American/French/Scottish/Welsh | Indian/Mauritian
I identify as mixed, queer, very spiritual but informed by various religions instead of sticking to one. My mum is mixed White American and European but grew up in Africa, my Dad is Indian-Mauritian with North African heritage before that. Three of my grandparents are mixed so I have to go back quite far to get to people with one clear national identity. I was very young when I began to understand I was mixed. Both my parents are mixed, and three of my grandparents are mixed, and throughout the last four/five generations people have been consistently moving around between different countries as well so it’s very complicated. I think there is still massive bias towards mixed-race people. All these stereotypes like ‘mixed people are so empathetic’ and ‘caught between two worlds’ date back to like the ‘tragic mulatto’ stereotype. And I think there are elements of truth in those stereotypes, as there always are with stereotypes, but not being able to fully own our representation is incredibly frustrating. I also think the idea that mixed-race is ‘Black + White’ is incredibly harmful because you’re denying the existence of so many other people. If I had the opportunity to be reborn either the same or fully Mauritian, I guess as that’s what I identify with most (and all Mauritians are mixed). I feel like the White side of me has been problematic and a bit of a poisoned chalice in a lot of ways, although I’m not going to pretend I haven’t benefitted from being able to exist in White spaces with relative ease. But a lot of the questions and issues I face from White perspectives have never arisen in non-White contexts. I think in the future a lot more people will be like me (i.e. complex mixed) where both parents have been mixed. Outside of that, the stats say it all! Mixed Other is the fastest growing category on the census in this country. The future is mixed. I hate all those shlocky adverts of ‘in the future mixed-races will know world peace’ because I think humans will always find ideological differences.
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