French | Moroccan
I am a queer neurodivergent woman of color. My Mum is French, my Dad is Moroccan. They met while my Dad was studying in France. They unfortunately did a rather poor job at blending their cultures and were left with a lot of work to build my mixed heritage. I however was always exposed to both sides of my identity with regular travels to France (I grew up in Morocco). We always had Moroccan and French food at the table. I went to the French school in Casablanca and my Dad refused to speak to me in Arabic at home so I learned my Dad's mother tongue at school and in the streets, almost like a stranger. I would consider myself a ‘broken native speaker’ because I had a passive learning of Arabic: more by listening to it than by speaking it.
My parents are not very religious but my Dad was stricter on the freedom I would get as a girl growing up in a Muslim country. There has always been some tension between what my Dad would allow me to do and to wear versus what my Mum would allow me to. It took me a while to stop feeling like two different people depending on where I was: growing up I felt I was behaving a certain way in France and in a different way in Morocco. Until one day I felt one, I had blended my heritage in a way that made sense to me, I was finally the same person everywhere. But it took some work getting there. I guess this is what people mean when they talk about building your identity. Being mixed race is a big part of my identity and the first part that I fine tuned.
I feel profoundly European and African, and I do get along better with people that are either or both. But it is really more a question of being mixed versus not being mixed. I feel more comfortable with other mixed-race people no matter the mix. It is not about the cultures, it is about the multiple perspectives, the otherness, the double set of norms and standards, the complexity of having multiple belongings. Of course among mixed-race people, I would relate more with the ones who, like me, have a foot in the West and a foot in the Global South, because of the power dynamic between those two blocs. And if, like me, those people are the result of a specific colonial dynamic, then even better because they can understand not only the otherness, not only the double belongings but also the violence that characterized the shared history of my two countries.
My queerness is not something that I vocalize too much as it is the part of my identity that is still in need of more in depth exploring. My neurodiversity (I have ADHD, dyspraxia and I am autistic) is something that I am in the process of learning how to advocate for. Invisible disabilities are often misunderstood and stigmatized and it took me a bit of time to accept the labels, reclaim them and fight for a better inclusion of my neuronal difference.
France is the country where you will find the most mixed-race/multi-ethnic marriages in Europe. A significant part of those marriages happened between a White partner and a partner from a former French colony. Being mixed-race the way I am is quite common in France for my generation. It probably existed at the time of my parents but it wasn't as common as it is now. What is new though is that you now have mixed-race couples from different communities in France, as in a French from Moroccan origins with a French from Senegalese origins etc. This is something that you also find in the UK as it is a trait of former colonial empires to have interracial relationships between people of former colonized countries' descents.
The complexity that come with belonging to 4 minorities (based on race, gender, sexual orientation and disability) makes it harder at time for people to comprehend where I am coming from. It is not always easy to understand something you haven't experienced and I often have a lot of explaining to do. The plus side is that it gives me the superpower of thriving on complexity, the capacity to see and understand nuances and layers that some people can't. Also, you can't survive that level of complexity without tremendous empathy and emotional intelligence. Oh and patience, you do need a lot of patience.
I was born in France, then moved to Morocco when I was 3 weeks old, then I grew up visiting France twice per year for summer holiday and Xmas. I then moved to France to study, then to Canada and the US, then back to Morocco to work, then to France then to the UK where I now reside. I grew up with a solid grip of both my cultures, and I am carrying them both with me anywhere I go. I do not intend to live neither in France nor in Morocco in the near future. I do not need to and I prefer to stay in a third country as it is easier to be a full foreigner abroad than a semi-foreigner in your own countries.
Growing up it felt like a burden, it was confusing, I felt I had to choose a side, that I had to justify that I was doing this or that because I was French or because I was Moroccan. And I guess one day I was just me. No French part Moroccan but 100% French and 100% Moroccan me, a me where all the facets of my identity were so intertwined that I didn't know and didn't care what traits belong to what culture. Because in the end it doesn't matter. Am I loud because I am Moroccan? Maybe, I don't know, all I know is that I am loud and Moroccan. Do I get my sense of fashion from my French culture? Maybe, I don't know, all I know is that I care a lot about how colors and textures match and I am French. Every year that passes, I am more and more at ease with my identity. As I age, I gain awareness, better understanding and kinder acceptance of who I fully am. I feel less obligated to justify myself, less obligated to define myself. I am just me, more and more me.
If I had the opportunity to be reborn I wouldn't change a thing. Everything that I know, everything that I have learned and experienced is because of who I am. I cannot and do not want to imagine how it would feel to be a different me. I grew quite fond of that version of me.
Your ethnicity is not a separate part of your identity. You do not experience being a woman and being a person of color separately. The same way you don't experience being queer and being a woman of color separately. Intersectionality is an amazing conceptual tool that allows for a more nuanced and precise understanding of complex identities. Because being at the crossroads of multiple categories is more than an overlap of all those categories, the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts.
We need a radical shift of perspective. As the essence of privilege is to deny its own existence, the acknowledgment and existence of different voices is essential as History is not lived the same way based on the community you belong to. I am tired of ‘White allies’ that try to speak for people of color. Even if it is coming from a good place, it is still disempowering. Acknowledging one's privilege means relinquishing one's power, which means creating space for others to step into and let their power/voices out. You cannot empower someone if you cling into an unequal power dynamic where you have access to spaces where you can express your voice and they can't. Let them speak. Create spaces where they can speak. Give them the talking stick. And listen. Just listen. Not to answer. Not to ask questions. But rather to solely let them express themselves. Let them define their narrative. Let them participate in the decision-making process. Treat them as an equal, a partner, not as a helpless victim that needs rescuing.