British/Irish | Grenadian
I identify as White/Black mixed race, British, Irish and Grenadian. Both my parents are British born but with parents that have different nationalities. My mother’s parents are Grenadian, and my father has an Irish Father and British Mother I had always known I was mixed-race. My mother never made me forget it and although she would give me warnings about being a person of colour, I didn’t realise the conflict and that feeling of being an ‘other’ until I was 18. I didn’t know that mixed-race had a stereotype and people tried to categories me into a ‘more White’ or ‘more Black’ box and gradually found that people where obsessing more over my ethnicity than me. I think because the mixed-race population is growing so fast, and there is a misconception that mixed-race just means mixed with White and Black. That stereotype is gradually fading. I am so grateful to be mixed-race and to be a product of love. Not only that but I can speak about being mixed-race. Me and a friend arranged a talk about being mixed-race within the acting industry and the reassurance of not being alone and knowing others feel the same way, is such an amazing feeling and relieving. There is a struggle of finding an identity. There is no mixed-race culture but there is Black culture and White culture so therefore people want to put you in boxes. I would sometimes feel like I couldn’t express my experience as a mixed-race woman as I know sadly that Black females get discriminated, harassed and abused on a more recurring basis and their stories need to be told and rightly so. If I could be born again I would love to be brought back as a mermaid; half human half fish. Almost mixed-race I guess. The mixed-race population is the fasting growing minority group in the UK set to be the biggest minority group by 2020. I think that the people will give people of mixed-race more acknowledgment and see them as people instead of trying to place them within a box. We should ALL be seen as human beings first.
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