Identity - What is my Class / Culture / background etc

[Henrietta2000]

Hi all,

I have a question and would like your thoughts on this (I'm also aware that these types of questions tend to really annoy some folk)! But here goes.

I've had quite a few identity crises when I was very young, my siblings and I had been left with a children's agency at birth fostered/ adopted etc and I went back into care and no longer have contact with my older sibling who was adopted by another family when I was very young and then they subsequently left the U.K. 😓.

I therefore lived in family environments that were so different to one another. I always get a bit nervous and self-conscious when people ask questions about my childhood / upbringing or call me names like a coconut (I'm kenyan, and it's usually other black people) and so feel I need to answer with what they want me to say (which I never really know).

But basically I was wondering if you were me what would you say your upbringing was or is it a weird thing to answer if perhaps you never lived with your actual family and then what do you say as an answer? (Might seem like a daft question but genuinely curious).

I'm currently at uni and as you would know there's a huge thing currently with identity politics on campus and debates can get very fiery and accusatory. And it seems some of my answers were not well received by some others.

I essentially based a lot of the "identity / class / culture" labels with a mixture of the families I had grown up in but that was apparently wrong and I was being challenged about it by other black students so now I'm a really confused about what I'm supposed to say my upbringing was.

I essentially said my upbringing culturally was mainly Chinese and English and in terms of class I spent 14 years out of the 18 years in two middle class homes and therefore said my upbringing was middle class. I'd spent 10 years in a Chinese British middle class home and then 4 in a white English middle class home and then a year in a working class White English home and then 3 years in a working class black Caribbean home. And that in terms of identity I feel a little bit confused about that but that otherwise I'm essentially British. My answers really annoyed some of the black students because they were the wrong answers about my upbringing and background. I said I don't really relate to my parents as I don't know them and never spent time with them and also in terms of class my parents are from two different classes so that would be hard to choose as my bio father is working class and bio mother who lives in Kenya is middle class / privately educated from info I have about my mum

One of the arguments put forward was that I'm ethnically black and genetically not related to the families I lived with during my childhood so those cultures can't be mine and that being fostered & adopted is a working class identity so I cannot say I had a middle class upbringing.

Sorry to ask this questions as I know it's annoying but would like your thoughts on this as I don't really have family members to ask this to otherwise I would have asked them instead and so though to ask on mumsnet 🫣.

But am I wrong and what should I say? I know it's not a big deal but it seems it a big deal to the few other black students at my uni. If you were asked the questions about culture, identity, class and upbringing etc and you were me what would you say?

Thank you! X Sorry if it's too long too!

Fekking labels - who needs them. Only bigots care about labels.

Just keep asking them why they want to know, and everytime they answer you ask “why?” again, eventually you will find out they are bigotted in one way or another - no matter their upbringing, nationality or skin colour.

How and why are you guessing my race? You are totally wrong for your information. However I am not going to tell you my heritage purely because it is irrelevant and its about what I say not my race religion colour or background. Yes it is important to know black culture but equally important to know white Asian and other culture why on earth do you feel a mixed race person needs to be brought up black when half of them or any fraction of them is something else why does one race win over the other in your eyes thst is racism surely?

OP you aren’t wrong - you can decide which of the experiences you had made you who you are, and how you want to define yourself - and if that’s as a middle class black British woman then there’s nothing wrong with that.

I’m sorry you are being questioned in this way. One way to deal with it is just not to have the conversation, another is to push back and point out that all black British experience is not the same, and it is absolutely wrong for someone else to try and define you, but that can be very tiring.

Class is anyway a product of upbringing so the idea that you can’t be middle class because your biological parents weren’t is truly bizarre.

In general younger people are very polarised in their views. This is especially true now in this subject area - but it will settle down, and as people get older they realise life is complex.

You’ve lived a very multi-layered life for someone of your age, and your peers have some catching up to do. So keep that in mind, and challenge them if and when you feel comfortable. There is a board on here for black mumsnetters that you might (or might not) find helpful. You will also have a counselling service at college, and it might be worth asking for a referral to that, just so you can talk things through with someone.

OP, I'm afraid I don't have much advice, but my god your uni mates are immature idiots! As another pp said - I'm angry on your behalf! You don't need to pigeonhole yourself for their benefit.

So white and black couples shouldn’t exist or shouldn’t have children?

Given the mixed race population is rising that’s an awful lot of people whose experience you are dismissing.

Children with mixed heritage have mixed identity which will come from both sides of their family. If they chose to identify one way or another when they are older that’s up to them.

I think you need to consider that your experience is not the only experience - black culture is extremely varied, and mixed race culture is becoming more significant and by its nature is also varied. There are a lot of different ways to be black British or mixed race British, you don’t get to dictate what they are.

If you don't wish to discuss it, shut the discussion down "it's complicated and personal"

I don't have race/ identity issues to consider but people can be arseholes about complex and unusual family backgrounds without other contentious topics in the mix.

Surely anyone who challenges you about your identity and background and decides you haven't given the "right" answer is as bad as the people who ask "where are you really from"- it's the same sense of disbelief.

@Highlyflavouredgravy

Im talking about black culture…? Jamaicans and Kenyans are of black culture are they not?

@JaninaDuszejko Again it depends you need to assess things on a case by case basis, however it’s not common for men to know how to do braids and plaits etc and to take on the nurturing role in the same way as a woman. And an increasing number of mixed race families are in a single parent household of which most children end up living with the mother. So again it depends and you need to look realistically at the child’s circumstances not assume men have to take on a mothers role or a grandparent for that matter. It just won’t work optimally. As a black mother I know what I’m talking about im fairly well equipped to understand the needs of black heritage children. I’m talking about what’s preferable a lot of what happens in the world is not preferable but that’s a whole different matter.

They sound like arses for not listening to you and questioning what you say you are. All the families and environments you have been in have probably played a role in moulding you to the person you are. Ethnicity and culture are different. You may be ethnically one thing e.g Ghanaian but if you are not brought up with the religion, the language, the food, the clothing, the customs, rituals etc then culturally you are not. If people are not open minded to your explanation they’re closed minded.
Be kind to yourself and your experiences and focus on number one. Best wishes.

Ethnicity and culture are different. You may be ethnically one thing e.g Ghanaian but if you are not brought up with the religion, the language, the food, the clothing, the customs, rituals etc then culturally you are not.
This makes sense. My DP is indo-Jamaican, so ethnically Indian but born and brought up in Jamaica, he is culturally Jamaican, and doesn't feel remotely Indian. A PP mentioned Jamaican being a black culture, my DP is very much Jamaican but not black, woukd it ne OK for him to say his culture is black or should he say Jamaican?

@IEatAlotOfFood

Im a white mum to an adopted mixed race young man. I agree its not optimal but quite frankly if black people do not think black/ mixed race children should be placed with white families then they need to step forward as foster carers and adopters.
I met his dad before my son came to live with me and asked if there were specific things I could do about his heritage and he said nothing. We have had contact with his birth family, my door has always been open to them, they have done little to give him a sense of his black identity. When we visited then in their home city we were taken to McDonalds for food, not to a local place serving food from their culture, his dad doesn’t appear to listen to music from his culture.

I have learnt how to keep his hair in good condition, he goes to a black barber who can do all the fancy stuff with his hair if he wants it. I have taken him to several African countries, sadly not his dads home country because it hasnt been the safest place to go for many years, but we will one day now things are calmer. But at least he has had experience of Africa. When he was little I read him African folk tales at bedtime. We have been to gigs, theatre, festivals.
He went to a great school with a zero tolerance approach to racism - I did have to report a few incidents and they were dealt with.
I have done my best for my son and I believe I have raised a happy, confident young man, secure in himself.
The alternative would have been long term foster care. No black families stepped forward for him, not even his own 3 aunts, all professional women who had the resources to care for him - would it really have been better for him to stay in foster care and be aged out at 18 with no family support, than be raised by me because I am white?
Most adopters would tell you that the best thing for any child is to be with birth families who love them and can care for them, if they can’t do that then they need a better future.

@Henrietta2000 Im sorry that other people are disrespecting your experiences, its not for them to tell you who or what you are. I did like the comment upthread about saying you are a badass. If it were me I wouldnt engage with them and seek out friends who respect you for who you are, not who they would like you to be.
Best of luck with your studies

So all black people share the same culture despite being from completely different countries in completely different parts of the world?

They are bullies who have no right to take issue with how you define yourself. They think in narrow minded stereotypes while you have a wider range of understanding of different types of people because of your upbringing.
If they quiz you again, you can say you have already been questioned and it's someone else's turn - ask for volunteers.

Sorry- attached my post to the wrong person.It is intended for the OP

Obama had a similar identity crisis - grew up in Kansas, Indonesia and Hawaii, brought up by his white mother and grandparents, and with an absentee Kenyan father. He explains it much more eloquently than I can, but basically he says that he decided to describe himself an African American because how people in the USA related to him was as an African American - i.e. his life as an American had inexorably been shaped by slavery and segregation despite his family background. Is it possible that your friends are making a similar argument? I.e. every Black person in the UK has in common a shared experience of racism?

I am part of a peer support group for people who have fostered or adopted trans-culturally/racially.

They include a couple where one is from (e.g. changed slightly for privacy) Jamaica and the other from Ghana, and they have adopted children with Haitian heritage. Parents and children are all black, but the parents recognise they need to support their children to understand and feel connected to their specific heritage. Being 'black' is not a homogenous heritage or experience.

DD (black, Southern African) was bullied for a while by some girls at school of West African heritage because DD did not have the same cultural preferences, and therefore couldn't be 'African'. The bullies saw their preferences e.g. plantain as the authentic 'Africa', and DD must be a 'coconut' due to her white mother because she had difference preferences. In fact, plantain does not factor in DD's Xhosa heritage, where maize/corn is the staple food in the shape of mealie meal, samp etc, all of which DD likes and eats regularly.

I taught myself to meet her needs with regards to hair care, skin care etc. it isn't hard, and she goes to a hair salon run by and catering for people of African heritage.

On the whole, looking at the awful life paths of her peers in care who were not fostered/adopted, I think she's better off with a white mother than being failed by a children's home in an over-stretched, under-funded system which provides the minimum in basic care, with the predictable and horrendous outcomes that go along with it.

This is an excellent post and what i was trying to get at. ' black' is not a culture/ heritage.

I think you're much better placed to think about the complexity of identity, class and culture than your peers who seem to think it works in terms of definitive boxes. And very well placed to think about the intersectionality of different identities which I think is key to actually understanding these concepts.

I know where you're coming from and how difficult it is. I'm mixed-race, born in Britain to a first-gen immigrant, was long-term fostered by a working-class family of a different race and then adopted by a middle-class mixed-race family (similar but not the same as my racial heritage) and brought up in a very white environment. I don't have much connection with my racial heritage - I don't speak the language you might expect me to by looking at me. (My adoptive mother was big on assimilation.) But while my upbringing essentially moulded me into "standard white-coded middle-class British" my identity has also been shaped by how people have seen me and treated me. And the flipside to the middle-class privilege I ended up in is that I spent years in the care system before that.

There really isn't a definitive answer, you don't have to choose - you are all those things. Some days you feel one aspect of it more keenly than others but they all coexist in you.

Tell your fellow students that if they affect to know more about the complexities of your identity than you do, they fundamentally don't understand the concept.

@IEatAlotOfFood Im talking about black culture…? Jamaicans and Kenyans are of black culture are they not So all people who are black share the same culture regardless of their ethnicity - Jamaican, African, Caribbean etc? No variation in clothing, language, music, food etc right? Just one homogenous group allowed to have babies with each other but not with any Asian or white people, by your logic?

Incidentally if white women should be birthing or raising mixed race kids, what about black women? Is it permissable for you to have a baby with a white or Asian or Latino man etc?

I find the whole identity politics arena to be incredibly puritanical and intolerant. People get very judgmental when the thing they have chosen to champion as their identity isn’t the same thing someone else has chosen. And nothing pisses off identity puritans like someone claiming the same identity they claim but not having the same framework for credentials. Exhibit A: MN class threads.

I wouldn’t worry too much about it, OP. Be yourself. Your lived experience is what it is, and if that annoys them, then that is a problem with them, not you.

Firstly I would like to Say that the discussion you mentioned sounded like it might have been very difficult for you personally and it sounds like people weren’t sensitive to that. It also sounds like your class mates were ignorant to the issues of people who are adopted and/or care experienced.

To me culture comes from the values we grow up with, the experiences that we have within our families and wider communities etc. It sounds like in childhood you moved between living with families with very different cultures.

possibly being a ‘care experienced’ person in this context has had a significant impact on how you would talk about identity and culture. They haven’t grasped the significance of that and I think that’s a damn shame. Maybe you could ask the lecturer to revisit the discussion? Sounds like it would be valuable learning for your class mates.

I wonder if “care experienced” could be considered an aspect of someone’s identity and/or culture. Many adopted and or fostered children have similar experiences through their childhood.

I think this well highlights this issue with children being adopted or fostered outside of the culture they were born into.

Just too add- donyou feel there is a culture you identify more with. Eg have you kept any of the practices from one family? Or feel connected to the culture of any of your foster families?

I think I'd be tempted to just say "it's complicated". The others are being unreasonable for not being happy with your answer though

yes, you don't owe these people your life story, and they have shown themselves to be ignorant and insensitive
I think you need a one sentence answer, whether it's 'badass' or 'its complicated'
and then, a put down/closing off answer for if they don't back off
'I really don't want to discuss it'
'I don't think that's really any of your business is it'
''it's actually a rather private matter'

or even
'did you mean to be so rude?'