Mixed Race Studies

In some respects the increase in relationships between different ethnic groups does not make the slightest difference to white supremacy in society. The latter not only exists but has such a profound and all pervasive impact on society. People may mix, they may marry and have children but what of the structures of racism that prevail?

Huma Munshi, “White supremacy remains intact despite the increase in interracial relationships,” Media Diversified, July 8, 2014. http://mediadiversified.org/2014/07/08/make-no-mistake-white-supremacy-remains-intact-despite-the-increase-in-interracial-relationships/.

White supremacy remains intact despite the increase in interracial relationships

Media Diversified
2014-07-08

Huma Munshi
London, United Kingdom

It’s been a strange tale of race relations of late. On the one hand, research indicates that one in ten relationships are between people from different ethnic backgrounds. Yet on the other hand, the effects of institutional racism are as potent ever.

It can come as no surprise that we are seeing more people in relationships from a different ethnic background. In cities with a high population density, mixing within diverse communities is very much the norm. In London, the 2011 Census showed that the BAME population outnumbered White British for the first time. Within that, however, there are pockets where there is significant segregation of communities. The groups that are least likely to be in mixed relationships are Bengali and Pakistani. So even within the context of mixed race relationships there are anomalies.

But this is just one small piece of a complex jigsaw.

PC Carol Howard’s case of race and sex discrimination against the Metropolitan Police Service was upheld last week, the employment tribunal ruled that the MPS “directly discriminated” against her. Moreover, it cast a light on the practice of “systematically destroying evidence of sexual and racial discrimination within its ranks”. Officers within the MPS clearly had great difficulty with a black woman in a senior position…

…In some respects the increase in relationships between different ethnic groups does not make the slightest difference to white supremacy in society. The latter not only exists but has such a profound and all pervasive impact on society. People may mix, they may marry and have children but what of the structures of racism that prevail?…

Read the entire article here.

As a Mixed-Race Woman, in the Game of Racial Top Trumps My Blackness Always Wins

Media Diversified
2015-03-23

Varaidzo (Leo Jay Shire)

Shifting race: how language fails the ‘mixed-race’ experience

The idea of ‘race’ has no fixed definition considering the term has no biological basis. Yet all of us from minority backgrounds know what it is to be racialised, to be lumped together into a group with others who share our physical attributes, for this to be conflated with our ethnicity – our shared culture, history and experience. What does this mean for those of us who are mixed-race? Could it be argued that the shared experience of being racialised as ‘mixed’ creates a ‘mixed-race’ ethnicity of sorts? Can this ‘mixed’ tag be sufficient when we have experiences specific to one part of our heritage?

Right now, mixed-race people are considered to be of the largest growing groups in the UK with over one million of us in England alone. From Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton to One Direction’s Zayn Malik, mixed-race people are some of the most visible minorities in the media. We are everywhere. Which is impressive considering that as a definable ethnic or racial group, mixed-race people don’t really exist. Of course, on the tick boxes of the census we do, but in the real world these categories fail to tally with our highly diverse experiences of racialisation…

…But the ‘mixed’ category doesn’t, of course, encapsulate many of our experiences that see us racialised as the same as one of our parents. In my case, my mother is a white Englishwoman, my father a black Zimbabwean. Yet my ‘whiteness’ and my ‘blackness’ are not traits I possess equally. Whenever I enter the world and go about my daily business I am nearly always read as a black woman first, a mixed-race woman occasionally, and a white woman never. The racism and micro-aggressions I face daily are all due to me being recognisably black. In the game of racial Top Trumps, my blackness always wins…

Read the entire article here.

With time I learned that there is no one way to be black and a woman, and that being black and German is in no way a contradiction in terms. In fact, I have acquired the power to create a combination of the traits that is unique to me. I can be black, a woman and German and all three characteristics can define me equally.

Ella Achola, ““No, I meant where are you really from?” on being black and German,” Media Diversified, August 15, 2014. http://mediadiversified.org/2014/08/15/no-i-meant-where-are-you-really-from-on-being-black-and-german/.

“No, I meant where are you really from?” on being black and German

Media Diversified
2014-08-15

Ella Achola
School of Oriental and African Studies, London

“No, I meant where are you really from?” is a micro-aggression I am all too familiar with when my simple answer of “Berlin” is perceived as insufficient to a query that blatantly illustrates how my brown self is read as out of reach of possible German citizenship. It is usually asked with a slight sense of exasperation, perhaps a hint of irritation, at the fact that I had oh-so-obviously not caught on to what I was really being asked. That I may not want to answer such a question within the first three minutes of a conversation with someone I have never met before does not come to mind.

In 1986, May Ayim and Katharina Oguntoye engaged in a conversation that was long overdue. They opened up the debate about being black and German, two characteristics, which were and still are often read as inherently oppositional.[1] Be it a question about our fluency in the German language or someone yelling “N****rs out!” micro-aggressions and racism are still very much reality for the 500,000 black Germans today. One example involves a pub in the Berlin borough of Kreuzberg where the owner recently banned all black people from his premises in a supposed effort to curb the dealing of drugs…

…It is this lack of understanding that I find most frustrating. Whilst explaining to a white German man that it annoys me to be asked where I ‘really come from’, he responds that it is mere curiosity and not intended to be harmful. Telling a white German woman that I find it offensive for her to use the old terminology of Negerkuss (n****r kiss) in reference to a type of sweet now called Schokokuss (chocolate kiss), she insists I should reclaim the word. That I might not want to suppress my feelings and cater to their curiosity or reclaim such a term appears irrelevant.

My feelings also seem irrelevant as I watch the film ‘Serial (Bad) Weddings’ in a tiny town in Germany, a movie that attempts to highlight racism and encourage critical awareness. ‘Serial (Bad) Weddings’ is a French film that features two (racist) Catholic parents who lament the fact that their four daughters all choose to marry non-white men, a Jew, Chinese, Arab and Ivorian to be precise. The (white) audience loved it, laughing at every (racist) joke and assured that their everyday racism is not that serious of an issue after all. In the midst of their laughter, the film made me uncomfortable. As the product of an interracial marriage I cannot laugh when the white French mother cries at the thought of ‘mixed-race’ children. Having been asked whether I was the au-pair of my white niece, I cannot laugh at how this same white woman has nightmares of being identified as the nanny of these two brown children now part of her family…

…With time I learned that there is no one way to be black and a woman, and that being black and German is in no way a contradiction in terms. In fact, I have acquired the power to create a combination of the traits that is unique to me. I can be black, a woman and German and all three characteristics can define me equally…

Read the entire article here.

Northern Ireland’s most (un)wanted

Media Diversified
2014-07-28

Jayne Olorunda

Northern Ireland’s capital, Belfast has had many songs written about it. The lyrics of one Belfast song resonates in my ear as I think of the reputation the city now has. The lyrics of the song always stood out to me, but now they are more ironic than ever. The song goes, ‘Belfast, Belfast a wonderful town it doesn’t matter if your skin is brown’ I wonder if this was ever true? It certainly wasn’t in my time or even in my parent’s time. The outside world knows Northern Ireland as a country dominated by sectarian strife where Catholic and Protestant people have for decades been at war. This is of course true, but within Northern Ireland other hate based dynamics exist, recently they have come to the fore. Today’s Northern Ireland has a serious problem with racism and it is fast becoming a problem that can no longer be brushed aside…

…I am Northern Irish, but I am also black and this is not a comfortable position to be in, at times it has felt like a disastrous combination. My story came to public attention when I wrote ‘Legacy’ a book about my families experiences in Northern Ireland. It documents the difficulties we faced with identity and of course the sometimes impossible realities of assimilation. I was born and bred in Northern Ireland and I imagine that I am among a small handful of people of colour who can say that. It is sad that even now in my thirties black faces in Northern Ireland still stand out in the crowd. As such we have become targets to those elements in our society determined to keep their society white, those intent on living in bitterness.

Growing Up

Growing up my sisters and I have became used to being the only blacks and being identified not on our merits but as ‘the black girls’. Northern Irish racism for us began in the womb, with comments such as ‘how dare you bring another black bastard into the world’ being levelled at our mother. Our story began when my father, originally from Nigeria, was offered a job in Belfast on his graduation. Like any student fresh from university he was delighted at the opportunity in his chosen field and seized it. Whilst here he met my Mum who is from Northern Ireland. As all romances go the pair fell in love and got married, they had a family consisting of three children, I was the youngest. Not everything was perfection and it goes without saying that my parents encountered racism, they met in the 1970’s after all. Yet they were a strong couple and as long as they were together they coped…

Read the entire article here.

The Racial Pecking Order in British Theatre and TV

Media Diversified: Tackling the lack of diversity in UK media and the ubiquity of whiteness
2014-02-28

Daniel York

I’ve been reading a book recently by the American sociologist David T. Wellman with the frankly terrifying title Portraits Of White Racism. I say terrifying because it conjures all kinds of images of Aryan skinhead fascists with big boots and arm-bands. I find myself hiding the lurid green cover of the book so people won’t see it when I’m reading it on the tube.

In fact the book isn’t about skinhead fascists at all. Rather its premise is to refute the popular notion that all “racism” is born of ignorant prejudice. Instead Wellman’s subject is

“culturally sanctioned strategies for defending social advantage based on race”.

Of course the very word “racism” is now so incendiary it actually seems to have become worse to call someone a racist than actually be one. But leaving aside Wellman’s terminology there is something clearly and fundamentally unequal in UK society and particularly in the industry I work in, that of screen and stage, something that black British actor and playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah recently referred to as “structural inequality” .

The book (written in the 1970’s) features quotes  along the lines of

“I’m not opposed to mixed busing ; I’m opposed to the time it takes” and “I can understand militancy but it’s self-defeating”. My industry is full of these kind of rationalisations:-

“Yes, there should be more opportunities for actors/writers of colour. But it won’t happen overnight” (Why ever not?)

“There should be more roles for actors of colour. But we need the writers from those communities to write roles for minority ethnic actors” (Well, a) You could commission some and b) Do we have to be from a separate and foreign “community”?)

“We definitely need to put more training initiatives in place”

(In other word we’re going to continue side-lining you now whilst we tick our boxes running workshops for people with no experience thereby diminishing your experience and expertise)…

…Ethnic roles are often very clichedly “ethnic” and badly written. They are also cast with a completely different criteria by people who are literally picking exotic flowers for their garden. The number of times I’ve been told “they didn’t think you looked Chinese enough” (I’m of mixed descent) is simply too often to be arbitrary. My agent was once told “we specifically do NOT want any Eurasians”. On the other side of the coin, I’ve seen casting breakdowns calling for African-Caribbean actors requesting they not be “too dark”. In addition we’re often expected to be de facto cultural “experts”, to speak a range of languages and have all manner of physical “skills” at our disposal…

Read he entire article here.

Alexandre Dumas: An Original Writer of Colour

Media Diversified: Tackling the Lack of Diversity in UK Media and the Ubiquity of Whiteness
2014-02-02

Glen Chisholm, Councilor (Labor Party)
Ipswich, England

A new generation of viewers are being introduced to the swashbuckling adventures of D’Artagnan and his friends and brothers in arms Athos, Porthos and Aramis. Many will know their motto,

“All for one, One for all”

as their adventures are played out in the BBC’s new Sunday night family drama series. The Three Musketeers has been produced on screen in film and TV numerous times. even in the form of a cartoon, “Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds” in the early 80′s.

For me it’s great that once again these works are getting exposure as I’ve felt a love for stories of adventure ever since I was a child. I remember my father had a collection of classic books, bound in faux leather with gold leaf print. This of course caught my attention and when I started reading them they captured my imagination. As I got older I wanted to learn more about who had created such wonderful tales and when I looked I was inspired by what I saw. Alexandre Dumas a man who like me was mixed race, a man who was black and went on to be one of the most widely read French authors in history…

Read the entire article here.