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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To hate my colour

93 replies

Losingmymind432 · 10/02/2025 13:44

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 😫

OP posts:
mathanxiety · 13/02/2025 15:52

@Losingmymind432

This is a real issue and you deserve any help or support you need or want to work through it.

Don't feel you have to get in line behind more 'serious' problems or 'deserving' issues.

Screamingabdabz · 13/02/2025 15:53

MixedAndHappy · 12/02/2025 10:49

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.

Show quote history

You clearly don’t understand how power works. Just because some women and some black people have some power doesn’t mean the power disparity goes away. It’s the Oprah Winfrey argument. Just because she’s one wealthy powerful black woman doesn’t mean that changes who really holds the power at the very top. Which is mainly rich white men.

Op I sense that because you’ve grown up in a predominantly white world your internalised racism makes you feel the way you feel. If you’d grown up around beautiful black women and black culture being normalised and celebrated you may feel different. I agree with the pp who talked about counselling. You need to learn to love that part of yourself.

ViciousCurrentBun · 13/02/2025 16:09

I’m mixed race, was raised more with the white side. I am also bloody ancient for a mixed race person as there were not many about when I was born in the 1960’s. It’s never really bothered me, I have experienced racism, I remember my white sister absolutely kicking off on my behalf and a white friend at school because I was being picked on.

If anything it made me more confident. I was raised by a very confident white Mother. Saw her have a go at a group of skinheads back when I was really little who were picking on a woman with learning difficulties. I’m from a long line of strong women on both sides of my family.

Oblomov25 · 13/02/2025 18:25

@Princessconsuelabananahammock9

Ideal? You're making it white because that suits your argument. Nothing I says in my last post had anything ti do with being white.

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

That's so not true. I wasn't referring to any sort of nose. Black, white, a wart on the end of your nose like the Uncle Buck school teacher? (Actually that's her chin! ). Most people would prefer a small nose. A not pointed chin. Anything that makes you pretty, good looking. Most male models eg David Gandy have very symmetrical face and people find that attractive. Most people who are considered to be attractive often don't have very huge anything : they don't have enormous ears, they don't have enormous noses. They don't have enormous chins. They don't have enormous anything, as per my previous post. and nothing about my previous post had anything to do with being black, nothing at all You've only made it so.

Original poster
Losingmymind432 · 14/02/2025 22:34

mathanxiety · 13/02/2025 15:48

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?

Unfortunately I don't as he died a while ago now. We had a very what you might call normal long distance relationship after he left when I was young by regular phone calls, email & letters when i got older etc but I never saw him again after the day he left when I was 6.
I've always felt abandoned by him and have issues around that as a seperate thing but never realised it's probably a major contributor to how I feel about my colour too.

OP posts:
Original poster
Losingmymind432 · 14/02/2025 22:37

TheWildRumpyPumpus · 13/02/2025 07:13

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?

Show quote history

Not going to join in the argument but I do also hate my nose, it is wide and flat I'd have a nose job if I could afford it 😆

OP posts:
Original poster
Losingmymind432 · 14/02/2025 22:38

Just want to thank you all for your kind words, have given me alot to think about ❤️

OP posts:
Lampzade · 14/02/2025 22:45

Nannyfannybanny · 11/02/2025 09:37

Um, excuse me, how do you know that my experience of racism as a white person is not the same as a black person and I am insulting. The poster said that she hadn't experienced racism,I got some lovely personal messages on this post. You have no idea what was said and done to me, how I was spoken to and treated,it actually made me physically ill, I ended up with IBS, because of the bullying.

I think you need to do some research as to what racism actually entails .

Merryoldgoat · 14/02/2025 22:54

@Losingmymind432

I’m late to the thread and I suspect I have nothing new to say, but I honestly feel that not having contact with your ‘minority’ parent can be really problematic for the child.

My mum was black and my dad fucked off (never met him) so I was brought up with black family and a diverse wider family so never felt a disconnect like I might’ve in a solely white family.

Therapy is really the best thing for you and will help you to unpick all of the feelings you have.

I love my mixed heritage and I’m glad my children got to have all the influences from my family as well as my husband’s.

Lampzade · 14/02/2025 23:16

Oblomov25 · 13/02/2025 05:05

@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.

There are so many things wrong with this post .
I really don’t know where to start tbh..:

neilyoungismyhero · 14/02/2025 23:47

whatawonderfultime · 10/02/2025 14:53

Your post is not only condescending, but it's completely glossing over the race issues at hand and makes it all about you.

Stop trying to make out the white experience is in any way comparable and that you have it hard, because at best you're naive. Educate yourself about your privilege.

Edited
Show quote history

I didn't read the OPs post as a race issue for her. Pretty sure she said she had received no discrimination over the years. I read it as an appearance issue combined with being pissed off about her hair..and wishing she looked more like her white sisters.
Maybe people are right about the dad issue and therapy being needed maybe I'm being too simplistic.

Westfacing · 15/02/2025 06:48

I've always felt abandoned by him and have issues around that as a seperate thing but never realised it's probably a major contributor to how I feel about my colour too.

I'm close to someone who was in proper clinical psychotherapy for years, not mere counselling. It came up in therapy that she had issues of being abandoned even though her father had died not left, when she was a baby.

The 'abandonment' was that her dead father had left her with a diverse appearance but wasn't around to guide her through life as she faced difficulties caused by this, being brought up by a white mother in a very white area, with none of the father's relatives in this country.

I hope you find peace with yourself and eventually come not to hate your colour Flowers

TheWildRumpyPumpus · 15/02/2025 14:37

neilyoungismyhero · 14/02/2025 23:47

I didn't read the OPs post as a race issue for her. Pretty sure she said she had received no discrimination over the years. I read it as an appearance issue combined with being pissed off about her hair..and wishing she looked more like her white sisters.
Maybe people are right about the dad issue and therapy being needed maybe I'm being too simplistic.

Show quote history

The post is literally titled ‘to hate my colour’ - how can you say this isn’t a race issue?

MuslimMumInDespair · 17/02/2025 03:56

Oblomov25 · 13/02/2025 18:25

@Princessconsuelabananahammock9

Ideal? You're making it white because that suits your argument. Nothing I says in my last post had anything ti do with being white.

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

That's so not true. I wasn't referring to any sort of nose. Black, white, a wart on the end of your nose like the Uncle Buck school teacher? (Actually that's her chin! ). Most people would prefer a small nose. A not pointed chin. Anything that makes you pretty, good looking. Most male models eg David Gandy have very symmetrical face and people find that attractive. Most people who are considered to be attractive often don't have very huge anything : they don't have enormous ears, they don't have enormous noses. They don't have enormous chins. They don't have enormous anything, as per my previous post. and nothing about my previous post had anything to do with being black, nothing at all You've only made it so.

As others have said, you have a lot to learn about racism. FWIW you sound well meaning but what you describe in this post is exactly the issue. "Everyone wants small everything" is a problem because you are saying that western standards of beauty are what everyone wants. Actually as a Pakistani woman it took me a long time to accept my prominent nose because it did not conform to the acceptable (white) standards of beauty growing up. Similarly you saying that everyone wants small everything automatically puts wide and flat black noses into some sort of 'ugly' category. If children are hearing all their lives that everyone wants small everything then of course they'll hate that they have big something. We don't all want small everything. Some of us embrace our big something (although it's taken 30 odd years and learning about self acceptance to get there).

pippitypoppitypoo · 17/02/2025 13:10

@MuslimMumInDespair - yes they sound well meaning but I don't think they are well meaning at all! Quite a bit of goady fuckery around race, talk of flat noses etc on this thread that's quite unpleasant. And indeed demonstrating the very attitudes that create negativity about non white features

Oblomov25 · 17/02/2025 16:24

Acceptance is a different thing again.

zingally · 17/02/2025 16:47

You've got a dad problem. Not a skin colour/hair type problem.

But for what it's worth, all the mixed race people I know are annoyingly gorgeous. It's like they got the best features of both races.

GrumpyWombat · 17/02/2025 16:47

As someone who grew up without a dad, I wonder if it’s because of that? Obviously very different as both my parents are white but I feel strange when my mum says things about me being like him physically.

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