curly hair. An elderly man asked me for directions once then told me I speak really good english. I forgot only light skinned people are born in England 😂

I'm white and born in England, and Romany traveller.
I get the same, but you only have to see the threads on here that mentions travellers and they hardly get to page two before deleted for racism. I fight it on a daily basis either for myself or on behalf of others.
I hear you.

I've had people ask where I'm from and when I say the town I'm from they act like like I'm being unreasonable like I should have known they meant a different country and say.... no, i meant WHERE are you from. 😳 so I repeat the town

Firefly too right.

I’m not at all bothered by a random on tiktok @Bluntness100, if it’s just one random, but I am more concerned that it seems to be a growing POV among gen Z that they regurgitate as fact - that your race is determined by your phenotype (which they take to mean the colour of your skin and your facial features) and if those features are ‘white’ then you are white’ which is..well a very black and white rigid view point that patently makes no sense. And if it’s the believe of a generation that’s worrying to me.
It’s along the same lines as SO many teens/early twenties who say that you can’t be racist to white people. And they will not accept that this is an opinion not a fact.

@Cowbells thankfully I don’t experience that kind of thing too much now, and I wasn’t a shy child so I absolutely did challenge it, and to be honest in most cases when people called me ‘the Chinese kid’ it wasn’t even meant rudely really it was just such a small rural area they’d never seen a non-white person Til my mum rocked up. Most people were not mean, just ignorant.

@achainisonlyasstrong

Agree if you look "white", or "whiter", it's generally always to your benefit,. But that's doesn't mean that those people with fair skin should be denied their ethnic heritage...they just may not have experienced racism in the same way.

Yes and being white or whiter might not be to your benefit and could have experienced racism in the same way.

Being branded by hot irons, hanged, transported, enslaved, despised by most of society, discriminated against, oppressed and soon to be criminalised just for being of a certain race and following your culture, has nothing to do with the colour of your skin, believe me.

The point is that

A difference is noticed
And it's seen as fine to ask questions about it

I'm white but have obvious scarring.
I know it's not the same but the amount of people who think it's ok to just say. what happened? Often with a lead in of OMG those scars are awful (!). Sensitive !

I used to make shit up . Shark attack etc

It's boring for people to do this.. oh I've noticed you're different to the norm! I want a reason.

And it never turns out to be (in my case) a genuine interest in what I've been through and why or (I'm guessing, in the case of race/ skin colour) a lead in to a really interesting conversation about different countries culture and experience...

If I was not white I'd do as a pp said.

Where are you from?
Dorking.

Oh and I still get the ‘ where are you really from’ , on telling people I’m a Londoner.

I'm a white Londoner and also have been asked this a lot - asked by people of different ethnicities, not just by white people. I don't look anything but white, I'm not even slightly tanned, so always assume the question is just because London is full of people from different nationalities and ethnic backgrounds. I know that many darker skinned people will have valid reason to suspect bad intent behind the question but I like to hope the majority of the time it's asked in a well meaning, general curiousity kind of way.

Devlesko I don't like to be 'that person'.

And as a starting point I will say that as an English person, yes racism is endemic. The met is a shitshow. The British empire committed appalling atrocities, stripped wealth etc.

However.

The UK treatment of the Irish was utterly fucking appalling.

The English behaved awfully to lots of people all over the world. Being white didn't protect you.

@GrumpyHoonMain it was a black guy from Birmingham who said it, but the fact that he is black doesn’t give him the right to a) deny a very strong part of who I am or b) decide that means I must never have faced racism, because the nature of my childhood and being the only non-white in my local area means that despite my lighter skin, I might have recieved more racism than a black person/more obviously Asian person who was raised in a multi-cultural city like he was. The idea that lighter must equal less discrimination isn’t a given. So whilst I am aware that there is a difference in me walking down a street to a black guy and I acknowledged that, it doesn’t mean that he is right.

Baggo agree. You can usually tell though whether it's asked out of real interest, as it were

IME as well people who have connections to other countries like to tell you! Because they're proud of their background / links to other countries. And I'm always keen to hear about people's background and as a totally English person I find it really interesting.

My FIL on the other hand just wants to know so he can say. He's from Poland. She's Italian. With some kind of... ? Dunno.

My FIL on the other hand just wants to know so he can say. He's from Poland. She's Italian. With some kind of... ? Dunno

I understand. My ex mil is very much the same!

@achainisonlyasstrong...generally and always are mutually exclusive terms.
I think the crux of my frustration is that it is a fact that being lighter means you’ve had it easier/experienced less racism. Growing up in a rural welsh village as the literal only non-white however light, is very different to being darker but from a large community of people of many races. I also don’t really enjoy the suffering olympics that people want to engage in. We get nowhere doing that, and I certainly don’t think anyone should be excluded from the discussion on race.

@SimonJT

I sometimes feel that Asians are the forgotten ethnicity. TV is full of black people and white people but producers seem to think that ticks the diversity box and forget about Asians. And I don't just mean South Asians.

I wouldn’t agree that TV is full of black people, but there is a huge lack of East Asians represented on TV. They also suffer the same problem people South Asians suffer, we play generic Asian people. So someone who is Pakistani may be cast as an Indian, someone who is Thai may be cast as someone who is Malaysian. Its like the producers etc think “meh, near enough”.

The same happens with language. I love hearing Urdu in TV shows as the characters are usually talking absolute garbage, I imagine the same happens with other languages.

I wonder if the actors would thank you for consigning them to such a specific set of ethnic roles.

@Devlesko I also hear you

East Asians are quite well represented in Australia but not black people.

@SmokedDuck so Asian actors should be glad to have a acting job where they have to play a parody of another Asian ethnicity?

Because that's what your post implies.

There is known extremely lazy stereotyping of Asian characters in the theatre and on screen. Casting people just because they ethnically from the right region doesn't help this.

[quote OwlBeThere]@GrumpyHoonMain it was a black guy from Birmingham who said it, but the fact that he is black doesn’t give him the right to a) deny a very strong part of who I am or b) decide that means I must never have faced racism, because the nature of my childhood and being the only non-white in my local area means that despite my lighter skin, I might have recieved more racism than a black person/more obviously Asian person who was raised in a multi-cultural city like he was. The idea that lighter must equal less discrimination isn’t a given. So whilst I am aware that there is a difference in me walking down a street to a black guy and I acknowledged that, it doesn’t mean that he is right.[/quote]
I've been told the same by black people. Also once by a white British person who said she was Romany.

Because obviously being told things like "you could look like a xxxxx if you had black hair" and similar isn't experiencing racism at all...

My DC are mixed race (their grandad in their dad's side is Israeli) but white passing. Their dad - also white passing - has no interest in his Israeli heritage, was raised in Scotland as was his own father and he ticks White British on forms AFAIK. Ill be honest, neither them or their father ( now exH) has ever experienced racism - the only time I am ever is when they go very dark in the sun and I'm pale as they come, I'm asked if they're mine even when they call me mum in front of people. I'm not sure that's racism though, more like rudeness? I am probably not the best person to make a call on this and I've only read the OP, who I acknowledge has had a very different experience, but just wanted to add my children and ex's perspective as white passing mixed race people.

@CirclesWithinCircles well yeah, ‘her with the slitty eyes’ or ‘ching Chong chinaman’ isn’t at allllllll racist. Especially when I’m fucking JAPANESE.
I can laugh about it to an extent now because it’s so flipping ridiculous. But honestly, when I went to uni to do linguistics/SLT and someone started asking me how to pronounce Chinese words 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️ I dunno mate, you’re English, can you read welsh? No? Why not?!

@NiceGerbil

Devlesko I don't like to be 'that person'.

And as a starting point I will say that as an English person, yes racism is endemic. The met is a shitshow. The British empire committed appalling atrocities, stripped wealth etc.

However.

The UK treatment of the Irish was utterly fucking appalling.

The English behaved awfully to lots of people all over the world. Being white didn't protect you.

Definitely and nothing has changed. Travellers aside Irish people are victimised due to their accent and are still treated appallingly. In the Pontins case with the list of unwelcome names many with those surnames weren't even travellers, it's disgusting.

[quote RedMarauder]@SmokedDuck so Asian actors should be glad to have a acting job where they have to play a parody of another Asian ethnicity?

Because that's what your post implies.

There is known extremely lazy stereotyping of Asian characters in the theatre and on screen. Casting people just because they ethnically from the right region doesn't help this.[/quote]
I do feel East Asian actors have replaced the role of the token black actor in films who was either their for comedy value or murdered first in a horror. Very rarely given good roles.