British | African-American

I identify myself as Rob Gilbert. My Dad is from Indianapolis, Indiana and is of African-American decent. My Mum is from East Anglia. I was raised between my Dad and my Mum, travelling between America, England and Germany. I always knew my parents were from two different cultures, it was always very obvious. I think the main bias about mixed people is others making assumptions about how we must feel about ourselves. There are a few stereotypes, but they aren’t universally accepted. It’s weird because people tell you things they consider to be defining traits of mixed people and they are always wildly different than reality but also from person to person. I’m more actively engaging with groups that identify as safe spaces for Black people as I get older. I tend to get more overt attacks on my identity from these kinds of groups. I had an argument with a group when some people in it asserted that we ‘as Black men’ should ‘stick to our own in business and relationships’. I don’t let that slide and it makes me really angry. It’s an argument against my very existence and any mention of it is offensive. I tend to dismiss the opinions of people with very linear or traditional life styles because I assume they are handicapped by their lack of experience. It has also made me very open to hearing and interrogating other people’s thoughts and opinions to see if they can change my mind or I can learn something new. I like to debate sticky topics because my whole existence is a sticky subject. I would always want to be mixed somehow. I believe it frees you from a certain level of ignorance you couldn’t help but have if everybody around you when you grow up looks, talks and thinks pretty much the same. We are already coming to the conclusion, slowly, that race, the way our society has been using it, is an artificial construct and that racial purity is more of a handicap than a virtue. This will slowly continue until society, no longer feels the need to put so much emphasis on race. First, we have to get rid of inherently racist governing and policymaking. Mixed kids of the next generations will have an increasingly less obstructed life.

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