After I shared my previous essay ([[Being Quietly Offended Serves Nobody]]) it sparked a lot of discourse about how we *should* be tackling racism and/or talking about race. To briefly summarise the essay: - Viewing the racism conversation as "Black vs White" doesn't serve the end goal (particularly in the UK) - We should define "race" better (divide it into cultural and personal contexts) - I'm sorry for offending people on the train One of the best criticisms of the essay was against the initial hypothesis (That racism is typically framed as a "Black vs White" issue) is a straw-man. And indeed the front page of Google would agree, very few are framing racism as a "Black vs White" issue. However, one of the lesser controversial aspects about the piece was my frustration about being mixed race. A friend of mine sent me Natalie Morris' *Mixed/Other*, and it's inspired me to ask the question: *Is it Time to Stop Talking About Race?* **Race and the Social Construct** One of the things that stood out to me in Morris' book was how she identifies as Black. This theme of coming to an understanding of what it means to herself and others, how sometimes she feels ostracised from both Black communities (for not being "Black" enough) and White communities (for the same reason). Morris recalls a time in which a Black man approached her on the street and after she rejected his advances, he calls her a "mongrel". Contrast that with her experience at a birthday party in which an elderly lady assumed that Morris being related to her white Grandfather was a joke. So how should she define herself? She writes; "*Everything in this book is underpinned by the concept that race is a social construct...*" *Please Note: What I'm about to say isn't an attack on anyone or an attempt to stop people from identifying how they would like to be identified.* With race being a social construct we need to ask ourselves; - Which society? - Who in that society? Modern society is made up of a lot of different groups each with their own belief systems and ideas. Morris identifies as Black, some Black people don't think she's Black, White people think she's Black. Who is correct? Morris is. It's her choice how she wants to be identified, how *she* wants to be treated by the world. My friend, who looks "White," doesn't identify as White. He's half {Eastern European} and half {Latin-American} (Actual mix hidden at request of my friend). Whilst definitely benefitting from White Privilege he also feels that people only see his Whiteness and it undermines his lived experience of the difficulties being an immigrant. Should we take away that away from him and just reduce him down to his skin colour? Or should we let him decide how he wants to engage with the world? This, to me, is the only logical conclusion we can come to when it comes to "race": It should be a personal identifier. You get to choose how you want to identify. Bear in mind that you [will probably experience some backlash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Dolezal) if society judges that you've chosen incorrectly. I understand that this is a controversial take. but I see more value in talking less about race and more about culture. **On Being "Asian"** <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VVR3B01NxiM?si=Rlq9qpPYB7vIM34h" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> People often ask me "what kind of Asian are you?" Ignoring the micro-aggression and how "other" the question makes me feel, I want to use it as a way of highlighting how meaningless race is. As referenced in the above sketch, in the US being "Asian" means something else to what being "Asian" in the UK. In the UK, I associate the term "Asian" more with people from Southern Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh). Whereas it appears that the US "Asian" equates to those from East or South Eastern Asia (China, South Korea, Japan). At this point I feel like I'm taking crazy pills, trying to wrap my head around some sort of [post-modern Lacanian structuralist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuralism) ideal of race. Is it based on how you look? Is it based on how you feel? Is it based on what you know? If it's based off of how I look, then I could be one of the following (and now a list of places people think I'm from): - Turkey - Italy - Greece - Vietnam - Korea - China In my personal experience, these conversations often devolve into a race-flavoured game of Articulate with someone listing every single Mediterranean and South East Asian country they know. Granted, this is likely a problem that is exclusive to mixed-race people like myself, but at the end of it all; what does race matter? **Solving the "Where are you from?" Debacle** <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wCW0zuH5IsY?si=UXNBbek7xG8WselC" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> This scene is from an episode of *Atlanta* in which Aaron who has lived a "White" cultural existence has to prove his "Blackness" in order to be awarded a College Scholarship. As I wrote in [[Being Quietly Offended Serves Nobody]], the "Blackness" in the US perhaps makes more sense as a way of discussing this topic due to the evisceration of cultural heritage due to slavery. As an objective (and perhaps ignorant) viewer of the episode, I was struck at how...superficial the questions Aaron was being asked were. They focus on drinks, food, and music, in a word: *culture*. One of the elements of Morris' book that resonated with me is the frustration of *always* being asked "Where are you from?" (I wrote [[Racial ambiguity and the quest for identity]] about this in 2016). It's so tiring to not know if people are either curious or just ignorant about how they can make other people feel. BUT, as a curious person, I *also* want to know where someone's from. Not to make them feel "other" or different but to better understand their lived experience. So instead of asking "Where are you from?" I ask "Where'd you grow up?" It allows the other person to self-define how they want to be viewed, what cultural experiences they think have defined them. It allows us to have a conversation in outside of racial stereotypes and better understand *who* I'm talking to, and rather than *what* they are. What connects me to another "Asian" person? Not much, aside from some similar aesthetics. What connects me to someone who grew up in the Cotswolds? A lot more. What connects me to someone who grew up in a Middle-Class White household? A bunch of stuff. **So What?** Natalie concludes her book by writing: *"We need to find a language and a narrative about the mixed population that doesn't oversimplify, that doesn't reduce us to a monolithic group... We need to move away from conversations that assume we are a homogenous group. They are reductive, exclusive, and actually help to reinforce the negative biases and stereotypes that have existed for decades.*" To me, this is something that is happening across the board whenever we talk about "White," "Brown," "Black," and "Asian". They are too reductive and come with a lot of baggage. At the same time, we want to make sure that we respect the identities of people from different places, cultures, and backgrounds. Again, if you take strength from identifying a certain way, all the power to you. This was quite a difficult essay to write and I don't know if I've properly thought about this issue. Ultimately this is my effort to approach the topic of identity with more empathy, compassion, and to develop a better understanding of those different to me. 15/05/[[2024]] #race #modernculture #identity