Mixed Race Families

Britain is now a better place to grow up mixed race. But don't celebrate yet

Prejudices have receded significantly in the past 20 years, but a report out this week shows racist attitudes remain

by Lanre Bakare, The Observer (British newspaper)

Growing up as a mixed race child, with a mother from Leeds and a father from Nigeria, my Bradford childhood certainly wasn't trouble-free. But I had the kind of relatives to see me through any tricky moments. As well as a fantastic, loving family on my mother's side, I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by a strong Nigerian community, focused around a friendship club my father founded, which acted as a focal point for a small but vibrant community.

With my dad and his mates I would hear Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa spoken; I'd listen to the music of Fela, Shina Peters and Ayinla Kollington, and get to taste jollof rice, eba, moinmoin and other Nigerian cuisine. This understanding and engagement with the other side of my ancestry and culture was vital to me. It gave me confidence to fall back on when people would question who I was. Both my parents instilled the idea in me that being different was a huge positive. It was something special, that should be celebrated and cherished rather than hidden or denied.

Not everyone is so lucky, of course. But this week a report released in the wake of the 2011 census threw fresh light on mixed race relationships in the UK and the public's perception of them. And it seemed to bring good news. The census revealed there are a million people who identify as mixed race. British Future, the thinktank that produced the report (titled The Melting Pot Generation – How Britain Became More Relaxed About Race), found that 15% of the public have a problem with these relationships, compared to 50% in the 80s and 40% in the 90s.

The so-called Jessica Ennis Generation (those born in the 80s and 90s, like me) was portrayed as more tolerant of, and essentially not bothered by, mixed race families.

It followed other recent reports which claimed that mixed race people are more attractive, more intelligent and biologically superior to their single race counterparts. But have the prejudices which blighted mixed race people and couples completely disappeared over the last 20 years? Has Britain entered into a post-racial nirvana in which that kind of prejudice has all but died out?

There's no doubt that things have improved. Significantly. Sure, growing up in Bradford in the 90s I had my share of the racist incidents which many people faced – name-calling at school, being singled out by the police, and feeling like I didn't "fit in'' with my peer group. But my experiences pale in comparison to those mixed race people who grew up in the generation before mine.

A friend's father, who is also mixed race, grew up in my area a quarter of a century before.

His brother was driven to painting his skin with white emulsion paint because he was so distressed at the abuse he received. His pores became clogged and he had to be taken to hospital as his skin could no longer breathe.

Stories like that make you realise that for a lot of mixed race people, growing up in a space between two cultures was testing, isolating and painful. There is no doubt society has moved forward since then, but we should be cautious about celebrating too soon. These things are complicated.

Take a journalist colleague of mine, Joseph Harker, who has a Nigerian father and an Irish mother. He is loth to identify as mixed race and sceptical about the motives behind the recent fascination with mixed race Britain and what it represents.

Seen from his point of view, mixed race people have become the new poster boys and girls of diversity because they are seen as less threatening, more attractive, more European and in short, more acceptable.

For him the constant thematising of "mixed race Britain'' is fashionable because it makes white people feel more comfortable. In one piece Joseph wrote, he asked: "Could Barack Obama have been elected were both his parents black?"

This school of thought would contend that the feting of stars like Jessica Ennis doesn't really reflect discrimination more ordinary mixed race folk face, regardless of how successful certain athletes or musicians are. This celebration of mixed race and black athletes is not a new phenomenon.

Daley Thompson won the Sports Personality of the Year award in 1982, and that triumph was seen by some as a watershed moment for race relations that would lead the way for more acceptance of mixed race people and mixed race relationships. It didn't really turn out that way in the 80s.

Then there is the example of the French football team in the World Cup of 1998. A team which included Arab, mixed race and black players like Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, David Trezeguet, Zinedine Zidane and Lillian Thuram was used to build up the idea of a French rainbow nation, as Paris and the country at large embraced multiculturalism and its different communities.

Yet, fast forward to 2011 and the French team was embroiled in a race row after Laurent Blanc was taped discussing proposals to reduce the number of black and Arab players in the side, addressing concerns the team wasn't white enough.

At the same time France was struggling to deal with race riots, the rise of the far-right with the increased popularity of staunch anti-immigration politicians like Marine Le Pen, who just last week was in trouble for comparing Islamic prayers to the Nazi occupation during the second world war.

During the same period Britain has had to deal with the rise of the BNP and the anti-immigration agenda which continues to dominate political discourse, with Ed Miliband stating on Friday that Labour made mistakes when it came to immigration and "Britain must always control its borders".

There does seem to be a disconnect between the immigration debate and the supposed flourishing of an at-ease "mixed race Britain''. Do politicians who praise the development of a more mixed country fail to see the obvious connection between that and immigration?

Let's not be too bleak. Things have changed for the better for mixed race Britons over the last 30 years. The point is that there are still prejudices which hinder improved race relations in the UK, which affect all racial groups. I agree with Minna Salami, who runs the MsAfropolitan blog and is mixed race, when she recently said: "There's an eagerness in society to try to be approving of all, which I'm quite moved by, but there's a level of silencing when you've got white reporters claiming mixed race people are symbols of harmony when their views aren't heard."

I've also written about the need for mixed race people to become part of the conversation before, but it seems we are continually used as an example of how Britain is moving on without ever being asked about our experiences or opinion.

Before the real impact of mixed race relationships can be measured in the UK, mixed race people themselves need to become part of the conversation.

When I was 15 I was confronted in a former girlfriend's house by her father, who said: "If I had known you were coming I'd have worn my Ku Klux Klan outfit." He then asked me to leave. It felt like I'd been dropped into a scene from Rita, Sue and Bob Too, the hardcore mid-1980s film about Bradford. But that kind of blatant racism is still experienced by some people if they have a partner outside their race. In many cities there is still open prejudice towards relationships between white women and Asian men in particular.

When a friend kissed an Asian schoolmate at a sixth-form party she was branded a "Paki shagger" the next day, and that kind of language was something Asian and white friends faced regularly when they went out with people outside their race.

The past week has shown how all elements of the media, leftwing and right, tabloid and broadsheet, are keen to present the UK as a more tolerant and mixed society than we were. And, of course, it is.

But there is a danger that by simply patting ourselves on the back and believing the feelgood tale of mixed race Britain we are ignoring the reality that a lot of mixed race people face, which is discrimination, lack of understanding and prejudice.

It's still not time to crack open the champagne.

Taken from HERE.