Are mixed race people black??

[franch]

Great article in Feb Good Housekeeping celebrating 20 "black and Asian" women who are "changing the face of Britain". However, included in the list are at least 2 mixed-race women: Kelly Holmes and Zadie Smith. I'm not arguing with these women's achievements, but surely it would've been simple enough to call it a list of "black, Asian and mixed-race" women??? Would these 2 have been included in a list of white women, as they are both 50% white?

As the white mother of a mixed-race woman (albeit only 1 year old!), it makes me feel irrelevant. And I also feel DD is missing out on having inspirational role-models identified for her.

Help me write a letter to GH about this. What points should I cover? Also, for reference, here is the rest of the list - I may have missed some others who are also mixed race:

Meera Syal
Baroness Valerie Amos
Kelly Holmes
Parween Warsi
Baroness Patricia Scotland
Gurinder Chadha
Yasin Alibhai-Brown
Doreen Lawrence
Zeinab Badawi
Shami Chakrabarti
Vanessa Mae
Trisha Goddard
Pinky Lilani
Denise Lewis
Serena Rees
Tessa Sanderson
Reeta Chakrabarti
Zaiba Malik
Zadie Smith
Baroness Flather

Ones to watch:
Parminder Nagra
Jamelia
Ruzwana Bashir
Mishal Husain
Nina Wadia

as the proud product of two mixed race parents I find the description coloured in very bad taste. Large because of the context in the Uk that it is generally used. I am 100% mixed race. My ethnicity reflects that I have other heritages as well as black fo which I am proud. To term me black also disrespects all the other people of a non black origin who made my existance possible. I do think there should be more 'mixed race role models not generalised as black'.

hiya Kisha! I've told people before on here about mixed raced Zimbabweans calling themselves goffal/colured etc - lovely to meet one

My DS's are coloured (goffal) - but they're 'first generation' as we're a mixed race couple

even though I have some colour my midwife put my ethnicity down as caucasion on one form without even asking me.!

What an interested thread. I've never referred to myself as mixed race. My father is N.African (Egyptian to be precise) and my mother British. I am white and seem to resemble my mum as i get older, was very much like my dad as a child, right down to the curly brown hair.
Most of my friends with similar backgrounds to me are darker - look at Nadia/Julia Sawalha for example. Now are they also mixed race?
I've always just ticked - white or other - I get confused

I am Chinese and DH is white Irish, I would describe DS and DD both as being mixed race but you couldn't call either of them black.

The other thing which annoys me is how generally the term "Asian" in the UK refers to Indians or Pakistanis. What about the Chinese, Thais, Burmese, Indonesians, Koreans, Japanese? Are they not from Asia too?

People always assume mixed race means white and black caribbean but it can cover a huge array of different people with an even larger range of skin colours.
DS is half white British and half Egyptian. DH is what most people would describe as black with dark skin and afro hair but DS only has a slight olive colouring and certainaly couldn't be described as black although he is of course mixed race.

Pam,
in Germany, Asian seems to mean Chinese. I agree, its hopelessly confusing.

I have just read this thread and its really interesting. I am mixed race British/Nigerian and definitely consider myself mixed from a colour point of view but given that I grew up in a completely European environment I tend to consider myself more European than African.White people however on the whole tend to treat me as black. Interestingly my DS who is 1/4 African and 3/4 British looks totally white - Blue eyes & blonde hair. I really giggle at how genetics work and love the idea that he has a black grandfather. I certainly intend to make him proud of that connection as he grows up!

I'm just rather in favour of celebrating the achievements of men or women irrespective of their race although I think there's some group which celebrates the achievements of ethnic minorities in Britain.

But I sometimes think these celebrations are a bit of a mockery with a panel of people sitting in a room trying to think of all the Black, Asian, ethnic minority celebrity, sportsperson, politician whom they could honour or laud.

hi
havent read whole thread but from personal experience [my grandad is black and nan white] My mum identifies herself as a black woman but she has dark skin colouring and blakc features. She then had myself and my two sisters with a white man. We were taught to decide ourselves what race we wished to be as such or if we wanted to label ourselves at all.
Myself I am predominantly white with dark hair and blue eyes so class myself as a white woman with black heritage
my middle sister has red hair, freckles and brown eyes..classes herself as white
my little sister has perdominantly black features dark colouring etc like my mum and classes herself as black.

I do agree with what my mum did as it is then a individualy choice.

Yes, I reffer to myself as mixed race, but most of us are mixed regardless as to what colour we are somewhere along the line, but a person of mixed parentage can still be reffered to as black, because biologically the black gene is more dominant as is brown eyes. People are more likely to say I'm black. Nobody will say I'm white. That is just how it is. My mother is part Irish, part anglo Indian and also a bit of portuguise and my dad is black jamaican. I love my mixed heritage but I still call myself black.

If you use the US one drop rule, then mixed race people are black or asian etc. When someone is a 50:50 mix of white and another race then people will say 'X is half black/chinese/asian' and not mention the white parents genetic contribution at all.
Mixed race peoples personal experiance may colour their image of themselves. My dcs can 'pass' for white but my nieces can't so their experiences of racism from different communities will be different..

I do get a bit when Barack Obama is described as black as I feel his experience as the child of a white woman and a wealthy kenyan man is not the same as the experience of most black americans.

Well if that's the case, what about when you are from the west indies or africa. many people in the days of slavery were children of slaves and white plantation owners and then those mixed children went on to bear children with other children of the same mix and then maybe going with someone else that is native black. I'm a person who's mixed but my children's dad is black who's parents are black, his mother is fair skined but his father is dark. What colour does that make my children then?

At the end of the day, you are whatever you consider yourself to be, what ever your mixed heritage is. I consider myself black as i grew in an area where it was mainly black. My mum moved mainly with black people and i was treated like i was black by white people. Some mixed people grow up in white areas away from black cultures so may live and grow more white and can be more accepted as mixed or even white especially if their skin is quite fair. As a parent you give your children the facts about their cultures and you have to let them make up their own minds as to how they identify themselves. Parents need to chill.

I absolutely loathe the term 'race' when applied to this sort of thing. It sounds like we're much more different than we really are. I'm half white (Irish and English) and half Indian by way of the Caribbean. I have no idea what an acceptable term for what I am would be. Half caste is vile, coloured is horrible, I'm not black and I'm not white and I'm not Asian and mixed race sounds like people breeding dogs or something. I'm me. I really hope that in the future people won't feel the need to categorise themselves in this pointless way. My daughter is half the mix that I've described above and half white English heritage. She looks white to the casual observer and has blue eyes but actually she's considerably darker than a completely white baby would be and has an olive cast to her skin which is slight but definitely there. I think mixed heritage or similar terms are the least offensive, although I wish we didn't feel the need to pigeonhole ourselves.

It would definitely annoy me if people referred to my daughter as "Asian" - she's half-Indian, half white English. Definitely "mixed-race" in my book

Um, no, they are mixed race.

My own children are mixed race.

One of my two best friends, her daughter is mixed race - black and Latino.

She is bi-racial, like my children.

She has both characteristics.

My dad is half-Mayan, half what is called 'creole' class in Mexico - a Spanish imperialist who only intermarried with other, white people of Spanish extraction.

Even now, at the age of 71, he's heard people refer to him as a 'half-breed'.

My God.

'Half-breed' like he's a dog.

Dh is english of chinese origin
I am english of european origin.
when we enrolled ds1 in school the county council wanted us to put him into a racial box.
black
white
asian
black/white mix
it was clear on the form that if we filled in 2 boxes the form would be sent back to us.
just whilst I am ranting about it they asked to specify religion and church of england wasn't an option

I am bringing the boys up to believe they are English Grandparents are Chinese Dh is of chinese origin and I am not it hadn't even occured that at some point they would want me to tell them if they were mixed race.

If anyone asks Dh he says he is English.

shocking, eh, Tnog.

'oh, you look like a tall Indian'.

'what are you?' - that was here in the UK, btw.

Am so with you Slinkie - if someone called ds Asian it just would feel absurd. He was born here, as was his dad, he's half Indian and half English. It would be ridiculous to call him Asian and would totally ignore his other half.

The whole Barak Obama being black thing winds me up to. It's like there are only two pigeon holes - black and white and he's got to go in one of them which is absurd.

I think a mixed race person can identify as what ever they want whether its black or mixed or both its up to them individually not anyone else tbh