AIBU to think although I was “ raised “ white I am not white

[Nohugstoday25]

This was a bizzare conversation and it’s left me not really understanding who I am a little bit. I have name changed because it’s very outing.

I am mix raced, biological parents were Jamaican and Scottish.
I have tanned skin, very curly sort of auburn/ red hair and dark freckles with hazel eyes.
I was adopted by my loving parents and 2 siblings who are also white.

Anyway we were discussing a documentary the other day ( member of little mix one ) I said to my friend I empathised with being to dark to be white and to light to be black and she was taken back a bit and said she didn’t understand the issues as I am clearly white .
She said I was raised white ? Can you be raised a colour 😐 she said she reckons I would offend the BAME community if I had spoken out about not having white privilege.
Which by the way I would never have done and I do know I am privileged.
Just for me thinking really AIBU to not class myself as white ?

*doesnt sounds like you LOOK white! Autocorrect

I was raised by a white mother and had an absent dad. All my family were white and I put white British on forms. Then I started upper school and realised I was mixed race. It was a really weird realisation and it took until I was late 20s for me to feel comfortable to tick the mixed box on forms rather than white britsh. People probably thought I was mad identifying as white. YANBU op.

To the comments saying if I look white - I don’t think I do at all.

OP, based on that picture, you clearly look mixed to me but it doesn't even matter what you look like. I wrote something on a different thread which was deleted (because some people didn't like a phrase in one of the paragraphs out of the whole post. I won't repeat the phrase or paragraph and it's not the point I'm making here),

Your friend may be one of those people who can only think of someone as 'non-white' (if they're seen as white-passing) if they've gone through considerable suffering based on their ethnicity or skin colour. Like you said, it's possible your friend sees you as someone who hasn't gone through prejudice atleast compared to a non-white passing person. But white doesn't automatically mean privileged anymore than non-white means suffering, yet many people use this to ascribe whiteness and non-whiteness. I don't see how it's offensive to anyone to talk about your own experiences.

Also, though it can affect how people treat you, how you look - white passing or black passing - doesn't change your heritage or genetic makeup, so it really doesn't matter how someone else sees you.

Weirdly your friend has just agreed with you by disagreeing with you. She views you as too white to be black, which kind of proves your point.

She doesn't get to tell you how you feel, or how much privilege you do or don't have. In my mind, white privilege is a useful tool on a population level and a good way for me to express for myself when I've benefitted from it. I've not found it useful for someone else to generically tell me I have it or discuss it out of context of particular experiences though. And from reading posts on here I'm not alone in that.

YANBU

You said 'many people would assume I'm white' so on that basis I suppose your friend is saying you have had the white experience.

I'm mixed race, but look white. My dad has experienced racism. I've experienced a tiny sliver through having an Arab name (now done away with mostly through marriage and abbreviating my first name to something more white sounding) but I could never say I've truly suffered as a presenting BAME person. It would feel sort of wrong to claim I could understand what those daily microaggressions do to you.

Your photo isn't loading on my phone so that's based on your assertion that most people will assume you're white.

Your comprehension of Wnglish written and spoken is probably better then say someone who was raised by Black Jamaican immigrants

What the actual fuck?

@Nohugstoday25

This is the closest I could find on Google, just my hair is slightly lighter / reddish.

My hair’s like this when I leave it alone. Trust me you would be milk white and blue eyed and people would still know you were mixed race.

@NCNCNCNCNCNCNCNCNC I am not claiming to have experienced as much racism as others etc though all I’m claiming is that I am not white. That I understood the girl in the programme ( who was mix raced ) that she was told she was too light to be black but also then too dark to be white. It is about being mix raced NOT black.

Unfortunately I’ve found that some people will try and take away your right to your identity when you are mixed race. You are living your life and therefore you understand your own experience better than anybody else.

Mixed race, not mix raced!

@Merryoldgoat

Your comprehension of Wnglish written and spoken is probably better then say someone who was raised by Black Jamaican immigrants

What the actual fuck?

This is similar to the thing that happened with class a while ago. Working Class culture became a thing that people wanted to "claim" (nothing wrong with that) but also something that became wierdly heavily gatekeepered. So I once had an arguement with someone who said that you couldnt be working class if you frequented libraries - that made you middle class. Even though working class people CREATED public libraries - so working class = illiterate, disadvantaged; middle class = literate, educated, advantaged. Wierdness. So by the same logic my friend who is a lawyer is secretly white and middle class because she is much better educated than me and pays for her childrens piano lessons. I shall tell her this. What the actual fuck indeed!

@Nohugstoday25

To the comments saying if I look white - I don’t think I do at all.

So basically, someone on TV was discussing the issues around being "too white to be black, too black to be white". As a mixed race person you agreed. Your friend said "no, you cant be black, you're too white". Which is EXACTLY what the initial person was talking about. Your friend is a loon.

I used to work with a mixed girl. Half Carribbean black, half white. She's young and gorgeous and has a load of followers on Instagram. When the BLM movement took off she posted about it heavily. She was messaged by serveral people telling her that as someone white/Hispanic she had no business being involved in a black matter.

I also had to intervene in a conversation between my mother and son just yesterday. There are three children across the road. They all share a mother but the oldest one has a different father to the younger two (all white mother, African father though). The older daughter has lighter skin than the younger children and my son asked why she's white instead of black, like her siblings. My mother insisted that she is, in fact, black. I had to correct her that she's actually mixed race and that her experiences and identity will be different because of that and we can't mislable people.

My son is mixed. His dad is dark skinned, Arabic. I'm whiter than milk. He passes for fully white, mostly, but it's for him to decide how he identifies. Not me.

I think the thing is there is no right or wrong answer to this. Because catagories like white, black, and mixed race are to a large extent socially defined and depend in part, but not entirely, on how you are seen by others.

Ethnically you are Scottish Jamaican, that's a fairly objective measure.

Culturally, you probably to a large extent share the culture of your adopted family, unless you've had some other cultural influences.

As far as how people treat you, as "white" or "mixed" or whatever, that will depend on how they see you. For some people, no one will be in doubt, for some people, they will. It might depend on if they see you with family orin a particular setting, or the background of the person looking might make a difference.

Then, if you adopted family had some special advantages, like being super rich or members of the aristocracy, you might have all kinds of benefits based on that, which someone else would not have.

I think you can call yourself what you want, really, and your friend's comment seems odd, but it's also true that other people may or may not see you as black or mixed race.

[quote Nohugstoday25]@NCNCNCNCNCNCNCNCNC I am not claiming to have experienced as much racism as others etc though all I’m claiming is that I am not white. That I understood the girl in the programme ( who was mix raced ) that she was told she was too light to be black but also then too dark to be white. It is about being mix raced NOT black.[/quote]
But what's mixed race, really? When black and white and non-white mean totally different things in different places.

Almost all black Americans are mixed race, even if their parents are both black, they almost certainly have a good portion of European genetic material. If they come to the UK, do they become mixed-race?

Because race is such a mushy idea in the first place, mixed race is even more mushy. There are now people who consider people who are Spanish, or Greek, or even Italian, as "non-white" by which they seem to mean not northern European.

To the comments about I haven’t experienced the same issues due to white parents - you are right in a way. I was very lucky they my parents were able to adopt me and were also able to give me good opportunities in life and I am successful.

Except that doesn’t have anything to do with them being white, surely? You could have been adopted by a black family who were able to give you good opportunities?

Your friend is clearly an idiot for claiming you wouldn’t face racism because you were raised by a white family. How would anyone outwith your friends and family know that?

Well you're not white and you're are not black. Your are mixed race and can see things more clearly than most people. A very enviable position. You don't need to choose a side.

I don't think your white friend gets to tell you what ethnicity you are or which communities or subcultures you're allowed to identify with!

However, I do think BAME people get treated differently depending on how "ethnic" they are perceived to be. So someone with relatively light colouring, Caucasian features, and a UK accent is likely to be treated more like a white British person than someone very dark or with an accent or clothing typically associated with non-white-British communities. But neither will have the same life experiences/ chances as their white British counterparts.

FWIW I don't think your friend's perspective is that uncommon, sadly. I'm mixed race with similar colouring to the OP, and am a first generation immigrant although I have an almost-British accent. I referred to myself as 'brown' the other day and my white MIL said "Oh! Do you think of yourself as brown then?" Um, yes. In the same way that I "think of myself as" human, female, 5'7" etc...