I've got a Fillipina Mum, a white Dad, freckles, Asian eyes was born in Barnet and identify myself as British. But why, in 2011, do people still feel the need to put me into neat little ethnic boxes?
“So where were you born?”
“… Barnet”
“No, I mean, you know…(motions to face) your roots”
See, I’m Asian-eyed yet I’m unusually lanky, I’m an off shade of strong tea but I’ve got the freckles of a Celt. I am a mongrel. My dad is White and my mother is a Filipina. Even in my lifetime I can see how attitudes have changed. For example I noticed the school racist, the one I confused to the point he had to swing between calling me a ‘sleepy eyed chink’ to a ‘spic’ is now shacked up with a beautiful Mauritian girl, or as he would’ve referred to her, “a fucking paki”.
Mixed-race relationships and people are gradually dropping the stigma once attached to them. If anything it’s even trendy, what with psychology studies telling us how brilliantly attractive and genetically refined we are. Plus, we’re just racially ambiguous enough to fulfill the token race quota in ad campaigns but we’re not going to completely scare the bigots off, y’know?
Whilst we’re the most rapidly growing ethnic-minority in the UK, I still find that people are more comfortable shoving you into neat categories, as if it couldn’t be possible to be a genuine mix of both heritages. I like pie and mash, Page 3 and not talking about my feelings but I can also make a mean chicken adobo and trash-talk people in Tagalog. So I often wonder if there will ever be a time where race isn’t even mentioned, not in a rainbows and holding hands singing Age of Aquarius way, but where somewhere like the UK will continue to be such a melting-pot it won’t be worth bringing up.
Mixed-race or not I’ve always identified myself as British, I was born here after all. However this has not stopped me from exploiting and gleefully applying for every media ‘positive action’ scheme under the sun, using the sob story of my daily struggle with my cultural identification. There are dedicated media outlets for the Black and Asian community so my route of tact is always “but what about the mongrels!”
I’ve been shortlisted for enough of these that I should know what they’re angling for but I always seem to fall at the last hurdle. My most memorable experience was being invited to an assessment for a broadsheet trainee scheme. It was an informal group discussion alongside the other candidates and a panel of journalists. After the initial “look, we’re definitely not racists and not trying to counteract the flagrant nepotism rife in the media” introduction, we were asked to pick a big news story we would like to have reported on.
Once it was about halfway round the table I realised there was a running theme. One bloke wanted to report on the Black Panthers and civil rights movement, another on Stephen Lawrence and another was passionate about Pakistani politics. By the time it got to me my two ideas of “that sheep what got cloned” and “Amy Winehouse’s crack video” seemed a little puerile. I ended up mumbling something about the 7/7 bombings along the lines of “it was, like, bad for Muslim people, not that I’m Muslim…is Islam a race? I dunno but…I’m guessing that shit was kinda bad…”.
May I be fist bitingly cringey for a moment and ask what’s not rewarding about living, working and having a family where multi-culturalism is not only accepted but celebrated. Nothing, that’s what, so stick that in your separatist, afraid of integration pipe.
The next three hours were pretty much in the same vein, with most subjects brought up somehow turning into a race relations argument, even the recession for fuck’s sake. I felt as if everyone was just trying to out ethnic-minority each other into submission, it was like a totally brown (or in my case slightly ochre) version of The Apprentice with people subtly trying to get one-up on each other. The general consensus I got was that though most people there were second generation and UK born they often referred to themselves as Indian, Caribbean or whatever origin but never British.
My initial understanding was that these programs were to help the media become a more multicultural workforce. Granted it would be ace if journalism came from different perspectives but the impression I got was as an ethnic-minority in the media every sensitive non-White related subject would be your specialty. So sort of like, “hey token do some stuff on black on black gun crime” or “hey token, write about Al Qaeda” etc. Essentially I’ve applied for these schemes in the past because I thought desperately waving the race card might sneak me into seemingly impenetrable establishments.
On the other hand if it means constantly sectioning people off by race I’m not sure I’m qualified. It’s a subject so big that thinking about it is like staring at the sun because of course we should cater to all minority communities but often, as I’m quite literally sitting on the fence between two races, I feel guilty for thinking “OR HOW ABOUT WE ALL TRY FRIGGIN’ INTERGRATING AND WE CAN BE ONE HAPPY FAMILY?”
So, I left that experience expecting to feel empowered, punching the air and clicking my heels with my fellow ethnic-minority peers but I ended up, for the first time, feeling like an outcast.
Do I dwindle in the increasing, albeit fashionable, grey area of mixed-racedness or do I pick and choose sides? Surely being proud to be British doesn’t have to mean that you’re a raging racist with an Enoch Powell shrine, because now it is an identity that encompasses so much more.
OK, so the UK is not quite my ideological mixed jamboree of races utopia, living in harmony, mixing and never muttering about immigration ‘gone mad’ but we are tolerant and diverse as shit. May I be fist bitingly cringey for a moment and ask what’s not rewarding about living, working and having a family where multi-culturalism is not only accepted but celebrated. Nothing, that’s what, so stick that in your separatist, afraid of integration pipe.
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