To hate my colour

[Losingmymind432]

Not sure what making this thread is going to do, but sometimes it's just good to write things down even if no one does read it!
I am mixed race, my dad is black my mum is white, my dad left when I was young and all the rest of my family that I have been brought up around are all white. My entire life all I can ever remember is wanting to be white, and nearly 40 years on this hasn't changed. I have never experienced racism, my family have never treated me any differently, infact they love my darker skin but I have a deep rooted resentment with it and I don't know why, i even envy family, friends, strangers etc for having the skin colour i want. I have very hard to manage 4c thick hair and have spent my entire life relaxing and straightening it as I hate the attention it gets (everyone want to know if it's an afro, how curly it is, what it looks like out etc) and after 5 years of trying to embrace it naturally I hate it even more because I just want to have straight/easier managed hair and I blame my dad for the genes I've been given.
I know this sounds pathetic but I am genuinely gutted that I've only got 1 life and I'll never get to be white (I know I'm laughing at myself for even writing that all!)

Does anyone have any advice or maybe links to a website so I can get some self help with being completely irrationally crazy over such a non issue that has ruined most of my life 😫

People love to make up their own theories and believe their own bullshit. We live in the West, not Afghanistan. Men can experience sexism, just as white people can experience racism. Because any human being can hold power over another person or discriminate against them based on their sex - sexism or their race - racism. This is not the 1940s where no women have power and only white people hold positions of power. There are women who hold positions of power and women of colour too. When will the progress be enough for people to see this and stop acting as if only some people can be a victim? I don’t understand this mindset at all.

Anyway I’m bowing out of this thread because as with what always happens, as soon as race or sex is brought up people start getting nasty. Can’t just be kind to OP about how she feels, instead people have to start attacking others.

She wasn’t talking to the mixed race OP. She was talking to the poster who claimed her experience as a white woman was similar. I am mixed raced too and understand that there is no comparison between the racism that black and mixed raced people face to any discrimination white people may experience. I also understand the role colourism and how we, mixed people, are favoured over our darker skinned brothers and sisters.

Yes, we mixed people have our own issues and they can often be minimised by both white and black people, but that is not what the poster you have quoted is talking about.

Oh honey, you have a lot of learning (and unlearning) to do.

This is so very sad to read. I love mixed race children, both my ds's have many mixed race friends. To me they are the most beautiful, they have the very best of everything. I'm sad to read you don't see it that way. Hopefully some counselling will help. Acceptance is key. We all have to accept what we are. I'm very small. No point sweating it! It's such a shame you never realised this, can you now?

lol people love to say that when people don’t want to follow their agenda. Nobody can tell me how to think or what my eyes, ears and logic tell me and I won’t live in victimhood. Thanks.

The person who replied to her didn’t claim anything, she explained her own experience. OP herself has said she hasn’t experienced racism. Why are you pushing an agenda on an op who said she hasn’t experienced racism simply because she is mixed race? It’s not the default state of our being, that we will experience racism. Nor are we the only ones who can experience being discriminated against due to our race.

I know a few days have passed since you posted, but I'm on a few pages for mixed kids care (hair care, skin care etc.) on Facebook which have helped me immensely in caring for my children. One message that is loud and clear from the people of colour in the group is that children need to have racial mirrors growing up. Their advice is, if they don't have good family connections, find areas where you can attend sports clubs, community centres, churches where there's diversity. It's so important for children to be raised seeing that they are part of a community that looks like them, to embrace their natural beauty that comes as part of their ethnicity, to celebrate that beauty. I feel like your feelings are an example of how not having racial mirrors at an impressionable age can impact you throughout life.

I'm so sorry for how you are feeling, and I hope that therapy, if you seek that route, helps you overcome these feelings and you start to see how wonderful you are.

To begin with, if you're on social media, start to follow some hashtags on Instagram - blackhaircare, blackandbeautiful, blackandproud. It'll open up your algorithm to positive content that may start to open your mind to welcoming who are you ❤️

Can you explain what you mean by mixed race children having the best of everything?

I completely agree with others that it sounds like therapy is what you need.

The Mixed Race Experience by Naomi and Natalie Evans may be helpful. Not suggesting it as a replacement to therapy of course, just as something else.

@Princessconsuelabananahammock9

Umm, clearly I need you be careful here! I didn't mean to offend. But no, I really do mean it. Mixed race children often have the most beautiful skin, I mean the colour and the texture, the shine. (Coming from someone quite pastey myself, who looks a bit white with an unattractive blue tinge in the middle of winter I can look quite ill!). That beautiful mix of skin, it's the mixed race, the mix of black and white. Incredibly beautiful mix. No?
And hair, and posture, often tall and athletic. And noses are often lovely, strong and definite, but not extreme, neither big nor flat. And face definition, strong chin, fabulous cheekbones often. Long shapely legs often, and structured defined arms.

Kind of the best of everything. Mix. Like a cake that's got all the best bits, combined.

Did I describe that very badly? I certainly didn't mean to offend.

You might not have meant to offend, but you’ve literally identified why (in your view) mixed race people are more attractive. Pity those black kids with their big and wide noses and non-shapely legs!

I must have failed mixed race school, since I’m short and dumpy!

This- would a super short buzz cut hairstyle suit you?

You’d be best to stop digging and go and have a read about why what you said is so problematic.

Fine.
I was only trying to help op who has massive acceptance issues, by suggesting a counsellor.
My view that mixed race children are often incredibly beautiful isn't welcome here. Ok.

And noses are often lovely, strong and definite, but not extreme, neither big nor flat.

Oh, dear!

Those lucky mixed-race children to have missed out on a big flat nose.

Btw, What a thread this is. Poor op. I was just checking what section it is. AIBU, so all should be allowed to post.

But both Nanny & Lady Table were criticised for writing about generic non acceptance, which does affect many people irrespective of their skin. But they criticised for not being black, or writing about having white skin, so no understanding of what op faced. Whereas they were just posting about general acceptance.

But you don’t know what OP looks like! You could be adding to her worries. My mixed race nose is wider and flatter than my white family members - it doesn’t bother me but what if it’s something that does bother OP?

Good luck with setting mn criteria: posters are only allowed to post if they are : ..... what? men . Or black. Or white. Or can relate, because they've been through EXACTLY what op had been through, (excludes practically all of us because we are unique).

Whereas most posters were very nice to op, and encouraged her to get counselling.

FFS.
Pick apart every word.
I'm small with thin hair. I had to accept that. We all have to accept what we've got. Ideally most of us want to be the ideal. Tall, thin, beautiful, clever, nice, sporty. Few us are.

OP, I am a white parent of a mixed race child, and I can see how the disappearance of your Dad may have led to complex abandonment issues, you being the ‘only one’, maybe him being blamed, even subtlety, over the years, the context of a society where racism is still evident, maybe as a child you even took on done feelings of guilt of some kind. The black parent having gone. I don’t know. But counselling could maybe help you find out.

Because none of this is about anything ‘wrong’ with you. It’s just about finding out why you might feel so.

I am so grateful that I had my DC’s father in the family. I know I wouldn’t have been able to provide as much in the way of support, understanding, role model, access to wider community as a sole white parent of a mixed child. I mean none of us ever can. As women we parent boys, most children who grow up gay are born to straight people and so on. None of that makes it wrong, IMO, to recognise issues of being ‘the only one’ , away from a support network.

As for the ‘mixed race people are beautiful’ thing, it makes me tear my hair out.

Many m/r people are beautiful. Many mono-racial people (of all colours) are beautiful. Are black kids more beautiful for having the blackness of the black parent ‘diluted’???? How offensive is that?

OK the whiteness of the white parent is also ‘diluted’ but in the context of a still-racist society, where western beauty standards as are heavily biased… it’s not the same.

And there is a hint of exoticism, fetishising M/r kids. “Oh m/r children are so beautiful’ … so when this is said around your child about ‘their category’ as a generalisation (even though it would probably not be said if the child in question was not noticeably ‘beautiful’ in the default definitions) they are actually being othered. And told that they are separate from their black or white parents.

It’s a complex issue. People might disagree with aspects of things I have posted here. And will have different experiences or perspectives. But one way or another, glossing it away as not an issue would be disingenuous or unaware.

OP, you are not alone. There are novels and theatre pieces about growing up mixed race. I saw a show called Colour by this artist and it was beautiful. Her experience may be very different from yours but she explored the fact that there are things to be explored.

All good wishes for your own onward journey.

I don't want to dismiss your feelings OP, and be flippant, but fwiw I hate my pasty complexion and fine, thin wispy hair. I go red easily and burn never tan. Acne shows up horribly and some colours look awful on me. I'm also overweight and have always thought pale overweight flesh looks so much worse than tanned or darker skinned overweight flesh!

Agree there are deeper issues for you with your dad and your identify, but just on a surface level I'd love your colouring! The grass is always greener.

The ideal according to who?

European white standards of beauty?

That’s the issue. Mixed race kids get fetishized for their diluted blackness and white feature’s

When you describe their noses it’s insulting and shows a lot of racial bias.

You are describing an abusive individual who manipulatively drew on race as a tool. It was one individual. This is nothing at all to do with racism which is a whole system, not the actions of some individuals. The bullying you suffered sounds awful but getting away from the single person who inflicted it would make it stop. Actual racism against black people is totally embedded in the system. You can encounter it at any time in any context and it is very often ‘nice’ ordinarily non abusive people who inflict it, often even unintentionally without realising. It is inescapable. This is why white peoples experience is totally different.

A counselor is what you need.

Do you have a relationship with your dad at all? If yes, how would you rate it? If no, what are your feelings around that?