To think that if you’re the white parent of a mixed race child in the U.K., you should educate yourself about race issues and racism?

[Yabberwocky]

Just that, really. You should make an active and consistent effort to inform yourself, try to understand what your child might be dealing with, recognise microaggressions, that sort of thing.

I’ve been musing about my own childhood and upbringing. Wondered what people thought.

I just don't think those suggesting this somehow lets dads off the hook have the range to speak on this issue. Especially and particularly where it concerns the Black fathers of mixed race children. That would be a whole different arena of discussion if we're really about it.

Fair points. And yes re Black mum and White Dad being better off. Very much so. In my anecdotal experience.

Christ, that’s awful. I’m so sorry.

@Yabberwocky at school and church. So pretty much everyday luckily. But thank you :)

I think there may be something about black women perceiving children of black mothers/white fathers as ‘better off’. Black men might view it differently. I don’t know. I’m not trying to be controversial, I just wonder if there is something there.

What about if you're Indian with a child of half Black parentage or another race?

You think that in an ideal world no white parents would bring up mixed race children?

Are you including mixed race women in ‘Black women’?

BW/WM pairings are better off financially than WW/BM. It’s not perception, they literally have more money. Possibly because white men statistically earn more than Black men. They also have higher levels of educational attainment, their kids have better outcomes and their relationships are more likely to last. The only interracial pairing with better overall outcomes is white men and Asian women. There’s a study that I’ll try to find and link for you. It’s paywalled, but you’ll get the gist.

Black men, in general (this doesn’t apply to everyone, obviously) don’t like ‘their women’ to ‘date out’. They think it’s fine when they do it, but object when BW date or marry non Black men. Also, BW are the most ‘race loyal’ demographic and tend to only want to date BM.

Upon reflection, I’m not sure if this is a conversation I should be having on MN.

I hear what you’re saying. I think if you’re talking about ‘doing better financially/educationally’ then yes, having an educated white father is going to trump everything else, obviously. That’s the world we live in.

Race and interracial relationships are complex. It is a hard conversation to have with strangers on an online forum. People often fall back on stereotypes, anecdotes and their own unconscious prejudice. I’m sure I’m guilty of it, too.

The BW are also more likely to be university educated. And, as I said, ‘their kids have better outcomes (emotional, financial and educational attainment) and their relationships are more likely to last.’

What other, measurable, ways are there to do better?

I think ‘measuring ‘emotional’ outcomes is a grey area.

There are literally mixed race posters (multiple, not just one) on this thread whose white mothers chopped off their ‘wild’ hair because they couldn’t be bothered to learn to do it.

My black mom fucked up my hair, so I had to chop it off myself to make it look ok. I never knew I had curly hair because it was always like tangled straw. Not just a white mom issue.

Mostly you'll get the usual 'I ONLY experienced racism from Black people' aka White people aren't ever racist, just to cloud your point.

This has been my experience. It doesn't mean who're people are never racist.

Not really. People state their emotional state and it’s possible to track factors like mental health.

You haven’t answered my question.

What question? I feel like you’re itching for a fight rather than open to discussion, so I’m out.

I asked, perfectly reasonably, what other measures of ‘doing better’ there might be. That’s me ‘itching for a fight’?

So, basically, you don’t have a response to my question and you reckon the way to get round that is to claim you’re being aggressed. Okay, then.

@ThereSnowLimit When that phrase was used I was talking about financially. In my experience, there’s less couples this way round but most tend to be quite well off and it’s not usually just the man.

@DojaPhat now you’ve said it and I’ve thought about it, I do agree. That’s more a conversation for black and mixed people to have in black and mixed race spaces. I do have some criticism but it’s nuanced and inevitably it will get taken out of context and be used to attack us.

Tbh the few people of this mix that I know are fully integrated into both their cultures and didn’t seem (caveat they might just not have spoken about it) to have these problems with their parents.

@MCOut 100%!! r.e. my comment on the range to speak about this issue was exactly referring to that! I have a lot of criticisms and views about this, especially the different ways in which mixed children develop the lens with which they view society and their position within it as adults.

I’m a white mother of a mixed race child in the U.K. and I do agree we need to educate ourselves about race issues.

I will say that the general thinking about race issues in terms of what was the anti racist “ideal” was very different in the 80s, even the 90s when color-blindness was really promoted as the height of being anti-racist. And so I can see how OP may have had a mother who didn’t recognise the importance of micro-aggressions etc.

I now feel that in retrospect, this pervasive view at the time was problematic, and I have been on a long anti-racist journey from the days where I would listen to Michale Jackson’s Black or White and En Vogue’s Free Your Mind as a teenager.

Along the way I have had to accept that I still had to learn and grow in this area myself, I remember for example an argument with my ex over the existence of the BET channel and MOBO awards, with my initially feeling that they were inherently racist against white people, but I do now understand and recognise that they carved out a place for talented black artists precisely because they were being overlooked elsewhere, and you can’t just cut out the historical context of oppressor and oppressed when thinking about these things.

I agree, OP, and would add that it's a very challenging thing to do well. Even if, like me, you live in London and already have lots of mixed race family.

I completely understand how difficult your childhood must have been. My grandmother had eight mixed race children in the 50s, and moved them out of London. They were the only POC at their school, in the village, but it definitely felt like a taboo subject at home. I've still never heard them talk about it, though the grandchildren are more forthright.

Every father I know who has taken their kids under 5 to medical appointments alone in the last few years gets shit.

However the ones with mixed raced kids get more shit.

My own DP has been asked like the other dads I know if he has permission to take our DD to our DD to the appointment/hospital and why can't mum take the kid, when they are the ones who are looking after their child or even children on their own at that time.

In addition my DP has been repeatedly by different medical staff who he is in connection to our DD and then them making up our DD's ethnicity. My DP knows this this part isn't normal. Incidentally the medical staff weren't all Asian.

I've had shit over my DD and so has one of our black relatives who takes her out on trips, but not in medical settings.

Bature

ThereSnowLimit
I think there may be something about black women perceiving children of black mothers/white fathers as ‘better off’. Black men might view it differently. I don’t know. I’m not trying to be controversial, I just wonder if there is something there

Are you including mixed race women in ‘Black women’?
@Bature I wondered this

BW/WM pairings are better off financially than WW/BM. It’s not perception, they literally have more money. Possibly because white men statistically earn more than Black men. They also have higher levels of educational attainment, their kids have better outcomes and their relationships are more likely to last. The only interracial pairing with better overall outcomes is white men and Asian women. There’s a study that I’ll try to find and link for you. It’s paywalled, but you’ll get the gist

True. BW/WM relationships tend to be far more stable. Normally both partners are working smart, and raise their family well

Black men, in general (this doesn’t apply to everyone, obviously) don’t like ‘their women’ to ‘date out’. They think it’s fine when they do it, but object when BW date or marry non Black men. Also, BW are the most ‘race loyal’ demographic and tend to only want to date BM

Exactly. DB's partner is White, 3 mixed race DCs & he is adamant he does not want his daughter dating White men. His sons can date as they please. Most Black men I know with White partners feel similar; although mostly they don't tell their partner this, they find a Black Woman be she sister, other female relative, friend, work colleague etc and try to bend our ears about it then are annoyed we aren't interested. I mean, what am I supposed to say? None of my business and I don't care. Nor do swathes of us, despite what group think seems to be, over-concern ourselves with who Black men who aren't our partners, are dating. We get a lot of flak via skewered perceptions.

Upon reflection, I’m not sure if this is a conversation I should be having on MN

Agree, I wouldnt go into it in any deep way here.

I don’t think you really wanted to discuss this with white parents of mixed race children. You don’t appear to like the answers.

And please don’t make out I’m saying you’re being aggressive. I don’t hold with the old aggressive black woman trope and I would never use it or intimate it.

If you want to have a discussion for and among black and mixed race people only, you’re right - this ain’t the place to do it, and the thread title was probably a bit misleading.

You cannot be serious. What answers? You didn’t answer a single one of her questions. She responded to what you were saying in good faith, you didn’t like her answers and refused to actually engage with what she was saying, then accused her of spoiling for a fight (so, yes, you essentially called her aggressive) with absolutely no basis.

You clearly aren’t able to have a conversation where you don’t like what’s being said. Where is your self awareness?