Mixed Race Studies

Is there ‘a’ mixed race group in Britain? The diversity of multiracial identification and experience

Critical Social Policy
Volume 30, Number 3 (August 2010)
pages 337-358
DOI: 10.1177/0261018310367672

Miri Song, Professor of Sociology
University of Kent

In contemporary British society, references to ‘mixed race’ people and to various forms of mixing abound. But to what extent can we say that there is ‘a’ mixed race group in Britain today? If such a group exists, what commonalities underlie the experience of being mixed? In addressing this question, I draw on a study of the racial identifications of different types of mixed young people in Britain. I find that the meanings and significance of race and mixedness in these young people’s lives can vary considerably both across and within specific mixed groups. In conclusion, I argue that while there is evidence of a growing consciousness and interest in being mixed, we cannot (yet) speak of a coherent mixed group or experience in Britain.

Read or purchase the article here.

Black, White and Other… Worldwide

The Huffington Post
2010-07-27

Marcia Alesan Dawkins, Visiting Scholar
Brown University

Even though the 21st century is seeing an exponential increase in reports of multiracial ancestry worldwide, exactly what makes a person multiracial remains a puzzling concept. According to the Association of Multiethnic Americans and Project RACE, the definition of a multiracial/interracial person is either someone whose parents were of more than one race or racial background, or someone who had parents that were of different racial groups. But what about those who identify with more than one racial background, irrespective of their parents’ identities? Or, those who identify with a racial background completely different from those of their parents?

Case in point: Nmachi Ihegboro, a blond haired and blue-eyed white baby born earlier this month to proud black Nigerian parents Ben and Angela Ihegboro in London UK. Nmachi’s parents are somewhat mystified about how they could create a white child and they are not the only ones. According to the New York Post, genetics experts are also baffled. So far they have offered three theories: (1) Nmachi “is the result of a gene mutation unique to her. If that is the case, Nmachi would pass the gene to her children — and they, too, would likely be white. (2) She’s the product of long-dormant white genes… that might have been carried by” her ancestors “for generations without surfacing until now.” Genetics professor Sykes of Oxford University thinks that some form of mixed race ancestry would seem to be necessary, and notes that sometimes multiracial women can carry some genetic material for white children and some genetic material for black children. It is also conceivable that the same holds true for multiracial men. (3) “While doctors have said Nmachi is not an outright albino, or lacking in all pigment, they added that the child may have some kind of mutated version of the genetic condition — and that her skin could darken over time.”…

Read the entire article here.

mix-d™: Walsall Youth Conference: Debate, consultation and fact-find about the UK’s fastest growing population.

mix-d™:
Tuesday, 2010-07-13
County Inn, Walsall

View all of the photographs from the conference here. Photographs courtesy of Cheshire based photographer Rick Milnes.

Hybrid Navigator

Small Axe
Number 32 (Volume 14, Number 2), June 2010
pages 150-159
E-ISSN: 1534-6714
Print ISSN: 0799-0537

Satch Hoyt, Artist/Sculptor

I was born in London to an Afro-Jamaican father and a white English mother in the late 1950s. It was, to say the least, a lonely terra nova, a traumatic neocolonial, cross-cultural terrain, that I was extremely ill equipped to traverse. My unwed mother was ostracized at my birth by her working-class parents. My sister and I never met our grandparents—at their request. So from the outset my stage was lit in a racist hue. As the other’s other, I struggled with my identity, floating in a void of black, white, Jamaican, and Inglanisms. I never felt English—and never will. No one lives a raceless reality. The body and corporeal schema are in effect from birth. Hypo descent, light skinned, half-caste, mulatto, biracial, mixed race—call us what you will. As a hybrid one learns to navigate the marginal seas of difference, to remain intact while floating between the two poles. The biracial paradigm is always looming on a cryptic horizon. Growing up in West London’s Ladbrook Grove, the Jamaican and Trinidadian communities are where I found solace, listening to the narratives and the stories about back-ah-yard…

Read or purchase the article here.

Arts and Mixedness [eConference]

Runnymede Trust
2010-07-09

Runnymede is currently hosting an online debate on mixed-race identity and the arts.

There is a comment from columnist and broadcaster Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Mixed-Race Britain: Where Next?

Playwright and poet Sabrina Mahfouz also writes about her thoughts on mixed-race identity: A Reflection on Mixedness. 

There are also contributions from noted arts practitioners Patricia Cumper – director of the Talawa theatre company, Jane Earl – Director of the Rich Mix Arts Centre, and Jennifer Williams – Founding Director of the British American Arts Association in our live discussion thread.

They discussed issues of cultural representation in art, the role of funding bodies and policy, the need for specific ‘mixed’ representation and the benefits / dangers of defining mixedness, race or art. Read and contribute to the discussion thread live now.

Discussion thread started by Nina Kelly on 2010-07-09 at 09:43Z.

Read the entire thread here.

A Reflection on Mixedness

Runnymede Trust
July 2010

Sabrina Mahfouz, Poet, Writer and Playwright

On the 27 May Runnymede and the Arts Council held a joint seminar in which they invited a group of arts practioners and policy makers to come and debate the nature of ‘Arts and Mixedness’; as well as what—if anything—the Arts Council should be doing to encourage, fund or facilitate engagement with people racialised as mixed.  Several of the participants subsequently provided reflections on the meeting and on the subject of mixedness and the arts.

The following submission was kindly provided by the writer, playwright and poet Sabrina Mahfouz.

‘Mixedness’ in it’s definition is so complex that it is often shied away from or regarded as being catered for via more specific diversity categories. I think the arts are somewhere to explore the possibility that this is not enough. In a Britain where ‘mixedness’ will one day be the majority minority (if it isn’t already) the arts should be reflecting this in its content, commissioning and – perhaps most importantly, in its casting (without it being a box-ticking exercise). Mixedness of course goes further than race – social class, religion and sexuality are some of the most obvious factors and for the moment it seems that discussion and awareness are much more important than policy and targets…

Read the entire article here.

Lone Mothers of Mixed Racial and Ethnic Children: Then and Now

Runnymede Trust
June 2010

Chamion Caballero, Senior Research Fellow
Families & Social Capital Research Group
London South Bank University

Rosalind Edwards, Professor in Social Policy
Families & Social Capital Research Group
London South Bank University

Information from the UK Census indicates that parents of children from mixed racial or ethnic backgrounds constitute one of the highest lone parent groups in the country. Like all other groups of lone parent families, these are overwhelmingly headed by mothers.

In this research report Dr. Chamion Caballero and Prof. Rosalind Edwards, of the London South Bank University, pulls together data from interviews with mothers of mixed-race children whose fathers are absent. Some of the anecdotal evidence is from those who brought up their children decades ago, and this is compared with the experiences of women doing the same today.

The report explores the specific racisms, prejudices and stereotypes that this group of women and children have been faced with – both then and now – and where, if anywhere, they have been able to turn for support.

To read the report, login or register for free here.

Mixed Race Britain: Where Next?

Runnymede Trust
2010-07-09

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Independent Journalist

My two books on mixed race Britons, Colour of Love (1992) and Mixed Feelings (2001) were among the first non-academic explorations of racial mixing in Britain. In the nine years between the two publications, awareness had grown of the fast rising number of mixed heritage families in Britain (some going back three generations) but recognition of multiple identities was yet to come. Public policies, community politics and, arguably, mixed race people and couples themselves, still worked within established mono-racial categories. Black activists forcefully argued that mixed raced people could only be black because that is how society saw them. They, in fact, appropriated the old one drop rule applied during the days of slavery. It wasn’t right in the bad old days and certainly made no sense in the late 20th century. Now that mixed race Britons are set to overtake most other ‘ethnic minority’ groups, the hope must be that old classifications and disagreements will give way to the newer, more pertinent, voices of those who are themselves biracial or even tri-racial and we will find fresh language, modernised concepts and better understanding of human desire and multifarious identities. This hasn’t happened yet. We are in a lacuna at present- in the UK and the US too…

Read the entire article here.

Multifaceted Identity of Interethnic Young People: Chameleon Identities

Ashgate Publishing
May 2010
Illustrations: Includes 24 (including 5 tables) line drawings
234 x 156 mm
224 pages
Hardback
ISBN: 978-0-7546-7860-1
eBook ISBN: 978-0-7546-9691-9
BL Reference: 305.8’0083-dc22
 
Sultana Choudhry, Principal Lecturer in Psychology and Director of Child, Adolescent and Family Mental Health
London Metropolitan University, UK

The number of interethnic individuals is one of the most striking demographic changes in Britain over the last decade. Demonstrating both that identity is fluid and multifaceted rather than fixed, and that people of an interethnic background do not necessarily experience identity conflict as proposed by some social scientists, Multifaceted Identity of Inter-ethnic Young People explores the manner in which interethnic young people define their identities. In doing so, it also looks at their parents and their experiences as interethnic couples in society. Presenting rich new empirical information relating to young people of Black, White, Asian and Chinese interethnic backgrounds, this book also examines the impact that inter-religious relationships have upon young people’s sense of identity, whilst also discussing the implications of the election of America’s first interethnic president. As such, it will be of interest to social scientists working in the fields of race, ethnicity and identity.

Read the introduction here.

Table of Contents

Part 1: Placing Identity Theory and Research in Context
Introduction
Social science theories and research on identity
The science of ethnic and inter-ethnic identity

Part 2: The Research
How the research was carried out

Part 3: Voices – Non Inter-Ethnic and Inter-Ethnic
Non-inter ethnic parents and children
Inter-ethnic couples

Part 4: The Coming of the Chameleons
Who am I? Identities adopted
A chameleon identity
The fine art of choosing an identity
The impact of being inter-ethnic
Conclusions: the future is inter-ethnic

Appendices
References
Index

Developing a positive racial identity–challenges for psychotherapists working with black and mixed race adopted adults

The Psychotherapist
Spring 2010
pages 10-12

Esther Ina-Egbe, Psychotherapist, Counsellor and Trainer

In this article, Esther Ina-Egbe argues that psychotherapists need to explore the repetitions and lack of mirroring that may be present in the therapeutic relationship

There is a huge body of knowledge on the development of racial identity. This article has been influenced by notable writers and critics, such as Schwartz, and Armstrong and Slaytor, who have carried out extensive work on this topic. I have also consulted other writers and formed my own opinion and judgments based on my experience in private practice.

What is racial identity?
Before addressing how to develop a positive racial identity, we must first look at what racial identity is. Armstrong and Slaytor consider that children as young as two and a half years old are aware of racial differences, and that development of a positive racial identity does not just happen but must be cultivated. Bath and North-East Somerset Council has defined racial identity as ‘one’s self perception and sense of belonging to a particular group including not only how one describes and defines oneself, but also how one distinguishes oneself from other ethnic groups’. According to this definition, racial and ethnic group differences will certainly impact on children’s social development, although that impact may differ according to age and specific ethnicity. Hence, social context, immediate surroundings and historical heritage are underpinning factors in the development of a child’s race awareness and identity…

…Mixed race heritage
Having a mixed ethnic heritage has a different effect on a child’s development (Herring, 1992), and it is therefore very important to actively help mixed race children acquire a positive self-concept. They need exposure to models of all the ethnicities they embrace. They need to understand what it means to be mixed race and to acquire coping skills linked to their cultures, including ways to deal with racism and discrimination (Wardle, 1987).  Referring to the American experience, where there is dearth of fully integrated, stable and tension-free racially mixed communities, Miller and Rotheram-Borus (1994) advise that ‘families and schools must work hard to provide a supportive community that affirms multi-racialism’. A key factor in the lives of mixed race children and adults is how they are labelled by themselves, their families and society in general. Root (1996) views labels as a motivating factor, stating that ‘labels are important vehicles for self-empowerment as there has been an increase in the self-determination of interracial families’. Many have become active politically to ensure that they are accepted as a group with special concerns separate from other racial or ethnic populations. A recent example is the current president of the USA, Barack Obama.

Mixed race children and adults need to work through internal conflicts and guilt about having to develop an identity that might not incorporate all aspects of their heritage and to resist internalising society’s negative attitudes, mixed racialism and minority status. Ultimately, successful identity formation, or a satisfying feeling of wholeness, requires that mixed race people appreciate and integrate all components of their heritage into their lives (Poston, 1990). Furthermore, while some families help their children develop a biracial identity based on the components of their particular background, it is important for children to take equal pride in all their heritages and to maintain equal connections with all members of their family. According to Pinderhughes (1995), some of these families recognise that their children’s appearance reflects their dual heritage and they want the family’s culture to embody that. However, other families foster their children’s identification with only one race. Single parents, especially, may want to emphasise the culture of their own race because that is what they know best and because their children resemble them (Mills, 1994). Some parents of children with African ancestry may assume that society will consider the children black, so they raise them as black to better prepare them for their treatment in later life (Morrison and Rodgers, 1996). In addition, society may encourage children only to identify with their minority group in an effort to maintain the ‘racial purity’ of whites. Conversely, some mixed race children may be urged to assume a white identity on the assumption that if they can ‘pass’ as white they can avoid experiencing racism (Miller and Rotheram-Borus, 1994)…

Read the entire article here.