I Am a Mixed Race Woman
Read Time: 7 Minutes
Words by Adeola Sheehy
Growing up as a mixed-race child in 80s London, the narrative that black was bad seeped into the pores of my brown skin. The racism I experienced was rarely overt, that is not the British way, but it was a regular and insistent knocking against my young identity. The unpleasant words, hurtful assumptions, and negative treatments were always against my ‘dark side’. That’s how my child brain saw it. There were two sides of me, one light, one dark, one good, and one bad.
I aged, I learned, and I made my own decisions, but I was aware that the roots of my opinions had grown in toxic soil.
Thoughts of race are back on everyone’s lips. It feels closer to the surface, wounds reopening, fresh blood mixing with old. We seem to be oscillating between a moment of profound change and progress, to a volatile storm that could blow itself out or destroy the buildings that have been built beneath it. It feels like terrified hope.
Once again though we are split into two distinct sides, one light and one dark, one good and one bad, but the bad now has the white face.
I am a member of groups specifically focused on raising mixed children, and most often joined by white mothers hoping for help, advice, and support. In these communities, mixed-race children are urged to learn about and embrace their heritage, but the well-meaning parents only seem to be referring to the heritage of the black half of the family. Does the white heritage not matter, not exist? Are we raising them as equally half one and half the other, or are these parents trying to give their children roots into the only one of the two cultures they will visibly be identified as? Is it a form of protection from the discrimination that will surely at some point head their way, or is there a fundamental lack of the same richness of culture immediately identifiable from the ‘white’ side? A culture outside of the history books we meet in school, outside of the mainstream culture we are currently surrounded by. One that speaks to the music and songs, textiles and dress, folk tales and lore, and spirituality of a people.
It occurs to me yet again to wonder, is a large part of the fetishization of black skin and black culture the result of a desperate yearning for the richness of white cultures and spirituality that has been lost? Is the viewing of people of color as ‘exotic’ or ‘spiritual’ the recognition that there is a lack of those things in the dominant white western culture? Do these parents not identify with their own heritage or is it that even with all the love of a parent’s eyes, they still look upon their children and see black rather than mixed?
I so strongly identify as mixed, it took a long time for me to understand that not everyone sees me the way I see myself. For a lot of people, there is no mixed and the one-drop rule still applies.
A rule that began in 1920s America when the government began using the term in a census report to denote ‘white’ as a person understood to be pure-blooded white, and a person of mixed blood to be classified as a ‘negro’ regardless of the amount of white blood. And while we are far from the days in which this rule was a law that enabled white males to be protected from having responsibility for their children by black slaves, and provided the advantage of acquiring an additional slave, you have to ask why was it that Barack Obama was celebrated as the first black president, when he is of mixed heritage?
Listening to the author and academic Emma Dabiri speak recently about the terms ‘black’ and ‘white’ as constructs created for a purpose I was shaken by her belief that a person couldn’t be ‘mixed-race’. She said,
‘The term reinforces the idea that black and white are both neutral and natural racial categories that exist. You can’t be half white, the racial construct ‘white’ was not invented to allow entrance to people who are half white. You are either white or you’re not.’
She was referring to the origins of the idea of a white race and a black race, which until 1661 colonial Barbados didn’t exist. The English created and codified into law the idea of the two races as a means of justifying the enslavement of Africans through the understanding of ‘whiteness’ as biological superiority. An idea which then spread throughout the Americas and across the world, resulting in the white privilege we are trying to dismantle today.
Her words echoed on me for a week before I understood and agreed that I wasn’t half white. I wasn’t ‘half’ anything. I was born whole, just as anyone else in my family before me whether Irish or Nigerian. I wasn’t half my mother or half my father. It wasn’t possible for me to separate out which aspects of me belonged to which race. I was my own race, a combination and blending of two, to create something new.
For a mixed-race child, their experience will never be that of a white person, nor that of a black person. It will always be completely unique to this new space in-between which we alone stand in.
I used to feel that I didn’t belong to either world, and while that caused me great pain as a child, I now understand that I was right, not because I wasn’t worthy of either, but because I had my own space. A space of dual heritage, dual ancestry, a multi-cultural meeting of different views, ideas, and histories. A space fast becoming the majority which has the ability to be a well-spring of a future filled with hope, but only if we find room to embrace both races.
We don’t always need the villain to appreciate the hero. To move forward the demonization of one side cannot be the tool used to elevate the other. ‘Sides’ will need to be undone and battle lines erased. The past cannot be undone or ignored. It must be unpacked, confronted, and learned from. Each and every one of us has a responsibility to look long and hard in the mirror and see the truth of how white privilege and the structures of colonialism have shaped our lives and the opinions and beliefs we walk around with. There is no shying away from the work.
However, a secondary part of the work essential to all is to redefine these terms ‘black’ and ‘white’ for ourselves privately, within our families, and out into our communities and globally.
Perhaps a way to begin this process is to first be clear of what these words mean. Are we talking about a person’s skin tone, are we using the terms as they were originally intended in colonial times, or have they come to mean something else that encompasses an array of assumptions? In Brazil when people were asked to describe their skin, they came up with 136 variations. From cinnamon, to chestnut, to dusky morena, I would argue that if our goal is to define someone by their skin we would all need this many choices for even in my own home, none of us are the same shade.
If we are using these words to define a ‘race’, can we do that and ignore the cultural, historical, and multitudes of other differences in people with ancestry from different countries? Are all white people the same, regardless if they are from America, England, or Sweden? People in the UK would say the each of the four nations are clearly very different, even though they live on the same island. If we accept that no two people look the same or have the same fingerprints, then now is the time to accept that those differences are much more than skin deep, and terms such as ‘black’ and ‘white’ to denote a group of people do none of us justice.
Every group of people on this planet has a rich and deep history. There are plenty of dark, terrible wounds in our past but if we can face them with the truth of our richness, beauty, and ancestry in hand, it has the potential to show us the way to humbly walk forward into a new shared experience where black excellence and white heritage can co-exist.
I am a mixed-race woman. I am as proud of my Irish ancestry as I am of my Nigerian. I love my skin, my features, and all the attributes my DNA gave me. I am a mother to four mixed children, all of whom are lighter than me and different from each other. The world will label every one of them differently and some may be considered ‘white’. Their ancestors' songs sing in their blood and in the future they will feel an affinity to some aspects of Nigerian, Irish, and English culture. It is their right to own those parts of themselves, as the tone of their skin has no bearing on what is within them.
As we travel, meet, and fall in love all over the world, mixed is fast becoming the majority and with it the realization that the terms ‘black’ and ‘white’ are outdated and too narrow to encompass the fullness of who we are.
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About the Author:
Adeola Sheehy is an Irish/Nigerian woman born and raised in London who now lives on the edge of The New Forest in the South of England with her partner and four children. Writing from the crossroads of race, womanhood, and creativity, she uses prose to tackle the question her mind ponders most and poetry to express the feelings closest to her heart.
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