The Space Between Black and White

Foreword

From the Pram to the Palanquin

I was an 'Only-One'. Illegitimate, fatherless, the only Brown kid on the block.

Brought up in the 1950s by a single mother in a White working-class community in Battersea, I was a rarity among my generation. Only about five percent of babies were born 'out of wedlock' at the time. Many of those babies were adopted or 'hidden' within families. Their mothers were sometimes disguised as their 'older sisters'.

But there was no disguising me. I was different.

The Black and Asian population of the UK was tiny in those days, only numbering around 55,000, and largely concentrated in particular neighbourhoods in urban areas. In Brixton, just a few miles from where I grew up, the Windrush generation had been putting down roots six years before I was born. My Grandfather took me to Brixton occasionally to visit his boss. Other than that, as a small child I rarely saw another Black or Brown face because communities were tightly-knit. People tended to work and shop locally, and socialise with family and neighbours.

There was a great deal of stigma associated with mixed relationships and their progeny. Famous mixed marriages, such as Ruth and Seretse Khama and Joe and Peggy Appiah, hit the newspaper headlines and generated much debate and significant hostility. The controversy surrounding the recent addition of a Mixed-Race member of the royal family shows that these issues are still very much alive even today.

In the 1950s, Mixed-Race babies were rare. In that climate, the fact that my White British mother insisted on keeping me, and my extended family took me and my mother in, was courageous in itself. Children like me were difficult to place in adoptive families. I was an anomaly, like an alien dropped from outer space. The visible half of my personal story was missing. My absent father, about whom I knew very little, left me without a Black role model or a narrative upon which to build my identity.

I grew up with no books or images of people who looked like me. Moving from Surbiton to Stafford to rural Norfolk, I moved in almost exclusively White environments where there was no-one to compare with me. In those environments, I was as Black as they come. When I looked in the mirror, it always took me by surprise. Later, travelling the world as a young woman, I experienced confused and diverse responses to my difference. This had a profound effect on me, a complex feeling of simultaneously not belonging anywhere and belonging in two places, which will be familiar to any member of our growing diaspora today. My memoir is about a lifetime's experience of inhabiting this space, showing how attitudes towards Mixed-Race people evolved over six decades, during the quest to find my place.

Outsider In

I had none of the cultural references of the Black people I met as a young adult, and White people around me did not share my experience of the racism and prejudice I encountered. The Mixed-Race community is in general a very young community in the UK, whereas my experience spans over six decades. The few Mixed-Race babies of my age were often brought up in care, and special orphanages were set up to house such children-mostly the children of African American Soldiers born after the Second World War. Not many were as brave and fortunate enough, as my mother was, to be able to bring up their children at home.

As a visible outsider in most groups, I was startled to discover that I often processed experiences in a different way from my peers. I had a different perspective and differently-wired responses, from most of the people I met. Outwardly I was sociable and optimistic, while inwardly I often felt second-class, unsafe, not always up to the job of living life. It disrupted my relationships with my family and friends, as well as my interactions with the world. It affected my choices as well as my ability to trust and to form deep and intimate relationships with others. I found my White heritage all around me, in society and the family I was brought up in, but without connection to my father's family and my African heritage, I felt lost. I carried a lot of anger and dread around with me, a hollowing-out inside. It was a largely hidden internal struggle, erupting now and then like a dormant volcano, in ways that seemed unconnected and mystified those around me.

From a very young age, Mixed-Race children often become adept at protecting our families, friends and colleagues from the reality of our experience. Mono-racial family and friends are not always conscious or willing to acknowledge what is going on. 'I have a Mixed-Race cousin, sister, grandchild, partner, and it doesn't bother me, so why should it bother you?' 'You don't feel like that', 'You shouldn't feel like that', 'You can't have experienced that-we would have noticed!' 'You don't have a problem-just a nice sun-tan!' Having a Mixed-Race member of your family is not the same as knowing what it is like through lived experience. Family members may not be aware that certainty about their own racial identity prevents them from seeing a problem that their Mixed-Race relative is genuinely struggling with.

From my earliest years, I was keenly aware of the stigma of my difference and developed a heightened sense of justice. Put-downs and racist taunts undoubtedly hurt me and damaged my self-esteem. But despite some setbacks, I'm an optimist. I looked for creative ways to prove myself, and positive energy to fight back, build my resilience, survive and eventually flourish.

Sticks and stones may break my bones. but words will give me a nervous breakdown

Does it really matter what we are called and what we call ourselves?

It does matter when we do not have the words or concepts to describe ourselves, or our experience, except in negative terms or in comparison to other groups, and when words are used as a form of abuse. Mono-racial people don't need to struggle with the language in the same way. Whiteness, the default racial 'norm' in the Western World, comes with its own lexicon and associations of unearned power and privilege.

All terms for Mixed-Race seem to be an uncomfortable fit. In the 1950s we were labelled half-castes, half-breeds, mongrels, little-Black-sambos, mulattos, coloureds, wogs. We had a 'touch of the tar brush'. I did not have positive language to describe myself, and I found the names I was called wounding and stigmatising. I internalised them, which affected my sense of self-worth.

Whatever we call ourselves, racism, prejudice and discrimination doesn't go away. The language has changed through the generations, not without intense argument about the correct words to use. Last decade's terminology is often this decade's term of abuse. Nowadays, the terms bi-racial, multi-racial, Mixed-Race and dual-heritage (or multiple heritage) are often used interchangeably, although the term 'heritage' can signify cultural as well as racial heritage.

Not everyone of Mixed-Race heritage wants to identify as such. The term 'Mixed-Race' is controversial in itself-the concept of race is a social construct, and is therefore highly problematic. No words are perfect. The current preference for the term 'people of colour' (although I do use it myself) to signify non-white people of any description, is just as problematic, implying erroneously that White is not a colour and non-Whites form a homogeneous group. No single term could capture the multilayered meanings we want to convey. As long as people use the terms Black and White, then we need a language that helps us describe the spaces in between. A new generation is finding the term 'Mixed-Race' empowering and validating, building solidarity between different communities, whether we are Mixed-Race Asian, African or Caribbean. I hyphenate 'Mixed-Race' to try and convey a sense of our distinct identity, rather than two or more races mixed.

Mixed experiences

How we identify varies according to personal experience, political perspective and historical and social context. As individuals, Mixed-Race people are as diverse as any other group, and our experiences vary with age, sex, sexuality, gender, faith, ability or disability, geographical location, and whether we have been brought up in diverse or mono-cultural communities, or have dual or multiple heritages.

Given such diversity among Mixed-Race people, it is argued that we don't have enough commonality or shared heritage to be a community. However, we have significant shared experiences which are different from other sections of the population, which connect us and can bring us a sense of belonging. Whatever racial mix we are, racial ambiguity can have an effect on our sense of self and place in the world, including some of us who do not look obviously mixed and may present as mono-racial, whether Black or White. Mixed-Race people live in an unpredictable environment, which interprets us, makes assumptions about where we 'fit in', who we are, and assesses our relationships to our families and those around us, often getting it wrong.

In the last few years, my connection with our Mixed-Race community has enabled me to understand that my struggles are not unique. They are real, not imagined. Enduring racist abuse in childhood is commonplace, as is having our identity called into question on a regular basis by those 'did-I just-hear-that?' moments that persist into adulthood: 'Oh you do...