‘Mixed Race’ can be seen to a minority of people as a taboo, simply because the world puts people in boxes or categories such as Black, Asian or White. We hear about the struggles of singular races, but what about the struggles of the ‘mixed-race’?
British culture has gone through many changes, that today, surrounded by the ‘normal white race’, the race most distinguishable is one that is not white. A High School student, who has chosen to remain anonymous comments, ‘I am half Asian and half White. For me, it was definitely a struggle growing up. Surrounded by a white ‘norm’, I would often find myself choosing sides. Which was the better race? Which box do I fit into?’
‘I have no shame in my Asian side, or my White side. I am proud of my cultural upbringing, but it is a struggle trying to identify who you are, when you are experiencing two very different cultures’
According to the Urban Dictionary, ‘Mixed people often go through a different experience in life that someone of one race’. Society has encouraged younger generation to classify themselves to a specific group, or ethnicity. Perhaps we are all just scared of being left out, not having someone to relate to or understand our religion. We are so far down the road of thinking about race as a biological reality that we have forgotten it is a construct.
Why should we have to think of categories of race? Why do we have to slice our populations into sections? We are the human race. One race. Mixed-race, Indian, Asian, Black, White, we are all one, yet we still weave this construct into our lives.
It seems language and proximity define and determine who we are. We have boxes for each race to fit in with those identical to us. For that reason, it is absurd to think that the experiences of 1.2 million people in the UK who identify as ‘mixed’ would be identical. Some people are happy to define themselves in that way, while last year, the British Sociological Association deemed the term ‘mixed-race’ as ‘misleading’ since it implies that a pure race exists.
A High School student comments, ‘I still identify myself as mixed-race. I guess it stems mostly from yearning to be accepted. I realise now that its is something pushed upon us’. We are living in a society that feeds off what is known as ‘normativity’. Mixed Race is an idea put in our minds, encouraged by the society we live in. It is a way of trying to define who we are as yet another group society can cage us in.
Through a geographical lens, ‘mixed-race’ marks the interconnectedness of a world, breaking down the boundaries of maps as our human population comes together. We are a unique celebration, not something to run away from but something to embrace.
In the UK we have seen plenty of racists, but in comparison to countries elsewhere, they have never managed to gain the same foothold. Over the past few years, ‘mixed-race’ has become more common and more widely accepted as equal in this multi-racial diverse society. Despite the past negative and racists comments and attitudes, we have muddled through to where we are today, a country largely at ease with its rainbow people.
By Ciara Barton, Kingston Grammar School
