AIBU To ask if the term Mixed-Race is outdated

[CambridgeEntry2022]

I don't want to cause offence by using outdated terms. Would it be more appropriate to use the term multi racial?

I used to live near a couple she was Irish he was Afro caribbean. They had 2 daughters and they were both a visible mix of both parents. The older one was tall like dad, black hair like dad, straight hair like mum, facial features like mum, Meghan Markle colouring. The younger one was short like mum, red haired like mum, afro hair like dad, facial features like dad, very pale skin with freckles.

You'd never guess they were sisters but both looked perfectly matched with the parents. I assumed dad had a red haired ancestor.

My SIL says it is dual heritage. She is herself dual heritage

@mustlovegin

I think I did not explain myself very well.

The mutated MC1R gene (which needs to be inherited from both parents, as it's recessive) is responsible for red hair colour (and several other characteristics, like skin tone).

So I understand it's not possible for a red-haired (and in particular blue-eyed) person to be what most understand as mixed race (at least in relation to hair, eye and skin colour)

Do you not believe my daughter is mixed race then? You insist it's not possible.

@mustlovegin

I think I did not explain myself very well.

The mutated MC1R gene (which needs to be inherited from both parents, as it's recessive) is responsible for red hair colour (and several other characteristics, like skin tone).

So I understand it's not possible for a red-haired (and in particular blue-eyed) person to be what most understand as mixed race (at least in relation to hair, eye and skin colour)

Both parents can have the recessive gene and not be the same race.

What do you believe most people understand as mixed race?

I’m mixed race and I call myself mixed race.

Dual Heritage makes me cringe… “heritage” is such a euphemism when you’re clearly talking about race. It sounds like you’re talking about an heirloom. And dual implies you can only have two “heritages”.

@mustlovegin

I think I did not explain myself very well.

The mutated MC1R gene (which needs to be inherited from both parents, as it's recessive) is responsible for red hair colour (and several other characteristics, like skin tone).

So I understand it's not possible for a red-haired (and in particular blue-eyed) person to be what most understand as mixed race (at least in relation to hair, eye and skin colour)

Maybe both the parents are mixed race? Fancy that! There must be more of these exotic types around than you thought!

@wordsareveryunnecessary

My SIL says it is dual heritage. She is herself dual heritage

Then it's dual heritage for her, if she likes. Neither you nor your SIL can say what other people should be using though, especially when it's already been explained that dual heritage is not at all accurate for a lot of mixed race people.

@claralara42 you are so right. Dual heritage is really only a term you should use for yourself. Or use for someone you know well enough to know that's their preferred option.

@EllaBlaire I also found that odd! I have a red haired sibling with a recessive gene that appears to be from grandparents/ great grandparents, one with a particularly unusual mix to have auburn hair in Central Asia.
I also have a blue-eyed child. From my understanding it’s the other way round with recessive genes, it’s very very unlikely for two blue eyed people to have a brown eyed child.
Genes though are quirky. My mixed race friends, one of whom is very dark in her skin tone, have 4 children ranging from fair white in appearance to darker than either parent. Same heritage, yet treated differently. Another couple I know who identify as a black, though I understand they have a mix in their heritage, have a blond fair child. He’s already been told in a lesson he isn’t black, which is a headfuck when your sister and parents are viewed as, and call themselves, black. It’s a topic I’ve learnt it be quiet and just listen on, it’s both complicated and very personal to describe someone’s identity. It’s hugely important never to question someone or make an assumption based on skin tone or colouring alone.

Welsh and Irish are the same race (white/Caucasian) so no, you are not mixed race

The Welsh and Irish are Celts, not Caucasian and yes, everyone is mixed race.

Ironically enough, when people genuinely from the Caucuses bombed the Boston marathon, they were not considered to be white/Caucasian.

Caucasian is understood to mean white these days though so saying Irish / Welsh people not caucasion (but English people are?) sounds a bit odd. Who cares but in some of those dna tests, they just lump all Great British and Irish dna in to one.

Racism very much exists and some people experience this as part of their daily lives, and some have lost their lives over this. So claiming everyone is mixed race or that race doesn't exist, we are all human blah blah is rather unhelpful and I would think problematic.

@Coyoacan, where on earth do you think the Celts originated from? Central Europe not in Europe then?

@SJaneS49, well you might as well call us Africans then, as that is where we all started out from.

Obviously @Coyoacan in terms of our origins. Caucasian might be an outdated term I don’t disagree but it’s definition does very much include the Celts.

All those terms, Caucasian, white and I don't know what solely belong to a racist world. Nobody referred to Europeans as white until around the time when the slave trade started.

I am proudly a Celt and that has nothing to do with racial purity, which never did exist

The slave trade existed forever and a day @Coyoacan, you’d be hard to pinpoint a time when it didn’t exist. Personally, I don’t have any issue with being referred to as white (I am) nor do I consider it racist.

Not many of us in the British Isles are ‘purely’ anything whether that’s Celt, Anglo Saxon or whatever. Definitely when it comes to being English (a people made up from multiple waves of immigration) its pretty laughable to talk about any kind of ‘racial purity’.

Who cares but in some of those dna tests, they just lump all Great British and Irish dna in to one.

The one I did, the English come under ‘west European’ while the Celts are identified separately, though I can’t remember what as. So someone of Irish and Welsh extraction would be identified as the same, though obviously within the broader category of white people - so definitely not mixed race.

@Coyoacan Welsh and Irish are the same race! You’re white, not mixed race! It doesn’t matter if you’re English, Irish, Italian, French, Romanian, Swedish… more likely than not you’ll be white! I am half white British (mix of English and Irish) and half Chinese. I am mixed race, but you are not. White European and Asian are different races.

@Coyoacan

Pretending to not see colour is incredibly damaging. Guess what, we live in a racist world, and we can only address racism if we have the appropriate language to do so. We also have to acknowledge diversity and be inclusive. Erasing race-related language is just burying your head under the sand. There is nothing problematic about the word "white" and I am not sure why you are particularly sensitive to that word. Your post smacks of a white person making it all about themselves.

@Coyoacan

All those terms, Caucasian, white and I don't know what solely belong to a racist world. Nobody referred to Europeans as white until around the time when the slave trade started.

I am proudly a Celt and that has nothing to do with racial purity, which never did exist

But you can bet people referred to people other than white as all sorts of things. Why not white? People of other ethnicities lived in the UK long before the slave trade.

So "race" for @CutePanda and @Freecuthbert is purely a matter of the colour on one's skin?

It is interesting that I am not allowed to object to being called by a term that has no basis in reality and that I find objectionable.

I'm not pretending not to see colour, Freecuthbert, but why is it so necessary to see it in such black and white terms?

I saw the other day that they are reintroducing segregated schools in some parts of New York, under the guise of race theory. Is that good? They definitely see colour, so it must be.

And yes slavery has always existed, I should have been more specific, the European slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to the Americas.

Really pedantic of me @FlyingBattie but again, but ‘slave trade’ doesn’t just refer to the Atlantic Slave trade of the 17th/18th centuries. Slavery in the British Isles pre dates the Roman period. The Romans themselves operated a very global trade in slaves. Many of those people of other ethnicities living in Britain over a thousand years before the Atlantic Slave Trade you are referring to would have been slaves.

(Again, sorry! And I totally agree that we don’t know how these people referred to each other).

@Coyoacan
Don't be so ridiculous, I never said race is purely a matter of the colour of one's skin. My daughter has white skin but she is most certainly not white. But you are trying to pretend race does not exist. Try telling that to people who experience racism. I certainly don't support segregated schools.

Caucasian hasn’t been used in the U.K. for a very long time. It is a racist term like Mongoloid.

I am nearly fifty and have never seen any form that used Caucasian.

Most people whose ancestors have been in the British isles for more than a few generations have ancient British DNA, predating the Iron Age Celts. There are a few areas like Norfolk where you get a higher amount of other European DNA, but in general DNA is still Ancient British.

There are of course other DNA traces- North African Roman troops in North East England, Vikings in Dublin, but many invasions led to more cultural changes than big population changes. A bit like the British invaded India but the vast majority of Indian people are not now of British descent.