Abstract

Is

Mixed-race

A

Colour?

The Factors Involved in the

Construction of the Mixed-race

Identity

By Jacob Whittingham

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of the West of England, Bristol, for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Date of Submission: 28/03/2014

Abstract

Is Mixed-race A Colour? The Factors Involved in the Construction of the Mixed-race

Identity, is a cross-cultural comparative study of the racial identity of Black/White

‘mixed-race’ young people aged between 18–24 in Sydney, Australia and London,

United Kingdom. I have been working professionally with mixed-race young people for nine years, and have become increasingly aware of their over-representation in

Pupil Referral Units, the care system, and the Youth Criminal Justice system. I wanted to determine how mixed-people develop their identity, and understand the factors that are involved in their choices, thus improving the tools available for those professionals working with mixed-race young people.

This project was completed using ethnography as the primary research tool. Semistructured interviews and archival research based on the readily available literature on mixed-race people operated as other sources for primary and secondary sources of data. The results found that although mixed-race young people share close affiliation with the Black community, there was the development of a distinctive mixed-race community. This is sharply contrasted in Australia, where the concept of

‘mixed’ is considered offensive, and a relic of colonialism. Whilst the scrutiny that they face about their identity is immense, their ability to successfully manoeuvre and survive within the racial constraints of the socio-political environment that they exist in, is healthier than much of the available literature suggests. Difficulties faced by both mixed-race genders include being stereotyped, targeted and sexualised by

White and Black people; being pulled between one’s outwardly expressed identity, and how one sees ones identification; and the complexity with their relationship with the Black community. In the future, it would be valuable to include elements of mixed-race history and issues of identification in the national curriculum, in addition to the inclusion of mixed-race themes into equality, inclusion and diversity training. ii

Table of Contents

Page no.

Acknowledgements iv

Acronyms and Abbreviations vii

Glossary viii

Chapter 1: Introduction 1

Chapter 2: Literature Review 43

Chapter 3: Methodology 98

Chapter 4: Analysis and Interpretation 142

Redfern, Australia

Chapter 5: Analysis and Interpretation 192

Brixton, UK

Chapter 6: Conclusion 244

Appendices 291

Bibliography 366

iii

Acknowledgements

This was BIG for me, and I’d like to thank lots and lots of people.

The usuals are always included, my Mum, my Dad, my brother and all my relatives – with us here or with us in another place – from Somerset to South Africa, from North

London to Northampton, from Usa to USA, from Denmark to Down Under, and from

Kingston to Kush.

But firstly, I have to thank Dr Les Henry for suggesting I do a PhD way back in 2006.

At that point, I was in the process of writing my book, What Being Black Is and What

Being Black Isn’t so I didn’t have time to quite get on it. But once I’d finished, or just before I’d finished it, I jumped on the Phd, and started to get to work on it in 2010.

So Thank You for inspiring me to be all that I am at this moment.

Secondly, Steve Garner and John Bird for being patient with me. They let me grow at my own pace, and put just enough pressure on me to make me work hard, but remain confident my own ability.

Thirdly, I need to thank those who helped me complete this project! E-man for doing all the things that I couldn’t do (whilst he was working hard to pass his exams for

Uni) – collating, counting, excel spreadsheets, sorting – basically organising the

‘results’ part of the project. Kavita for lots and lots and lots of things (bibliography, spreadsheets, word-finding and most of all, unwavering support and tolerance…was integral to me finishing this…this unbelievable achievement…I owe you with my life)!

A special Thank You to Munira for the title, Kavita and Bades for the proofreading,

Angelica for finding people for me to interview when she had a trillion other things to do (so says her phone calendar), and Bignose who sorted Australia out. All the interviewees, particularly Bana – especially Bana…And all the people who gave me iv

contacts and suggestions – Viv Moriaty, Olivia Chessell, many others and last but never least, Ju-B and Sliz for helping with the projects around that time.

Everyone in Australia, including James Arvanitakis (University of Western Sydney),

Mark Spinx (BABANA Redfern Aboriginal Men's Group), George Morgan (University of Western Sydney), Rebecca Conroy (CarriageWorks), Thalia Anthony (University of

Sydney), Gordon and Elaine Syron, Janet Mooney (Koori Centre, University of

Sydney), Anita Heiss, Trevor Davies (The South Sydney Herald), Vicki Greives

(University of Sydney), Senator Ursula Stephens (and her assistant Cassandra

Johnson), (Tamika Rose Townsend), Renee Williamson, Tiffany McComsey, Lyn

Turnbull (REDWatch), Shane Philips (Tribal Warrior Association) and Bob Vinnicombe

(One Nation) who I still feel a little guilty about.

Carole Evans at Audio Sec for the very very prompt transcriptions; and Ros who has proofread through this all, and allowed me to present something that is of a worthy standard.

A Thank You to Michael, Conan, Andrew Muhammad, Amon Rashidi, Marc Lamont

Hill, George Carlin, George Galloway, Tony Benn, Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, Cenk

Uygur, Paul Wilson-Eme and many other people whose names I can’t remember but whose thoughts have influenced how I live and think.

Jiggledy, Bades, Anser, Angus, Rassan Tambarter, Cleon, Carline, Smith, Tarr,

Whitlock, Shogun, Derek, The Warren, Zion, The Whit, Southall Soccer (+ Rav + Rahul

+ WAGs), Hansib, Peaches, SE1 United, Blackfriars, Mayhem Never Dies and

Mayhem, CH, Brunel, UWE, PHASCA, SOAS and everyone/everything else that helps me be me. v

Special shouts out go to Aisha, ‘man like’ Crud, Akiema, Arnie, Fred Santana, Alex and Reuben from Mayhem, Alika Jeffs, AJCDubs, Ashley, Ayanna, Ben Marquis,

Chopz, Conor, Darkie, Daniel, D Dot, Jendo, Junior Nyarku, Doyin, Feyi, Keeping it

Glorious, Has, Jace Trims, Jack Goldfinch, Jean-Micheli, Kamzy, Jorim, Josh Slimz, Kev

Grinz, Kieran, K Driz, Stacks, Melbz, Mo, Michael, Min-Anh, Mof-Man, M-1-6, Pie,

Plange, Natalie, Nkwame, Nox, Murphy, Mo, Reece Hilder, Richie Rich, Ryan (what de pon), Scarz, Teo, man like Tobs, Tosin, Topy Tops, Vix, William, Yousef and Zack.

I always felt like I had to prove to myself that I could do something like this – so I’m also thanking me!

I have never forgotten my Dad giving me a printed piece of paper to take with me to boarding school to stick above my bed. It read, “Education is your passport to your future, for belongs to those who prepare for it today” – El Hajj El Shabazz (Malcolm

X). I did all this for you Dad. But you know this already. vi

Acronyms and Abbreviations

NT:

AB.:

F.:

Northern Territory

Aboriginal

Female

IDPs: Internally Displaced Person Camps

Indig.: Indigenous

UK:

Uni:

USA:

M.: Male

NEET: Not in Education, Employment or Training

N.K: Not Known

NSW: New South Wales

United Kingdom

University

United States of America

vii

Glossary

Guestimation:

Racial script:

Racial spy:

Racial tag:

School:

Tactlessness:

Wile out:

The scenario in which a person or persons speculate on the identity of mixed-race people.

This is a process in which attitudes towards race are taught

(and learned) at an early age. They are a series of programmed stereotypes about a racial group other than one’s own. After a racial script is learned, it can then be activated upon the appearance of race-specific stimuli in the environment.

The act of being incorrectly guestimated, and being in a situation where people have discussed the racial characteristics of a particular people in relation to their parents.

The notion that you can claim a racial group that you are not fully representing, based on your heritage.

To teach or explain something whilst adopting the mannerisms of a teacher.

The absence of awareness, consideration and understanding when interacting with mixed-race people, particularly when determining their racial background.

To act in a crazy manner. viii

“If I was born one colour…wouldn’t have to go through all this madness, having to identify where you are, what you are, where you belong, and all that…No-one but us can understand.”

(Be’lal, Brixton)

ix

Chapter One: Introduction

We all get this question: What Are You?! What usually comes after this question is an answer, but if you don’t look like what the person expected you to be, usually comes staggering belief…are you sure? You can’t be serious? Wow I didn’t expect that?

(van Kerckhove, 2005, 11)

Section One: Introduction

A few years ago, a teacher recalled a conversation with her student who, when playing a game in which they had to name objects with colours asked her whether

“mixed was a [racial] colour”? That is an intriguing question. As a mixed-race person growing up, being mixed-race was always stuck in-between Black and White. You often did not have the choice, and were instead Black. However, I am constantly reminded that amongst many critical theorists, academic social scientific researchers, journalists and members of the public in both the UK and Australia, the notion of mixed-race identity has changed dramatically over the last 10 years. It is no longer conceived as stable, bounded or unitary. Thus, as the social world and our social identities are altered, so too must be the basis upon which claims to ‘know’, to

‘order’ or to research them are made (Pettigrew, 2007). From featuring a mixed-race family at the opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympics, to Barack Obama being the first bi-racial president of the United States, mixed-race people being recognised as being mixed race in a way that I, personally have never before experienced.

However, what does it mean to be mixed-race? More importantly, how should we emphasise our identity? These questions are vital to the way in which our identity develops, and the way in which our (mixed-race) identity develops.

Jacob Whittingham Is Mixed-Race A Colour? The Factors Involved in the Construction of the Mixed-Race Identity Chapter 1: Introduction (2014)

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This study aims to determine the factors involved in the identification of mixed-race young people. Is Mixed-Race A Colour? The Factors Involved in the Construction of

the Mixed-Race Identity is a cross-cultural comparative study of the racial identity of

Black/White mixed-race young people aged between 18–24 in Redfern, Australia and

Brixton, United Kingdom (UK). This thesis will look at the interactions that mixed-race young people have with their environments and their everyday lives, attempting to determine the effect that these interactions have on their identification and how they calibrate notions of mixedness.

Section Two: Thesis Plan

The arrangement of this thesis is as follows:

Chapter One: Introduction will explore the aim of the thesis, and define what is to be investigated, explain the motivation for the thesis, the research perimeters, the areas of study, and confirm the terminology used.

Chapter Two: Literature Review, examines research and publications based in the

United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom and Australia that discuss the notion of identity in race, where mixed-race people should sit in the racial spectrum, and the terminology that should be used to describe them.

Chapter Three: Methodology describes the techniques and research methods that are used to collect the data. It explains the processes used in the formulations of interview questions, and it presents explanations for the variables chosen. It also considers the ethical impact and implications that the research will have on the communities that are investigated.

Chapter Four: Analysis of Australian Results presents, describes, discusses and analyses the results taken from 20 semi-structured interviews with people aged 18–

24 conducted in Redfern, Sydney, Australia, between October 2009 and January

2010. It is an account of the data recorded in Redfern, looking at the everyday lives


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and choices and how they calibrate notions of mixedness. Included are summary tables and figures of results to illustrate patterns in the data.

Chapter Four: Analysis of British Results

This chapter will, in the same form as the previous chapter, focus on the results taken from 20 semi-structured interviews with people aged 18–24 from Brixton,

London, United Kingdom, between February and May 2010.

Chapter Five: Conclusion examines the similarities and differences between the two research environments, discusses the relationship between the results and the literature researched, and draws conclusions in relation to the hypothesis and the research questions. As a final point, it looks at the implications for the research in context of a wider body of knowledge, policy and practice.

Section Three: Thesis

This thesis intends to examine the factors significant in the construction of the identity of mixed-race young people, and will focus on investigative questions:

1. Do mixed-race people believe mixed-race is a definable social group?

This question intends to explore the question of whether mixed-people in Brixton can be described as having definable, visible and/or collective cultural similarities. If there is a group identity, this thesis asks whether the mixed-race group identity is fixed, or whether it is fluid and interchangeable. If it is interchangeable, what are the settings in which it adjusts, and how does it modify? This question also looks at the relevance of their parent’s specific cultural background on their identity, and the labels that they use to describe themselves.

2. What are the motivations for mixed-race people’s racial identification?

Are internal or external factors the central motivation for a person’s racial identification?

For internal motivations, to what extent does skin tone play a role in an individual’s identification? For external motivations, what is the affect of other people’s


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perceptions of mixed-race people on a person’s identification? This question explores the stereotypes that currently exist about mixed-race people and determines whether there is a relationship between these views and their identification.

3. To what effect does being mixed-race shape relationships with other people?

Does the identification of the mixed-race interviewee impact on their choice of friends and intimate partners, and what effect does their relationship with other racial and cultural groups in their environments have on their identity.

4. To what extent does race play a role in the overall identity of mixed-race young people?

Is race a significant component of their identity, or are there other, more crucial elements, such as culture, their nationality or their hobbies.

I had preconceptions of what I would find, and these are featured below. They were designed to assist with research, providing a basis with which to stimulate critical thought about the issues.

1. Is mixed-race a racial group?

My hypothesis was that in both environments, there would be a level of consciousness about mixed-race identity, but there would be no willingness to develop a sense of cohesion. In both environments there would be no mixed-race political movement.

Definitions of Black and White would still play a central role in the chosen identity of mixed-race young people, and it is the lack of understanding of this central issue that would lead to a failure to develop a group identity.



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The binary system of the Black and White race, and the relationship between Black and White people in their environment would affect young mixed-race people’s motivation for their racial identification.

I assumed that mixed-race young people would, in London feel a stronger identification towards their perceived understanding of Black culture, because a

Black Identity provides the necessary personality traits that manage growing up in south London. In London, mixed-race young people would associate with Blackness 38 because here, being Black (from my personal experience) represents an ability to be musical, to dance, to by physically strong (whether true or not) – all of which are important assets to young, disenfranchised people. In Australia, I envisaged that skin tone and social background would be the factors that play a significant role in their self-identification.

3. To what effect does being mixed-race shape relationships with other people?

It was my hypothesis that the attitude of other people in London would play a fundamental attitude in the identification of mixed-race young people. Negative stereotyped attitudes about mixed-race people would be accepted by those in

London. Since the White political elite, and indeed a significant element of the White population of both Australia and the United Kingdom would be unable to consider mixed-race people as anything other than ‘Black people’ (and significantly, not white), in effect, they will be perceived as Black mixed-race; in the majority of cases they would be related to as light-skinned Black people. The ‘one drop rule’, though, a relic of slavery and colonialism, would continue to play a central role in the attitudes of the institutions and minds of those in both Australia and Britain. Amongst Black people they would be considered Black in some circumstances, but mixed-race in others.

4. To what extent does race play a function in the overall identity of mixed-race young people?


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Mixed-race young people would show little confusion about their racial identity, and would be comfortable with their position in their respective environments. Race would play a significant role in their lives, but will not dominate it.

Section Four: The Motivation for the Thesis’ Subject Matter

The direction for this research is borne out of both personal and professional reasons.

The fundamental reason for choosing the direction of this thesis is based on a determination to make sense of my journey, as a mixed-race individual (Hall, 2001).

With a Jamaican father, and an English mother, I grew up in an environment during the 1980s and 1990s where the people I interacted with assumed that mixed-race people were deeply confused individuals. I have listened to people say that mixedrace people “are f*cked in the head”, “lost”, and “not right”. Names that I have heard being used to describe other mixed-race people include ”Oreo”, “Heinz fifty seven”, “pick n’mix” and “no nation”. These labels indicate that those who use the terms share the view that mixed-race people are in a permanent stage of, at best uncertainty, and at worst, denial (Rockquemore and Laszloffy, 2005). This is echoed by films such as Spike Lee’s Get On The Bus, 39 or the BBC2 documentary series Mixed

Race Britain (BBC, 2011), which both came to the conclusion that mixed-race people are ultimately living in two worlds, and they fit into neither.

Whilst always feeling an obligation to identify as mixed-race, since I began to value and comprehend racial difference at 11 years old, I acknowledged closer association with my Black heritage. The relationship between this racial identification and my education, career and lifestyle choices as both a teenager and an adult have been powerful, extending into many aspects. When I consider the university modules I selected, my dress sense, my role models and my musical tastes, my racial identification has played a central role. Perhaps the best example of this was the book I published in 2010, What Being Black Is and What Being Black Isn’t

(Whittingham, 2010). Written in the period in which London’s youth-on-youth


15

murders were receiving national media coverage (2008–10), the book considered the stereotypes that are currently held by Black people about other Black people, and suggested constructive alternatives. Issues discussed included the ‘N’ word,

Black-on-Black crime, and single parent families. Such a project is an indication of the security that I feel when discussing issues that I am aware, through personal experience are deeply sensitive among some Black people. I would argue that an author who identified as White would have found it difficult to discuss such issues without encountering intense opposition from British or American Black social commentators.

Part of this identification is based on numerous experiences when I have been treated, described as, or related to, as Black. This includes being referred to as Black by friends who are both White and Black, and been stopped and searched by the police and been told that I fit the description of the suspect, “a Black male”.

However, I have also had contradictory experiences. I recall a conversation with a

Black woman in 2004 about the ‘N’ word, and being told that “I did not qualify” to discuss the issue.

40 In 2005 I was arrested in Ghana and was told on my release that because “this is what happens to Black people in England all the time”, I should refrain from feeling any frustration. The assumption in both situations is that I am

White (or non-Black).

Consequently, I often feel unwilling to assert my identity, unless given ‘permission’ from those present, to do so. In an attempt to understand the basis of the perceptions that Londoners have of mixed-race people, in 2005 I completed a paper entitled, Re-Mix’d: The Social Construction of Mixed-race Young People for a Youth and Community PGC dissertation. It conducted brief interviews with 50 White and 50

Black people from the London borough of Lambeth, investigating their perceptions of mixed-race young people.


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In part the conclusion of this report suggested was that there are widely held stereotypes of mixed-race people that are frequently expressed to their mixed-race friends and relatives. I therefore felt that it was important to determine how mixedrace young people respond to these perceptions and the extent that these perceptions affect mixed-race people’s identity (Ali, 2003). This would help me to understand what other mixed-race people are experiencing, and hopefully provide lessons that I can utilise to improve the confidence that I feel in my choice of identification.

The other motivation for the research was to add to the body of research available to those professions working with mixed-race young people, improving tools available to them when dealing with issues of identity.

I have worked as a Youth and Community worker since October 2003, and have been based in areas of London highly populated by ethnic minorities. This has meant that a high proportion of those young people that I work with have been mixed-race, and more specifically, White/Black mixed-race.

In 2007, I took a group of young people to a theatrical production at the Hackney

Empire focussing on the dynamics of race in London. Its main characters were young

British people with Nigerian, Caribbean and mixed-race backgrounds, and the performance looked at their inability to adequately represent their culture without a sense of shame being attached to it. The event concluded with the Nigerian character understanding the importance of his identity, and the young West Indian girl shaping her Caribbean identity in a manner that she was comfortable with.

However, the mixed-race girl’s character displayed an inability to come to terms with her identity issues, and she remained confused about where she positioned herself from a racial perspective. It is also a perception that exists in much of the literature that discusses mixedness. Many books and articles that I have read on the topic either suggest that being mixed-race is problematic (Okitikpi, 2005; Olumide, 2002); and/or emphasise a person’s racial identity, without an overt consideration of their


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gender, ethnicity, sexuality, class and geographical location as an equally important aspect of their personality (Prevatt-Goldstein, 1999; Small, 1986).

I am concerned that the portrayal of mixed-race young people as confused individuals in the media and literature is having a negative impact on their ability to develop their identity. Identity studies have consistently showed that racial or ethnic identity development directly correlates with self-esteem, self-concept, and academic achievement, and models offered by Berndt (2002), and Bosma and

Kunnen (2001) suggest that diffused individuals may lack role models for relevant identity formation.

This negative perception towards mixed-race young people is also visible where I work, in the way in which I have observed young people interacting with each other, and discussing mixed-race identity, particularly noticeable among young Black people (Prodan-Bhalla, 2007).

Statistics show that mixed-race people are over-represented in the care system, over-represented in the Youth Criminal Justice system, and over-represented in the young people who are excluded from schools, and whilst there are a number of factors for this, I would argue that British attitudes towards mixed-race people, represented by films, books, and also people’s attitudes, play a part in this. A study by Berndt (2004) found that individuals who do not have positive interactions with friends may experience high levels of conflict and are often motivated by self‐ interest. There have also been a number of studies including those from Bagwell

(2001) and DuBois (2002) linking poor peer relations in childhood to poor school adjustment, psychological health, loneliness, and problem behaviours later in childhood and adolescence.

I am aware that the labelling from others during my life has impacted my ability to self-identify when I was young, and as a consequence, if there is negative impact on


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the identity of the young people that I work with, it is imperative that a means of tackling this is developed, and implemented into my practice (Robinson, 2005).

41

The population of mixed-race people went over 1 million for the first time (UK

Census, 2011), and is a group larger than Black Caribbean or Black African people

(ibid.), and therefore is an increasingly more visible demographic, I believe that the ability for mixed-race people to determine their identity is more important than ever. This study will aim to improve the tools available to those practitioners who work with young people, and make them aware of the key issues in their identity formation (Rockquemore and Laszloffy, 2005: 2).

Section Five: Research Perimeters

This project will use ethnography as the primary research tool because I intend to evolve the design of the research as it progresses using an iterative-inductive approach; it will conduct detailed interviews with other people, aiming to convey rich, sensitive and credible stories; look at how people feel about their identity in the context of their communities, and with some analysis of wider structures about the subject matter; and examine reflexivity, my own role in the construction of social life as ethnography unfolds. Unstructured interviews and archival research based on the readily available literature on mixed-race people has acted as other sources for primary and secondary sources of data. The data will then be subjected to critical analysis. An examination of the methods are explored in Chapter Three:

Methodology.

This thesis will research Black/White mixed-race young people only. This decision is based on two factors. As previously stated, this project is based on both a desire to help provide answers to the matters of self-identification that I have grappled with since my childhood, and as a practical means to improve the manner in which practitioners work with mixed-race young people. Since I am Black/White mixedrace, and the majority of the young people that I interact with professionally are

Black/White mixed-race, in order for the thesis to provide the most functional and


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valuable data, it is logical that a Black/White mix is solely focussed on, given the limitations on time and resources.

Secondly, researching all mixes could provide inconsistent data, since the relationship between different mixes would result in very different dynamics. For example, I would argue that the journey to self-identification experienced by a

Korean/Mexican young person will be very different from a Black/White young person, since an influencing factor in one’s identity is based on the present and historical relationships that exist between the racial groups featured.

I chose a cross-comparative project looking at two sites. In the decision to use this means of research, potential problems were identified which are briefly considered below, and further discussed in the Conclusion. A potentially hazardous aspect of a cross-comparative project lay in the choice of the secondary research site, which became vital in my ability to answer the research questions. A site would have to be selected that had similar features to Brixton to provide a means of analysing and comparing the data, but that was different enough to provide a means to offer a comparison in the coping strategies and cultural responses to similar situations.

An equally significant problem in choosing a cross-comparative project is the reduction in time spent on analysing data in either Brixton or Sydney. The division of time could hinder the development of vital ideas, passages of thought or conclusions which could be fundamental to adequately answering the research questions. Again, this is highlighted in the Conclusion.

However, it was decided that the advantages of using a cross-comparative approach outweighed the disadvantages. Most obviously, because it serves as an effective antidote to unwitting parochialism throughout this research. A cross-comparative method is used in research to counteract naïve universalism, the tendency to assume that research findings from one context are universally applicable. By using this method, I am able to understand the antecedents of different social, political


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and racial phenomena, and the impact of macro-level structures, and micro-level processes and phenomena, notions that cannot be adequately addressed without a comparative approach and without variation in the independent and the dependent variables.

The second reason for choosing to study two sites is that it will help me to become more aware and knowledgeable about other contexts, and therefore help me to better understand the British context of mixed-race issues, and its particularities. As political scientist Giovanni Sartori said: “He who knows only one country knows none” (Sartori, 1991). Thus, comparative research has the “capacity to render the invisible visible” (Blumler and Gurevitch, 1995).

The concepts and phenomena of being mixed-race, the relationship between White people and Black people, the impact and effect of different ethnicities will not mean the same thing in different countries and at different points in time.

Lastly, expanding the database of empirical observations across time, and across political and cultural contexts, will help me to identify both the range of variations within these concepts, and also possible core meanings. Further, comparative research is a powerful tool that enables me to build and test hypotheses, such as the assumptions about the causes, conditions and consequences of mixed-race issues.

The more sites investigated in different contexts, the firmer our conclusions can be with respect to how universal the phenomena are and how far we can generalize

(ECREA, 2011).

Selection of case study sites: a maximum of two sites were chosen to be research candidates, based on consultation with my supervisors, and an examination of the research necessary to successfully complete an analysis of the hypothesis. It was agreed that to study a third site would have been impractical in the time frame given for the conclusion of this project, and it is my contention that the comparison between two sites is fully capable of testing the hypothesis.


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The UK was chosen as a research site because the emphasis for the research was based on improving skills for working with young people who are, or are around, mixed-race young people in the UK.

A number of sites were considered as the second field location based on the criteria listed below:

 The site had to be English speaking, since I speak no other languages.

 In order to draw a parallel with the UK, the White European population needed to be above 50% and needed to have a considerable effect on the political development of the country since colonisation. This was necessary in order to draw a parallel with the UK, a nation which is dominated by White European peoples.



The mixed-race people being studied needed have a historical relationship with

European colonialism and/or slavery. Since the definition of and distinction between a Black race and White race was created and developed in slavery and

British colonies during colonialism, and since the definition and interpretation of

Black and White is central to the assertions made in my thesis, this is an essential condition.



Most importantly, there needs to be a sizeable White/Black mixed-race population to study.

The environment that most ideally met the criteria needed for the site was Australia.

Uganda, Ghana and Sudan were considered because of the significant White

European settlement during the colonial period, however the levels of intermixing were not enough to be tested sufficiently.

42 Whilst nations such as Kenya, Zimbabwe and Algeria (Ashcroft et al., 2003) have a history of significant intermixing with could have been investigated, all countries were, at the time of writing (2008) experiencing significant political or social unrest, and as a result, personal safety could have been compromised whilst carrying out the research.

43 South Africa has an estimated 4.5 million citizens who are defined as ‘Coloured’ which is 9% of its population (South


22

Africa Statistics, 2011).

44 However, after initial research, it became clear that although most Coloureds in KwaZulu-Natal are the result of British and Zulu heritage; many in Cape Town and elsewhere have ancestry from Indonesia, Malaysia, India,

Madagascar, Mozambique, Mauritius, St Helena, Sri Lanka and a number of

European countries including Portugal, the Netherlands, Germany, France (Adhikari,

2005). This would jeopardise the results, which only sought to research Black/White relationships.

Brazil’s mixed-race population would have been, from a personal perspective intriguing to research, however linguistic issues would have been a barrier to research as my ability to speak Portuguese is poor. The United States of America was also seen as a viable candidate. However, a considerable amount of research has been conducted in and on mixed-race issues and people had there. Though there are still a number of issues that remain unexplored, I felt that it was necessary to focus on an environment that thus far, has received less attention and research in respect of its mixed-race population. Additionally, the UK and the USA share some

(though not all) similar attitudes towards their respective mixed-race communities.

As a consequence of the dominant position that American culture presently holds in politics, advertising, food and cinema, many attitudes towards mixed relationships and mixed-race children in the UK have been shaped by the US. I wanted to investigate a site that had an independent attitude towards this subject.

The following section is an explanation of the features that established Australia as the lead candidate for study with the UK.



Australia is an English speaking country which removes barriers to communication and data collection. This also means that printed materials published by

Australian authors can be understood without the need to translate. Whilst many

Aborigines are familiar with specific terms and words based on their Indigenous languages, the majority speak English (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001: 35–

6).

45


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

According to the Australian census of 2006, those who identify as having English,

Scottish or Irish heritage totals at 48.29%, with a further 4.5% claiming German ancestry (ibid.). Therefore, the country has a sizeable White Northern European population.

 British explorers, citizens and the British government have been involved in

Australia since 1788. Since this period, racial distinctions between those of

Aboriginal descent and those of European descent have played a significant role in the social and political expansion of the island. Details are explained in greater detail later in the chapter.

 There has been significant intermixing between Australia’s Aboriginal and White people (Reynolds, 1996: xi), producing a substantial number of people who are defined in this thesis as mixed-race (Australian Social Trends, 2000). Detailed records kept during the Stolen Generation means that it is possible for individuals to trace their heritage with considerable precision. Hence, finding candidates with

White and Black heritage is, in Australia reasonably undemanding.

Section Six: Areas of Study

This section looks at the similarities and differences in the relationship between mixed-race people and the state, in the United Kingdom and Australia.

In Australia, attitudes towards mixed-race people have been shaped by the British attitude towards the Indigenous population. When the British colonised Australia, they attempted a full-scale extermination of the Aboriginals (Dewar, 1992). By 1901, there were just 100,000 Aborigines remaining (Kieman, 2007: 250) from approximately 1.25 million in 1788 (Evans, 2007: 10–12).

46 As the Chief Protector of

Aborigines of the Port Phillip District, George Brown, stated, “Every acre of their native soil will shortly be so leased out and occupied as to leave them, in a legal view, no place for the sole of their feet” (Kieman, 2007). This continued from 1893 onwards, where most Aborigines were transferred to reserves, primarily to keep

White people and Aborigines separate.


24

When it became clear that genocide was not a practical approach to the elimination of the Aborigines, the government applied a different method to the Indigenous problem. Between, 1869 and 1975, the government tried to breed mixed-race children as an attempt to fade out Aborigines and its culture from the landscape

(Broome, 2002: 23). This was done by forcibly removing mixed-race children of

Australian or Torres Strait Islander descent and White European descent from their families and taking them to specific units.

To make this process efficient, the 1936 Native Administration Act re-classified mixed-race people, and it attempted to provide rigorous margins for the categorization of race in Australia. Aboriginal people were classified as those with more than 50% of Aboriginal blood in them. Half-castes were defined as those whose mother was a full Aboriginal, a quadroon was one-quarter Aboriginal, and an octoroon was one-eighth Aboriginal (Native Administration, 1936: 2–3). The definition in some states extended to 1/128 th caste (Kinnane, 2002: 310). Such definitions would impact on a range of social, political and economic rights. Detailed records were preserved of mixed-race people’s parental background, and all marriages involving Aboriginal people had to be approved by the Commissioner of

Native Affairs. Racial classifications were presented through the use of identity cards.

Children who were light skinned and considered ‘nearly white’ were sent to special schools. In Perth for example, The Sister Kate’s Children’s Home (originally known as the Quarter Caste Children’s Home for Nearly White Children) reflected its eugenic function in ‘rescuing nearly White’ children and preparing them for absorption into the White ‘community’ [being placed in an environment that had little/no evidence of Aboriginal culture]. Children in the area who were considered too dark to be absorbed were sent to a different school, named Moore River Settlement (Haebich,

2000: 280).

The exact number of children removed is unknown. The Bringing Them Home report quotes at least 100,000, stating that one in three were removed (Commonwealth of


25

Australia, 1997). Historian Robert Manne estimates 20,000 to 25,000 children which he bases on the Australian Bureau of Statistics from 1994 (ibid.). Writers such as

Keith Windschuttle have disputed this figure, and suggest a much lower amount

(Windschuttle, 2002).

The Australian government has since sought to reconcile this period in its history by establishing an inquiry into the Stolen Generation, culminating in the Bringing Them

Home report – the national inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait

Islander children from their families, which was completed in 1997 (Commonwealth of Australia, 1997). This research revealed that almost one in every five (19%) of inquiry witnesses who spent time in an institution reported having been physically assaulted there (ibid.).

This practice ended in 1975, 47 and prior to that, in 1967, a referendum allowed

Aboriginals for the first time to be included as humans in the census (Australian

Bureau of Statistics, 2001a).

48 All censuses since 1981 have used the question: ‘Is the person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin?’ to determine Indigenous status

(ibid.), 49 and at present mixed-race people with Aboriginal heritage have the right to determine their own racial identity.

In the United Kingdom, there have been significant variations in the manner in which mixed-race people have been related to and treated by the government. During slavery, in both the West Indies and Africa, the ‘one drop rule’ was the most pervasive: the notion that one drop of Black blood (or Black ancestry) meant that you were legally Black. Some mixed-race slaves however, were given their freedom, or sent to receive an education. As a result, during colonialism, lighter-skinned Black people often received better jobs than their darker-skinned counterparts. This practice of pigmentocracy or colourism is still present and is most prominent in the

Caribbean and parts of West Africa (Lynn, 2008).


26

In Britain, many of the British Black role models and celebrities through history have been mixed-race: Mary Seacole; Samuel Coleridge-Taylor; Daley Thompson; Arthur

Wharton; Ms Dynamite; Alesha Dixon; and Lewis Hamilton, who has been hailed as the first Black winner of the Formula Championship, even though most of the British public are aware of the fact that his mother is White British. In the US, Halle Berry was announced by the British media as the first Black woman to win an Oscar

Academy Award for Best Actress, although she has a White mother, and Tiger

Woods’ triumph as the “first Black golfer to win the US Masters” (BBC News online

13 April 1997) was in spite of the fact that he is only one-quarter Black. Not only is this an indication of the power of the one-drop rule, but it is evidence that the

British state has had pre-determined notions of race and the racial categorisation of mixed-race people – namely that they are Black.

A consequence of the racism perpetrated by White people against Black and mixedrace people, has been the stigmatisation of sexual relations between White and

Black people. In 1958, a Gallup poll found that 71% of respondents disapproved of mixed marriages, and only 13% approved (Tizard and Phoenix, 2001: 23). Whilst it could be argued that some attitudes have changed, the stigma has not disappeared entirely. Tizard and Phoenix’s 1993 publication, Black, White or Mixed Race reflected on a conversation with a woman who was quoted as saying, “Disgusting, I don’t know how a decent woman could let a blackie touch her” (ibid.). “I’m not racist but two cultures shouldn’t mix…the half-castes…they’re a breed apart” (Ali, 2003: 1) were the feelings that a 56 year-old white working class woman from London expressed in Suki Ali’s report on British attitudes to mixed parentage children

(2003).

50 This is also expressed in popular culture where in the popular comedy sketch show, Harry Enfield and Chums (1996), working class White woman Waynetta

Slob expresses her desire for a brown baby. This scene highlights the lingering stereotype about mixed families and their position as part of a wider popular narrative: the undesirable race mixing taking place between lower class White women and hypersexual Black men (Caballero et al., 2008).


27

Some scholars such as Tizard and Phoenix have speculated that this stigmatisation could be responsible for the over-representation of children from mixed-race families in the care system (Tizard and Phoenix, 2001: 56). Despite being only 3% of all children, mixed-race young people are 8% of all children in care. In some London boroughs, they are 16% of all Looked-After children and young people. This indicates that there is a still a suggestion that mixed families and mixed young people are either inherently problematic or are constituted as a problem (Peters, 2010).

However, in both Australia and the United Kingdom there have been significant developments in the past 10 years that have forced the inhabitants of both nations to re-assess their positions on the racial identity of the mixed-race people.

In Australia in June 1992, the High Court’s landmark ruling recognised that land possessed by the British Crown in 1788 could be challenged by Aborigines, and that native titles would be upheld (High Court of Australia, 1992). This provided means for gaining compensation for lost land (Commonwealth Consolidated Acts, 1993) however, this has also led to a renewed debate into the definition of Aboriginality, as many conservative journalists questioned the motivations of many Australians who were now identifying themselves as Aboriginal. Since this ruling, it would appear

(albeit from an external perspective) that the Australian state possesses a more progressive attitude towards Aboriginal rights. In 1998, the first ever National Sorry

Day was held in which Aborigines remember and celebrate their culture, and for

White Australia to reflect on the policy of assimilation.

51 On 13 February 2008, the then prime minister, Kevin Rudd, apologised to the Stolen Generation for actions that previous administrations committed towards the Aboriginal and mixed-race people (The Guardian, 2008). Then on 13 February 2010, the annual National Rugby

League (NRL) All Stars Game took place for the first time between the Indigenous All

Stars and the NRL All Stars. The Indigenous All Stars won 16-12 and it has been held annually ever since (The Sunday Telegraph, 2010).


28

Whilst in Britain, the introduction of the mixed-race category into the UK 2001 census has meant that mixed-race people have a variety of options in their identification, and signified that the British government had now acknowledged that mixed-race was a racial category, challenging the perception of the ‘one-drop rule’.

Then, in 2010, the inauguration of Barack Obama to the presidency in the United

States, led to a re-examination in the UK of what being Black means, and whether an individual can inhabit two or three racial groups. It is because of these developments in nations that have histories in which racial divisions between Black and White have been so absolute, that the present climate is ideal in which to explore the notion of identity and its development amongst mixed-race people.

Redfern 52 in Australia and Brixton in the UK were chosen as communities to study because of their parallels, providing greater opportunities for comparisons when examining results. Both are inner city urban areas; have a history of community activism; a history of perceived police persecution; a history of perceived state under-investment; and a history of social unrest. They face similar social issues; have significant ethnic minority populations and proportionately higher Black populations than the rest of the county; and both environments are currently in the process of gentrification. These parallels serve as an opportunity for comparison. It must be noted that there are some differences between the communities: Redfern is a smaller area, and Brixton has a higher percentage of Black residents.

Brixton is based in the London borough of Lambeth, 6 kilometres south of central

London. It is a mainly residential area with a street market on Electric Avenue, and shops between Stockwell Road and Acre Lane, and has a population of 65,000.

Brixton is bordered by Stockwell, Clapham, Streatham, Camberwell, Tulse Hill and

Herne Hill (Lambeth Council). At present, 31% of the population is of Black

African/Black African-Caribbean descent, 57.2% are White (UK Census 2011a) and

4% are mixed-race (ibid). There has also been recent immigration from Portugal,

Eritrea, Ethiopia and Poland. Since the 1960s, Brixton has been characterised by its

Black British residents. It has been the feature of a number of songs, films and has


29

been visited by several prominent Black figures, including Nelson Mandela, Mike

Tyson and Muhammad Ali. It is home to several Black African and Black West Indian churches, a Nation of Islam office, and has a history of Black political activism.

Despite gentrification in parts of Brixton, the area also remains controversially characterized by poverty, single parent families, gang culture and drug dealing.

Brixton remained underdeveloped until the 1850s when Angell Town housing development was built. By 1925, many houses were transformed into flats, and the area transformed from a middle-class suburb into a working-class area. During World

War II, Brixton was heavily bombed, leading to a severe housing crisis and urban decay. This resulted in a programme of slum clearances and the building of a number of large council estates, namely Stockwell Park Estate, Myatts Field, Angell Town,

Loughborough, Moorlands, St Matthew’s. These estates account for a large part of the Brixton residence (Lambeth Council).

The late 1940s and 1950s saw an influx of immigrants from the West Indies to

Britain, and many of the first were temporarily housed in Clapham, Stockwell and

Brixton. Since this period, successive waves of Black African Caribbean and Black

Africans moved to or around Brixton.

In April 1981, the first of three riots took place in Brixton during a time of high unemployment, poor quality housing, and a growing tension between the police and the Black residents in the area (Metropolitan Police, 2012). As a result of a rise in street robbery, the District Commander in Lambeth instituted a plain clothes operation (Operation Swamp 81) in which a significant number of mainly black youths were stopped and searched, fuelling resentment. It is estimated that almost

950 people were stopped and searched in five days (ibid.).

On Friday 10 April 1981, it is alleged that a police constable spotted a Black youth named Michael Bailey (who had been stabbed) running away from three other youths who had allegedly stabbed him (Waddington, 1992). He was stopped by the


30

police, who did not appear to be providing the medical attention that the victim needed. The police called for an ambulance, however, before the ambulance arrived, residents drove him to St Thomas’ Hospital, where he died shortly after. Rumours quickly spread that the police had not provided the necessary medical help and had tried to prevent him being taken for treatment.

Riots broke out around 4pm the following day when two police officers stopped and searched a mini cab on Railton Road. Crowds then reportedly gathered on Brixton

Road and by 5pm the situation had escalated into a riot (Metropolitan Police, 2012).

It is estimated that 5,000 people were involved, 56 police vehicles and 61 private vehicles were destroyed, 28 buildings were burnt down and 117 were damaged or looted. 299 police and approximately 65 civilians were injured, with 82 arrests made

(ibid.).

Subsequent riots have taken place: in 1985, when the police shot Dorothy Groce, a

Brixton resident in an attempt to arrest her son; in 1995 after the death of Wayne

Douglass in police custody at Brixton police station; and in 2011 in response to perceived police aggression and the shooting of Mark Duggan by police in

Tottenham, north London (The Guardian online, 2011).

Redfern is based in the Sydney local government area, 3 kilometres south of the city centre. It has a population of 11,482 (Australian Census, 2001) and it is mainly a residential area, with a police station, a number of churches from a variety of denominations, and the main shopping area is on Redfern Street. Redfern sits between Chippendale, Sydney Centre, Surry Hills, Moore Park, Darlington, Waterloo,

Everleigh and Alexandria.

Redfern is an area considered to be one of the most recognisable urban communities for Aboriginal people in Australia because of its history of Aboriginal activism; high number of Aboriginal community groups; and its high proportion of


31

Aboriginals, in comparison with the rest of Australia (Australian Census Quick Stats,

2001).

At present, 41.6% live in public housing (ibid.), and 35% of all people living in the area were born overseas, with only half speaking English at home. The other significant ethnic groups living in the area are Chinese, Russian, Greek and a small

Arabic population (ibid.). In the last 10 years, the area has become gentrified, with many more affluent residents moving into the area.

Aborigines began dying from diseases with the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, and they gradually moved further away from Sydney Cove (Randwick Municipal Council,

1985). In 1883, the Aboriginal Protection Board, following an isolationist and protectionist policy, established reserves for Aboriginal people in New South Wales

(NSW). As a result, in 1900, an area called La Perouse 14 kilometres from Sydney’s city centre became the only reserve for Aboriginals in the city (ibid.).

During the 1920s, with the possibility of employment as fettlers at the Everleigh

Railway Workshop together with cheap rented accommodation, Indigenous people came from the surrounding areas of New South Wales to Sydney. When the Great

Depression took effect in the 1930s and jobs grew scarce, many Aboriginals formed makeshift camps around La Perouse. By the 1940s, more affluent residents in the area asked Randwick Council to move the squatters, and as a result, many moved to

Redfern (Goodall, 1996). With a number of factories employing local people, and over 12,000 Aborigines living in the area by 1965, Redfern continued to become a focal point for Aboriginals, and became a location for a number of civil rights protest meetings, rallies and activism, as well as alcoholism and criminal activities.

The 1967 National Referendum, which provided Australian citizenship rights to

Indigenes, meant that more Aboriginals migrated from the rural areas of New South

Wales and Queensland to Sydney to find jobs and education. This, with the addition of a series of evictions and the general discrimination involved in the private housing


32

market led to serious overcrowding in the area during the 1970s, and eventually, squatting in empty houses (Randwick Municipal Council, 1985).

In response to the arrest of some of these squatters in 1972, a group of Aboriginals formed The Aboriginal Housing Company (AHC), the first Aboriginal community housing provider. They acquired a grant from the Whitlam government, and used the money to restore some of the vacant houses in the area. As a result of this housing project, the Aboriginal population of Redfern tripled between 1976 and

1981. Initially, as a result of its building programmes, the company generated local employment. However, when the Fraser Coalition government was elected in 1975, and terminated capital works funding to the project, the housing area which became known as The Block fell into disrepair. By 1994, although a change in federal government led by Bob Hawke and Paul Keating allowed for the AHC to own all buildings in The Block, heroin had begun to permeate the area, causing crime in the area to increase, and derelict houses to be occupied by drug dealers and addicts

(ibid.).

By 2005, much of the housing was demolished with plans for redevelopment under the Pumuluuy Project which were approved in 2009 (ABC 2010b). Despite this, it is still an area which many Aboriginal people congregate and where a number of civil rights meetings are still held.

On 14 February 2004, the death of an Indigenous Australian, 17-year-old Thomas ‘TJ’

Hickey led to riots in Redfern in which many Aboriginals participated. As the teenager rode towards his home on his bicycle, he was chased by the police and allegedly lost control, leading to him being impaled by a 2.5 metre high metal fence, killing him. The Hickey family dispute the police version, and witnesses say they saw the police clip Thomas’ bicycle, propelling him on the fence (Abernathy, 2004: 71).

When news of the incident began to spread, residents began gathering outside the local police station, throwing bottles, bricks and Molotov cocktails at the building.


33

The violence escalated in a full-scale riot which lasted until the next morning. One car was torched and 40 police officers were injured. Since the riots, the Hickey family claim that the police have continued to harass them (The Telegraph, 2011).

The brief history of both sites indicates that there are a number of similarities between the two environments, which provide an ideal setting for comparative research.

Section Seven: Terminology and Meaning

Inasmuch as visual imagery affects race, racialised thoughts, and perceptions, language is a significant medium through which we express and convey racial identities and stereotypes (Chavez, 2001: 35). Language helps shapes (mixed) racial formation through affording common idioms and facilitating discussion (Omi and

Winant, 1994). It is fraught, though, with multiple meanings and situation- dependent (mis)understandings (Wright, 2003). In different times and places words take on different derogatory connotations (Wu, 2002: 22), therefore, this section states terminology used in this thesis, its meaning, what it relates to, and the reasoning for the preference.

For the purposes of this thesis, the definitions of Black and White are those people who self-identify as Black or as White. I am aware that the terms Black and White have varied over time, and that they are deeply flawed, contentious and hugely slippery. Indeed the boundaries of Blackness and Whiteness are themes and ideas that will be challenged in this thesis, including in the Literature Review. However it is necessary in this thesis to have a term of reference on which to base the research.

Additionally, since both terms are still in frequent use, and that racial issues, from my experience as a Youth and Community worker, are regularly discussed in the lives of young people in Brixton, it is necessary to present a starting point with which to measure the role it plays in their interactions, and their identification.


34

To avoid any confusion when using the word African or Black, the use of the word

Black does not include people of North African descent.

53 To distinguish North

African people from African people from West, Central, East and South Africa, the word ‘Black-‘ is prefixed, i.e. Black American (instead of African-American), Black

African Caribbean, Black African Black British etc. Additionally, the word Aboriginal and Black are used interchangeably throughout this thesis.

Mixed-race is the term that is used by the majority of mixed-race people that I associate with, and thus feels most natural and acceptable to use in this thesis (Katz,

1996: 4). Again, although I am aware that using a racial term is problematic as it may enforce perceptions of race as fixed and naturalised categories (Parker & Song,

2001), it is the term which most aptly applies to the issues that the research will focus on. There are several terms used within the academic literature including

‘mixed-race’, ‘multiple heritage,’ ‘mixed parentage’, and 'mixed’. Although these terms are beneficial as they do not use race, they still pertain negative connotations.

‘mixed parentage’ and ‘mixed’ still imply and reproduce racialisation, and mixed heritage emphasises an essentialist notion of cultural heritage which is complex and intermixed, not genetically inherited (Tizard & Phoenix, 2002). Therefore the term mixed race is used as a provisional and imperfect term to define the individual’s identity, rather than as a definitive term (Kingham, 2010)

The term mixed-race will be applied to an individual with one White parent, and one

Black parent. Their parents will be identified based on a combination of their identification, and popular folk concepts of race. Therefore, a person described as being mixed-race would embody, in genealogical terms, two distinct groups. Hence, the degree of agency afforded to a mixed-race individual is contingent in part upon local folk ‘readings of their phenotype’ in relation to systems of categorisation and classification that may reinforce eighteenth- and nineteenth-century race science fiction. By phenotype, I mean the visible physical markers of genetically inherited traits such as skin colour, hair texture and colour, eye shape and colour, general facial features, and body structure (Ifekwunigwe, 2002: 46).


35

As a corollary, in my discussion of appearances and racial identity, when I say a young person ‘looks Black’ or ‘looks White’, I am referring to those physical traits that are typically associated with Black people, and those that are typically associated with White people.

Inverted commas or ‘scare’ quote marks are used for words that might be a reflection of words that are offensive in their use, but are most able to communicate the point that I am trying to make.

I am aware that the use of this terminology may, in some ways, reify the existing categorisation system, however in this instance, the discussion of the social reality of mixed-parentage children necessitates their usage at this point (Rockquemore and

Laszloffy, 2005: xiii). Most social scientists and biologists agree that race is a social, as opposed to a biological, construct. As the biological basis of race has crumbled, so too has the confidence in the categorisation rules and regulations. This has had an affect on the language that we use to describe race, placing much of it in a quagmire

(ibid.). In response to this, researchers of mixed-race issues have attempted to create new, more relevant terminology to describe mixed-race people.

Kerry Ann Rockquemore and Tracey Laszloffy observe that, “We currently exist at a historical moment of deep tension between our knowledge of the social construction of race and the persistence of racism in our society. Race is simultaneously real and unreal, both a figment of our collective imagination and a real constraint on opportunities and daily interactions” (ibid.). As a result, Christine

Hall explains, a fear remains among most authors that by using such racial terminology, we may be validating the concept of racial segregation that has misclassified us (Hall, 1996: 398).

My use of the term mixed-race or any other racially-based term should not suggest an endorsement of a biological view of race: I understand race to be socially


36

constructed, a child is not a literal mixture of two races, but instead, (s)he is the offspring of parents who are socially categorised as different races. This point is particularly important when referring to the Aboriginal participants, with whom terms such as ‘full descent’, ‘mixed descent’ relate to the policies enforced by the

Australian government until the 1970s, and are deeply offensive to many.

Aboriginals will be referred to as either Aboriginal, Indigenous or Black. Terms such as mixed-blood, half-breed, or references to breeding are based on the terminology used at a specific time in history. No offence is meant using those terms.

The term multi-racial is used to describe anyone with more than two racial backgrounds, for example someone who is Black, White and Asian. The term ethnic, or an ethnic group is used interchangeably with the term culture or cultural groups.

It will refer to people whose members identify with each other through a common heritage, including a shared language or dialect (Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983). Black and White when applied to human beings are capitalised because they are referred to as racial groups.

An individual is described as being ‘Aboriginal’ in this thesis not through the legal methods employed by the Australian government. In Australia, research has shown that legally, during a census, Australians are provided with the opportunity to choose how they wish to be identified. A ‘Report on a Review of the Administration of the

Working Definition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ in 1981 proposed that an Aboriginal individual is a person who is of Aboriginal descent (one has to able trace Aboriginal heritage), who identifies as Aboriginal, and who is accepted as such by the ‘community’ [meaning community groups in his/her vicinity] in which (s)he lives.

54 However, this thesis will be label Aboriginal people as those with four grandparents of Aboriginal ancestry. This is because this thesis aims to determine the feelings, beliefs and self-identification of interviewees who are mixed-race, and in order to determine this, it is necessary to create a distinction between those individuals who choose to have an Aboriginal identity based on the legal definition, and those individuals who would already be considered Aboriginal legally. Whilst I


37

recognise that this is highly contentious, Aboriginality is often a self-given label which, from a researcher’s perspective, can obscure any additional ancestry (English,

Scottish, German, etc). As an interviewer of mixed-race people, it is necessary to determine as much of the cultural, ethnic and racial ancestry of the individual in order to full understand and appreciate their motivations for their identity choice, which is necessary to answer the thesis’ investigative questions.

A Redfern resident in this thesis is classified as anyone who presently lives within the

2016 (Redfern) postcode. A Brixton resident is classified as anyone who lives within a

3 kilometre radius of Brixton London Underground Station. Some of participants may have previously resided in other areas, however they must be presently living within the area specified to be considered eligible for research.

Throughout the documentation of data (Chapter Three, Chapter Four and Chapter

Five), I have used terms such as ‘majority’ to infer a commonly held viewpoint across all young people and ‘minority’ to mean an opinion that was only expressed by a small number (Ipsos MORI, 2007).

The young people interviewed are referred to as participants, respondents, interviewees, candidates, and young people.

The term ‘identity’ is crucial to the manner in which this thesis reaches its conclusions. It is also an ambiguous and slippery term. It has been used (and perhaps overused) in many different contexts and for many different purposes, particularly in recent years. However, in this thesis, identity will be conceptualised according to the

Rockquemore’s and Laszloffy’s definition and connotation, in their 2005 publication,

Raising Biracial Children as “the way we understand ourselves in relation to others and our social environment” (Rockquemore and Laszloffy, 2005: 4).

Rockquemore and Laszloffy maintain that personal identities are constructed through a reflexive process involving interaction between our self and others in our


38

environment (families, schools, neighbourhoods, and houses of worship etc.) (ibid.).

Within the context of these interactions, they come to understand who they are in the world. Whilst people often choose to identify with their religion, ethnic group, cultural group or nationality, Rockquemore and Laszloffy argue that (despite it being a social construct), race is still a crucial factor in the determination of identity. With it, comes a variety of privileges and discrimination which affects employment opportunities, qualitative education, economic privileges and political co-optation.

Mixed-race individuals though, do not automatically fit into the set racial categories located in Western European societies, and theoretically, their racial identification can take a number of different paths. Hence, their sense of identity can be shaped by existing social categories that to some extent limit the perception of options that are available for racial definition (ibid.). For example, a mixed-race child who is raised solely by her Black parent and grows up in a predominantly Black neighbourhood may perceive that the only legitimate way she can identify herself racially is as Black.

While other possibilities exist, her immediate environment and her interactions with others in that environment may limit her perception of other possibilities, which influence how she will self-identify (ibid.: 5). Other mixed-race individuals may live with both parents whilst racially self-identify with only one of their birth parents.

At the heart of these interactions reside experiences with validation and rejection: whether a person’s racial identity is validated or rejected by others is communicated through various verbal and non-verbal messages. These messages reveal how others perceive them, as well as how they feel about what they perceive and, therefore, play a significant role in how they develop our racial self-understanding.

Summary

This chapter has set out the purpose of this thesis: to examine the interactions that mixed-race young people have with their environment, determine the affect that these interactions have on their identification, and understanding whether mixedrace people in Brixton can be defined as a racial group. This will be done by


39

conducting a cross-cultural comparative study of the racial identity of Black/White mixed-race young people aged between 18–24 in Redfern, Australia and Brixton,

United Kingdom.

The justifications for researching young people in Australia and the United Kingdom were explored, with the conclusion that both sites were English speaking, had a sizeable White population, and had a sizeable mixed-race population which shared a historical relationship with European colonialism and/or slavery. Whilst aspects of the investigative perimeters for this thesis have been set out in this chapter, such as the decision to base part of the project in Australia, the determination to focus on

Black/White mixed-race young people, and a discussion on terminology used, a full and exhaustive explanation of them is expressed in Chapter Three: Methodology.

The following chapter, Chapter Two: Literature Review, will consider literature that explores the issues that are focussed on in this research project. These include an examination of academic and non-academic literature that discusses theories around identity; dynamics that influence the identity of mixed-race people with one Black parent and one White parent; the significance of terminology amongst mixed-race people; and the attitudes and opinions of mixed-race people in the respective countries.

38 Blackness in this thesis is defined as undertaking the cultural stereotypes associated with being

Black. These include modes of dress, use of specific types of language, musical preferences etc.

39 Get On The Bus (Dir: Spike Lee) Columbia Pictures (1996).

40 Her argument being that I was not ‘fully-Black’, and therefore did not have a right to comment on the word.

41 At present, mixed-race populations are over-represented in the care system, over-represented in the

Youth Criminal Justice system, and over-represented in the young people who are excluded from schools. The outcomes based research offers evidence that the achievements of care leavers are far below those of others. For instance, among young people in care: only 13% get 5 A*–C grade GCSEs, compared with 47% of all young people; only 6% go into higher education; 20% of young women between 16–19 become pregnant within a year of leaving care and they are twice as likely to have their own children taken into care. Estimates suggest that 23% of the adult prison population has been in


40

care, and 45% of children in care have a mental health disorder in comparison to 10% in the wider population (Finlayson, 2009).

42 During extensive research, I was unable to source enough literary evidence on racial mixing in

Uganda, Ghana or Sudan, which would therefore make the project a greater challenge. The information found relating to miscegenation in Uganda was primarily related to male Indian migrants and Black

African females. The information in Ghana and Sudan was far less.

43 Algeria: Whilst political violence has subsided since 1992, more than 160,000 people have been killed since 1992 as a result of clashes between militants and government troops, and in some cases civilians.

Kenya: During the Kenyan elections which took place in December 2007, exit polls revealed the current prime minister, Raila Odinga, of the Orange Democratic Movement, had comfortably won the elections. However, when it was announced that his political opponent, Mwai Kibaki, had won, violence broke out between factions of both groups, which let to inter-ethnic violence, mainly against

Kikuyu of which Kibaki is a member. Attacks were also made by members of the Kikuyu again the

Luos and Kalenjin. It is estimated that 600 people died during this violence, with 600,000 displaced.

On 28 February 2008, both Kibaki and Odinga signed a power sharing agreement.

Zimbabwe: Some observers have described Zimbabwe as one of the worst humanitarian crises since independence. Despite Morgan Tsvangirai being implemented as prime minister, under the 29-year presidency of Robert Mugabe, it is experiencing a Cholera epidemic, an HIV epidemic which affects approximately 1.8 million and a drought which affects the entire region. Inflation is currently at 231 million %, the life expectancy has declined to 37 years, the lowest in the world, and infant mortality has climbed from 53 to 81 deaths per 1000 live births. Additionally, at the time of writing, many non-

African media agencies were banned from reporting in the country, many political opponents of Robert

Mugabe were still imprisoned, and violence against civilians and White landowners continue.

44 In the South African, Namibian, Zambian, Botswana and Zimbabwean context, the term Coloured

(also known as Bruinmense, Kleurlinge or Bruin Afrikaners in Afrikaans) refers to an heterogeneous ethnic group who possess ancestry from Europe, various Khoisan and Bantu tribes of Southern Africa,

West Africa, Indonesia, Madagascar, Malaya, India, Mozambique, Mauritius, and Saint Helena.

Besides the extensive combining of these diverse heritages in the Western Cape – in which a distinctive

'Cape Coloured' and affiliated Cape Malay culture developed – in other parts of Southern Africa, their development has usually been the result of the meeting of two distinct groups. Genetic studies suggest the group has the highest levels of mixed ancestry in the world, second only to the United States of

America.

45 Latest statistics show that only 1% of urban Aboriginal populations speak an indigenous language fluently.

46 Some estimates place the figure as as low as 250,000 inhabitants.

47 Indigenous Law Resources (accessed 06/07/12) http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/IndigLRes/stolen/stolen15.html#Heading58


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The practice of assimilation ended at different times in different states. In South Australia it ended in

1962, in Queensland it ended in 1965, in Victoria, it ended in 1970, in the Northern Territory it ended in 1973 and in New South Wales and the Australia Capital Territory it ended in 1975.

48 Prior to 1967, “it was a constitutional requirement to exclude Aboriginal people from official population figures” (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001).

The referendum of 1967 amended section 51 of the Australian constitution, stating that “The people of any race, other than the Aboriginal race in any State, for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws.” It also removed section 127 which stated that, “In reckoning the numbers of the people of the

Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, Aboriginal natives shall not be counted.”

49 Critics however point out that there is no option for the respondent of the Australian national census to state the complexities of their racial background

50 The BNP believe that a “drop of black”, makes them non-British. Their website recently had a discussion about whether Kelly Holmes, the mixed parentage double Olympic gold medallist should be allowed to remain in Britain. The verdict was simple: If you have black, you go back. Again, this is based on the premise that the mixed parentage children in question have features that prevent them from being able to ‘pass’ as white.

51 Australia’s Sorry Day Marked http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4581477.stm

(accessed

26/03/05).

52 Often referred to as ‘2016’ or ‘The Block’.

53 This refers to Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt.

54 Creative Spirits www.creativespirits.info (accessed 21/07/12).


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Chapter Two: Literature Review

That hoary metaphor, the tortured mulatto, is with us still… [in] literary culture. It is near the heart of…a hundred other stories.

(Spickard, 2001: 81)

Chapter Two: Literature Review will look at archival and published accounts of mixed-race European/Aboriginal and European/Black African experiences, government policy in relation to the mixed-race European/Aboriginal and

European/Black African people, existing studies on mixed-race communities in both

Australia and Britain, and theoretical literature on the concepts of identity (O’Reilly,

2012: 39).

This chapter reviews academic and non-academic literature that discusses the themes relevant to this thesis: theories around identity; dynamics that influence the identity of mixed-race people with one Black parent, and one White parent; the significance of terminology amongst mixed-race people; and the attitudes and opinions of mixed-race people in the respective countries.

Elements of this chapter will use extracts from commentary found in the mainstream media (television, films, journalists and websites) and social networks. This includes a review of social media sites, blogs, websites, podcasts and YouTube uploads. Data reviewed from such sources were done for three reasons: i) Through the proliferation of the use of social media, many opinions and experiences that had previously been unable to receive exposure now have the opportunity to do so. As a means of gaining an insight into the attitudes that exist amongst mixed-race people worldwide, and those non-mixed race people who share opinions on this subject, the Internet offers a valuable insight into opinions on mixed-race issues that exist outside of academia

(Sefton-Greene, 1999).

Jacob Whittingham Is Mixed-Race A Colour? The Factors Involved in the Construction of the Mixed-Race Identity Chapter 2: Literature Review (2014)

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ii) Whilst non-academic sources are likely to be biased and writing with limited attention to research, sources for review in this chapter were chosen explicitly for their prominence and the level of attention that they received

(both positive and negative), providing an indication of a sentiment that exists about specific issues relevant to the research questions. They represent the opinions and attitudes that exist in the region, nation or cities that are the focus of this thesis. iii) A growing number of academics, social commentators and politicians are utilising social networks, legitimising the use of the Internet as forms of valid information sharing. Examples of this include Black American scholar, Marc

Lamont Hill, who has a blog and regularly uploads video diaries onto YouTube,

American political scientist Norman Finkelstein who has a Twitter account, and others including Dr Boyce Watkins and Professor of Law at University of

Southern California, Jody Armour.

Whilst this thesis focuses on communities within the UK and Australia, it will also look at literature and information available in the United States. This is primarily because of the sizeable academic influence that the United States has on the western hemisphere; the rich wealth of data and research conducted on mixed-race people by US academics and historians; and the recent rise to prominence and historic US presidential election victory of Barack Obama in 2009. His position as both a Black and Biracial 55 president has renewed and transformed the discussion on mixed-race identity.

Additional literature will be included from Canadian indigenous writers who have discussed the topic of identity within mixed-race communities, and from South

Africa, which has a significant mixed-race population that has been politically active since the early 1900s.

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The first section of this chapter, Identity Formation examines at academic literature which has explored the factors involved in the formation of an individual’s identity.


44

This section initially considers the age at which one’s identity is formed, and then discusses the mechanisms involved in identity formation, first by looking at the impact of one’s environment (peers and family), and then looks at models which investigate the impact of race and ethnicity on people’s identity. It then concludes by looking at youth identity as a cultural phenomenon. Included are issues of individualism and consumer cultures.

The second section of this chapter, Interpretations of factors Involved in the Racial

Identification of Mixed-race People, concentrates on comments and opinions articulated mostly, but not exclusively by people who are Black/White mixed-race.

The majority of these assessments are expressed in a variety of formats, including biographies, academic research, academic commentary, films, websites and social network sites. The information in this section will be based on material from the

United Kingdom, Australia and the US.

Section Three: Mixed-race People’s Status in their Respective Settings examines the opinions held by the writers from Australia, Britain and USA about the racial position that they believe mixed-race people should occupy.

Section Four: The Dialogue in Terminology reflects on the discussion in literature and popular culture surrounding the labels that are associated with mixed-race people.

Section One: Identity Formation.

The research concerning identity development is vast and this section will provide an overview of the most prominent and relevant studies for this research. The academic discussion around identity begins with the debate about when identity is formed, or goes through its most significant phases in an individual’s life (Buckingham, 2008), that the formation of identity is “the problem‐solving behaviour aimed at eliciting information about oneself or environment in order to make a decision about an important life choice” (Bosma and Kunnen, 2001). There are arguments that suggest that this process takes place during adolescence when individuals begin to explore


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who they are, what they personally value and believe in, and what directions they will follow in life (Erikson, 1968); 57 whilst other arguments purport that the formation of one’s identity begins during emerging adulthood (Schwartz and

Montgomery, 2002), after adolescence, but before young adulthood (Arnett,

2000).

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However, an alternative approach argues that social identity should be seen not so much as a fixed possession, but as a social process, in which the individual and the social are inextricably related (Jenkins, 2004: Ch. 10). His premise is that individual selfhood is a social phenomenon, but that the social world is constituted through the actions of individuals. As such, identity is a fluid, contingent matter: it is something we accomplish practically through our continuous interactions and negotiations with other people. Therefore he concludes that it might be more appropriate to talk about identification rather than identity.

This leads to the discussion around the most significant environmental factors involved in one’s identification. The researched literature suggests that two sources of support appear to have the greatest influence on the individual: family and peers. Families stimulate and support the development of distinctive points of view; peers offer models, diversity, and opportunities for exploration of beliefs and values

(Bosma and Kunnen, 2001).

The relationships with one’s family are, typically, the first of an individual’s experiences, thus providing a foundation for identity formation. Consistent with

Erikson’s model of identity development, Bosma and Kunnen suggest that in the early stages of an individual’s socialisation (ibid.), parents help the individual develop a sense of trust by providing resources (e.g. food, water, shelter, etc.) and comfort when the individual enters the world.

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There are different models that stress the importance of friends in an individual’s identity. For example, Berndt argues that friends also play a critical role in


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influencing the important attitudes, behaviours and characteristics of an individual

(Berndt, 2002).

60 James Marcia discusses several decisions related to identity formation that are influenced by peers: whom to date; whether or not to break up with the person they are dating; when to have intercourse; the types of drugs they may use; and what career path to choose (Marcia, 1966).

61 An individual searching for identity can identify features of a friend’s identity to explore and perhaps add to the individual’s own belief system.

Many other researchers argue that ethnicity, culture and racial background play a critical role in one’s identity, and Stryker asserts that identity and ethnicity are equivalent, and consist of “The ready-made set of endowments and identifications that every individual shares with others from the moment of birth by the chance of the family into which he is born at that given time in a given place” (Stryker and

Burke, 2000). Every individual is born into a particular cultural association, whether related to nationality, political ideal or social group (Hogg et al., 1995) which has a defined set of accepted behaviours and actions which create the defining characteristics of the group (Dewey, 2002). Wise asserts that we are aware of the normative behaviours of the group, and through the process of feedback and selfverification, we adjust ourselves to conform to them (Wise, 2009).

Many researchers have their developed models of ethnic identity based on Erikson’s theory of identity development, including Cross (1978), Phinney and Alipuria (1990),

Kim (1981), Poston (1990), and Atkinson et al. (1993). Each model begins with an initial stage where the individual has a lack of understanding or awareness of their ethnic identity. This stage transitions into a period of exploration as the individual learns about their group. Ideally, in the final stage the individual commits to an ethnic identity and achieves a confident sense of group membership. Although these models differ in conception, each proclaims that ethnic identity development occurs in age appropriate, developmental phases.


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Developmental theorist Erik Erikson (Erikson, 1968) suggested that an individual’s identity is strongly influenced by relationships with other people. Identity must be discovered by the individual but also confirmed by others. Erikson saw development in terms of critical periods during which aspects of a person’s personality and identity will emerge. He characterised the stages in terms of dichotomies expressing the contrast between most favourable and more negative results which could come from the demands of the time periods. Thus, each stage can be seen as a developmental crisis whose resolution will influence a person’s view of self and of their environment in general. Erikson’s fifth stage of development, identity versus role confusion, describes adolescents’ search for identity. As mentioned earlier,

Erikson described adolescence as the critical point in the development of identity and self-esteem.

Building upon this theory (Erikson, 1950), Jean Phinney (1989) developed a threestage model of ethnic identity formation to describe the process by which individuals come to understand their ethnicity and make decisions about its role in their lives.

The first stage, “unexamined ethnic identity”, is often marked by a lack of interest in ethnicity, or diffusion, or views of ethnicity that are based on the opinions of others, known as foreclosure. During stage two, “moratorium”, ethnicity is explored and lastly, comes stage three, “ethnic identity achievement”, which is when an individual has a clear understanding of and commitment to his or her racial group or ethnicity.

According to Phinney, ethnic identity achievement often means acknowledgment of

“two fundamental problems for ethnic minorities: i) cultural differences between their own group and the dominant group and ii) the lower or disparaged status of their group in their society” (Phinney and Alipuria, 1990).

Phinney also identified the four components of ethnic identity (self-identification, affirmation and belonging, ethnic behaviours and practices, and ethnic identity achievement) which apply across groups (Phinney and Chavira, 1992). Selfidentification refers to the ethnic label an individual uses to describe his or herself.

Positive feelings of kinship and pride in one’s group signify affirmation and


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belonging. The ethnic behaviours and practices component includes social and cultural involvement in one’s group, such as language, friendship, social organizations, religion, cultural traditions, and politics (Phinney and Alipuria, 1990).

There are also theories which have focussed on specific racial groups. For example,

Cross investigated identity formation amongst Black Americans and developed a four-stage model of racial identity development (Cross, 1978). He surmised that during late adolescence/early adulthood, Black people progress in discarding an old identity and achieving a new identity. According to Cross (1978), an individual begins in the ‘pre-encounter’ stage when individuals view the world from a White frame of reference, hold positive attitudes disproportionately toward White people over Black people, and aspire to White customs and values. Individuals enter stage two, the

‘encounter’ stage, when they experience shocking events of a personal or social nature (e.g. racism, discrimination, or prejudice) that are inconsistent with their

White frame of reference. The individuals come realize that the White frame of reference is inappropriate, and they fluctuate between holding on to their old identity and facing the challenge of developing a new identity. This psychological tug-of-war motivates the individual to begin an active search for a new Black identity. When individuals decide to begin the search for a new identity, they enter the ‘immersion-emersion’ stage. This stage is characterised by a period of transition during which the person struggles to discard their White frame of reference while at the same time becoming greatly involved in the development of a Black identity. In order to achieve this goal, the person withdraws from interactions with Whites and immerses themselves in various aspects of the Black culture. In the final stage,

‘internalisation’, individuals achieve an understanding of and self-confidence in their

Blackness and accept other groups.

In academia, mixed-race identity development is considered more complex than ethnic identity development among mono-racial individuals by scholars such as

Sollors (1996), Spencer et al. (2000) and Tatum (1997). Countering a history of scepticism about the possibility for healthy resolution of racial identity in Biracial


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individuals, Poston (1990) and Root (1990) were the some of the first psychologists to offer alternative models that the hypothesized “marginal” existence for mixedrace people (explored in Section Three in this chapter with Stonequist, 1937). Root’s four-point model accounted for the impact of racism on identity, and introduced the possibility of a new identity group: ‘mixed-race’ or ‘multiracial’. She also proposed that an individual might self-identify in more than one way at the same time or move fluidly among identities (Root, 1990).

Such a model opened the door for the emergence of empirically derived, non-linear models of identity development in mixed-race students (Renn, 2008). An example of this is Carlos Poston’s five-stage model, which focuses on the unique internal and external factors that shape Biracial identity development (Poston, 1990). During stage one, “personal identity, mixed-race children show identification problems when they internalise external prejudices. Their personal identity factors (such as self-esteem, sense of acceptance) are based primarily on their relationships with family members. Poston’s second and third stages, “choice of group categorization” and “enmeshment/denial” respectively, mark a difficult time of adjustment and identification. During stage two, individuals are forced to choose an identity, usually one ethnic group, or they are forced into one group by their environment’s standards. Due to potential social alienation, some adolescents may make a choice they are uncomfortable with. As a result, individuals are plagued by confusion, guilt, and dissatisfaction (ibid.). This becomes particularly apparent during adolescence, when the need to belong is crucial. Stage four, “appreciation”, is characterised as a time of exploration and curiosity. While individuals still identify with one ethnic group, they begin to expand their understanding of both heritages. In the final stage,

“integration”, individuals value all of their racial and ethnic identities and are now able to recognise and appreciate all of the portions of their race and ethnicity (ibid.)

Although the models by Cross, Kim, Ruiz and Poston vary in their specific ethnic considerations, all models propose a similar progression from an unexamined ethnic identity through a period of exploration to an achieved ethnic identity.


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Many researchers such as Renn and Wallace have concluded that physical appearance (explored in depth in Chapter Three: Methodology) and cultural knowledge of their various heritage groups are major factors in the construction of

?mixed-race identities (Renn, 2000a). Questions of authenticity, legitimacy, and fitting in arise in relation to cultural knowledge, and listening to certain kinds of music, or partaking of any one of dozens of ethnically-marked elements of youth culture impact on how an individual is seen (Wallace, 2003). They argue that

Black/White mixed-race young adults armed with these cultural markers or cultural knowledge may be more confident in identifying themselves as Black, or mixed-race.

However, resistance from mono-racial people and racism among White students were additional aspects of peer culture that influenced their identities (Renn,

2000a).

Research by Burke and Reitzes on role-based identity suggests that we may have several identities that interplay with each other at any one time (Burke and Reitzes,

1981). Each of these identities subscribes to a different set of rules, depending on the group they associate with. For example, many of us hold multiple identities as a sibling, a friend, a child, or a professional in a particular discipline. Each of these identities has a set of normative behaviours that acts as a standard for membership in that group (ibid). In this case, each identity is verified by matching the selfperception of that identity to the identity standard. When there is congruence, there is positive emotion. A lack of identity verification registers negative emotion (Stets,

2005).

As young people are the focus of this project, it is necessary to look at research which considers the impact of youth 62 cultures on the identities of young people and how this conflicts or converges with the cultural norms of their parent’s generation.

Whilst the term ‘culture’ is a difficult concept to address, and one which there is not enough time to unpack, we will be using Eckersley’s definition (2001): a system of meanings and symbols that defines how people see the world and their place in it.


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Halpern (1995) suggests several cultural qualities that are widely considered to characterise Western culture. These include individualism, which places the individual at the centre of a system of values, behavioural choices and convictions; the emphasis on personal autonomy; independence; and self-actualisation (however

Halpern contends that this is not to argue that cultures are monolithic, exerting a uniform effect on everyone, regardless of gender, class and ethnicity; nor that individuals are cultural sponges, passively absorbing cultural influences).

Since the economies of the United States dominate the market as both a producer and a consumer, Donald Sassoon (2012:124) notes such cultural qualities are becoming increasingly global in their influence. In his study of the cultural markets, he remarks that “at the end of the twentieth century, the typical international bestselling novel, film, popular hit and imported American television programs [are]

American or American-inspired”. This “is not to say that everyone now consumes

American culture; only that most of the culture that circulates across national boundaries originates in the US” (ibid). Sassoon goes on to explain that such a monopoly has had significant ramifications on the dynamism of culture and fears, both real and perceived, of the homogenisation of cultures.

Western youths are bombarded, throughout their day-to-day life, by advertisements, programing and other media that invite them to seek happiness through the accumulation of wealth and commodities, argues Mitterauer (Oxford: Blackwell

1992) This, some researchers argue has formed a “generational consciousness” where the culture industry functions as an agent of supply: the manufacturing the clothes; accessories; and leisure time activities particular to the youth experience of the contemporary moment. The market place of the culture industry is the most visible manifestation of the relationship between youth and dominant culture – and as argued by (Sassoon 2012:124), the dominant youth culture is the culture in which much of Western youth participate. Hebdige (1979) argues that “generational consciousness” finds its most acute expression in setting itself apart from the identities of the older generation.


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Cara Heaven and Matthew Tubridy (2005) contend that youths are seen as the part of society that is most likely to engage in a process of cultural borrowing that is disruptive of the reproduction of traditional cultural practices, from modes of dress to language, aesthetics and ideologies. She cites examples such as Australian hip hop as “largely a desire to reject the generation that went before them, as from an identification with what they have become.” (ibid.:76) Whilst they do not claim to know the effect of globalisation on young people, they are “certain…that the age of globalisation, more than any other age before…is an age that has both exerted great effects upon, and been greatly affected by, young people.” (ibid.:76)

While many academics agree that individualism, consumerism and globalisation have had a dramatic effect on youth sub-cultures, some research has concluded that within the notion of a hegemonic youth culture (particularly in Western Europe and

North America), there are nuances specific to each nation, region, city and district.

Solomon and Scuderi (2002) suggest that the globalisation of culture – the effect upon culture of the “increasing connection of the world and its people” (ibid.:13) – is perhaps nowhere more visible than in the changing nature of the relationship between the world’s youth and their sense of identity.

Anoop Nayak (2003) takes this idea forward and argues that “globalisation has not followed a basic ‘painting by numbers’ schema designed around predictable colour charts and anticipated natural finishes. Closer inspection reveals a gloss that is patchy and spread unevenly by the sweeping roller-brush of change as it comes into direct contact with the unexpected surfaces, ridges and contours of locality and identity” (ibid.:5). He continues, “local cultures have not been entirely superseded by global change either, but rather shape these processes, and in doing so, influence the opportunities, lifestyles and cultural identities of young people. In this sense, young people in different places negotiate change in different ways”. Rather than witnessing the ‘death of geography’, through the annihilation of space and time, we find that place and geography matter more than ever (Massey and Allen 1994


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[1984]). Global cultures, then, do not operate independently but connect and interact differently at national, regional or local scales (McEwan, 2001).

This is also an argument advanced by Anthony Giddens who explains that

“Globalisation concerns the interaction of presence and absence, the interlacing of social events and social relations “at distance” with contextualities” (1991: 22); and

Roland Robertson who discusses the importance of place and locality and the dialectical ‘local-global’ relationship, which he terms ‘glocalisation’ (1997 [1995]:28).

Robertson suggests that there is an inter-penetration of ‘local’ and ‘global’ forces.

This, he argues is “globalization – In the broadest sense, the compression of the world which increasingly involves the creation and incorporation of locality.”

(ibid.:40)

Other research, such as that from Wotherspoon and Schissel, based on research conducted in a school in Canada (2001:317) asserted that young people’s relationship with “social phenomena vary depending on subcategories of race and/or ethnicity”. Hence, the ways in which these groups identify with each other and position themselves within their environments, varies considerably. Their research found that some groups studied were influenced heavily by music of varying genres and use rap and hip hop platforms to ‘duel’, other groups he studied wore branded clothes in a distinctive style, indicating that components of youth culture would appear then to be composite and affected by locality.

This first section shows that there are a number of different factors that affect the development of one’s identity. Considering the impact of these factors is crucial to understanding the formation of identity, as well as an examination of the effects of adjustment, competence, and self‐esteem on the development of one’s identity. It also briefly introduced us to the notion of plurality in one’s identity, how an individual can embrace a number of identities .

Some studies suggest that some young people are influenced to a significant extent not only by people of their age group who feature in music and / or entertainment, those whom they are in


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personal contact with or even those whom they are aware of, but are not in personal contact with, but also by concepts of individualism and consumerism. As such, the data from the two sites (Redfern and Brixton) will be analysed in relation to the notion that young people’s sense of identity and their attitudes towards specific issues may be influenced by a combination of the global, and the local. The following section will look at the experiences of mixed-race people, and how it affects their identification.

Section Two: Interpretations of factors Involved in the Racial Identification of

Mixed-race People

This section focuses on themes in literature which explore the journey of racial identification by mixed-race people from the United Kingdom, the United States and

Australia. This will provide an understanding into how the literature approaches the issue of racial identity, offering an insight into attitudes that exist in the fields of study.

Australia

With the end of a policy of forced removals amongst mixed-race young people in the

1970s, and a public enquiry into action taken by the Australian government in 1997

(Commonwealth of Australia, 1997), a number of publications were released by mixed-race authors, chronicling their experiences during this period of Australia’s history. An investigation of these provides the different themes and perspectives that surround the development of their identity.

A position argued by some authors suggested that identity is driven by one’s spiritual connection with their ancestry. This was an opinion provided by the artist Sally

Morgan (2010) in her autobiography, My Place. Its primary focus is Morgan’s efforts to discover her true ethnicity: her mother refused to speak about her heritage, and her grandmother insisted that she was of Indian descent: “If Nan was Aboriginal, why didn’t she just say so? The fact that both Mum and Nan made consistent denials made me think I was barking up the wrong tree. I could see no reason why they


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would pretend to be something they weren’t” (Morgan, 2010: 105). She recalls the attitudes that her grandmother had towards Aboriginals: “All Abos are a bad influence. You can be Indian, Dutch, Italian, anything, but not Aboriginal!” (ibid.:

107).

As she attempted to find out the truth behind her identity, she discovered she had part-Aboriginal ancestry, which led her to eventually take on an Aboriginal identity.

Her journey suggests that despite her family’s attempt to ignore her Aboriginal ancestry, there was an internal desire to seek the truth and align herself with her ancestors, indicating that Aboriginal identity is a quality that exists within individuals who have Aboriginal heritage (Langton 2005).

A criticism of this perspective is put forward by Naomi Zack, who questions the notion of an inherent identity. In her essay, ‘On being and not-being Black and

Jewish’ (1996), she uses Sartre’s philosophical standpoint that defining oneself in terms of one’s ancestors is an evasion of responsibility based on the fantasy that one

is one’s ancestors (Ibid: 149). The descendant first chooses to act in accordance with values that he or she imagines were present in the past and then uses his or her own time and energy to do deeds and live a life in the present. As we have discussed in the Introduction, there is a pressure for mixed-race people to ‘act’ in accordance with the dominant racial ideology. Zack argues that this surely undermines the individual’s own sincerity, which becomes authenticity. “For example: If Black Jews have to be deliberately ‘observant’ in order to reassure other Jews that they are

Jewish, isn’t their piety made false?” (ibid.).

Part of the reason for Aboriginal writers arguing that identity is inherent is based on a lack of identity, contends Kingsley Palmer (1978). When analysing the identity of mixed-race Australians, he laments, “Part Aboriginal people not only lack a true sense of identity, but the opportunity to develop such an identity is consistently denied to them.” If this is how mixed-race people determine their identity, surely their sense of belonging is artificial? McKenna continues, Aboriginal identity for


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mixed-race people is therefore “the product of a need (albeit a very real need) for self-assurance and a sense of authenticity. This is made necessary for the attacks and censures for a fundamentally hostile world” (Palmer and McKenna, 1978: viii).

Consequently, the argument in this case is that identity is assumed, and not inherent.

The alternative perspective is that the identity of mixed-race people is developed based on one’s life experiences. Marnie Kennedy in her book, Half Caste (1990) suggests that her identity was based on external factors and that her Aboriginal identity was shaped by her treatment by White people. Kennedy’s publication is an account of her experiences growing up as a member of the Stolen Generation: being removed from her family at an early age, taken to an environment which separated her from her Aboriginal heritage, and encouraged to reproduce with White men. She explains that she grew up with an awareness of her mixed heritage, however, her treatment by White people led to a dislike of European people and her identification with Aboriginal culture. She expresses this in many ways, one of which is through her use of the word, “we” when talking about Aboriginals: “White people don’t consider

Aboriginals as humans. How is it, then that we know how to feel love, passion, anger, hurt and every other feeling there is?...We are made to feel like criminals because of our colour…Do you ever hear us Black people condemning the people living in the slums?” (Kennedy, 1990: 19).

She goes on to explain that “We Aboriginals are a good example of White exploitations. We were the slaves, to be worked long hours” (ibid.: 56). Her account explores a different path towards her racial identification from that of Morgan.

Morgan’s identity was borne of an intrinsic desire to reclaim her Aboriginal identity, which contrasts with Kennedy, who appears to have embraced an Aboriginal identity through her experiences in life. In Kennedy’s case, her negative attitude towards

White people has formed the basis of her intention not to be associated with her

European heritage, and instead her identification as Aboriginal.

63 It is worth stating


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that Kennedy does not, however explain why, in rejection of her European heritage, she adopted an Aboriginal identity, and not, for example a non-racial identity.

The suggestion that environment plays a significant role in identity is a theme that can reflect experiences with both White European people, and Aboriginal people.

Such a theme is put forward by Clancy McKenna (1978) in the book Somewhere

Between Black and White. He suggests that, like Kennedy, identity is based on one’s environment. However, his Aboriginal identity appears to have been influenced by his incorporation into the Aboriginal community [surrounding himself with Aboriginal friends, living in an area highly populated with Aboriginal people], and not necessarily by his treatment by White people (Palmer and McKenna, 1978). Palmer’s book explores the life of a man who was frequently referred to by White people as half-caste, although he was not aware that he was partly “a White man” until his 50s

(ibid.: x). A significant factor in this identification seems to be the lack of prejudice received from Aboriginal people, his inclusion into the traditional elements of

Aboriginal life, and his rise and acceptance as an Indigenous leader.

USA and UK

Positive, more intimate or comfortable relations with Black or Aboriginal people as a factor for assuming a Black or Aboriginal identity is a theme that exists in other literature from mixed-race writers elsewhere. Hence, McKenna’s path to his identification is similar to that of Barack Obama’s, discussed in Obama’s book,

Dreams From My Father. He mentions talking to a friend called Ray who would often talk “about white folks”, and that he would often preach about how “We were always playing on the white man’s court…by the white man’s rules” (Obama, 2007:

81, 85). He also talks about his interest in Black literature: DuBois, Baldwin, Ellison,

Hughes and Wright (ibid.: 86). Indeed, Obama married a Black woman, attends a

Black church, and in an interview with an American chat show in 2010, in response the question, “Your mother is White, so would it be better to call you Biracial?” he responded, “If the world saw me as Black American, that wasn’t something that I


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needed to run away from, that’s something that I could go ahead and embrace”

(ABC, 2010a).

However, differences do exist in this perspective. Whilst some authors like McKenna wholly reject their White ancestry, others, whilst accepting a Black identity, are careful not to deny their White heritage. This is an important variation that exists between the US/UK and the Australian literature. For example, whilst Obama does not necessarily embrace his White heritage, and clearly identifies as Black, his journey appears to consider the presence of his European heritage within him, and he feels an obligation not to deny it. In the passage below, he explains the responsibility he believes that he has to recognize both his father’s (Black) and his mother’s (White) background:

“…even as I imagined myself following Malcolm’s call, one line in the book stayed with me. He spoke of a wish he’d once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged. I knew that, for Malcolm, that wish would never be incidental. I knew as well that travelling down the road to self-respect, my own white blood would never recede into mere abstraction. I was left to wonder what else I would be severing if and when I left my mother and my grandparents at some uncharted border.” (Obama, 2007: 86)

He goes on to mention in Dreams From My Father that he “felt uncomfortable” with the stereotypes used to describe “White folks” because of his positive relationship with his White mother and grandmother (ibid.). It is for this reason that despite his

Black identity, he states in this book that he regards himself as an individual, and has a desire not to be defined by colour (ibid.: 100).

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A further distinction between Australian accounts, and UK/US accounts is the presence of a mixed-race identity. Australian literature appears to view the concept of mixed-race as the beginning of a journey that will lead to an Aboriginal identity, whereas a significant portion of mixed-race authors in the UK or the US believe that mixed-race is an identity which can be the product of careful consideration.

This can be seen in the many websites dedicated to mixed-race identity such as Mix-

d:uk (multiple heritage project) which states that their project is “designed to create a voice for a silent group who may experience confusion, conflict, or misunderstanding about their racial identity…and to bring richness and colour to the lives of some mix-d [sic] people for whom everything to date has been simply Black or White”.

There are also several Facebook groups such as ‘We Love Mixed Race’, ‘Mixed Race

Professionals’ and ‘Mixed Race London’ which aim to argue against the assumption that mixed-race people are Black by default; argue against the stereotype of mixedrace people being confused about their identity; argue against derogatory terms describing mixed-race people; suggest that mixed-race is a multifaceted racial group; and build a feeling of pride amongst mixed-race people.

For example, Mixed and Happy Facebook group sells T-shirts with ‘Mixed Race and

Happy’ on them, as an expression of confidence in identity.

65 The site,

mixedraceshirts.com has also developed a range of clothes with the slogans ‘I Check

Other’, ‘Confused? Nope Just Mixed heritage’, and ‘One Drop Rule And I’m Still

Mixed’.

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There are, however, accounts that differ from this in Britain. The site intermix.org.uk features interviews which express the opinions of those who identify as Black, namely professional footballer Jobi McAnuff, who states that, “From my experience I get seen as one of the ‘brothers’…my White friends at [Crystal] Palace [FC] still see me as Black. People only see skin deep and society says I look more Black than


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White.” 67 Another mixed-race footballer, Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand in July 2012 appeared to use his Twitter account to endorse the suggestion that

Chelsea left-back Ashley Cole (who is also mixed-race) was a ‘Choc-Ice’, a term used to suggest that whilst an individual may appear to be Black visually, they adopt the mannerisms of a White European person. Ashley Cole had recently defended his team-mate John Terry against accusations that he had called Rio Ferdinand’s brother, Anton Ferdinand a ‘Black c*nt’ whilst playing for opposing teams. Here, the term was used to claim that whilst Ashley Cole is Black (or may appear to be a Black person), he was exerting a White identity by giving the impression that he was siding with White people against Black people. We can see here that Rio Ferdinand not only saw himself, if not Black, as closer to his Black heritage, and felt that in this case, by choosing to ‘act White’, Ashley Cole was betraying his Black heritage.

The passages in this section show that amongst mixed-race writers, Australian accounts are more likely to conclude with a commitment towards an Aboriginal identity, indicating that a mixed-race racial group does not feature in the public discourse. Aboriginal identity in the literature is presented through a combination of three factors: negative treatment from White people; positive treatment from

Aboriginal people; and/or an internal, emotional connection towards their

Indigenous heritage. This opposes British and American literature, which features a broader spectrum of perspectives and interpretations of their identity, and accepts that one’s identification is complex, often conflicted and multifaceted. Writers are willing to discuss the possibility of a mixed-race racial group, an appreciation that they are borne of two cultures, and a desire to represent them. Australian literature provides, at most, an insignificant acknowledgement of their White heritage. In almost all Australian literature of this genre, there is both a tacit and explicit identification with Aboriginality, and a negative or abrasive opinion of White culture.

The literature also suggests that amongst Australians, racial identity plays a major role in the identification of mixed-race people. Within the US and the UK, it appears as though race plays a role, though less important than that of Australia.


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Section Three: Mixed-race People’s Status in their Respective Setting

The previous section focussed on the experiences of mixed-race individuals, and focussed on the themes that arose out of their decision to choose a racial identity.

Many writers expressed external factors as an explanation for their identity choice, and this section will look at literature in Australia, the US and Britain that expresses opinions on the identity of mixed-race people, and where they should be categorised in their respective settings. This will provide an understanding of the attitudes that exist in these environments, allowing us to reflect on causes of the identity choices of mixed-race writers.

The Concept of Race

Initially, we will look at the slippery and fluid nature of race. Lafond (2009) argues that ‘racialization’ is the process by which meaning is assigned to phenotypical features, skin colour or other social signifiers of race, in order to categorize a person into a specific racial category. Hier (2007) points out that humans had assigned meaning to social signifiers of difference even before the language of race came into common usage. However, race, he says, is a specific discourse that is relatively recent, whereas racialization is the “dialectical social process” of using physical features to group people along real or imagined ancestral lines (Hier, 2007:28). In other words, the process of ‘othering’ based on difference is not new; but what is more recent is our use of the term ‘race’ and all the complex assigned meaning we call up with it. Omi and Winant (1993) also point to the importance of studying the

“socially constructed status of the concept of race”, or what they call the process of

‘racial formation’. Martin-Alcoff’s (2007) definition of race, states that “I will take race to be the very real aspect of social identity, one that is marked on the body through learned perceptual practices of visual categorization, with significant sociological and political effects as well as a psychological impact on self-formation.”

(Martin-Alcoff, 2007:173)


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It can be argued that because racism remains a powerful force within Britain and

Australia, it is still necessary to engage with racial issues and the effects of racism while simultaneously recognizing that the concept of race itself is socially constructed and is not a natural or biological phenomenon. Omi and Winant argue that the meaning of race is socially and historically specific and are formed through discourse – these meanings are not fixed but are “unstable and decentred [and are] constantly being transformed by political struggle” (Omi and Winant 1986: 68).

Therefore a circumscribed usage of the term is useful. In this way, we can draw upon a notion of provisionality, or strategic essentialism, to engage with the lived consequences and effects of racial inequalities which also recognising that race is a fiction (in other words, it is not grounded in any objective, essential biological reality)

(Lafond 2009). This notion of ‘race’, Donald and Rattansi suggest, can then be mobilized to examine racial inequalities, to consider, for example, “how racial logics and racial frames of reference are articulated and deployed, and with what consequences” (Donald and Rattansi 1992: 1).

The conceptualization and definition of ethnicity has also been debated (May and

Modood 2001). Stuart Hall, for example proposed a new conceptualization of ethnicity which confronted the constricted concepts of ethnicity that were predominant in the public sphere at the time in which he published much of his work

(New Right and Thatcherite discourse) (1992, 1993a,b, 1996). He advanced a conception of ethnicity that recognised the significance of “history, language and culture in the construction of subjectivity and identity, as well as the fact that all discourse is placed, positioned, situated, and all knowledge is contextual” (Hall 1992:

257). In other words, like ‘race’, ethnicity was shown to be socially constructed and shaped through exchanges and across public and private discourses – it is not

‘natural’, pre-given or pre-existing (Archer 2003).


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Correspondingly, the limitations of ethnic groups – defining who ‘belongs to’ or ‘has’ a particular ‘ethnicity’ – are assembled and negotiable/negotiated (Archer 2003).

Anthias and Yuval-Davis suggest that these boundaries change over time according to economic, political and ideological conditions (Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1992;

Yuval-Davis and Anthias 1989) and therefore ethnic groups are not biological, cultural or natural phenomena – instead they are loosely bounded, ever-shifting collectivities whose membership is subject to continual re/construction and contest

(Archer 2003). In the 1990s, Maria P. Root (1996) wrote the ‘Mixed Race person’s Bill of Rights’, which demonstrated that there are a number of shared socio-political and psychological experiences among mixed race people: “I have the right not to be responsible for people’s discomfort with my physical ambiguity; I have the right to identify differently than how my parents identify me; I have the right to change my identity over my lifetime-more than once.” (Root 1996:7) While Root’s work (1992;

1996) highlights many commonalities in multiracial experiences, it can also be argued that this experience depends on the context in which the multiracial person is situated, how their identities are ‘read’ by others, and the meaning and significance ascribed to their identities. For example, in her collection of work by other authors as well as her own, Ifekwunigwe (2004) looks at mixed race identities as subjective, shifting, complex, multiple, situational, fluid and ambiguous. One of her themes specifically deals with mapping, crossing and understanding the borders and boundaries of race and group membership.

Tizard and Phoenix (2002) found similarly fluid results in mixed-race identity whilst examining the impact that living in London’s suburbs and central city had on children’s identity formation. They found that middle-class and working-class young adults experienced being mixed race in different ways, based on degrees of residential segregation. Youths living in racially integrated areas professed a positive multiracial identity, whereas those living in hyper-segregated areas were much more likely to presume a monoracial (and often minority) racial identity.


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Several authors write about the significance of phenotype for mixed race people.

Williams argued that one aspect of experience that many mixed race people share is that their phenotype (facial features and physical appearance) does not accurately predict how they identify, and that psychological stress can ensue when they are consistently misidentified by others throughout their lives (Williams 2004:166-170).

Here we can see that the literature supports the idea that because mixed-race people are often called upon to explain, justify or defend their ethno-racial identity to others, multiracial people are especially cognizant of those moments or interactions during which race is being constructed (Lafond 2009). Because race is fundamental to some people’s life experiences; social markers of difference, such as phenotype, behaviour, speech patterns, and clothing become cultural clues that others read and respond to. As Williams (2004), Mahtani (2002a, 2002b) and others discuss, one strategy that mixed race people use to cope with a racist and racially ordered society is to make active and conscious choices about physical appearance and other social signifiers of race so that they might ‘pass’ from minority status to majority status, or from minority status to a more accepted minority status. The politics of passing are discussed in many of the chapters in Root’s (1996) anthology

‘The Multiracial Experience’. Harris and Sim (2002) studied how multiracial people change their answer to racial identity questions depending on context. They found that their answers varied depending on whether they were asked at school or at home.

Factors that also play a role in construction of the ethnic group boundaries are gender, in particular “women are constructed as representing and reproducing collectivities and their boundaries biologically, culturally and symbolically”, Yuval-

Davis argues (2001: 12). This is because ethnicity is often constructed in relation to


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particular notions of masculinity and femininity and these ideals are used to create, regulate and maintain particular ethnic group identities. Carol Camper explores

Canadian multiracial women’s experiences in her 1994 anthology ‘Miscegenation

Blues: Voices of Mixed Race Women’ and Mahtani has published a number of pieceson Canada in the field in recent years (2002a, 2002b, 2002c), as well as Kay

Pamela Ray (1996), and Debra Thompson (2007) who discussmultiracial identities in women in order to examine the “paradoxical, antithetical and convoluted nature of identity (Thompson, 2007: 5)”.

Whilst there is a consensus amongst many academics that social class, gender and other social identities and categorizations impact upon, and interact with, racial and ethnic identities and inequalities (see Archer et al. 2001b), there is less consensus in relation to the question of how we might conceptualize and describe these interrelationships between ‘race’, ethnicity, gender and social class.

Like many of the authors in the field, it is the intention of this paper to understand how mixed race people traverse these borders (Camper, 2004; DaCosta, 2007;

Mahtani, 2002a; Mahtani, 2002b; Streeter, 1996; Williams, 1996), and how individuals maintain “simultaneous membership and multiple, fluid identities with different groups” (Root, 2004:145).

Mixed-Race People in Popular Culture and Literature

Within the literature researched, the four most consistently discussed opinions concerning the identity of mixed-race people are: that mixed-race people are stuck between two worlds/have the best of both worlds; that mixed-race people should assume a Black identity; that mixed-race people should assume a mixed-race identity; and that mixed race people should extract themselves from racial categorisation entirely. Within these opinions, there are those who disagree, using a


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variety of arguments which will be touched upon later. Significantly, there was no literature found that argued that mixed-race people could, or should categorise themselves as White. An explanation for this is suggested later on in this section.

During the early part of the twentieth century, the prevailing attitude amongst

White European and White American writers was that mixed-race people would emerge as confused individuals, trapped between two cultures. Everett Stonequist, in his thesis, Marginal Man argued that mixed-race people would suffer undue psychological difficulties as a result of their “conflicting cultures or races”

(Stonequist, 1937: 54). Although the “mixed blood’s first impulse would be to identify with the race which is considered superior”, it will be difficult for (s)he to remain that way indefinitely. This, he argues, is based on the substantial differences between White and Black people. Therefore, according to Stonequist, the “marginal man” will be the “target of whatever hostile sentiments exist between the parent races”. Until the race problem is solved, he believes that the marginal man’s problem will remain (ibid.). Put another way, mixed-race people’s identity will be defined by the socio-political issues that exist between White and Black.

In Australia during the same period, the attitude towards race mixing was the opposite. As previously clarified in the first chapter, the Australian government viewed race-mixing as the answer to the race problem, and believed that the key to eradicating the Aboriginals lay in breeding them out. As a result, the dominant perception at the time, recorded by Andrew Markus, was that the more ‘White blood’ one has in you, the greater the potential to be productive (Markus, 1994).

Bain Attwood concurs, and in The Making of the Aborigines, he agrees that halfbloods were assumed to be more intelligent, more easily educated, and more readily civilised than full-bloods (Attwood, 1989: 89).

There were some concerns about the growth of the mixed-race population expressed by Australian politicians based on the government’s belief (at the time) that they were in danger of becoming exposed to a (sub-human) Aboriginal culture


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(Hasluck, 1942: 24). Richard Broome’s research testifies to this, albeit in a limited number of passages, that, “Every day, Aboriginal people had to make choices about where their values and identity lay” if they were living with Aboriginal communities

(Broome, 2002: 162). He concludes on a more positive note, that “Today as pride in being Aboriginal increases, less and less people are confused or trying to pass as

European” (ibid.: 163). This corresponds with the testimonies of those Aboriginal authors earlier in this chapter who speak of their close relationship with their

Aboriginal identity, such as Sally Morgan, Clancy McKenna and Marnie Kennedy.

Paradoxically, my research suggests that in the UK and the US there has been a change in attitudes. There is a perception that mixed-race people hold a crucial position in their respective states, poised to ease racial conflict. Charles Byrd for example, on his website, Interracial Voice suggests that mixed-race people in the

United States of America have an opportunity to guide America beyond antiquated racial thinking (Chavez, 2001). Kobena Mercer’s Welcome to the Jungle: New

Positions in Black Cultural Studies celebrates the advent of cultural “hybridity” as a postmodernist survival strategy. He argues that, “in a world in which everyone’s identity has been thrown into question, the mixing and fusion of disparate elements to create new hybridized identities point to ways of surviving, and thriving, in conditions of crisis and transition” (Mercer, 1994: 4).

This is a crucial distinction, in that Mercer here suggests that some individuals are aware of the political climate in which they exist, and therefore assume identities that provide greatest cover from danger.

There have also been a number of articles suggesting that mixed-race people are both more attractive, and more successful than other races in Britain. Research completed by British psychologist Michael Lewis, concluded that: “although mixedrace people make up a small proportion of the population, they are overrepresented at the top level of a number of meritocratic professions like acting with

Halle Berry, Formula 1 racing with Lewis Hamilton – and, of course, politics with

Barack Obama." (Mail Online, 2010). His study based its hypothesis on Darwin's


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notion of heterosis, the biological phenomenon that predicts that cross-breeding leads to offspring that are genetically fitter than their parents. Lewis also states that

"The results appear to confirm that people whose genetic backgrounds are more diverse are, on average, perceived as more attractive" (ibid.). Whilst I find his results questionable, it nevertheless conveys a remarkable shift in attitudes towards mixedrace people in Britain.

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However, it must be noted that negative attitudes towards mixed-race people persist. Anushka Asthana argues that White Britain’s attitude remains negative, and is responsible for the perceived negative development of mixed-race children. In an article published in 2004, she contends that particularly in schools, “teachers and others…assumed they [mixed-race children] must have an identity crisis, or must be from single-parent families” (The Observer, 2004). In addition to this, “teachers were still calling the children half-caste” whilst having “low expectations” of mixed-race children, factors, she argues, that are responsible for the poor educational attainment that exists amongst Black/White mixed-race people.

In this section, thus far we have explored how the British perception of mixed-race people has changed in popular culture and literature. Originally, it was one of overwhelming concern, whilst today, opinion has fractured, and there are both writers who continue to envisage problems with mixed-race identity, as well as those who consider being mixed-race as an opportunity to dismantle the existing racial structure. Conversely, the historical perception of mixed-race people in Australia was to deem them in need of rescuing from Aboriginal culture. Now the literature suggests that there is a determination by some Australians to accept the selfidentification of all mixed-race Aboriginals.

Perspectives on Mixed-Race Identity

The latter part of this section will now look at the present perspectives on the racial identity of mixed-race people. The most dominant perspective found in Australian


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literature, present in much of the American literature researched, and to a lesser extent in the British literature, is the assertion that it is inevitable that mixed-race people will adopt a Black identity. Social worker John Small (1996) argues that mixed-race children will have a similar experience to Black children, because they will be received in the same way by White people. He explains that although mixedrace “children are racially distinct from other Blacks, mixed-race children are regarded as Black by society and eventually the majority of such children will identify with Blacks...” (Small et al., 1986: 91).

Similar conclusions can be reached through different processes. It can be argued that because ‘Whiteness’ is the norm, mixed-race people are automatically thought of as

Black. Lynette Russell explains that the English ‘ethnic’ identity “has remained unmarked, (that is, invisible) against which all aberrant (that is, visible) colour is measured”, whereas Blackness still resides at the bottom (Moreton-Robinson,

2004a: 174). Hence, where ‘Whiteness’ is never presented as an option for mixedrace people; a Black identity is likely to be adopted. Alastair Bonnett (1997) explains that, “there is still a law which created Black Africanness and normative and naturalised ‘superior’ White Europeans” (Bonnett, 1997:194). Renn agrees and explains that perhaps the most obvious option available to mixed-race people is to accept the identity that their environment assigns them (Renn, 2004).

However, the literature also suggests that there is an equally strong sentiment from authors who identify as Black and Aboriginal that mixed-race people should adopt a

Black or Aboriginal identity. American author F. James Davis (1996) maintains that

White parents and their children see less of the spectrum of racial variation among those people who identify as Black, because White people are less likely to be aware of the historical facts about miscegenation, and therefore are unable to realise that most persons defined as Black in United States are racially mixed and that some

‘Black people’ even look White (Davis, 1996: 173). However, he also believes that “it is common for Black parents to answer simply that Black people come in all colours and that appearance is not so important as unity, but they also learn about divisions


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in their community over variations in colour”. The implicit understanding is that amongst some Black people, is that it is very wrong for anyone born and socialised around Black people to “deny his or other colour” (ibid.). Hence, Davis contends that mixed-race people veer towards a Black identity, (i) because White people accept mixed-race people as Black; (ii) because Black people may feel offended if a mixedrace person were to distance themselves from their Black heritage.

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A comparable perception is held by self-identified Aboriginals. The Koori Mail, an online Aboriginal newspaper carried an article by journalist David Towney stating that, “Aboriginal people are not a skin colour, we are a community and people by history, spirituality, locations, country, thinking, politics, treatment, laws, cultures and most importantly, our stories.” (Koori Mail Online, 2010: 27). The article goes on to explain that race is an outdated term which was forced upon Aborigines by

Europeans, and that identity is based on one’s history, and what one feels. This argument suggests that because many Aboriginal women were forced to have sexual relations with White men in the 18 th and 19 th Century, their ancestors should be free to reclaim the heritage that they feel closest to. A similar argument was expressed by the Aboriginal artist Bindi Cole, who famously completed the work entitled,

Wathaurung Mob, a photograph of her family in blackface.

70 The intention of the picture was to illustrate that whilst mainstream Australians perceive Aboriginality as people with dark features, her family all identify as Aboriginal despite having varying skins tones, eye colour and hair colour. Aboriginality, to Bindi Cole, was about a personal identification with one’s identity, and was unrelated to physical features.

Websites such as Creative Spirits, based in Australia, justify mixed-race people’s to claim to Aboriginal ancestry because, “We should also not forget that the first mixeddescent Australians came into existence not by choice but through crimes by White people. Just ask any member of the Stolen Generations”.

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This concept has been adopted by many liberal Australian journalists and writers tackling the subject of identity. For example, in John Pilger’s book, A Secret Country, he rarely uses the term ‘mixed’, and indeed refers to all people who identify as


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Aboriginal as “Black Australians” (Pilger, 1989: 3) or “Aboriginal” (ibid.: 62) interchangeably. Other authors use scare quotes whenever the term ‘mixed’ or

‘blood’ is referenced, as if to concede that the term is highly contentious. As Michael

Howard insists, “There is notable recognition that a great deal of diversity exists among Aborigines, indeed, there is probably more recognition of this fact about

Aborigines than for similar groups in other part of the world” (Pilger, 1989: 3).

There are some writers who suggest that this assumed identity by mixed-race people has become politically motivated. Michael Howard observes, in his book, Aboriginal

Power in Australian Society, that the Aboriginal identity assumed by many mixedrace people is a product of a White context, and is indeed, necessary, and inevitable in the mobilisation of a united Aboriginal political movement (ibid.). The most important dimension of the emergent pan-Aboriginal ideology is a description and definition of the status of Aborigines in Australia. This is combined with an effort to mobilise individuals in the groups of their common status and history of treatment, with the goal of altering the status group (Howard, 1982: 200). This, he explains, is why the notion of Aboriginality has shifted and developed. He invites us to look at the African struggles for independence that asked for African unity, a concept that previously did not exist (ibid.: 200).

Writers and social commentators who place themselves on the right of the political spectrum argue that mixed-race people are assuming a Black or Aboriginal identity for purely a political decision. Here, David Foster discusses his problems with the present state of self-identification (Foster, 1996). “The black community does have a problem…just thinking about coping with a flood of white-looking and totally deculturated people poised to demand Aboriginal rights for themselves” (ibid.). He concludes, “Let us regard any person born in Australia as Australian, pure and simple, excepting only those who are initiated and retain a tribal culture”.

Conservative Columnist Andrew Bolt wrote two articles of a similar attitude entitled,

‘Whitefellas in the Black, and White is the new Black’ (2009). He asks us to “Meet the


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White face of a new Black race – the political Aborigine. Meet, say, acclaimed St Kilda artist Bindi Cole, who was raised by her English-Jewish mother yet calls herself

‘Aboriginal but White’. She rarely saw her part-Aboriginal father, and could in truth join any one of several ethnic groups, but chose Aboriginal, insisting on a racial identity you could not guess from her features. She also chose, incidentally, the one identity open to her that has political and career clout.” (Herald Sun, 2009). He questions the motives of mixed-race Australians who do not represent both their parent’s identities, and argues that mixed race people are taking opportunities away from ‘genuine’ Aboriginals. Bolt believes that mixed-race people should go beyond racial pride, “and be proud of being human beings” (ibid.). (It is worth noting that

Bolt’s articles were found to have contravened Section 18C of Australia’s Racial

Discrimination Act) (ABC, 2012).

However, I would agree with those who, instead, argue that such a contention found in Bolt’s articles were themselves politically motivated. Ghassan Hage (1998) argues that conservative writers such as Paul Sheehan provide clear examples of the pervasive national fantasy centred around a “White-and-very-worried-about-thenation-subject” (Hage, 1998: 10). He argues that “There are many people for whom worrying is the last available strategy for staying in control of social processes over which they have no longer much control” (ibid.). Hage suggests that White people in

Australia are united around two issues: (i) their belief that they are the central enactors of the Law in Australia (ibid.:16) (or as ‘governors’ of the nation); (ii) their conception of ethnics as people one can make decisions about: objects to be governed (ibid.: 15). Hage therefore contends that both White racists and White multi-culturalists share in the conception of themselves as nationalists and of the nation as a space structured around a White culture, where Aboriginal people and non-White ethnics are merely national objects to be moved or removed according a

White national will (ibid.: 17).

A similar argument could suggest that some White people with a similar ‘fear’ of racial classification are exposing a sense of alarm about the ability for people to shift


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races as a threat to their position. In his book, Between Barack and a Hard Place, author Tim Wise (2009) looks in detail at the relationship that Barack Obama has with the American media with specific reference to his ethnicity. Wise argues that

White people, who sit at the apex of the racial hierarchy are, as a result of their dominance, perpetually fearful of being dethroned, and therefore are anxious about the fate of mixed-race people, and their ability to benefit from such a transition. His argument is that American (White) conservatives want Obama to claim a mixed-race identity to diminish the sense of achievement and pride emanating from some

American Black people after his election victory in 2008. Conservative radio host

Laura Ingraham once spoke of her wish for Obama to “admit that he is not Black”

(CNN, 2010). In an interview on CNN, in a response to a statement Obama made about being comfortable with his Black identity, she responded, “he really stumbled on that question…He is Black and he is White. And celebrate it” (ibid.).

The alternative argument is that mixed-race people should identify as mixed-race.

This is offered by mixed-race writer, Christine C. Iijima Hall (1996) who talks about the kinship she feels towards other mixed-race people, in the same way that Black people might identify with other Black people (Hall, 1996: 405). She explains that she feels “pride when I see multiracial people succeeding. I take personal pride when I see highly visible people – entertainers, musicians, media types, sports people – do well…I also feel much sadness when I hear of a crime committed by an interracial person” (ibid.: 407). Teresa Kay Williams believes that Hall’s sense of connection is logical. She states that “The racially mixed person may feel doubly othered by such constant interrogation (Bradshaw, 1992), because the person who asks this question conveys his or her organisation of society” (Williams, 1996: 203). The result, she suggests, is the attempt by many mixed-race people to search for something, anything, to bind them to other mixed-race people. “This race gives a person membership into an on-going social world and provides one with a social location from which to measure one’s likeness to or difference from others. Without being able to code, categorise, and attach racial meanings to these ‘obvious’ visual


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classifications, one often finds oneself in a state of discomfort and momentary crisis”

(ibid.: 192).

Defining Race

At this point in the debate around racial categorisation of mixed-race people, it could be suggested that it is time to fully acknowledge that race is a social construct, and use this discussion as an opportunity to move forward, outside racial boundaries.

This section shall briefly look at some of the arguments surrounding the definition of race, focussing on post-race theory and social constructionism. As mentioned in the first chapter, it is nearly universally accepted that the term race represents neither a biologically sound, nor a naturally occurring, nor a genetic human trait. The meaning of the term ‘race’ is constantly shifting, and we can trace varying interpretations of its meaning through various cultures and historical periods. Most social scientists now agree that ‘race’ has historically referred to the socially constructed meanings assigned to various physical and phenotypic traits, such as eye colour, hair type, skin tone, nose shape, etc. (Thompson, 2007; Martin-Alcoff, 2007; Hier and Bolaria, 2007;

Tate, 1997; Dei, 1996; Gandy, 1998). The important point is that their meanings

(whether positive or negative) are socially assigned, as opposed to being rooted in some objective biological property of human beings. Precisely because meaning is a social, not biological, phenomenon, the assigned meanings and assumptions tied to different ‘races’ are not fixed: they are always changing, shifting, and being renegotiated. In other words, being ‘raced’, or racialized, is an active process. This means that we can observe how certain groups go from being racialized to being non-racialized.

As a result, social constructionists assert that race is a discursive construct, an arbitrary sign use to divide up the human population, with no distinguishing genetic differences of any consequence. However if this assertion is correct, it is worth asking what purpose additional research on the topic would serve, and why do social constructionists continue to deploy the term at the same time as they refute its


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existence? It is these questions that have led some authors to consider whether: race has become “a word too much”, as Body-Gendrot (2004:150) comments; and others to assert, “race ends here” (Gilroy 1998). For an academic like Derrida, the signing of race is part of “the problematic of the sign and of writing” (1991:62), where an absence is discursively materialized into the present. Derrida’s description of the signing of race in his writings on Difference, provide us with an understanding of the issues of race faced by social constructionists such as myself. He states:

“The sign is usually said to be put in the place of the thing itself, the present thing, ‘‘thing’’ here standing equally for meaning or referent. The sign represents the present in its absence. It takes the place of the present. When we cannot grasp or show the thing, state the present, the beingpresent, when the present cannot be presented, we signify, we go through the detour of the sign. We take or give signs.

We signal. The sign, in this sense, is deferred presence.”

(1991:62)

As a result, Nayak (1996:415) argues that it would appear that “the essence of race is not necessarily obliterated by the call to social constructionism, rather that it is enacted as a ‘deferred presence’.” This ‘struggle for the sign’ then has serious implications for the ontological status of race because if, as Nayak continues, we take ontology to represent the foundations on which we proceed, then the fact that race is now seen as fallacy calls into question the very grammar of ethnographic race writing.

This poses the question: how do we as writers and academics interested in the notion of race, discuss it in a way that does not reify the very categories we are seeking to abolish? It is this idea of race as an absent presence that haunts some of


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the more popular social constructionist positions. Suki Ali comments (2004) suggests that there is a tendency in many social constructionist interpretations is the ontological security placed upon a stable, knowable racial identity. “Social constructionism still holds to the idea of race as some kind of ontological category, a real foundation for what one ‘‘is’’, and thus provides the basis for questions about equality and difference / and how they may be tied to a ‘‘racial identity’’’ (2004:324).

This is contrasted by post-race writing which destabilises this position by assuming an anti-foundational perspective and stresses that race is a fiction which is only ever given credence through the illusion of performance, action and utterance, where its repetition makes it appear as-if-real (Todd 2007). For Derrida the power of a sign to manifest as an object such as race truth is dependent “entirely upon the possibility of acts of repetition. It is constituted by this possibility. Its ‘‘being’’ is proportionate to the power of repetition” (cited in Kamuf 1991, p. 12).

An example of this is in Frankenberg’s book, White Women, Race Matters: The Social

Construction of Whiteness (1994), where her approach is concerned with the social construction of race, the “locations, discourses, and material relations to which the term ‘‘whiteness’’ applies” (1994:6). However, her study is ultimately grounded in the corporeal certainty of her respondents, so-called ‘white women’. By conflating whiteness as a social process / fluid, malleable and endlessly reconstituted / with a secure, apparently knowable object, ‘white women’, we are left with the tangible irreducibility of race. This creates a subtle, politically significant, but somewhat irresolvable, paradigmatic tension: To what extent is whiteness a social construction if it is always reliant upon a white subject to enact and materialize it?

As Gunaratnam notes, “despite theoretical understandings of ‘‘race’’ and ethnicity as relational and socially constructed, there is still a voracious appetite for approaches that freeze, objectify and tame ‘‘race’’/ethnicity into unitary categories that can be easily understood and managed” (2003:33).


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Frankenberg for example states “that there is a cultural/racial specificity to white people, at times more obvious to people who are not white than to white individuals” (p. 5). While many ethnic minorities have historically had to become skilled interpreters of whiteness (Hooks 1992; Nebeker 1995; Nayak 1997), I find myself asking: is there really a ‘racial specificity’ to white people, and if so what exactly does it look like? Whilst one can assume that Frankenberg is referring to ethnicity rather than a genetic ‘racial specificity’ with its abundant essentialist overtones, this version of culture appears rather all too solid, concrete and securely bound to the object of ‘white individuals’.

An alternative view is shared by Nayak (2003) who argues that it is difficult to isolate white ethnicity in global times from what remains a thoroughly chequered cultural tapestry of sustained black-white interaction, and therefore that ethnicities and cultures are far more porous and promiscuous than implied and are forever subject to change. Furthermore, it can also be argued that whiteness is not homogenous but fractured into different ethnic practices of, for example Irish people, Spanish people,

Russian people etc. In other words, white people (or any other group of people) cannot be understood outside of the specific historical and geographical processes that constitute this subjectivity as intelligible, and the symbolic regimes of language that summon this representation to life. Otherwise are we not reducing ‘white people’ to a dead metaphor, objects whose actions are forever bound to their identities and frozen in time?

But what if there is no such thing as a secure ethnicity, culture or race? What if racial identity is something we assert but can never accomplish? (Nayak 2006) In her detailed work on gender theory and the body, Judith Butler has consistently argued

“against proper objects” (1994:1). Here, she identifies the strain between social


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constructionism and its reliance upon the ontological security of a knowable object.

For her, the institution of the ‘‘proper object’’ takes place usually through a mundane sort of violence, a methodological founding based on anti-historical acts, beginnings which fabricate their legitimating histories through a retroactive narrative, burying complicity and division in and through the funeral figure of the

‘‘ground’’ (Butler 1994:6).

This sentiment is continued by Ware who states, “It is not about being a white woman, it is about being thought of as a white woman” (1993:xii). Here, Ware makes a politically significant paradigmatic tension between racial categories, and the practices and identities they seek to inscribe, that come to mark the limits of contemporary social constructionism. It would seem therefore that whiteness or blackness is not attached to respective white and black bodies but rather that race signs are encoded into everyday practice.

As a result, writers such as Cashmore’s (2004) Encyclopaedia of Race and Ethnic

Studies argues that post-race theory remains a relatively unclear, diffuse cluster of ideas. He suggests that there is as yet “no real agreement as to how best to define this term or its relationship to the linked term poststructuralism” (Ali Year:232).

The argument to eliminate race is possibly most apparent in the publications of Paul

Gilroy. Gilroy’s declaratory article ‘Race ends here’ (1998) and his provocative book

Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Colour Line, express a pursuit towards a post-race paradigm. Gilroy criticises “the rational absurdity of race”

(2001:14), instead arguing for a “planetary humanism” (ibid:2). One of Gilroy’s primary arguments against race is to question why we implicitly deploy a concept that we explicitly recognize is lacking validity (Nayak 2006). Post-race advocates like


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Gilroy believe that it is all too easily succumb to a “pious ritual in which we always agree that ‘‘race’’ is invented but are then required to defer to its embeddedness in the world and to accept that the demand for justice nevertheless requires us to enter the political arenas that it helps mark out” (Gilroy 1998: 842). Such statements point to the contradictions found in a number of social constructionist writings where race writers choose to privilege the political ‘demand for justice’ which continues to operate as a fixed and inflexible, thoroughly asocial category. Beyond the colour line’, Gilroy’s recent work is characterized by a strong post-race sensibility. This manoeuvre is clear in his book There Ain’t no Black in the Union Jack, in which Gilroy (1987) argues that blackness and Britishness should not be seen as mutually exclusive. For Gilroy (2001), the ontological status of race acts as a subtle sleight of hand that perpetually stacks the proverbial deck of cards against us? Gilroy remarks, “The idea that action against racial hierarchies can proceed more effectively when it has been purged of any lingering respect for the idea of ‘‘race’’ is one of the most persuasive cards in this political and ethical suit” (2001:13) and that

“The first task is to suggest that the demise of ‘‘race’’ is not something to be feared”

(ibid.:12).

Since race has been the tool to manipulate sections of particular environments and denigrate culture for so long, Jill Olumide (2002) states that the concept of mixedrace is the “ideological enemy" of race. Since the concept of ‘mixed-race’ gives the lie to ‘race’, those who cross racial boundaries have been pathologised, demonised or even, at times, privileged by the state (Olumide, 2002: 2). Fundamental to this, is the author's description of the mixed-race condition as “the patterns and commonality of experience among those who obstruct whatever purpose race is being put to at a particular time” (ibid.). As a result, she comes to the conclusion that the message that mixed-race should bear on its collective T-shirt is that: “There are no races. Just an infinite range of major and minor differences between people of the same race. Some differences may be physical, most are socially constructed”

(ibid.: 188).


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Such a discussion into the definition of race extends into the debate over the racial identification of mixed-race people. Maria P.P. Root, for example, is opposed to

Black solidarity from mixed-race people, or indeed mixed-race solidarity, since this is an acknowledgement of race and further entrenchment of race into our social system (Root, 1996c: xxviii). She argues that “Oppression always fragments people, as energy and attention diverted from the experience of wholeness.” She contends that an environment that places importance on race “obscures important facts about the essence of an individual”. Consequently, she, like Andrew Bolt, but perhaps for different reasons, advocates the resistance of a fragmentation of races, which enables us to become “capable of embracing the humanity in ourselves and in others” (Root, 1996b: 14).

There have, however been criticisms of post-race politics, namely for its highbrow intellectualism, for being abstract, obtuse and occasionally frivolous, thus marked by a dense “obfuscatory theoretical and conceptual vocabulary” (St Louis 2002:654). It has been also been criticism for evoking a racial equivalence, an issue Fuss prophetically discussed in early encounters between race, social constructionism and post-structuralist theory. “It is easy enough for [some] white poststructuralist critics to place under erasure something they think they never had to begin with”

(1989:93). It is because whiteness is seen as an unmarked racial category that the loss of race for white theoreticians can appear inconsequential. In contrast, for many minority ethnic groups, the erasure of race may equate with the obliteration of an identity and shared way of life, so coming to silence our racially marked historical experiences. Indeed, it could certainly be argued that the concept of race, however tarnished it may appear, has provided an important meeting place for political mobilization, inclusion and social change. As Fuss confirms, ‘The current tensions and disputes surrounding ‘‘race’’ ... powerfully demonstrate that ‘‘race’’ is an important site of intense political contestation’ (Fuss 1989, p. 92). In this vein it has been


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suggested that race is inherently located in ‘an inescapable political register’ wherein

‘the extent to which post-racial perspectives manage to fully escape the centripetal forces of race is fractious and incomplete’ (St Louis 2002:654).

This is the case with some mixed-race Australian and American writers argue that it is essential for mixed-race people to identify as Black reject White domination.

Australian mixed-race author Anita Heiss (2003) suggests that the movement for mixed-race people to adopt an Aboriginal identity has been driven by a desire to repudiate the White idea of race: the view that race is determined by colour, and that colour determines one’s identity. Heiss borrows from Eve Fesl by pointing out that only Aboriginals were subject to divisions of part, quarter, half-caste or fullblood (Heiss, 2003: 17). It was the attempt to separate Aboriginals and whiten them which acknowledged White superiority, because the assumption is that one can erase Aboriginality by ‘breeding’ them out. She argues that the current generation of

Aborigines and mixed-race people have sought an Aboriginal alliance precisely

because they reject Western views of race.

As Heiss explains: “It has become necessary for Aboriginal people to define ourselves: for the purpose of broader community acceptance; for the purpose of census counts; for access to employment/education opportunities; and to satisfy the pluralistic underpinnings of the complex of Australian society, a complex that continues to struggle to assert a ‘national’ identity – an identity, it seems, that will never be split from its migrant beginnings and that requires the acceptance of

Aboriginality” (ibid.: 18). Heiss ends by saying that whilst White people regard the classification of Aboriginality as a problem, “the Aboriginal community is far more comfortable with the concept (ibid.).”

This is an argument that resonates with Black American social commentators, who argue that because Black and mixed-race people share similar experiences (being treated and labelled as Black), this provides the basis for ethnic unity, and for


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political and other organised efforts to protect its members. F. James Davis (1996) argues that to challenge the one-drop rule as an arbitrary social construction sounds to some Black people (those people who are socialised in a Black environment) like a dangerous idea. If the result of such a change would be to cause some lightercoloured persons not to identify as Black, the former would lose some of its hardwon political strength, perhaps some of its best leaders, some members of its churches and other community institutions, some business and professional people, and some customers and clients. He argues that American Blacks now feel they have an important vested interest in a rule that has for centuries been a key instrument in their oppression (Davis, 1996: 180). Davis’ fear is that mixed-race people identifying as mixed-race would affect the number of people identifying as Black, reducing their political and economic power since for Davis, mixed-race people would not be concerned with assisting the cause for greater social justice for Black people.

Therefore, it can be argued that mixed-race people have a responsibility to remain

Black since “mixed heritage classifications” would be detrimental to the Black people

(Spencer, 1997: x). Jon Michael Spencer (1997) contends that a mixed-race group would be used as a tool for the political elites. “It is an inescapable fact that the legal classification of ‘Coloured’ provided the lever for the White South African government to introduce all manner of discrimination against the group once it was legally identified” (ibid.). Therefore, as he puts it, “as some multiracialists begin down the road of racial bigotry by cock-a-doodling about their alleged specialness, certainly in part to bolster the identity and self-esteem of themselves or that of their

‘mixed-race’ children, they subtly assault the identity and self-esteem of Black

Americans'' (ibid.).

This argument suggests that mixed-race people should put aside the desire for recognition and self-esteem for the greater good of (Black) people. I share this critique, and have written in the book, What Being Black Is and What Being Black

Isn’t, that it would be illogical for Black people not to accept mixed-race people as

Black people, since many Black role models are in fact mixed. “I got a message for all


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those Black people who think that mixed-parentage people aren’t Black…if that’s the way you think, don’t ever be trying to claim the following people as Black in the future…Adam Clayton Powell…Bob Marley…” (Whittingham, 2010: 72). My rationalization is that in my experience, mixed-race people are treated as Black, and as a consequence, the Black caucus would be stronger politically with a consistent approach to mixed-race identity.

To conclude this section, it is noticeable that there is a similarity between the perceptions of many White liberal Australians, Aboriginals and Black American commentators who assert that mixed-race people are Black or Indigenous. However, there seem to be different reasons for this. The liberal elements of the media in

Australia appear to empathise with the Aboriginal or mixed-race narrative of

Australia’s past, and as a means of granting them self-determination, respect the fact that mixed-race Aboriginals are free to claim an Indigenous identity. This then raises the question, how much freedom are mixed-race Aboriginals afforded, in an academic and political environment in which the notion of mixed-race is so rarely discussed as anything other than Aboriginal.

The right-wing media in Australia and the US takes on a similar position to that of anti-racists in the United States of America and in the UK, although again, for very different reasons. Conservative commentators in both environments claim that they are concerned that mixed-race people are either exploiting their ability to claim state benefits that are available for ‘real’ Aboriginals, and/or that they have an opportunity to use their mixedness to bring an end to a racially divided world. Cynics might argue that this is merely a way of creating divisions amongst the Black people.

This would be very different from the anti-racist position, which believes that mixedrace people should not assume a Black identity, which would only uphold a racial caste system based in slavery, and adhere to a racial classification that suppresses people of ‘colour’. It is worth noting that this is not the case with British conservative commentators, who say very little on the subject. This indicates that there are


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unambiguous divisions in the US, the UK and Australia about how mixed-race people should identify.

It could be argued that the literature researched suggests that the UK provides a more progressive platform in which to discuss a greater variety of issues concerning mixed-race identity. It will be intriguing to confirm whether this is the case through the research undertaken in this thesis.

Significantly, there was no literature found that argued that mixed-race people could, or should categorise themselves as White. This is important because it suggests that, whilst there are a number of arguments and discussions from a number of different writers of many nationalities about where mixed-race people should sit in the racial spectrum, they are all in agreement that White is not one of them. It will be interesting to see if this is replicated in amongst the data, and to establish why this is.

Lastly, it is worth mentioning that authors such as Mercer (Mercer, 1994: 4) have suggested that some people, as a consequence of their diverse and mixed environment, are assuming identities at different times, each to provide greater benefits to their circumstances, a theory which will be interesting to test against the results.

To conclude this section, I argue that by opening up the category of race to epistemological and ontological scrutiny we can yet appreciate that race comes ‘with no guarantees’. This anti-foundationalist approach is particularly helpful for recognizing race as a practice with no solid basis outside the discursive, material, structural and embodied configurations through which it is repetitively enacted, performed and, tenuously, secured.


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In recognizing the interconnections between essentialist, constructionist and postrace ideas I would contend that race and ethnic scholars can benefit from listening to and becoming conversant in contemporary post-race dialogues, whether they chose to subscribe to these positions or not. Primarily, there are also at least some compelling reasons to envisage new spaces and forms of cultural identification that cross the colour line and can engender ‘other ways of being’. (St Louis 2002)

Finally and most importantly, it could be argued that a critical understanding of how we ‘do’ race may yet inform us with strategies and techniques to ‘undo’ it. For if identities are unanchored from ‘proper objects’ then this would suggest that there is hope for change and intervention in contemporary race politics. As Ali remarks, “that though we live in the increasingly post-race world ... the irrational and corporeal ground of ‘‘race’’ can still be a powerful force in social relations” (2003:2). By constantly revealing the racialized body as a highly dubious zone upon which to anchor difference and a treacherously slippery surface on which to sustain race meaning, a post-race attitude makes evident that our bodies are thoroughly unreliable sources of ‘race truth’ (Nayak 2006).

In conclusion, the attempt here has not been to favour social constructionism over essentialism, or indeed, post-race perspectives over the more grounded forms of constructionism, but instead to recognize the genealogy of these approaches, the fraught interrelations that exist between these theoretical positions, and the modes of complicity that bring them together.

Section Four: The Dialogue in Terminology. The previous sections have explored literature which studies mixed-race identity and the racial positioning of mixed-race people.


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This section of the chapter will explore the literature that discusses what mixed-race people are called, where they are called such names, and what is regarded as acceptable to call mixed-race people. The first part of this section will review the terms that are currently in use in literature used by non-academics, and political and social commentators. The second sub-section will discuss terms that include the word ‘mixed’, from both an academic, and a non-academic perspective, and explore the explanations that writers and commentators employ for either using or discarding the word. The final sub-section will explore the alternative terms available.

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Within the UK, terms such as mixed, or mixed-race are most pervasive. Organisations such as Mixedness & mixing, and Mosaic Brighton are bodies that use the term

‘mixed’ regularly. Additionally, Facebook groups named Mixed Race People Are

Beautiful, I Love Being Mixed and Mixed Nation, and people named on their profile as ‘MixedRaced Jessica’ all show that mixed-race people in mainstream media sources in the UK are comfortable with the phrase as one that is used to describe them.

The term ‘lightie’ is often used to describe mixed-race women in UK Hip-Hop and

Grime music. Examples of this are the song by the London born music artist, Mz Bratt who uses the phrase “I’m a pretty little lightie but I can get dark” in the chorus of her song, Get Dark (Mz Bratt, 2011), whilst underground artists such as Giggs frequently use the phrase ‘lightie’ to describe mixed-race girls (Skepta, 2009).

In US popular literature, the term Biracial is more frequently used, with mixed-race rarely used. The recent article published in Time Magazine, entitled “Passing as

Black: How Biracial Americans choose identity” conveys the casual use of the term

(Time Magazine, 2010). It is worth noting that the magazine has the world's largest weekly circulation.

73 The term Biracial has also been noted in the 2010 Hollywood film, The Other Guys, referring to baseball player Derek Jeter as a “Biracial Angel”, 74 and also in the film series ‘Biracial Not Black Damn It’.


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A term that is considered offensive to mixed-race people in both the US and US appears to be ‘half-caste’. In her book, Mixed-Race, Post-Race: Gender, New

Ethnicities and Cultural Practices, Suki Ali refers to an experience in which a White woman used the term ‘half-caste’ and concluded that though it is “a term [that] outdated in academia…[it] shows that language or terms in common usage may change, meanings may well not” (Ali, 2003: 2).

This is a sentiment that is shared in Australia. In much of the Australian literature published by writers who identify themselves as Aboriginal (which means that they could be either Aboriginal or mixed-race), there is almost a universal disregard for the term. If the expressions ‘half-caste’ or ‘quarter caste’ are used, it is often used in an ironic sense, to highlight the manner in which it has been used, and to show disdain for that term. An example of this is featured in the book Hey Mum, What’s a

Half-Caste (McGee-Sippel, 2010). The author, Lorraine McGee-Sippel uses the phrase in the title of her book. However she explains that she uses the word to emphasise the indignity of her childhood, and the substandard treatment in which mixed-race people were subjected to during the Stolen Generation (ibid.).

The dislike for the name half-caste is widely expressed. The Aboriginal websites

Miromaa discusses terminology at length. It argues that terms such as “a ‘half-caste’ as someone with one White parent, a 'quadroon' or 'quarter-caste' as someone with an Aboriginal grandfather or grandmother, an 'octoroon' as someone whose greatgrandfather or great-grandmother was Aboriginal”, are “considered offensive and racist” and are influenced by colonial thinking.

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However, the contrast with British or American literature, and Australian literature, shows that the term mixed-race is also disliked, a concept also shared by mixed-race authors from Canada with Indigenous ancestry. Canadian poet Graham Scott Angus

(1996) explains that “It’s not the colour of my skin that matters. It’s what I have in my heart, and the strength of my spirit, that’s what makes me what I am” (Angus,


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1996: 130).

It would appear that this growing trend towards rejecting the term

‘mixed’, or using language that suggests races can be fractured, is a direct result of the policies that once divided the Aboriginal people in Australia and Canada.

Therefore, those authors who use the term ‘mixed’ are indicating that they believe that mixed-race people should be not be aligned racially with Aboriginals. An example of this is a passage used by right-wing author Paul Sheehan.

Towards the mixed blood Aboriginal there is not much goodwill. Their proclivity for White vice, in the boredom of their chronic unemployment, has also worn the patience of their Black kinsmen, many of whom disown them utterly as non-initiated yellow trade-offs.

(Sheehan, 1998: 254)

Here we can see that Paul Sheehan, a right-wing author is using language that is considered unacceptable to Aboriginals or mixed-race Australians. More liberal authors may use similar terms, but they are often used with ‘scare’ quote marks. As

Richard Broome suggests, because those are historical terms, writers often make the reader aware that these terms are considered controversial (Broome, 2002: 4).

Docker and Fischer, for example, use the term ‘crossblood’ in their publications

(Fischer, 2000: 107), Michael Howard uses the term “mixed” in his book, Aboriginal

Power in Australian Society (Howard, 1982: 235), however both terms are only ever used to refer to the past, or to specify a position, and the authors are careful to explain this in their passages.

Many mixed-race Australian authors have become accustomed to use titles to describe themselves that represent the cultural identity of the individual distinguishing themselves from race. Lynette Russell, her book Boundary Writing, concludes that “they [Aboriginals and mixed-race Australians] do not define themselves through hyphenated hybrid terms (with external referents), but rather through their tribal affiliation or simply as the generic terms Koori, Murri or Noongar.


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These contemporary ascriptions of indigenous identity are generally constructed as binaristic; that is, they are constructed in conscious opposition to the identity of

Euro-Australian, immigrants, colonizers, invaders or newcomers” (Russell, 2006: 5).

In the UK, there is a similar trend to find terms other than ‘mixed’ to describe mixedrace people (Hall, 1996: 398).

However, this differs from Australia since the determination in the UK is based on an opposition of racial identity as a concept in its entirety. Christine C. Iijima Hall explains that today, a “fear remains among most authors…that by using such racial terminology, we may be validating the concept of racial segregation that has misclassified us and classified out ancestors for political and economic reasons” (ibid.: 398). Hall therefore is reluctant to use the term

‘mixed’, and instead wishes to pursue terminology that does not corroborate with the view that race is biological, and not purely a social construction.

Jill Olumide agrees, stating that the term mixed-race is “slimy”, and that its use undermines race ideology and the order it seeks to maintain. She explains that it exposes the fiction of pure races, and thus, “to maintain order, ambiguity must apparently be reduced either through its exclusion, its incorporation into the non-ambiguous, or else its extermination” (Olumide, 2002: 181).

There are a number of other arguments that also suggest that the term ‘race’ should be taken out of any label relating to mixed-race people. Kendra R. Wallace (2003) feels uncomfortable using any phrase that incorporates the term race, or alludes to the separation of races. In her book, Working with Multiracial Students, she therefore explains that she is uneasy with the use of the word ‘mixed’, as it suggests that the person is “mixed-up”. Additionally, she believes that “it fails to connote the political multiplicity of the ethnic and racial influences in the student’s lives a la

‘melting pot’ ideology”. For her, identity, ethnicity and race are “dynamic, contingent constructs, regardless of the population under study” (Wallace, 2003: 202). Whilst she does use the term, “mixed heritage”, she explains that such expressions are based on intrinsically diverse and unstable social categories. Suki Ali argues that using the term mixed “is linked to specific intellectual and cultural positions and


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most often connected with binaried Black/White, brown/White mixing. I believe that for different racial/ethnic groupings the phrases would sit less easily” (Ali, 2003:

170). She continues, “An umbrella term ‘mixed-race’ could result in a ‘tripartite system’ within a Black/White paradigm, but there are so many other variations of multiplicity that challenge these ideas in different temporal and spatial locations”

(ibid.). She advocates the “further deconstruction of ‘mixed-race’ alongside, through and by deconstruction of existing (binaried) racialisations, to begin to move away from talking ‘race’ and to interrogate the specifics of inequalities through post-race thinking” (ibid.).

Some arguments submit that by using the term mixed-race, one implies that mixedrace people are impure. April Moreno (2001) believes that the term mixed-race disavows more complex family histories (Song and Parker, 2001: 170). This is a concept taken up by Ann Phoenix and Charlie Owen (2004). They contend that just like the term ‘Half-Caste’, mixed-parentage is suggestive of a superior and an inferior racial mix (Phoenix and Owen, 2004: 75). They also argue that the term mixedparentage can only be acceptable when one accepts that there are two clearly differentiated and defined races. This is because a mix is the basis of bipolar construct, which is wholly incorrect since approximately 70–80% of Black Americans have some White ancestry, most people are mixed-race (BBC, 2003).

In a continuation of that argument, it could be maintained that this argues that most terms that we use to describe mixed-race people are inaccurate (Mirza, 1997: 285).

Heidi Mirza (1997) contends that ‘mixed-race’ assumes that the ‘mixing’ has only occurred in the first generation; ‘Mixed origin’ has no racial connotations, a factor that she argues is seen as vitally important to those who have one Black and one

White parent (ibid.); ‘Mixed-parentage’ and ‘mixed heritage’ are too broad, and someone, for example, who is Scottish and English could also be considered to be

‘mixed-parentage’; ‘mixed-race’ presumes differently racialised parentage; ‘Dual heritage’ carries the same ‘de-racialised’ connotations.


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This has led to a number of academics suggesting alternative terms. The following area discusses the merits of those suggested. Ann Phoenix and Charlie Owen (2004) offer the terms involving phrases such as “hybridity” and “hybridisation” to offer other ways of thinking about ethnicity which include those of mixed-parentage without pathologising them. Despite the fact that in many dictionaries, the term

‘hybrid’, includes words like ‘mongrel’ and ‘half-breed’, they argue that it shows a connection between racial categories throughout history (Phoenix and Owen, 2004:

75). However it can be argued that the notion of ‘hybridity’ is also somewhat inadequate for conceptualizing multiple social identities (for example, Solomos and

Back 1995; Werbner and Modood 1997; Yuval-Davis 1997; Anthias 2001). For example, Yuval-Davis points out that notions of hybridity reflect essentialist notions of fixed/homogenous identities because they imply a joining together of distinct entities to produce a new hybrid identity (McGee 2001).

Jayne Ifekwunigwe (1999) offers the term “metissage” as the new means of understanding ‘mixed-race’ subjectivities, “métis” for males, and “métisse” for females (Ifekwunigwe, 1996: 18).

She claims that mixed-race people are hungry for a “uniformist but not essentialist term to describe themselves, which carves out a space for the naming of their specific experiences without necessarily reinscribing and reifying ‘race’” (ibid.: 17).

For Ifekwunigwe, “Métissage is a concept which at its best operates simultaneously and differentially at the level of the individual, the family, the community and the state”. Métis(se) is a French–African term and is similar to the terms ‘half-caste’ or

‘half breed’. ‘Métis’ does not mention the word race which is so problematic, and though has a negative past, she argues that it can be appropriated in the same way that ‘nigger’ was re-claimed (ibid.). However, the main criticism of such a label is that the derivation of this word in particular from animalistic codes of breeding needs to be worked through and justified, clarifying the precise sense in which a term is being wrought free from negative associations to signify positively in the current conjecture.


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It might seem as though the discussion on terminology has no reasonable conclusion. Writers such as Jane Lane conclude that there is no term which “pleases everyone” and that it is a “no-win” situation (Lane, 2008: 335), whilst others believe that much of the discussion ignores the reality of the experience for many mixedrace people. Researchers such as Kerry-Ann Rockquemore and Tracey Laszloffy, who use the term mixed-race in their discussions explain that “use of the term ‘mixed race’ should not suggest to the reader an endorsement of a biological view of race…Because we understand race to be socially constructed, a child is not a literal mixture of two races, but instead, she is the offspring of parents who are socially categorised as different races…While the use of this terminology may, in some ways, reify the existing categorisation system, our discussion of the social reality of mixedrace children necessitates their usage” (Rockquemore and Laszloffy, 2005: xiii).

Tizzard and Phoenix also follow this line of thought. They are aware that using terms such as ‘Black mixed-parentage’, and ‘Black with one White parent’ can be seen as

“reproducing essentialist, binary” (Tizard and Phoenix, 2001: 11) thinking about

Black vs White. However, they see the political benefits of this, claiming solidarity with Black people. Whilst it “potentially give[s] recognitions to racism affecting people of ‘mixed-parentage’ and ‘Black’ people in similar ways” (ibid.) it is simultaneously making people aware of the fact that there are also issues specific to

‘mixed-parentage’ people.

The section shows that amongst British academics, there is a desire to move away from the notion of race, and progress towards a point in which mixed-race individuals are either represented as mixed-race, and not merely as Black, or through elements of their identity unconnected to race. This has resulted in an attempt to find language that accurately represents people, without resorting to binary or racialised expressions. In Australia, the debate around language is very different. It appears as though only conservative writers use words such as mixed or half-caste,


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whilst mixed-race Australians rarely use the terms unless in an ironic manner, or to emphasise their displeasure which the label.

Summary

This research suggests that within the UK, there is a determination by writers and those in the mainstream media to discuss the topic and acknowledge the group as a racial entity. The British and American states appear to welcome a discussion about mixed-race identity, where there is a freer attitude towards the notion of mixed-race identity. This is contrasted in Australia, where there is not much information and it seems that the question of identity amongst many mixed-race writers and amongst many liberal White authors has been answered: they are Aboriginal. White authors discussing, debating or analysing the present condition or political position of mixedrace people are also rare, due to the extreme sensitivity of the issue. In Australian politics and in any material that questions identity, the use of racial language connected with the concept of mixedness is highly offensive and only those from conservative allegiances are likely to question the identity of mixed-race people.

Despite these conclusions, I would argue that the most significant finding is the variety and intensity of opinions that surround the identity of mixed people, both within and amongst British, Australian and American authors. Research suggests that to be mixed-race is to be a social and political instrument that inspires intense reactions from White, Black and mixed-race individuals. I am interested in ascertaining the impact of these opinions on the identity of mixed-race young people.

However, an alternative approach argues that social identity should be seen not so much as a fixed possession, but as a social process, in which the individual and the social are inextricably related (Jenkins, 2004: Ch. 10). His premise is that individual selfhood is a social phenomenon, but that the social world is constituted through the actions of individuals. As such, identity is a fluid, contingent matter: it is something we accomplish practically through our continuous interactions and negotiations with


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other people. Therefore he concludes that it might be more appropriate to talk about identification rather than identity.

In consideration of the research already written on the subject and investigated in this chapter, I have established that there are four gaps in the research that could be exposed: one, as mentioned above, investigating the difference between young people’s identity, and their identification; two, whether the one-drop rule still exists amongst young people, how it exists, and whether it is possible or acceptable for mixed-race young people to adopt a White identity; three, what the stereotypes of mixed-race young people are, if and how they affect the candidates; and four, if the young mixed-race interviewees feel responsible for adopting a particular racial identity, and what and why it is.

The research method in the following chapter will describe the research parameters, the research design and the data collection methods used in this thesis. This will help provide an understanding of the influence that external perspectives on mixed-race identity has on young people, and establish the value of this process.

55 Biracial is used in this context instead of mixed-race to highlight the fact that Americans prefer the use of the term Biracial to describe mixed-race people.

56 However, as I explained in the previous chapter, I am aware that the many people who are classified as South African Coloured possess ancestry from Europe, various Khoisan and Bantu tribes of

Southern Africa, West Africa, Indonesia, Madagascar, Malaya, India, Mozambique, Mauritius, and

Saint Helena.

57 For histories of “youth,” see Gillis (1992) and Mitterauer (1992).

58 Others, like the psychologist Carol Gilligan, have argued that moral development takes a different path for males and females, which again implies that such generalized models may not take sufficient account of social differences (Gilligan, 1982). These researchers argue that the environment and culture has changed, allowing individuals to delay adult tasks (such as employment, marriage and parenthood) until later in life (Bosma and Kunnen, 2001). As a result, some people tend to postpone the exploration and commitment related to identity development until emerging adulthood.

59 Similarly, the family also fosters autonomy and initiative in children when they allow children to make appropriate decisions and engage in new activities. Aside from Erikson’s theory, Bosma and

Kunnen suggest that families also provide the basis for the beliefs and values an individual holds

(ibid.). The individual then uses those values as a starting place in the exploration of their values. In


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the case of the foreclosed individual (one who does not actively investigate alternatives), the family may be the only source of principles for that individual’s identity.

60 Although many times a family can provide sufficient support for an individual, familial relationships do not always produce the positive outcomes desired. When these interactions are weak sources of support, DuBois argues that this may reduce an individual’s ability to cope with challenges (DuBois et al., 2002). In such cases, individuals may strive to fit in with their peers, and can adopt similar beliefs and values to their friends.

61 The people with whom an individual associates all have their own beliefs, which may or may not reflect those of the individual.

62 Whilst there are a number of definitions for youth that could be used (for example the United Nation defines young people as between the ages of 14 to 24, (UNESCO 2002b), we will here use the term

‘youth’ colloquially – to be distinguished from the remainder of the population not just by age but by a certain level of agency (youth typically enjoy a greater amount of agency, or social power, than children but less than adults); a particular relationship to the labour market (youth are more likely to be unemployed, earn less or be engaged in study than adults); and youth-specific cultural pursuits (youth typically consume cultural phenomena and assume styles of behaviour and dress that are different from the comparable habits of children and adults) (Heaven and Tubridy, New York: 2005).

63 Therefore partly a relational development (Kleinian psychology) where you state ‘I am not you’

64 Note: Perhaps this is also in some part a function of the post-civil riots dominant discourse on ‘race’ in the US.

65 Mixed and Happy http://www.facebook.com/mixedandhappy (accessed 21/07/12).

66 Mixed Race T-Shirts.com (accessed 21/07/12).

67 intermix.org.uk

(accessed 21/07/12)

68 On investigation, I found the study questionable. To briefly explain, firstly, his premise that mixedrace people are “over-represented at the top level of a number of meritocratic professions”, such as

Halle Berry in acting, Lewis Hamilton in F1 racing, Tiger Woods in golf and Obama in politics is highly debatable. Whilst there are prominent mixed-race individuals, I would argue that this is not an over-representation. For example, since Halle Berry won her Academy Award in 2001, no other

Black/White mixed-race actor has won an Oscar, Lewis Hamilton remains the only Black or mixedrace person to compete in F1 competition, in all US golf club membership, 84% are White, with Tiger

Woods and Vijay Singh the only non-White competitors on the PGA tour, and within American politics, Black attainment is far more prevalent than mixed-race attainment. Whilst mixed-race people are undoubtedly more visible in British and American society, and whilst there are recent prominent achievements of mixed-race people, there is certainly no ‘over-representation’. Hence, it would appear that Lewis selected high profile but nonetheless, isolated examples to justify an hypothesis.

(Additionally, the suggestion that acting, F1 racing and politics are meritocratic professions is awkward). Lewis’ premise of ‘over-representation’ fails to take into consideration over-representation in the care system, areas of mental health and in school exclusions. Lastly on this first point, I would argue that the argument that mixed-race people are genetically ‘better’, is similar to the suggestion that


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‘Black people are naturally faster”, used to explain why Usain Bolt dominates sprinting. This automatically devalues the accomplishment of any Black or mixed-race achiever, since it suggests that their success not earned, but based on an in-built biological advantage in this field. It therefore discounts the hard work and dedication by the individual, and provides a justification for White failure.

To conclude this first point, I would disagree with his initial premise.

Secondly, and finally, notions of “cross-breeding” suggest that Black and White people, or indeed any races exist is at best problematic. Race is social not biological, and whilst it is generally accepted that although genetic differences exist within humans, they are not based on skin tone. If Lewis’ hypothesis is to be understood, Africa, being the most genetically diverse continent on earth, should contain

‘mixed-race’ people of beauty and intelligence that surpasses the intelligence of Black-White mixed people.

69 There is a history behind this: see Margaret Hunter or Ronald Hall on colorism.

70 ‘Blackface’ is the term used to describe a form of theatrical make-up used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person.

71 Creative Spirits www.creativespirits.info (accessed 21/07/12).

72 I am aware that the discussion into terminology can go much further than that which is illustrated in this section, time constraints and an appraisal of its significance has played a part in the decision for this section to be the length that it is.

73 Time Magazine has a readership of 25 million, of which 20 million are in the US.

74 The Other Guys Columbia Pictures (2010).

75 Miromaa http://www.miromaa.org.au/Culture/Aboriginal-

Terminology.html?print=1&tmpl=component (accessed 21/07/12).


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Chapter Three: Methodology

It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of the world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.

(Du Bois, 1903)

Introduction

This chapter will describe the methods employed in producing an ethnographic comparative study between mixed-race young people aged 18–24 based in Redfern,

Sydney and Brixton, London (Pettigrew, 2007: 75). Its intention is to determine the dynamics that influence the identity of mixed-race young people, and to look at the impact of environmental factors of their identification.

Included in this chapter are an explanation of the procedures, methods and techniques that were used for the collection of the primary data for this project, and an analysis of their reliability and limitations.

The first section in this chapter explains why qualitative and ethnographic methods were chosen to study this research project, and discusses the decision to use a comparative framework to answer the investigative questions. Section Two describes how I gained access to the interviewees, and explains the rationale behind the sampling (i.e sample size, age range). The third and fourth sections explain why group interview and individual interviews were used as the types of data collection used. It looks at the use of unstructured interviews for the individual interviews, and explores the advantages and limitations of this technique. It also justifies the use of photo elicitation and looks at any changes made during the research in this area. The

fifth section rationalises the use of a diary and field notes completed during the research period, whilst section six focuses on the benefits and limitations of being an insider and an outsider in ethnographic research. Section Seven looks at the ethical

Jacob Whittingham Is Mixed-Race A Colour? The Factors Involved in the Construction of the Mixed-Race Identity Chapter 3: Methodology (2014)

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considerations taken during this research with specific reference to the types of people that I was researching and the final section considers how the data was analysed.

Section One: Research Method

In its pursuit to understand the motivations behind the identity choices of young mixed-race people, qualitative methods were chosen. Through investigation, I concluded that this method would be best suited to exploring young people’s perception of and attitudes toward the complex and often subconscious issues such as racial identity amongst individual interviewees (Creswell, 1998).

Qualitative methods were chosen because they were best able to investigate the issues related to young people’s identity. As mentioned in previous chapters, the concept of identity is a complex and often slippery term to define. When attempting to understand the motivations for young people’s identity, and the way in which their identity is formed, I decided that I needed a method of research that provided participants with the opportunity to be reflexive and examine their own thoughts, that gave them the freedom to express the issues that are salient to them, so that they are not restricted in their thoughts by a structured questionnaire (Ipsos MORI,

2007).

Creswell defines qualitative research as, “an inquiry process of understanding based on distinct methodological traditions of inquiry that explore a social or human problem” (Creswell, 1998). The researcher builds a complex, holistic picture, analyses words, reports detailed views of informants, and conducts the study in a natural setting (ibid.: 15).

Qualitative methodology allowed me to study the notion of identity in its naturalistic setting, and would be an ideal tool in multicultural counselling research. Morrow,

Rakhsha and Castaneda provide several reasons for using qualitative research to study the topic of identity (Morrow et al., 2001).


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

It includes context as an essential component of the research.

 It addresses the researcher’s process of self-awareness and self-reflection.

 It is uniquely able to capture the meanings made by participants of their experiences.

Ethnography was used in this study because it can be applied to any small-scale research study that is carried out in everyday settings; undertaken in everyday contexts, using various data sources and methods, and they draw attention to the inductive and interpretive nature of ethnographic inquiry (O’Reilly, 2012). It involves the ethnographer, as quoted from Hammersley and Atkinson’s Ethnography:

Principles in Practice “asking questions through informal and formal interviews, collection documents and artefacts – in fact, gathering whatever data are available to throw light on the issues that are the emerging focus of inquiry” (Hammersley and

Atkinson, 2007: 1). Simply asking young people, “What is your identity”, or “are you more Black or White”, would not be sufficient in achieving a comprehensive assessment of the significant experiences that have led to the composition of their identity, and therefore a more in-depth analysis was required. As David Fetterman explains, ethnography is an ambitious journey through the complex world of “social interaction”. For him, it involves telling “credible rigours and authentic” stories from the perspective of local people, and interpreting these stories in the context of people’s daily lives and culture (O’Reilly, 2012), ideal for tackling the subject of racial identification and its journey in the candidate’s lives (Fetterman, 2010: xi).

As explained in Chapter One: Introduction, an iterative-inductive method was used.

As a result, I started with a theoretical problem that would guide the design and process of the research rather than a hypothesis to test, but which could be constantly revised as the analyses evolved (O’Reilly, 2012: 29). Throughout this chapter, the development and reflexive nature of the research method is demonstrated.


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Section Two: Sampling

Choices about who and what would be included in the research, and where and when it would take place were initially theoretically informed, however, closer to the time in which the research was undertaken, a number of decisions were made on a practical basis (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007). This section explores those choices.

In this thesis, I chose to complete 20 individual interviews (Brother Mouzone,

Brianna, De’Londa, Rhonda, Maria, Nerese, Stringer Bell, Bodie, Prop Joe, Kimmy,

Donette, Snoop, Alma, Grace, Theresa, Barksdale, Omar, D’Angelo, Wee-Bey, Savino) and one group interview with young people from Redfern between October 2009 and January 2010. In Brixton, another 20 individual interviews (Narishma, Algarin,

Minly, Kisman, Lyrelle, Mezar Kurin, Harella, Maigan, Trakand, Kumira, Herminon,

Dachen, Jhondar, Jagad, Cain, Nyram, Nachiman, Nachenin, Namelle, Be’lal) and three group interviews with young people between February and May 2010.

Examples of two interviews are included in the appendix: Donette in Redfern, and

Be’lal in Brixton.

The decision to interview 20 young people was based on time restrictions, and what was practical in the time available to me. As I was not in a position to support myself without employment, my employers granted me a four-month sabbatical leave to conduct the research in Australia, whilst the London segment of the research was conducted during time without leave. Hence, whilst I could potentially conduct a vast number of interviews in London, I was limited in my time in Sydney. I was aware that the research in Sydney would be more difficult to conduct, since I had never visited the country, and had no contacts in the country prior to my decision to start the research. So when I timetabled my research in Sydney, I was aware that it was likely to take two months stationed in the area before I could begin to conduct individual interviews, since I required eight weeks to create and build links in Redfern, and to conduct a series of interviews with people in the area who could help me understand concepts in the area, suggest interview questions and contextualise issues.


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This meant that I would have approximately eight weeks in which to conduct as many in-depth interviews with mixed-race young people as possible. I had to remain flexible about times and dates that participants could be interviewed, and wanted the opportunity to interview candidates when they had a morning, afternoon or evening free without any other commitments. This would give me the chance to be able to ask as many questions as possible without interruption. However, I also wanted time to think, plan, write and discuss issues with colleagues, friends, and to sort through themes, to read notes and transcripts, and to think again before going ahead with further interviews (O’Reilly, 2012). As a result, I attempted to restrict myself to a maximum of two interviews per day. With these considerations, I estimated that 20 in-depth individual interviews with young people would be a realistic target to set myself.

The four group interviews conducted were opportunistic, and were not planned prior to undertaking the research. A more detailed explanation of how and why they were conducted is given in the Group Interview section of this chapter.

An additional 46 interviews were conducted with people in Australia, and 36 interviews in Britain, with politicians, Youth and Community workers, activists and anyone who I could speak to and had an opinion on the range of topics covered in this thesis. The majority of these interviews were conducted prior to the individual interviews, with the aim being to gain a rounded picture of the issues that I was considering, and to improve my knowledge of the questions that I needed to ask, or topics that I needed to cover when interviewing the young people. Details of these interviews are provided in the appendix.

Interviews of this kind were vital for the research conducted in Redfern, where I felt I lacked knowledge of the core issues concerning mixed-race people. As mentioned in

Chapter Two: Literature Review, printed information about mixed-race identity was extremely limited, and the only topic discussed specifically relating to mixed-race


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people was the Stolen Generation, which, as discussed, was always resolved with the individual stating that they were Aboriginal in their identification. I was not sure whether this opinion was widely held in Australia, or whether this was the only information that I could find. I therefore intended to engage in archival research in

Sydney’s public and university libraries intending to gain access to both published material, and original and primary sources which could include unpublished documents and records. I hoped that this would provide answers to the questions I had about mixed-race identity, and would therefore allow me to enter into individual interviews with a better knowledge of the significant issues, attitudes and subjects that surround the subject of mixed-race identity. However this proved unsuccessful, as the information available was similar to that found in libraries in the UK.

76 This was reflected in a passage in my diary dated 22 October 2009.

I am finding it increasingly difficult to find information about Aboriginal affairs in Australia, or maybe I should be more precise - I'm finding it difficult to find out information about mixed-race young people. Today I went to this library in the University of Sydney, and the only information that I keep getting about relates to the

Stolen Generation. I seldom find any information on

'half-castes' in any capacity.

The lack of knowledge I obtained from libraries necessitated an increased effort to speak to people so that I would be able to ask the probing questions required in the individual interviews. I recorded this in my diary entry for 13 November 2006:

I was talking to this cab driver about why I was here and he talked about a number of very interesting topics – from his opinions to the social state of aborigines, to his ethnicity, to his perception of race, to his experiences growing up


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white, and then discovering that he in fact had aboriginal ancestry…by conversing with people…I have found that I can use the things that I talk to random people about, in interviews that I have with the young people that I am interviewing – kind of like follow up questions.

However, my inability to find literature on mixed-race people in Australia meant that

I had a greater need for interviewing local people in Sydney about their experiences of and with mixed-race individuals.

As discussed in Chapter One: Introduction, the control was that the interviewees will have one parent who identifies as Black, and one parent who identifies as White (an explanation of definitions of Black and White are also provided in Chapter One:

Introduction). In Australia, I stipulated that all Black parents would have to be of

Aboriginal descent, and not of Black African descent. In Britain, the stipulation was that parents would be of Black African or Black–Caribbean descent only. In both sites, the White parent had to be of Western European descent (in this case Irish,

English, Welsh, Scottish, German and other Western European countries) . This was designed to measure differences in identities of mixed-race young people from different cultures in the two environments.

However, I used a maximum variation sampling strategy (Creswell, 1998) with particular social groups and categories which meant that I interviewed young people from a variety of nationalities, social classes and skin shades. This was designed to allow analysis differences within each area. This also meant that I attempted to interview an equal number of male and female candidates so that an observation on gender could be made. In total, eight men and 12 women were represented in

London, whilst in Australia 11 men and nine women were interviewed.


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Young people aged between 18–24 years old were chosen to be the focus of the research. There are a number of theories about the age groups, or stage in life that one’s identity is formed, or experiences the greatest transition, three of which were discussed in Chapter Two: Literature Review: Psychologists such as Erikson and academics such as Schwartz and Montgomery (2002) and Arnett (2000) believe that emerging adulthood is the critical phase in an individual’s identity (Gillis, 1974).

Jeffrey Jenson Arnett suggests that this period in one’s life represents a developmental stage distinct from other periods in ethnic (or in this case) racial identity (Arnett, 2000). During this critical developmental period, young adults develop a subjective sense of identity through experimentation and explorations

(Erikson, 1979). He asserts that this developmental period is even more critical among non-White young people because their racial identity also forms and develops during this stage (Phinney, 1992). Defined as an individual’s sense of self within a racial group, and the attitudes and behaviours associated with that sense

(Phinney and Rosenthal, 1992), racial identity becomes an integral part of the young adult’s social identity and a vital component of his or her self-concept or self-image

(Phinney et al., 2009). This was explained in greater detail in section one of the

Literature Review.

This age range was also chosen for practical and experiential reasons. I have twice researched aspects of identity amongst that age group: in 2005 I completed a quantitative research paper entitled, ‘Re-mix’d: The social construction of mixed parentage young people’ for a Youth and Community PGC dissertation, which considered the racial positioning of mixed-race people in Lambeth, interviewing 50

White and Black residents aged between 16–21; in 2010, I published the book What

Being Black Is and What Being Black Isn’t, a commentary on, among other issues, the relationship that mixed-race young people have with young Black people in London. I have also been working with young people aged 13–24 on a professional level in the youth sector since 2003: this includes four charities, seven local authorities and nine community organisations, in seven different countries.


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I obtained contacts with individual interviewees by using key informants, already established contacts, gatekeepers and contacts of those whom I interviewed.

Key informants were principally used in the research in Brixton as a result of my work with young people in the area (Rock, 2001: 34). Three months prior to the research being conducted, I asked as many young people as possible who I worked with if they had friendships with any mixed-race people. I then explained the research that I was conducting, and asked them if they thought their mixed-race friends might be interested in participating in some research. If they felt comfortable asking them, I asked them to give them a printed explanation of the study which stated what the interviews would entail, and how long it would take, what the research was for, and what it wanted to achieve. The information given is shown below:

Your friend might have explained to you the research that I’m conducting. To cut a long story short, I am a mixed-race youth worker and am studying a Ph.D. about mixed-race people’s identity in Brixton and

Sydney, Australia. I am trying to find out what factors determine who and what we identify with, and how other people in society affect our identification. The interview will take no more than 90mins and I would need to ask you questions about your experiences living in Brixton. The questions that I'll ask you are not all scripted, but they might be some of the following:

1. What determines how you are seen racially by British people?

2. What racial group would you put yourself into, and why?

3. What stereotypes do you associate with being White?

4. What stereotypes do you associate with being Black?


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5. What stereotypes do you associate with being mixedrace?

6. Can you be mixed-race, White and Black in heritage simultaneously – if so, or if not, why?

7. Does skin tone affect how you are seen?

8. Does your racial group affect the ethnicity of the people you would date?

It will be recorded via Dictaphone, but your name will be changed in the thesis. If that sounds cool, let me know when is best for you...

This information sheet also contained my university details and my contact details. I used an informal tone, since the young person would be passing this message to their friends, and using my experience of young people in Lambeth, I was aware that a formal letter may cause them to react with a defensive response and a sense of scepticism about whom the data was for, and how it would be used.

I agreed to pay travel expenses for all interviewees, and when the young person whom I worked with confirmed that their mixed-race friend was interested, I would ask either ask the young people to call me to make arrangements, however, as a result of a lack of phone credit from some of the young people, I asked the key informant to contact them on their mobile phone whilst I was there, and then spoke to them. This method was far more successful. During this phone conversation, the aim was to agree the consent of the participant by re-iterating what the research is about and giving them the chance to ask questions. My intention when talking to the participant on the phone was to put them at ease, to not act demanding, to give them power and control where possible (i.e. choosing the venue to be interviewed), and to be as humble as I could. I also reassured the participants that they did not have to say anything that they do not want to, and that they could change their


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minds about the interview at any time. I then made arrangements to meet and to be interviewed. Using the method, I obtained seven interviewees.

Some of the young people interviewed were young people with whom I had already established contact through my work as a youth practitioner in the area. I explained the research to them, and asked them if they wanted to be part of it. Of the participants in London, 11 were obtained using this method.

Other young people would be identified with the assistance of gatekeepers who were used to develop trust with the area of study (Hatch, 2002). This was particularly useful in Redfern, an environment in which three Aboriginal academics advised me that accessing Aboriginal people for research would be difficult. Gatekeepers, who were prominent academics and/or leaders of community organisations that I made contact with prior to my visit, would use their links to ask permission to interview young people they knew. I would often build a relationship with gatekeepers for a period of one-and-a-half to two months, by initially interviewing them, regularly attending any workshops, sessions or projects that they worked on, and hoping that they would at some point trust me enough to assist me in identifying young people to be interviewed.

Gatekeepers in Redfern were particularly important because of my lack of knowledge in the area, and my inability to be able to determine people’s racial background.

Whilst I was confident in being able to identify the racial background of most people in London (understanding the cultural rules, the history of mixed-race and racial politics, and the language) after spending a short time in Sydney, and interviewing academics, it became clear that these rules were very different. Because of the vast differences in skin tones, I was not able to identify who was mixed-race. Since there are no (or very few) organisations set up specifically for mixed-race young people, I would have had to directly ask young people their racial identity, a task which I was


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likely to result in a defensive response. Through prior research, I was aware that this would have caused offence and would have reduced the chances of interviewing them for this research. Instead, the gatekeeper would get in contact with the young people that met the criteria for the study, and ask them if they would be interested in participating. The gatekeeper would schedule a visit with the family or the young person which I would also attend and explain the purpose of the study, and what participating would entail.

Snowballing was also used as a technique for obtaining interviews. When interviewing young people for the study, I would ask them if they knew of other mixed-race people who might be interested in participating. This was successful in

Redfern, where my ability to successfully build relationships with contacts, and put them at ease during the interview process led them to feel comfortable passing on contacts of friends and colleagues (Cleaveland, 2005). In using this technique, I had to think carefully about how heterogeneous my sample was and consider the types of people who might be excluded from this approach, such as those young people who were not well connected or who had a different set of social contacts. For example, if I obtained many contacts through a small number of sources, it may have led to a number of interviewees with similar views and experiences which would have affected the data, and provided very narrow results.

As was explained earlier, by looking at works completed by James Marcia (1966), one’s peers can play a substantial role in the formation of one’s identity, since they can often act as role models for their beliefs, and their decisions and friendships groups are often based on people with similar experiences or interests. I therefore attempted to obtain interviewees from a variety of different sources. In Redfern, sources came from two youth groups, one community organisation, three universities and a police community liaison officer. This meant that I had a wide range of people from which to interview. Amongst the British interviews, snowballing was only used with Namelle introducing me to Nachenin and Nachiman.


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Section Three: Group Interviews

Initially, I did not intend to use group interviews as a way of acquiring data for this project. I was aware that the value of data would depend on young people’s ability to reflect and share their personal ideas, feelings and experiences and I was aware through my experience as a youth worker conducting group work with young people, that group dynamics play a significant role in the ability of all young people to be able to do this. As a result, I initially neglected to do this.

However, in some individual interviews scheduled, young people turned up with friends, and in other situations, some young people who were in the vicinity became interested with the discussion, and either wanted to listen in or contribute. In some situations I explained that the interview was private, but in other situations I didn’t feel comfortable enough to tell them to leave. As a result, four opportunistic group interviews were conducted: three in the UK and one in Australia. All were conducted in an overt manner. I explained the research that I was conducting, I made all young people present aware that I was recording the interview and I made them aware of what would be done with the data collected.

The people who joined in the group interviews in the UK were all Black African or

Black Caribbean, whereas those who participated in interviews in Australia were a combination of mixed-race people, and Aboriginals. In two of the four group interviews, I managed to complete individual interviews of the mixed-race candidate afterwards, and all of these took place in Lambeth.

In three of the group interviews, the interviewees provided a positive dynamic to work with, were conducted like a normal discussion or a conversation (Alasuutari,

1995) and the other young people helped to prompt the conversation, adding new dimensions to the topics and making the mixed-race interviewees more talkative. In these situations, the young people present knew of each other, but they did not know of each other personally, and because of this dynamic, they did not feel comfortable enough to interrupt each other, and were more inclined to allow each


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member of the group the opportunity to finish the points that they were making.

However, they did have a relationship in which they could disagree with each other, which allowed for a rich discussion.

The only negative experience came from an interview in Brixton in which it became apparent that some of the non-mixed race young people were of a competitive nature, and presented their opinions in a manner that restricted the opportunity for the mixed-race person to speak. I also got the impression that the interviewee felt subordinate to other participants and therefore measured their responses more carefully in consideration of what the other people thought.

The group interviews provided thought provoking data, particularly in obtaining a perception of the way that Black people in England saw the identity of mixed-race people, and understanding how Indigenous communities define Aboriginality.

Additionally, elements of the data were used to reinforce some of the comments made by mixed-race candidates, details of which are expressed later in this thesis.

Section Four: Individual Interviews

For the individual interviews, I originally chose to use structured interviews for the project. However, I was concerned that this would be too restrictive, and would hinder a conversational, two-way communication in the interviews that was necessary in order to obtain a wide-ranging understanding of their personality, interests and identity.

Consequently, I changed to an unstructured interviewing technique with some structured elements. There were specific questions that I needed stilted answers to, and therefore had some questions scripted ready to be uniformly asked to all interviewees, for example: What term do you use to describe yourself by? What

ethnicity are your parents? Where did you grow up? However, the majority of the interviews were conducted in an unstructured manner.


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There were two reasons for this. I was keen to obtain information about the participant (for example, the participants’ hobbies, relationship with their parents) which was necessary to understand the importance of race in their lives and for the contextualising of their answers. In-depth non-structured interviews gave me the scope to do this as they could be conducted with an open framework which gave space for focused communication (Feagin et al., 1991). Additionally, during the interviews, as relevant topics were identified, the possible relationship between these topics and the issues of identity became the basis for more specific questions which could not be prepared in advance. The unstructured technique would therefore allow me to take the position of an active interviewer, who “intentionally provokes responses by indicating – even suggesting – narrative positions, resources, orientations and precedents” (Holstein and Gubrium, 1995: 123). Treating the interview as active allowed me to encourage the respondents to shift positions in the interview so as to explore alternative perspectives (Ritchie and Rigano, 2001: 745).

Some researchers argue that the researcher should not play such an instrumental, sometimes challenging, potentially agitating role (Pettigrew, 2007: 92). Jones for example argues that such a technique can ‘”jeopardise the open and truthful way in which participants responded and thereby threaten the quality of [his/her] research”

(Jones, 1999). However, whilst conducting interviews, it became clear that many of the issues that I needed to cover had not previously been considered by the interviewees. This was highlighted during the interviews in Brixton where interviewees such as Jagad would often reply, “interesting question”, or “that’s a good question”, when asked a question, suggesting that he had not thought about this issue before. After the interviews with Trakand and Kumira, both interviewees said that they had never before contemplated some of the concepts that were raised. This was communicated in my field notes, dated 3 March 2010.

Some of the [British] interviewees are quite slow to respond and I’m thinking that it might work if I start prompting more, or getting a bit more active in the interview. It has worked on a couple of occasions cos


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otherwise I’m not really getting much of a response.

Mezar Kurin didn’t want to respond, so I left that, but

Trakand had stuff to stay, but he just needed to be prodded and asked questions different ways to get answers which has worked pretty well.

Whilst I have suggested that there are reasons for some of the interviewees’ lack of response to some questions, which is described in Chapter Four: Sydney Data

Analysis, and Chapter Five: London Data Analysis, participants from Brixton were more active in their responses when I adopted a more assertive approach to the interview. Using my experience as a youth practitioner, if there were signals that the interviewee did not have an opinion or an answer to a particular issue, I moved to another issue, and did not push for further responses.

The limitations of the unstructured model are that interviewers can lose control of the interviews, allowing them to either take longer, or shift away from the topic being discussed. There was a risk in terms of the questions asked, potentially repeating questions, asking vague or insensitive questions (McNamara, 1999), or fail to probe further when necessary. I was inexperienced in using this technique, which was also an additional risk (ibid.).

In order to reduce these risks, I carried out a series of test interviews with young people in London. This would allow me to become familiar with the interview questions, and get feedback on my two-way communication skills (ibid.). These were conducted between June and August 2009. I interviewed four young people from north London who were mixed-race, aged between 15 and 20 years old.

However, despite the test interviews, during the early Australian interviews, I found it challenging to get young people to remain on the issue that I was asking them about. As a result, in many of the interviews, the interviewees spent a great deal of time discussing Aboriginal issues such as the Stolen Generation and the Northern


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Territory intervention (BBC, 2007).

77 Initially, this left me dissatisfied with these interviews since it meant that I was unable to probe and delve deeper into some of the issues that I wanted to discuss. However, when reflected on the data, I observed that this pattern in data provided an insight into what issues were important to the interviewees, and what they wanted me, the interviewer to know about them. In the remaining interviews, I maintained the same interviewing style, observing whether there was a pattern in this, and attempted to understand the reasons behind it. In many cases, it appeared as though they were demonstrating their knowledge of

Aboriginal history and current affairs, and/or enlightening a ‘foreigner’ about the history of Aboriginals in Australia, convincing me that they were aware of Aboriginal issues.

After conducting test interviews, I found that some took up to two hours. I established that interviewees were most productive and relaxed for 90 minutes, and that any longer than this, and it would appear that the research was becoming hard work for the participants. Therefore I ended interviews if they exceeded 90 minutes and I would take a 15 minute break if they exceeded 60 minutes (O’Reilly, 2012:

144). I also recognised that it may not be possible to cover all the topics that I had planned if the interview was taking longer than expected.

In Redfern, I established that interviews needed to last at least 50 minutes to ensure that the participants could begin to talk in depth about the subject matter. With interviewees whom I had known through my job as a youth worker in London, 40 minutes often proved enough for them to begin to talk about personal experiences.

In particular, this was the case with Cain and Jagad, whom I had known for seven years prior to the interviews for this thesis. At the end of the research, the UK interviews proved to be shorter in length than the Australian interviews. I would suggest that this was because Australian interviewees entered the interview with the intention of ‘educating’ an outsider (myself) on Aboriginal issues, which they spoke about at great length. In the UK, most of the interviewees felt far more comfortable


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exploring their thoughts from the beginning of the interview which, as I explained, was because they were already comfortable with me.

As part of the reflexive approach to interviewing, I considered the nature of the interrelationship between myself that the participants, since I was aware that people react based on who they think the interviewer is. I thought carefully about how I would present myself, and what role I would adopt, in particular, I thought carefully about the Australian context, as I was warned about the prospect of defensive responses from interviewees. In Australia I decided to take on a role similar to that of an activist and emphasised my job role in the UK. My aim was to allay the possible fears that I was exploiting them. I therefore explained to gatekeepers and interviewees that this thesis was designed to improve the way that young mixedrace people dealt with issues of identity in London. I also talked about my work as a youth worker in London, and about the relationship between young people’s identity, and their lack of educational achievement. In all Australian interviews, I brought leaflets and information about my youth group, and the projects that I work on. Below is an extract from my reflective diary dated 15 January 2010:

I’ve realised that saying that I’m a youth worker works far better than saying I’m doing research. Whenever I say that I’m doing research, people look at me like I’m an anthropologist from the 19 th century attempting to conduct scientific research into the ‘natives’. Either that, or I’m doing a piece of voyeuristic, sensationalist, redtop journalistic article on the plight of the Brown people and their nasty White oppressors. Yep, it’s clear that being a researcher in Redfern isn’t the best introduction.

I also explained that I was part-Jamaican, which was received in an equally positive manner. By distancing myself from Britishness, I intended to be viewed by interviewees as someone who might be a victim of British colonialism, or the very


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least, someone unconnected with the British government’s attitude towards

Aborigines. This would mean that I wouldn’t be regarded as a White middle-class researcher, intending to interview, “strange, fascinating and mysterious people from a far-away distant land”. This is explained in my reflective diary dated 17 November

2010.

I find that I have to distance ...or actually, is it more that

I believe that I need to distance myself from my British identity in order to make the interviews go better.

That's a tough one. I think that I put the pressure on myself to change my identity (although I'm not sure that I do actually feel much of British identity – though that's another discussion for another time). Around journalists and politicians, my British identity has been more helpful. But around Aboriginals, I have always emphasised my 'minority' position in the UK, and the difficulties that being BME bring with them to create a sense of empathy. However, this could have an effect on the interviews, and encourage young people to be more likely to talk about their negative experiences, instead of taking a more favourable stance in relation to their European identity.

In speaking to a variety of people from a variety of different ethnic backgrounds in

Australia, I found that the issue of colonialism, and British identity carried with it a set of values and political judgements. These values were helpful when talking to

White politicians or journalists, and almost always led to a less friendly and more mistrustful reception from Aboriginals or mixed-race people.

In the UK, I introduced myself as a researcher. This was because with those young people that I had worked with, I believed that it was necessary to try to emphasise


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the formal nature of what I was trying to achieve in my academic studies, so that I could utilise the relationship that we previously had whilst ensuring that the interview was taken seriously. As an informal educator, all of my work with young people takes place in a voluntary setting, and therefore attitudes towards the discipline of the young people are assessed differently to those in formal settings, such as schools. As a result, I needed to stress to the young people that this research needed to be conducted more seriously.

In Australia, with no permanent base, I asked interviewees to pick an interview setting with which they felt most comfortable. Most chose their place of work in a meeting space, or a public café. Only one interview was conducted in an area without the interviewee being able to determine the area, and that was in a police station, while the interviewee was reporting in for community service. In the UK, I interviewed 18 candidates in the Royal Festival Hall, Waterloo, which is a public space with private areas. It is in the London Borough of Lambeth (the same borough as Brixton) but also close to central London. The building is well known and has good transport links. The remaining two UK interviews were completed in the interviewer’s houses because they felt more comfortable in that setting.

I decided to use Rubin and Rubin’s (1995) conversational guide when conducting the structure of the interviews. They suggest spending 10 minutes at the beginning of the interview talking about my experiences, asking them general questions about their experiences, and getting the know the person (whilst simultaneously letting the interviewee get to know me). As the interviewee relaxed, became comfortable with the situation, and treated the interview as a conversation between two people (and not one between a researcher and an interviewee), I would then spend the final 40 minutes asking more direct questions about their identity. I got onto the topic I wanted to focus on gradually, starting from its edges (O’Reilly, 2011: 148), and would save the most direct questions for the last 10 minutes, as it was clear that length of time spent with the interviewee was proportionate to the level of comfort they felt answering more specific questions. This technique was particularly useful when


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talking to the Australian candidates, who might have been more wary of my research, and therefore it was important to initially gain the trust of the participant before I asked personal questions about their identity. As I found out during the research, the concept of mixed-race is controversial, and therefore before discussing the issue, it was necessary to build up to it by asking questions around the topic.

There were two issues that were fundamental to the thesis that needed to be discussed with the interviewees. Within these issues, there were sub-issues that I wanted to discuss (ibid.: 150). They are featured underneath the main questions:

1. What is the most important aspect of your identity, and has this changed throughout your life?

 If you identify as a single race, have you chosen to marginalise your other identities? If so, why?



How does history play a part in how you determine your identity?



Are there pressures to align with a particular identity?



How does skin tone play a part in identity?



Is your identity solely related to race?



Is your heritage different from identity

2. How would you define a White and Black identity (separately)?



What type of a relationship or kinship do you feel towards people of Black

African/Aboriginal or European descent?

 If you label yourself as Aboriginal/Black or European, what is it that makes you

Aboriginal/Black or European?

 What are the general stereotypes that in your opinion are associated with

Aboriginal/Black people?

 What are the general stereotypes that in your opinion are associated with White people?

None of these questions were asked directly, they were merely subjects and prompts that I used to remind myself of topics that I wished to discuss. However, I


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was aware that the interview could take a number of different directions and I was keen to let the discussions take those paths.

After transcribing all the interviews, and looking through the results, there are questions that I would have liked to ask, and issues that I would like to have resolved by having the opportunity to interview more people. They are as follows:



If you had to be another race, which race would you choose, and why?

This question would provoke thought about what value an interviewee attached to race and whether they would prefer, or would entertain the notion of being a different race.



Which national football/cricket/rugby/ Olympic team do you support?

This question might provide an insight into their feelings about the nation that they live in, or the nation that they feel closest to in sporting events.



Where do you get your hair cut/styled and why?

During the interviews, hair became an important factor in how they were seen by other people in their environment. It would have been interesting to see whether they went to a Black barbers, or another kind.

I believe that these questions would give a greater insight into their racial identity, and the importance they place on racial identification.

The final part of the interview would be completed using photo elicitation. As Harper explains, photo elicitation is “based on the simple idea of inserting a photograph into a research interview” (Harper, 2002: 13). The participants would be presented with

25 photographs, and they would be asked to judge and discuss the subject’s ethnicity, based on their appearance (Collier, 1967).

Dewsbury suggests that visual sociology is a “shift away from the often oddly lifeless and mechanical accounts of everyday life in textual representation, towards sociological engagements that are contextual, kinaesthetic and sensual” (Dewsbury,

2003), and Knowles and Sweetman argue that it is “a more dynamic, performative, sociology” (Knowles and Sweetman, 2004) in which the researcher can work


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“qualitatively and ethnographically in ways that are developed from the Chicago

School traditions of ‘thick description’” (Becker, 1981). I would agree that by adding photo elicitation into the study, it injects a different dynamic to the interview, which is particularly useful when interviewing young people.

Furthermore, photographs would help prompt discussions and thought processes by the interviewee. Blinn and Harrist argue that including photographs with interviews offers a particularly insightful research method: first, because it gives detailed information about how informants see their world (Blinn and Harrist, 1991); and second, because it allows interviewees to reflect on things they do not usually do

(Rose, 2007: 243). Rose also argues that photo elicitation provides an easier way for interviewees to talk about their opinions and experiences. “it is argued that while ordinary interviewees can explore many issues, discussing a photograph with an interviewee can prompt much more talk about different things” (ibid.: 241).

It also is a way of getting the interviewee to express their feelings on an issue, without the need to ask direct questions about it, which can be useful in obtaining a richer, more natural response to a topic. As Douglas Harper (Harper, 2002) argues, since appearance is a significant factor in the determination of racial identity, the way people ‘look’ plays a significant role in my research and understanding of how people determine racial identity (Collier, 1967: 49). In test interviews, respondents spoke at length about the importance of appearance: clothing, shoes, eye colour, hair style, skin tone and nose shape. Several studies including those from Renn

(2004), Root and Kelley (2003), Wallace (2003) and Wijeyesinghe (2001) have suggested that how a multi-racial individual looks (such as skin tone, hair texture and colour, eye and nose shape) strongly influences his or her identity. For example, whether a woman “looks Black enough” according to her peers can affect their membership into a particular social or community group. For this reason, the use of photo elicitation is seen as an essential component of this research because, as

Bolton argues, it offers “an opportunity to gain not just more but different insights into social phenomena, which research methods relying on oral, aural or written


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data cannot provide” (Bolton, 1989). In this study, I was particularly interested in determining if the participants were comfortable judging the racial background of others, if they were able to identify the racial background of others, and how they identified the race of the people in the photographs. When choosing photographs to be shown to the interviewees, I used Dyer’s checklist for exploring the significant signs that humans might symbolise in people from photographs (Dyer, 1982):

Representatives of bodies: age, gender, race, hair, body, size, looks

Representations of manner: expression, eye contact, pose

Representations activity: positional communication

Props and settings: props, settings (ibid.).

I therefore sourced photographs from a variety of settings (headshots, full-length photos, profiles, studio shots, action shots). The photographs were in colour and all of the people in the photographs were people in the public eye or celebrities from

Australia, Britain and the United States of America. This ensured that they would recognise some of the people featured in the photographs, increasing the reflexivity from the participants. I chose to include photographs of people with an assortment of skin tones, and people whose skin tone could be considered inconsistent with their racial identification: light-skinned Black people, and White people who are tanned, mixed-race people who are very dark-skinned or very light-skinned. The photographs included in the interviews are displayed further, and are also included in the appendix.


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Group One: People of mixed-race

From top left to right: Albert Hughes, Alesha Dixon, Jason Kidd,

Gabriella Reece, Derek Jeter, Kelis,

Ryan Giggs, Barack Obama, Leona Lewis.


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Group Two: People of whom both parents are considered Black

From top left to right: Ice T, Thierry Henry, Vanessa Williams,

Keyshia Cole, Lee Jasper, Monica

Group Three: People of whom both parents are considered White

From top left to right: Angelina Jolie and Tom Jones


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Group Four: Australians of mixed-race

From top left to right: Bruce Trevorrow, Anthony Mundine, Evonne Goolagong,

Mary Terszak, Nicky Winmar, Leah Purcell,

Ernie Dingo, Anita Heiss


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I wanted to feature the photo elicitation segment at the end of the interview, as I wanted to initially discuss issues of identity based solely on their thoughts, emotions, and experiences based on race (Rose, 2007: 242), uninhibited by visual prompts.

However, the majority of interviewees were unwilling to comment on the photographs provided.

This is an entry from my reflective diary 30 November 2009:

Gosh. I can’t believe how badly the photos are flopping. It’s almost like if anyone determines anyone else’s identity, it’s an acknowledgement of the successes of the Stolen Generation. I suppose it’s because they’re aware that an attempt was made to erase their culture and history and people – therefore there is always a mentality to try to increase and sustain and acknowledge Aboriginals cos they still have bad feeling about being erased.

With an increased understanding of Aboriginal identity, I realised that the notion of self-identification had become deeply political, and was seen as a fundamental aspect of Aboriginal civil rights. Consequently, when shown photographs, all of the respondents in varying forms articulated the view that they could not determine the identity of the person, until they were made aware of how the person identified


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themselves. They often cited examples of people who they knew who identified as

Aboriginal, yet who had blonde hair, blue eyes and were very pale. As a result, many of the participants were unwilling to determine the identification of people in the photographs.

After four interviews, I considered changing the photographic exercise to the beginning of the interview. However, I was fearful that such an exercise at the start of the interview may create a defensive and mistrustful reaction from the participant. My diary entry reflects the dilemma, 8 January 2010:

I think where I placed it [photo elicitation] had a massive effect. However had I put it at the beginning of the interview I'm not sure whether the interviewee would have been prepared to answer the questions and it would have seemed, I don't know

whether they would have trusted me as much. The problem was I needed to develop a relationship with the interviewee and me, and the photo elicitation at the beginning might prevent this.

I left the photo elicitation to the end of the interview, but I decided to ask the participants to guess my identity as well. At the start of the interview I asked the interviewee, “What do I regard as my identity”, because I felt more comfortable asking them about myself, than to show them pictures at the start. I received a richer response and greater discussion from the interviewees.

In London, I decided to move the photo elicitation to the beginning of the interviews because I wanted to experiment with gaining a perspective on their opinions of the photographs before we had talked about identity (Pink, 2008). This worked much better, and I would say that this was because for many mixed-race young people, this was the first time that they had considered some of the issues that they were


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discussing. As the interview went on, and the young people became more reflexive, they began to assert opinions based on the answers that they had given to previous questions. When the photo elicitation segment was introduced at the end of the interview, they now had developed attitudes that they did not have at the beginning of the interview. I was keen to record their attitudes at the beginning of the interview, when their minds were new to the concept of identity, and identification.

I recorded all interviews using a Dictaphone. It allowed the interviews to flow better as I could make eye contact with the interviewees and gave me the opportunity to concentrate on what the participant was saying and to plan follow-up questions.

However, I also kept a pen and paper at hand so that I could note down points and thoughts that I wanted to follow up, as well as the body language, atmosphere and facial expressions of the interviewee which were to be analysed later on in the project.

At the end of each day, I listened to the data and made brief notes relating to any non-verbal communication. These included facial expressions, gestures, word pitch and speed. The intention was to identify themes and topics from the interviews that would help to understand the participant’s views and feeling on the given subject. In order to do this I isolated themes and topics from transcriptions of the data, and noted these down.

I used verbatim transcripts to enable a greater range of analyses, since they are not selective as my memory and notes would be. I was also unsure of what themes would be significant for the research and so I chose verbatim transcripts to enable the storage of themes that I had not previously considered (O’Reilly, 2012: 153).

Whilst this was costly and time consuming, I felt that this was essential.

I decided that I would do some of the transcribing at the beginning, for the first three interviews, as the process enabled me to start identifying themes, making connections, and it also helped me to become familiar with the data (Riessman,


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1993). Whilst doing this, I kept a notepad close at hand to write down thoughts. I created Microsoft Word files for the interviews, observations, documents and journal entries.

Section Five: Reflexive Diary

During the field research, I kept intellectual and personal diaries which, as suggested by Morrow and Smith (Creswell, 1998), allowed me to be able to record what I thought about, what I saw, and what the implications were for the overall guiding problem that I was considering (Schatzman and Strauss, 1973) as well as my assumptions, expectations, and biases about the research process (Emerson, 2001).

Malinowski stated that the diary can serve to “integrate one’s thinking, to avoid fragmenting themes,” (Malinowski, 1967: 175) and I intended to use it to facilitate a

‘natural history’ approach to the project, helping me to reflect on experiences, to refine the direct reaction, and to note any changes, enabling me to be able to trace the directions of the research from the start. It also enabled me to maintain contact with the feelings and emotions of participants in the field (Lofland and Lofland,

1995). The reflexive diary also formed the basis for the arguments that are pursued in the next three chapters.

Section Six: Being an Insider/Outsider

Completing this research topic would mean that I would be participating in insider research and outsider research. In one area I was participating in insider ethnography – ethnography undertaken in familiar settings. In another, I was an outsider. I had chosen to study this topic because of my experiences grappling with my identity as a mixed-race person which meant that I would be interviewing other mixed-race young people. Choosing to interview people from Lambeth also meant that I would be interviewing young people from Lambeth with whom I work, or by whom I am known. In Redfern, I set myself the task of making contact with, and interviewing people from an area and a country which I have never visited.


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In researching a subject that relates closely to my personal identity, researchers such as Steinar Kvale would argue that there is a danger that results could be affected by my subjectivities. He would ask several questions prior to any investigation (Kvale,

1995):

 Will my relationships with subjects have a negative impact on the subject's behaviour, such that they behave in a way that they would not normally?

 Will my tacit knowledge lead me to misinterpret data or make false assumptions?

 Will my insider knowledge lead me to make assumptions and miss potentially important information?

 Will my politics, loyalties, or hidden agendas lead to misrepresentations?



Will my moral/political/cultural standpoints lead me to subconsciously distort data?

Kvale would argue that my prior knowledge on the subject threatens the validity of the research, since the answers to these problematic questions raise serious issues

(ibid.). However, I would argue that I am aware of my own biases and/or preconceived notions about mixed-race identity, and that in opposition to Kvale, being an insider is advantageous in this research project. Taking an argument borrowed from Tierney, I contend that interviewees would feel more comfortable talking to someone personally affected by the subject (Tierney, 1994).

78 During some of the interviews conducted in

London, when discussing how mixed-race people are seen by other people in their environment, the young people commented on my features as a way of articulating their response. Algarin noted that my nose was “not even thin or pointy like a white person’s nose…You’ve got very tame eyebrows”. Another, Be’lal, stated that “if you got your hair cut you’d look like, people tell you, you look like Drake”. (This comment was tongue-in-cheek, since it related to the times in which he had been likened to other mixed race people).

Additionally, I had personal knowledge of the subject through experiences unattainable by outsiders (Tedlock, 2000). In the interview with Maigan, when she talked about an uncomfortable experience in which she was racially abused in Cuba, I


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was able to react appropriately, and ask the relevant questions in a sensitive manner.

Hence, insider research can increase validity due to the added richness, honesty and authenticity of the information acquired (Tierney, 1994). Often during interviews, I was able to use personal experiences to clarify my question, or the interviewees could ask my opinion on issues that they had dealt with. In some interviews, the experience resembled a support group, or a mutually beneficial counselling session, which was only possible because both the interviewer and the interviewee was mixed-race. In this diary entry dated 16 May 2010, I express the efficiency of the interview process and its ability to create links with community organisations:

I would argue that in this research, there were advantages that disadvantages. In London, being mixed-race definitely helped obtain richer information from the participants, and allowed me to develop closer relationships with organisations quickly, enabling me to secure interviewees who felt comfortable expressing their opinions.

The most useful aspect of being an insider was being able to identify subtle differences in dialect, understanding colloquialisms and slang terminology, and appreciating when and how to use a polite or casual tone in London. Terms such as

“lightie”, a slang term for mixed-race girl, or even phrases such as “it’s a madness” meaning “a serious situation” were all helpful in understanding more of the context behind what the participants were saying, which proved vital when re-reading transcriptions and analysing data.

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, because of my Jamaican heritage, I was considered to be someone who was a victim of the same colonial process as

Aboriginals. This meant that although I was not an insider in Australia, I was not an outsider. However, this was not the case in all situations, and I found the role of being an outsider challenging. An example of this can be seen written in my reflective


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diary after two interviews in Sydney with Aboriginal academics, who argued that

Indigenous rights should take precedent over the rights of other members of the state.

In both cases, they used Black–Americans as an example of cultural groups who have assisted with the denial of indigenous rights in the USA. I logged these thoughts in my diary on 30 November 2009:

I'm finding it very difficult for me personally to hear interviewees talk to me in a way that treats me as the oppressor. In a way, I understand what it feels like to be

White. In England, I am kind of an outsider, but I'm certainly an ‘ethnic’, and I'm definitely not White. Out here, I'm still not white, but by being of Black African descent, whilst talking to Aboriginal academics, doesn't get me a pass. I am an outsider, but they regard me as someone who is kind of part of the oppressive majority and that's a really, really strange feeling for me personally. It’s very difficult to deal with because I always regard myself as an ethnic minority in Britain and I get treated as an ethnic minority in Britain and then to go to another country and to get treated as the oppressive majority feels very, very odd.

This caused me to feel an ambiguity towards my place in Sydney, similar to the ambiguity that I feel in England. Because of my personal feelings about my Black

African heritage, I felt offended by some of these comments.

The difficulty with my mixed-race background in a different environment extended to the use of language. In Redfern, I became aware that the concept and term

‘mixed-race’ is considered deeply offensive. People that I initially spoke to about the purpose of the research project within the first week of my arrival in Sydney explained the history of the


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concept of mixedness and the present place it occupies in Australian discourse. I therefore began to feel very conscious about the research subject matter, and began to look for alternative means of indicating to interviewees or residents that I was researching mixed-race identity. I also began to feel as though I was racist, or someone with a White supremacist ideologue.

Conversely, being an insider was difficult in some situations. During some of the earlier

London interviews, I found myself feeling inhibited when I was required to ask direct or personal questions. I presume that this was because I was in an environment where my conduct mattered, and where my questions would have an affect on the way the candidates viewed me, not only as an interviewer, but as “Jacob the Youth

Worker”, or “Jacob the friend of their mutual friend”. However, I was able to tackle this as my desire to obtain answers to questions through increased interest in the new strands of research generation by previous interviews, and because of the deadline that I had set myself to complete the interviews. This was an observation made in my reflective diary dated 19 March 2010:

I have found that my interviews are starting to get a lot better. So now, when I’m asking questions, it’s more in relation to topics and issues that have been raised by other interviewees. So I’m now thinking so much about what I’m learning in the previous interviews, that it is driving my questions in the next interview. I've found it very, very intriguing.

After completing the research, I would agree with Christine Hall, who argues that

“interracial researchers are professionals who are aware of methodological controls to reduce bias”. She suggests that “actually, the biased research” tends to be

“conducted by external researchers” (Hall, 1996: 402). Being mixed-race helped me to gain access and a greater level of honesty from interviewees in Sydney who felt that they could trust where I was coming from, and also helped me to understand


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some of their experiences, and appreciate the dynamics that come with it. In

London, the greatest benefit of being an insider was being able to understand their references and their language, which played a significant role in the analysis of the data.

Section Seven: Ethical Considerations

Whilst conducting the interviews, I undertook a series of ethical considerations. This was done as a matter of professional integrity. As stated in the Social Research

Association’s Ethical Guidelines, “The acceptability of social research depends increasingly on the willingness of the social researchers to accord respect to their subjects and to treat them with consideration” (Social Research Association, 2003:

29).

The UK Economic and Social Research Council, when giving funding for research insists that the research should not “give rise to distress or annoyance to individuals”, and asks researchers to ensure honestly, confidentiality, independence and impartiality (ESRC, 2012). In this environment, I was required to fully explain what I was doing, what will happen to any material, and to reconfirm consent and the limits that go along with it.

During the period in which I made initial contacts with academics in Australia to gain contacts with Aboriginal community groups, I was warned by several that obtaining contact with groups would be difficult, and that there would a level of scepticism about non-Aboriginal researchers. Other academics were extremely defensive, protective, and unwilling to assist me with any of the research that I was carrying out. Below is an extract from my reflective diary dated 23 November 2009:

I’m actually getting really p***ed off with academics at the moments. They all said that the questions that I was asking were offensive. They said that my research was risky. Some said that they wouldn’t help me as a result.


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Academics said that I had to be careful, that I shouldn’t make any assumptions, that the Aboriginal community was closed to outsiders, to researchers, to the British.

It became clear that there was a level of sensitivity regarding non-Aboriginal researchers amongst academics, with an additional fear towards outsider’s perception of Aboriginal people. Since my results and capacity to collect data were heavily dependent on the relationships that I could develop within the area, I refined my approach to manage this risk. I chose to follow guidelines from Kone, Sullivan, Senturia, Chrisman, Ciske and Krieke in their book, Improving Collaboration Between Researchers and

Communities (Kone et al., 2000).

They list a number of risks associated with researching communities. The risks can be divided into two categories: external risks and intra-community risks. The external risks are harms inflicted by outsiders. They can be listed as economic, social, political and legal. In Redfern I identified a number of risks, including asking potentially painful questions about the Stolen Generation, European land appropriation, and the current socio-economic state of Aboriginal people, particularly in Redfern. There was also the risk that my interviews could reveal unsavoury genealogical issues, or issues that may relate to the sexual abuse and even murder of members of their family or close family friends.

In order to reduce these risks, I consulted leaders of community organisations in

Redfern in the planning of the research prior to my arrival and during my visit. They were continually consulted throughout the process, and given the opportunity to help shape the research process as it develops. In effect, research participants were considered partners, not research subjects.

Intra-community risks are harms that are “highly localized and often not evident to those outside the community” (McKelvy, 2007: 54). For example, there are many


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communities that require collective consensus in the gathering of information and interviews. As a result, it was of vital importance that I involve the leaders of community organisations in the sanctioning of the research (as mentioned in the external risks section). It was important that I explain fully the brief of the project to community leaders, and what I intend to do with the results. Prior to research gathering, I also needed to gain an understanding of the cultural practices, histories and idiosyncrasies of the group that I was to research (Matsunaga et al., 1996).

I found that whilst researching the ethical considerations when working in Redfern was important, the Aboriginal organisations and the young people that I contacted and spoke to seemed much more comfortable and welcoming than I was led to believe by the academics. I wrote this passage in my reflective diary on 30 November

2009.

The reality so far is, not once have I been blanked from the community. I’ve been here just 7 days, and already

I’ve been invited to speak to the tribal warriors organisation, that youth bail programme thing [Police

Community Project], I’ve been taken on a tour around

The Block, go on boat trip, taken to visit Aboriginal artists, invited to speak on ABC radio, and talked to the land council. What on earth was the fuss about, and why on earth am I trying to be an academic?!

This is an anonymous study, in which those who provided the data cannot be identified. I was aware of the personal nature of the interviews, the stories that were relayed to me, and the controversial nature of race both in England and Australia. I wanted the young people to be as honest as possible, and I decided that a method of increasing this chance was to ensure anonymity of their responses. To protect the participants from being identified, they have all been given pseudonyms (Ipsos

MORI, 2007). London interviewees have been given character names from the book


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series, The Wheel of Time, 79 whilst Sydney interviewees have been given character names from the HBO television drama, The Wire.

80

Information was stored on files and saved onto my personal computer which is protected by a password (Heaton, 1998). I did not share any research findings that might compromise the identity of the young people involved (Scott, 2000) and all information obtained from young people was treated as confidential information, finding appropriate ways of sharing the research results with the children involved in the research process (Briefing, 2006).

81

I would always ask the young person if his or her participation will conflict with other engagements or responsibilities, and provided all the young people interviewed (and their parents/carers) with the name and contact details of the research institute, and of the researcher so that (s)he can ask any questions after the research had been done. Lastly, all young people and their carers would agree who was to have access to the information provided (Christensen, 2000).

Once the interview was arranged, I explained in full to the young person taking part in the interview what will be done with the interview data, and all the topics that would be covered during the interview (University of Sheffield, 2009). All young people were asked whether they would like anyone else to be present during an interview (a friend, family member, teacher, etc.) and I also provided options for them to pull out at each distinct stage of the research (Fraser et al., 2003). During the interview, I was aware of any concerns and issues raised by the young person, even when they were not pertinent to the research objectives or relevant to filling in the questionnaire (Peshkin, 1988). I made it clear that the young person could exercise the right to say “no” at any time during the research process (Alderson and

Morrow, 2004).


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Each ethical consideration and guideline put in place was refined, checked and authorised by my university tutors to obtain objectivity and to ensure that the guidelines that I set were adequate.

Section Eight: Data Analysis

In the data collection, sorting and analysis phase of the thesis, I opted to follow

Glaser (1992), Strauss and Corbin (1998) and Charmaz’s methods (2000). I initially used open coding, in which I, with an open mind and as few pre-conceived ideas as possible, began to label passages with any and all codes that came to mind. Gobo refers to this as the deconstruction of data (Gobo, 2008). I looked for any patterns, meanings intentions or surprises to be analysed later (Ritchie and Lewis, 2003). Due to the reflexive nature of the project, titles and categories changed as I analysed more and more data, and as I checked it against the original thesis question (Stake,

1995). I noted any stories that were told, and put them into a different section, depending on what it was about. If it was not about anything that appeared relevant at the time, I put them at the end, in case through data analysis, they became relevant.

Although I had been trained in using SPSS and had a basic knowledge of NVivo qualitative data analysis, I elected not to use any computer packages to sort and code the data, and instead sorted data by hand. Although this was a time consuming process, this was especially important when coding, maintaining consistency with themes, and referring and comparing the data with each of the sites.

However, I did use Microsoft Excel spreadsheets for storing, sorting and retrieving information. This was useful because it helped to log repetitive details, thus enabling me to generalise, by drawing attention to patterns, similarities, differences and shared traits (O’Reilly, 2012: 192).


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Later, I used focussed coding. I put ideas into categories that summarise a group of cluster of open codes. As I collected the data, I began to note emerging patterns and themes that developed (Stake, 1995). Below is a list of the categories used:

Demographics – Name, Gender, Age, Occupation, Father’s Ethnicity, Mother’s

Ethnicity, Who You Grew Up With, Where You Grew Up, Social Class, Ethnicity Of

Your Partner, Skin Tone. Social class and skin tone are subjective terms, and in the interests of time, I have used crude definitions. Social class was determined by groups of people with the same social, economic or educational status. In this project, they are split into three categories: working class, middle class and upper class. Skin tone was determined using the Fitzpatrick Classification Scale, which was developed in 1975 by Harvard Medical School dermatologist, Thomas Fitzpatrick,

MD, PhD (Fitzpatrick, 1975). Today, it remains a recognized tool for dermatologic research into the colour of skin. The scale follows:

Type

I

General

Light

Pigment

Pale white or freckled

II Fair White

III Medium White to light brown


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IV Olive Moderate brown

V Brown Dark brown

VI Black Very dark brown to black

Identity – What Do They Identify As, Reasons Given For Identification, Experiences

That Led To Identification, Reason Given Or Not Identifying As Anything Else, Is

Identity Important, What Else Did They Seem To Identify With, Interesting Stories,

Miscellaneous Comments.

Their View of the World – Black Stereotype, Mixed Stereotype, White Stereotype,

Themselves In Relation To White people, Themselves In Relation To Black People,

Themselves In Relation To Me, Themselves In Relation To Light-Skinned People,

Themselves In Relation To Dark-Skinned People, Who Would They Marry, Who Have

They Mostly Dated, Views On Mixed-Marriages, Is Identity Important, Interesting

Stories.

Photo Elicitation – Views Of Ethnicity Of People In Photographs.

Subject Importance – Most Frequently Cited Issues, What Did They Speak Most

Passionately About, Terms Of Reference Used To Describe Tone Of Skin, Ethnicity,

Way They Describe Things, Use Of Description To Convey Ideas (Emotive Language),

Most Used Phrase, Strings of Words/Most Used Words.


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Mannerisms/How They Reacted – Physical Mannerisms, Body Language, Attitudes,

How Interviewees Responded To My Questions, How The Interviewees Responded

To The Interview, How The Interviewees Responded To The Interview, Use Of

Questions, Tone, Did They Need Much Encouragement to Answer Questions, Use of

Articles, Open/Closed In Approach To Any Subjects, Length Of Answers, Confidence

Tackling Issues, Length Of Time Spent On Issues/Questions, Colloquialisms.

Summary

In this chapter, the theoretical and philosophical assumptions underlying the research methodology were reviewed.

Qualitative methods were chosen for the research, with the intention of completing

20 individual interviews, employing a maximum variation sampling strategy which meant that I intended to recruit respondents from a variety of nationalities, social classes and skin shades. The specific stipulations were that they were Black/White mixed-race, that they lived in the chosen area, and that they were aged between 18–

24 years old. This was established based on previous research completed with that age range and my experience of working with young people of that age. Key informants, gatekeepers and a snowballing strategy were used to find interviewees in Brixton and Redfern.

In order to get a more rounded view of the environment in which I was researching, I conducted an additional 46 interviews in Australia and 36 interviews in Britain with politicians, Youth and Community workers, activists and residents.

During the interviews with the young people, I opted to use an unstructured interview technique with some structured elements. Photo elicitation was employed to obtain a different insight into the way the participants see racial identity.


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The following chapter, Chapter Four: Analysis and Interpretation – Redfern, Australia will describe and analyse the results taken from the 20 unstructured individual interviews and one group interview with young people from Redfern between

October 2009 and January 2010. Included in the chapter are summary tables and figures of results.

76 With particular reference to the School of Oriental and African Studies based in London.

77 The NT Intervention or, as it is more correctly known, Northern Territory National Emergency

Response Act 2007, was a legislative response from the Federal Government to the Northern Territory

Government's Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse, or 'Little Children are Sacred' report.

78 This would be an assumption from the interviewee; based on the fact that I, the interviewer would be mixed-race, the same as them.

79 Wheel of Time characters were chosen because a friend was reading it at the time of the London segment of the research and it has a large number of character’s names with which to choose from.

80 The Wire characters were chosen because I watched the series whilst in Australia at the time in which

I was collecting the data.

81 Working with young people for 12 years provided experience in maintaining suitable ethical standards. As a result of the work that I have participated in with young people, I have a Criminal

Record Bureau Check, as well as a number of completed training course certificates confirming that I have participated in Child Protection training programmes.


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Chapter Four: Analysis and Interpretation –

Redfern, Australia

I identify as an Aboriginal but…the right of identity is reserved for Aboriginal people…that's something that we fought for and something that's been really, really difficult for us and has required taking a lot of work…it's something that, that gives us a lot of pride. It means that we can set ourselves apart from from others; allow people to understand that we do belong here, that we do have a sense identity, despite the attempts to you know to to to take us out.

(Alma)

Introduction

Chapter Four: Analysis and Interpretation – Redfern, Australia presents, describes, discusses and analyses the results taken from 20 unstructured individual interviews and one group interview with young people from Redfern between October 2009 and January 2010. It is an account of what was found in Redfern, and included are summary tables and figures of results to illustrate patterns in the data.

The previous chapter, Chapter Three: Methodology provided an overview of the research design selected for the thesis, Is Mixed-Race A Colour? The Factors Involved

in the Construction of Mixed Race Identity, a cross-comparative study of the identity of Black/White mixed-race young people aged between 18–24 in Redfern, Australia and Brixton, UK. The proceeding chapter, Chapter Five: Analysis and Interpretation –

Brixton, will, in the same form, focus on the results taken from 20 unstructured individual interviews and three group interviews with people aged 18–24 conducted

Jacob Whittingham Is Mixed-Race A Colour? The Factors Involved in the Construction

of the Mixed-Race Identity Chapter Four: Analysis and Interpretation – Redfern, Australia

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in Brixton, London, United Kingdom.

This chapter will start with a review of the aims and the four investigative questions that are being addressed by this thesis, and the manner in which they will be addressed when discussing and analysing the results. The following sections present the results collected from Redfern and analyses them within the context of the research questions. Each section tackles a different element of the interviews.

The first section is an exploration into the research participant’s identity and the manner in which they define themselves (from a racial or other perspective) in relation to the hypothesis.

The second section will focus on the participant’s comments which relate to different racial groups. Racial groups focussed on include White Australians, Aboriginals who are both pale-skinned and dark-skinned, myself the interviewer as someone who is

British and who identifies as mixed-race, and people whose parents are both

Aboriginal.

Section three investigates the results provided from the photo elicitation section of the interviews, and analyses their responses to the questions relating to the photographs of White, Black, mixed-race and Aboriginal celebrities.

Section four concentrates on the language used during the interviews. It will look at the most used phrases, analyse patterns of strings of words, linguistic features, the most frequently cited issues that they faced, the issues that they spoke most passionately about, and the issues that they felt were important to either Aboriginals in Australia, or mixed-race White/Aboriginal people in Australia.

The fifth section considers the physical mannerisms, attitudes, and verbal reactions by the interviewees to the subject matter that either the interviewer raised, or that



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they raised themselves, in each case giving reasons for the implications and importance of these characteristics. It will concentrate on how the interviewees responded to the interviewer’s questions, and how the interviewee used language, both physical and verbal. This segment will also look at the level of encouragement needed to answer specific questions, whether they appeared open or closed in their approach to particular subjects, how long their answers were, their confidence in tackling the issues explored, the tone of the interviewee, and the length of time they spent on issues or questions.

The final section concludes with an exploration of significant learning outcomes from the research in Sydney.

All sections will analyse and interpret this data in relation to the interviewee’s demographic. These include the dis/similarity of men/women; social class; parents background; skin tone; age; level of education; partner’s racial group; the environment they grew up in; and occupation/career aspirations.

The parameters in this chapter will be restricted to the presentation and analysis of the collected data from Redfern, without comparing the results to the data completed amongst young people in Brixton; researchers discussed in Chapter Two:

Literature Review; or drawing any general conclusions. However, this chapter may contain references to the literature specifically related to the methodology, and some theories if it is necessary to illustrate a point.

Review of the Investigative Questions

The aim of this project has been to determine the dynamics that influence the identity of mixed-race young people. In order to do this, this thesis is answering the following investigative questions:

1. Do mixed-race people believe ‘mixed-race’ is a definable social group?


3. To what extent does being mixed-race shape relationships with other people?



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4. To what extent does race play a role in the overall identity of mixed-race young

people?

All data provided will be analysed based on the above given limitations.

Section One: Identity

This section analyses the answers, responses and comments given from interviews in

Redfern which referred directly to their identity. Several reasons were given for their identification. Below, Figure 1 shows a table of the interviewees’ demographics and their chosen identification.

Figure 1: Given Identity of Participants

Name

Brother

Mouzone

Age Sex Parent’s race

21 M 82 D: White

M: Indig.

83

Brianna 18 M D: Indig.

M: White

De’Londa 18 F 86 D: White

M: Indig.

Rhonda

Maria

Nerese

20 F

20 F

Job

/status

Media

College

University

D: White

M: Indig.

University Working class Light

Unknown University Working class Olive

Lawyer

Social group

Working class Olive 84

Middle class

Working class

Middle class

Skin tone

Olive

Medium

Olive

Identity

Ab.

Ab.

Ab.

Ab.

85

Ab. (Nunga 87 &

Murri Group 88 )

Ab.

Stringer

Bell

Bodie

Prop Joe

24 F D: White

M: Indig.

23 M D: Indig.

M: White

20 M D: Indig

M: White

22 M D: Indig.

M:White

Taxi driver

University

NEET 90

Working class

Working class

Working class

Light

Light

Brown

Ab.

Ab. ( Barada

Group 89 )

Ab. & Redfern

Resident



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Name

Kimmy

Donette

Snoop

Alma

Grace

Age Sex Parent’s race

Job

/status

Social group Skin tone

Identity

20

21

F

F

23 M D: White

M: Indig.

22 F D: White

M: Indig

19 F

Unknown NEET

D: White

M: Indig.

Youth worker

D: White

M: Indig.

Youth worker

Broadcaster

University

Working class

Working class Medium Ab.

Working class

Working class

Middle class

Brown

Brown

Brown

Light

Ab.

Ab.

Ab. & Torres

Strait Islander

Ab.

Theresa 23 F D: Indig.

M: White

Barksdale 20 M D: White

M: Indig.

Journalist

Painter

Omar 18 M Unknown NEET

D’Angelo 20 M D: Indig Uni

Wee-Bey 18 M D: White

M: Indig.

Savino 18 M

M: White

D: Indig

M: White

NEET / rapper

NEET

Middle class

Working class

Working class

Working class

Working class

Working class

Brown

Dark

Brown

Olive

Brown

Medium

Ab. & mixedrace

Ab.

Ab.

Ab.

Ab.

Ab.

These results show that Aboriginality was the dominant racial identification. No candidates identified as mixed-race. Theresa, for example, mentioned that she was mixed-race in relation to her heritage, but affirmed that she was Aboriginal in her identity.

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Whilst talking about their Aboriginal identity, all except one interviewee made it clear that they were, to varying degrees troubled with the concept of mixedness.

Brother Mouzone, Barksdale and Rhonda argued that mixed-race Australians who identified as mixed-race were confused, since it was obvious that they were

Aboriginal. They also felt they were being offensive because they were not



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representing their true cultural background whilst potentially reaping the benefits of government funding that the Aboriginal organisations had fought for.

92 This suggests that for them, being mixed-race and not identifying as Aboriginal is considered both unacceptable and illogical.

When asked why they disliked the term mixed-race, they gave similar answers:

(paraphrased) “Which part of you is Black and which part of you is White? Your arms or your legs?" Brother Mouzone asked, “How can someone be mixed? Let’s say

White people are organised, does that mean that you are half-organised?” An argument used by Nerese, Stringer Bell, Kimmy, Grace and Snoop was that race was not a mathematical equation.

Both Kimmy and De’Londa told me that my language was wrong and that the notion of being mixed-race was a White concept. To emphasise the offensive nature of the term ‘mixed’, Snoop recalled a situation in which a Lebanese man asked if he was

“half-Aboriginal”, and he replied, “Are you gonna blow me up?” The implication here is that the division of races in a single person is equally as offensive as the stereotype that all Arabic people are fundamentalist suicide bombers.

Donette recalled during an event in which a member of her family was about to receive an award. When she was introduced as having a half-sister, she replied, “Nah we don’t do halves here.” She then went on to explain that it is nonsensical to have a half-brother or a half-sister. “They are either your sister, or they’re not.” The perceived absurdity of the division of family relations here is related to the perceived absurdity of racial classification based on blood.

As an additional observation, not only did none of those interviewed say that they had a White identity, they did not even discuss it as a possibility for themselves, or any other Aboriginals. When I asked interviewees about the representation of their

White heritage, all participants said that their White relatives supported their choice



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to identify as Aboriginal. Wee-Bey said that he actively tried to find out about his

White heritage, and even found out that one of his ancestors was one of the first

British people to land in Australia in the late 18 th Century. However it still failed to generate any enthusiasm in him to represent his Britishness. Donette explained that she had German ancestry, however she did not feel any connection with it, because she explained that heritage was different from identity and that whilst she accepted that she was of mixed heritage, the White heritage played an insignificant feature in her life. This data conveys the manner in which their identification is decided, and why no participants were willing to state that they were mixed-race.

The motives for their identity choice were recorded, analysed and grouped into categories based on patterns. From the data, we can establish that race plays a significant factor in their lives, and it can be assumed that it plays the central role in their identification.

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This was demonstrated after examining the key reasons given from the young people who identified as Aboriginal. There were a limited number of comments which were related to an identity that was not directly connected to a relationship with

Aboriginality, and the majority of these came from four participants, Brother

Mouzone; Barksdale; Omar; and Savino. However, it is worth recognising that the majority of these comments still relate to their Aboriginal identity. Brother Mouzone talked about music and how it formed a significant part of his identity, although it was mentioned in relation to the role it plays in his understanding of Aboriginal and resistance culture. Prop Joe mentioned Redfern as a part of his identity; Bodie and

Maria mentioned their nation 94 – both of which also relate to aspects of their

Aboriginality (their nation relates to a sub-section of their Aboriginality, and Redfern was important to them because of its significance to the Aboriginal movement for civil rights). Education was mentioned in reference to a desire to be a role model for other Aboriginal people in their community organisations; the environment was cited when talking about the damaging effects of European people’s control of the

Australian landscape; and Nerese explained that whilst being a woman and a lawyer



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was a large part of who she was, her Aboriginality would always preface this. So for example, she would define herself as an Aboriginal Lawyer, as opposed to a lawyer who happens to be Aboriginal. This indicates that the other parts of their lives which feed into their identity have a relationship with their Aboriginality. Indeed I would argue these other characteristics become a part of their Aboriginal identity (Burke,

1991).

It must be noted that there are reasons to be cautious of the suggestion that the majority of the interviewees’ identity was intertwined with race and their

Aboriginality. The interviews were focussed on the concept of race and, as a result, the interviewees may have felt a need to talk about race issues. Furthermore, since I was not only an outsider, but an outsider from a different country doing research, the young people may have felt a necessity to provide a view of Aboriginal young people that they wanted me to take away from Australia, rather than an accurate depiction of the diverse aspects of young people’s identity.

Stringer Bell and Maria identified themselves as Aboriginal, although they revealed that they saw the term Aboriginal as essentially political. They explained that

Aboriginal and Aboriginality are generic terms applied to Indigenous people in

Australia, and do not represent the variations that exist amongst Indigenous people.

Prop Joe and Rhonda also argued that it is incorrect to classify Aboriginals as one homogenous group. Maria, Nerese, D’Angelo, Alma and Snoop also talked about

Aboriginal subsections but said that they did not know which tribe, nation or skin that they were from because the Stolen Generation broke ties with their ancestry.

One could suggest that they acknowledge that Aboriginality is a catch-all term, and that although there is a relationship between Aboriginals, they understand that there are important cultural differences within them.

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Other aspects of their identity that were talked about included their gender (in reference to the importance of being a woman), Arsenal FC (the importance of the



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football club in which they support), skating and graffiti (both hobbies that they enjoy taking part in).

Data about their identity reveals a tension in the motivations for the interviewees’ identity: the ability to identify as Aboriginal, but with only one answer available. All participants (excluding Omar and Barksdale, who state that their colour excludes them from having a personal choice in their identity) spent a great deal of time explaining that their identity was their personal prerogative.

96 However, the most popular reason given for the justification of their identity was that race was internal, something that is a pre-ordained emotion, given to them by their ancestry (Harris and Sim, 2002). In other words, it was inherent, and was an automatic choice.

97

Internal reasons in this data were expressed and categorised in the following groups:

Identity is a Feeling; Identity Is Not A Choice; My Connection To The Land; I Have

Many Identities Although Aboriginal Is Primary Identity; Heritage Is Different From

Identity; Colour Dictates My Identity; Anything Other Than Aboriginal Identity

Expresses A Level Of Confusion; Skin Tone Is Not Relevant In Identity; I Represent My

Skin; and Identity Is An Individual Choice. Hence, the data suggests that the respondents believe that the decision to be Aboriginal is considered both logical, inevitable, and necessary.

Logical, because as explained earlier, the concept of mixedness is considered irrational. In addition it is logical because one can receive community acceptance

[acceptance from local Aboriginal community groups] from anyone who has

Aboriginal ancestry, an argument which is made by Bodie, Kimmy and Stringer Bell.

Inevitable, because one’s racial identification is a feeling generated from an inherent feeling inside. Brother Mouzone, De’Londa, Rhonda, Donette, Snoop, Alma, Omar all talked about their connection with their land as a reason for their identity choice – the manner in which it emotionally affects them; and the historical and cultural relationship with their ancestor’s space.



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Lastly, Aboriginal identity is necessary – as a political tool, to increase recognition of the plight of Aboriginal people in Australia. Mixed-race Australians should represent their Aboriginal ancestry based on a common identity and a shared belief system that makes collective action possible. These reasons were categorised as History;

Opposed To Shame; Closer To Aboriginal Relatives; Colour Dictates; Community

Acceptance; Individual Choice; Personal Racism; and Environment. In this case, identity is a form of group membership (Stryker and Burke, 2000).

Most of these reasons are directly related to the atrocities carried out by Europeans.

I would argue that they and other community organisation leaders are aware that their political advancement is dependent on their continued awareness of the need for greater civil rights. The development of an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ attitude causes high group affiliation, since it encourages people to understand their history. In this case,

De’Londa, Savino, Nerese, Barksdale, D’Angelo, Wee-Bey and Rhonda appeared to use their history as a means of qualifying their Aboriginal identity, or justifying their detachment from their White heritage.

98

It is also because of a feeling of guilt and/or a determination to represent their relative’s cultural backgrounds. Stories by Brianna, Grace and Wee-Bey talked about ancestors who were sent to institutions where they were not allowed to speak their

Indigenous language, or practice their culture. They also spoke about the racism their relatives received, and the subsequent mental health effects, and the resulting alcoholism and drug addiction. Consequently, the young people felt an obligation to personify their Aboriginal identity.

99

These reasons for choosing an Aboriginal identity show that despite the freedom to legally determine their own racial identity, there is almost a universal understanding among the respondents that Aboriginality is the only choice. However these are contradictory reasons. I wrote about this issue in my diary, 9 November 2009:



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It’s strange because a lot of people that I've spoken to say that it is people’s individual choice. I'm not entirely sure how much choice they have because when I've spoken to people everyone is given the choice but it’s almost like they have to make the right choice. There doesn’t seem to be that much pressure associated with being mixed-race or white, and there doesn’t seem to be an overt pressure to recognise your Aboriginal ancestry, but it seems like people who don’t recognise their

Aboriginal ancestry are thought of as confused, lying to themselves, or not being able to deal with reality.

There are five conclusions which can be drawn from data in this opening section: i) Race is very important to the interviewees, is considered the dominant aspect of their identity, and plays a central role in their other identities. ii) There is a prevailing attitude that if you have Aboriginal ancestry, you will identify as Aboriginal. The common justification is that heritage is very different from identity. iii) There is a contradictory concept that although identity remains a personal choice, there is only one logical choice. Aboriginal identity is considered normal, logical and inevitable. iv) There is no sense that a mixed-race identity could be represented publicly without resulting in a negative reaction from one’s Aboriginal friends and relatives. However, the tone used when talking about mixed-race Australians who didn’t identify as Aboriginal was not overtly aggressive, just a sense of disappointment. v) Dark-skinned Aboriginals suggested that they did not have the flexibility to claim an identity other than Aboriginal because their appearance means that

Europeans will already assume their identity, and that they could not try to pass as anything else.



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Section Two: World View

This section compiles, codes and describes the data presented from the interviewees which relates specifically to their racial positioning: how and what they perceive their relationship with other racial groups to be; how they are seen by other racial groups; and how their experiences and interactions with them have shaped their understanding of their characteristics. This will give us an understanding of the challenges that the candidates face in self-identification, and begin a discussion into the impact that these perceptions have on their character. It will also give us an impression of how they are perceived in their environments, providing a more profound insight into their motivations for their identity choices.

It focuses on four areas: i) Stereotypes: The interviewees’ understanding and interpretation of the stereotypes that are associated with White, Aboriginal and mixed-race people in

Australia. ii) Social relationships: The interviewees’ experiences and relationships with White people, Black people of African heritage and Aboriginal people who are both light-skinned and dark-skinned. iii) Intimate relationships: The interviewees’ views on interracial relationships and mixed marriages. iv) The researcher: The interviewees’ opinions of my identity.

Part i) Stereotypes: This section will explore the ways in which the participants believed that they were stereotyped by people in their environment.

There are two stereotypes that the participants believe that Australian people hold of Aboriginal people – the first is a romanticised ‘old school’ version: “ugly”,

“bearded”, “skinny”, “standing on one leg”, in “a dusty place”/“desert”, “playing a

Didgeridoo” and engaging in “dot paintings”. This perspective was held by Theresa,

Kimmy, Stringer Bell, Nerese, Maria, De’Londa and Wee-Bey.



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All young people regarded this perception as negative, since it assumed that

Aboriginal culture was “stagnant”, or as De’Londa was quoted as saying, “All those kinds of attitudes…they’re just relics; they’re kind of a consequence of some sort of western anthropological, sociological effort to try and capture a culture frozen in time and kind of denies a whole set of things.”

Candidates argued that this view of Aboriginals means that those who do not fit into this stereotype (particularly those with lighter skin, who did not know what nation or skin they were, who did not grow up in an Aboriginal environment) would be made to feel inadequate, and diminished their ability to successfully be recognised for their self-identification (if their self-identification is Aboriginal). Therefore, this also preserves the policies of the Stolen Generation, which argued that Aboriginality could be bred out by possessing more White blood than Aboriginal blood.

The second stereotype is a more urbanised opinion of Aboriginal people. Here, sixteen people talked about Aboriginals as “alcoholics”, “drug addicts” (two drugs in particular were mentioned: heroin and glue sniffing), who lives in a “ghetto”, are

“stupid, lazy”, has “feral kids”, “fights regularly”, “robs and steals”, “gets arrested”, ends up “in jail”, is “hung up by race and colour” and is a “White man’s burden”. Two urban gender-specific references were made: one by Rhonda who stated that there is a stereotype that Aboriginal men “don’t take care of his kids”; the second, for women, was provided by Wee-Bey, who stated that Aboriginal women are seen as people who are “single mothers”. Snoop and D’Angelo suggested that these stereotypes were created to “stop White people feeling guilty” for their treatment towards Aboriginal people. They also stated that such an opinion was false, puts

Aboriginal culture into a narrow framework and takes the power of creating the image of their culture away from Aboriginals, and into the hands of those people with little knowledge of its true nature.



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This second stereotype illustrates the negative feeling that existed amongst the interviewees because of the way in which White people view Aboriginals. It is also an indication of the level of offence caused by White people towards the participants, their families and their communities. These labels could provide either a motivation to distance one’s self from their Aboriginality, or a motivation to promote their

Aboriginal identity. Since all interviewees identify as Aboriginal, one can suggest that these attitudes have served to increase their motivation to represent their Aboriginal identity.

There were fourteen different stereotypes offered by interviewees regarding mixedrace White/Aboriginal people and were a combination of positive and negative. The two positive stereotypes were provided by Theresa and Mara and were related to their appearance. Theresa mentioned their exoticism, whilst Maria talked about the fact that they were desirable, and were models that were “in vogue” at the present.

Savino suggested that mixed-race people were seen by the Australian public as people who had the “best of both worlds”. However, he regarded these opinions as negative. He argued that this alleged “appreciation” was a means of reducing their guilt for previous transgressions. Put another way, the notion of a mixed-race people leads to the suggestion that Australians are living in a post-racial society, and therefore lets White people “off the hook” for any subsequent racism that takes place against Aboriginals.

The negative stereotypes were provided by Wee-Bey, Barksdale, Alma, Snoop,

Donette, Kimmy, Stringer Bell, Rhonda and De’Londa. Snoop, Alma, De’Londa,

Kimmy, Stringer Bell and Donette, which were all around the same issue – mixedrace people’s attempts to manipulate the system for their advantage.

A number of phrases were used to describe this mixed-race stereotype such as

“benefit cheats”, “fakers” and most often “Johnny come latelys”, a phrase mentioned on four occasions which refers to mixed-race Australians who have



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metaphorically arrived at the door of Aboriginality when it was convenient for them to enter.

Stringer Bell informed me that “You’ll hear lots about, you know, people will talk to you about the Aboriginal industry and people trying to get the social and economic benefits of being, um, you know, being Aboriginal”, whist De’Londa’s comment on the subject was very similar: “But I kind of um you know I kind of get tired of everything. I just, you know we’re using it for political gain, you know, and you kind of think well how many, now how many um how many how many Aboriginal politicians are there? I certainly don't know of many. Er then they'll say they do known it's just it's a fashion thing at the moment.” This stereotype is appended solely to light-skinned or very pale people who look European, or whose physical characteristics suggest that they have no Aboriginal ancestry. This is because these stereotypes refer to mixed-race people who are cheating the system, which can only be done by people who don’t look Aboriginal. It illustrates the level of scrutiny that mixed-race people face, and the aggressive attention towards their identification. It also conveys the pressure that light-skinned, mixed-race people face for not identifying for the right reasons and/or at the right time.

This data also indicates that the participants believe that people in Australia see mixed-race people as a specific group, distinct from Aboriginal people, who are

trying to become Aboriginal. Therefore, one could say that their motivation to adopt an Aboriginal identity is based on an opposition to this national perception. It also shows that though they are compelled by both Aboriginal and White people to identify in different ways, they reject the pressure from White people.

The stereotypes of White people fell into two distinctive categories and were offered by Brianna, Rhonda, Kimmy, Donette, Snoop, Grace, Wee-Bey, Barksdale, Omar,

D’Angelo and Theresa. The first category was based on the “fair-go” attitude and interviewees used phrases like, “sitting on Bondi beach”, “drinking beer” and “funloving”. This is the stereotype of European Australians as relaxed, liberal and spirited



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people. On every occasion when this persona was talked about, it was amended for my benefit, and interviewees were quick to assert their opinion of what White

Australians are like in reality (from their perspective). In one example of this, Brianna says, “I mean, the thing is this Aussie fair-go impression that most people have of

White Australia is, you know, it’s not given to us.”

The alternative view was a more middle-class characteristic. It describes someone who is financially stable, and would fit into a stereotypical middle-class setting.

Adjectives like “well adjusted”, “intelligent”, “boring”, “doing an office job”,

“harassing the poor” were used, whilst their lifestyle would include “going to private school, driving nice cars, listening to classical music whilst their kids listen to hiphop”. The notion of their children listening to hip-hop is based on the suggestion that because they are middle class and lead a relatively suppressed life, their children would be rebel and listen to subversive music.

In this stereotype, there was a sense that they were describing a group of people who were different from themselves, and who had different life stories. This was an indication that White identity was not a feature in their lives, and that although they may have acknowledged it, it did not play a part in their cultural heritage.

Part ii) Social relationships: This subsection is a description of the ways in which the interviewees expressed and illustrated their attitudes towards White people, Black people of African descent and Aboriginal people who are both light-skinned and dark-skinned.

In relation to White people as a group, the comments were mostly critical. When assembling comments, there were three personality traits that emerged as significant: White People’s Hypothesis on Race; Attitude Towards Culture; and

Treatment of ‘Different’ People, Past and Present. Each are described and explored below.

100



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Hypothesis on race: Participants often spoke about White people’s inappropriate and incorrect views in their understanding of race. Inappropriate views included the belief that skin tone played an all-important factor in the determination of one’s racial group; discounting personal feelings and cultural experiences in one’s racial identification; that one’s racial identity was fixed and could not be change; and that the individual concerned had no influence in the conclusion of their identity. Alma expressed this concern during her interview:

I think for too long you know the issue of identity and skin, the way you look, um and being Aboriginal is kind of just flown under the radar for um; yeah for too long um you know so many Aboriginal people are kind of too Black for some and not Black enough for others...you know what does an Aboriginal person look like?...But um, yeah, note that I say you know there's an emphasis on looking, 'cause you know the only people who ever express disbelief in my Aboriginality, based on my skin tone, um have been kind of over privileged

White people.

Brother Mouzone and Bodie also explored the problems that White Australians have with understanding how Aboriginals deal with issues of identity, skin tone and culture (Moreton-Robinson, 2004b). What follows is a passage of the interview between Bodie and myself.

During kind of my teens…a lot of people…raised that…’clash’ between me having kind of European features and an Aboriginal identity. And…I know that hurt my dad…because…it’s almost like questioning your paternity; it’s almost like saying: well, you’re,



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you’re not actually the son of… you know these types of questions have been…very painful for me…I just think a lot of Australian people, um, the Australian public they’ve kind of got like a fetish for Aboriginal identity, um, you know…we are the way we are, why we have so many shades.

It must be noted that this comment, one of the most frequent made about White people, related to light-skinned Aboriginals. This indicates that skin tone plays a factor in the way one is seen in their environment. A lighter skin tone results in assumptions of manipulative behaviour and confusion about identity, which I call the fetishisation of identity. Bodie explains that White people perpetually discuss, analyse and scrutinise the identity of lighter-skinned mixed-race people who identify as Aboriginal. He states that they are fascinated and obsessed with the “strange way” in which mixed-race people determine their identity.

Wee-Bey adds that “if White people can't get it into their head that light colouring doesn’t make you, you know, a fake Aboriginal, it’s...then in a way she’s still exper...you know, you’re still experiencing discrimination on that identity…And you still have a lot of White people who kind of talk about, you know, half bloods and full bloods, and to me that really, really...it’s really offensive, and they just don’t... they just don’t get it.”

Maria, Brianna, Nerese, Donette, Alma and Grace also talk about their frustration with White people, unable to change their mind-set, and understand the ways in which Aboriginal people understand the concept of race. Donette expressed this opinion passionately. “I just wish that people could understand that I’m Black. Or just say nothing. Whitefellas don’t really understand what we’re about, you know. I don’t like people labelling me.” This sentiment was also expressed by Grace:



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But it's like apparently some people in this world you know like to decide for other people what their genes look like and that's you know that's the crux. It's like er you know White people want to be the arbiter whether someone looks properly Aboriginal…some people kind of believe that if you don’t look that way then your being from that background that is not as legitimate because you don’t fit in the observer’s criteria. And that um that's really narrow, that's really specific…this God complex, they believe that you know, that what they what they think is is right and if you don’t look like someone according to as far as they're concerned then that's the case.

Here we see the resentment towards White people, and a belief that White people are often unable to appreciate different methods of defining race. This also explains why candidates are unlikely to represent their White heritage.

Maria and Brianna theorised that White people had trouble with the concept of race because they were only capable of accommodating two perceptions of Aboriginality: traditional Aboriginals that live in rural areas, or fully integrated who refused to represent their identity. As Brianna explains, “Basically what they’re trying to say is it’s desirable to be White. But Aboriginals, um, you know, the strange thing is we don’t necessarily want to be White; we’re very proud of our history.” This was the reason why they were unable to comprehend or accept the concept of mixed-race people identifying as Aboriginal.

Treatment of ‘different’ people, past and present: The last subgroup relates to the perceived sustained racism from White people towards Aboriginals, and other racial minorities. D’Angelo talked about the Cronula riots in which northern European



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Australians attacked Australians of Middle Eastern heritage in Sydney in 2005. He then began to talk about the 78 Sri Lankan immigrants who were being denied access to Australia (Antara News, 2009), a news item that was being reported by many media corporations at the time. D’Angelo explained that they were being taken to Internally Displaced Person Camps (IDPs) which were being set up around the coast of Australia to house “undesirable” people (such as Sri Lankans and other people from Asia or Africa) from entering the country. At the same time, Australia

“welcomes those from northern Europe, and particularly the British Isles”.

Snoop compared Australia’s treatment of Aboriginals to other forms of European colonisation in non-European countries. He explained that Australia was more “racist than South Africa” under apartheid, and Aboriginals received similar treatment to that of Indigenous populations in Latin America. Alma spoke about similar topics, expressing the connection between the poor education, housing and slave labour that exists in Latin America, and the conditions that Aboriginals deal with at present.

She quoted the Bringing Them Home report which likened what many Aboriginals deal with to Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (Commonwealth of Australia, 1997).

Other comments were from Theresa, that the first thing she thinks about when talking about White people were that they were colonisers. Here we can see that some candidates have looked at the relationship between White people and “brown and Black people” (as quoted by Alma) around the world. This would help to explain why mixed-race Australians sustain a negative attitude towards White people, and are unwilling to identify with their White heritage.

The only comments that were not negative about White people were made in relation to specific White people that they either knew, that they had been told about by a family member, or that they had read about in history. Brianna, for example, when talking about mixed relationships in Australia explained that

“probably you may have the assumption that a lot of the relationships took place, uh, you know, there was like rape and, uh. But I mean, there was a lot of, there was a lot of rape, but a lot of it happened, you know, as a result of love”, insisting that



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there were White people who had married Aboriginals, and still had their children taken away and put into state care. Wee-Bey and in this case Rhonda, when talking about mixed marriages, noted that not all children with one Aboriginal and one

White parent were the result of rape, and that this was a common misconception.

For the last few hundred years, you know the White people, White men have been marrying women. There was this story of this guy who…was living in the bush…and he had an Aboriginal wife, he had 11 kids with his Aboriginal wife had lived in the Aboriginal community, but it was strange you know, the kids were still taken away and they were taken away because…it still wasn’t good enough, so…even though there was kind of a breeding process…even if it happened naturally, they were still disrespected so…we have a lot of respect for the fact that there are many White people who have fallen in love with Aboriginal people. And they have also, er, been abused as a result of this system, so it’s not just Aboriginal people, it’s also erm

White people.

This passage conveys a level of maturity and consideration in the opinions of some of the candidates. Here, Rhonda gives a balanced historical view of the relationship between Aboriginals and Europeans in Australia, and explains that there were a number of interracial relationships that were not a result of force, but a consequence of love. It must be noted that all the positive comments about White people were related to relationships with Aboriginal people, and therefore they may only have been considered positive because of their respect for Aboriginal culture.

Alternatively, one could argue that this was an acknowledgement of their White relatives.



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There are two conclusions that we can draw from the interviewees’ perceptions of

White people: (i) the similarities in the way that they are treated by most White people suggest that race plays a significant role in their lives. Indeed, race is so significant, that regardless of their social class and gender, their racial identification played a significant role in their interpersonal relationships; (ii) that the way the candidates expressed extremely negative experiences with White people, and spoke about the historical abuses that had taken place represented a ‘racial script’

(Williams, 2007).

101 This is a process in which attitudes towards race are taught (and learned) at an early age. They are a series of programmed stereotypes about a racial group other than one’s own. After a racial script is learned, it can then be activated upon the appearance of race-specific stimuli in the environment.

There were 30 passages recorded which explored mixed-race or light-skinned people’s classifications, interpretations and understanding of Aboriginal people. All issues related to the question of identity, with half of all comments relating to the issue of skin tone.

102 (It is worth pointing out that light-skinned and mixed-race people were commented on in a similar way, presumably because their racial background was not important, and that they were both considered Aboriginal).

These comments were grouped of into following three categories:

The first comment, by Savino stated that amongst Aboriginals, colour is not seen as important in determining someone’s identity. They explained that Aboriginal

Australians have a wide spectrum of shades, even within families, and that one’s identity is never questioned based on one’s colour. This means that although people may not look Aboriginal, they may still have Aboriginal ancestry.

The second comment asserted that White people believed that light-skinned

Aboriginals are faking their identity, or are stopping real Aboriginals from getting the benefits that are designed (Bodie) for Indigenous people. Consequently, as a result



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of this perception, interviewees complained that light-skinned Aboriginals are constantly having to prove their Aboriginality to White people (Wee-Bey).

However, there were also some mixed-race candidates who agreed with this assessment. Brianna, De’Londa, Maria and Donette all talked about “deniers”: those people who the participants believed did not represent their Aboriginal heritage and were therefore exploiting the benefits of Aboriginal struggle without publicly representing their true identity. Maria used the most emotive language on this issue, saying that she found mixed-race people who did not identify as Aboriginal

“upsetting”, whilst Brianna and Barksdale used the phrase “Johnny come lately” and

“Just discovered” to describe those Aboriginals who had only just decided to take up an Aboriginal identity. This means that there is an equal ambiguity among some mixed-race and Aboriginal people about real and fake Aboriginals, just as there is among some White people. It also suggests that there is a manner in which people are supposed to represent their Aboriginality, indicating that there is a pressure from some mixed-race and Aboriginal people to act a certain way, or receive disapproval from people in their environment.

Lastly, Theresa talked about the fact that very light-skinned Aboriginal women are more desired amongst some Aboriginal men, and Grace talked about the fact that her light-skin was the reason why she received a lot of attention from mixed-race people. She explained that some dark-skinned Aboriginals, or dark mixed-race people would be keen to date her for status: that her light skin made her a “trophy girl”, since she was perceived as White, and to date a White woman was more desirable. This infers that some Aboriginal men have become susceptible to the belief that a lighter skin tone is more attractive than a darker skin tone.

In relation to dark-skinned people, around half of the comments centred around rural and/or Aboriginals from the Northern Territory (NT).

103 Two people, Donette and Rhonda felt that some people in the Northern Territory questioned the authenticity of those Aboriginals in cities or those with fair skin, and would refer to



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them as “Yella Fellas”. Both Wee-Bey and Theresa believed that people in the

Northern Territory received worse treatment from White people than other

Aboriginals. This illustrates that the Redfern interviewees possess different attitudes to those in other parts of Australia, and some Aboriginals in the Northern Territory are uncomfortable with the idea that mixed-race people are identifying as

Aboriginal. It therefore shows that for some mixed-race people, there is an acceptance issue. Whilst it seems that the majority of Aboriginals are comfortable with the inclusion of mixed-race people, some mixed-race people will probably have experienced exclusion, or at the very least, a feeling of awkwardness in their attempts to connect or re-connect with their chosen identity. Hence there are conflicts with both some White and (to a much lesser extent, but nevertheless present) Aboriginal people.

The additional three comments relating to dark-skinned Aboriginals were comments about skin tone. Alma said that “Aboriginals don’t question shades or identity”, and that “over a period of 40,000 years, Aboriginals have been to a number of different places, and therefore have many different shades”. Similar comments on this issue were made by De’Londa. Snoop said that some dark-skinned Aboriginals have light eyes. In other words, a light skin tone does not always mean the individual will have light eyes and European features, and a dark skin tone does not always mean the individual will have of dark eyes and Aboriginal features. However, it is interesting to note that Brother Mouzone commented that people in the Northern Territory did not need to represent their identity as strongly as other Aboriginals because they were already seen as Aboriginals, however it was important for people in the Sydney region to assert their identity “or they could lose it”. These comments convey the importance that skin tone plays in their identification. It is an acknowledgement from the participants that their skin tone plays a part in their legitimacy, and that when one looks Aboriginal, there is a greater chance of acceptance. Hence, despite the number of comments relating to an inherent, imperative understanding that they were Aboriginal, skin tone is a factor in identification, and a factor in the level of



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comfort which they feel in their identification. For mixed-race people in this environment, the darker you are, the more easy it is to identify as Aboriginal.

There were fourteen comments made in relation to people of Black African descent.

Most comments concerned the similarity in their paths for self-determination against a similar oppressor and/or an admiration for the Black African struggle for national independence during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

104 Brother Mouzone,

De’Londa and Kimmy talked about a mutual respect for their “hard lives”, Grace mentioned the level of respect they had for how “they dealt with racism”, and Alma talked about the Aboriginal radio show on Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Hour

of Black Power, and how it was influenced by the Black American civil rights struggle.

Savino and Snoop talked about how the American Black Power movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s were adopted by some Aboriginal community leaders, and used the slogan, “Black is Beautiful” as a means of approaching their identity from a more positive perspective. Comments such as “a shared experience”, “an affinity and a passion for social justice” were indicative of their positive attitude towards Black people, commented on by Donette and Rhonda.

Two comments could be considered negative about Black people. D’Angelo explained that Aboriginals have experienced worse racism than Black people.

Rhonda stated that the difference between Black people and Aboriginals was that

Aboriginals belonged to the land that they were in, and that Black people did not (in reference to Black people in the Americas and the Caribbean). Therefore, interviewees either saw a similarity to Black people (in European and the Americas) because of their resistance to European colonialism, imperialism and/or subjugation, or they had an aversion Black people (in the Americas and the Caribbean) because they saw them as people who have taken the spotlight of resistance away from

Indigenous peoples. In each case, their like/dislike is based on a relationship with

Indigenous peoples, showing that young people in almost every way think about the world from an Aboriginal perspective.



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Part iii) Intimate relationships: This data describes the interviewees’ views on interracial relationships and mixed marriages.

The majority of the interviewees talked about this issue, and all stated that they were comfortable with relationships between Aboriginal and White/non-Aboriginal people.

105 Comments such as “We don’t have a problem with that here” from Omar were typical of the interviews. Indeed the tone, body language and facial expressions seemed to suggest astonishment at the question, as if it was something that would never be considered as a problem amongst Aboriginals. Many interviewees consolidated this opinion by relaying stories of White men and Aboriginal women engaging in sexual relationships throughout history, and noting that whilst rape was often cited as a reason for mixed-race children, love marriages between Aboriginals and White people had existed for a number of years. Brianna, Donette, Bodie and

Rhonda provided examples of this, given earlier in this section.

When this question was followed up by an inquiry about how mixed marriages could affect identity, or when I asked if marrying a White person may be observed as

Whitening their culture, De’Londa, Snoop, Kimmy, Brianna, Brother Mouzone and

Theresa answered in a similar way: that mixed marriage would not be a problem, since the children would always be considered Aboriginal. Kimmy explained that the

Aboriginal skin tone gene is recessive, and therefore their appearance is varied 106 , meaning that the visual impact of an Aboriginal person would not affect a young person’s choice of identity.

Donette also argues that she sees no problem with interracial relationships.

JW: But then, so, what would Cathy Freeman’s 107 children be considered? Aren’t you worried that that’s similar to the way it was before, with Aboriginals being assimilated out?



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Dt: Yea I’ve heard that one. That if I intermarry with someone else then we will be assimilated out but it’s actually the other way round. The Whitefellas are being assimilated out.

In this passage, because of the imperative, inherent nature of Aboriginal identity, there is the assumption that Cathy Freeman, regardless of her partner’s ethnicity, will have Aboriginal children, as Aboriginal identity takes precedence. As a result, the notion of mixed marriages was encouraged talked about in a positive way by

Brianna:

JW: So, what terms do you mind being called and what terms do you not like being called?

BR: I just want to be known as Aboriginal really. Um, I don’t like this word hybrid…You know, the thing is our population is really, really increasing very quickly because more people are identifying and more people are...out-marrying. And this, you know, this means positive, um. And you know, it’s kind of weird, I kind of think about…do you remember the main, the main fella, the, uh… Neville the Devil…I don’t know if they would be happy with this because the whole protection policy you’re trying to Whiten out is just not working.

Here, she states that mixed marriages and the present guiding principle on identity is the opposite of what ‘Neville the Devil’ intended.

108 Auber Octavius Neville was born

20 October 1875 and until his death on 18 April 1954, and was the Chief Protector of

Aborigines in Western Australia (Zalums and Stafford, 1980). He presided over the controversial policy of removing Aboriginal children from their parents in which



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more than 25% of Noongah children were confiscated.

109 Neville has been portrayed as the public face of the Stolen Generation policy in films such as Rabbit Proof Fence.

Brianna in this passage explains that the present shift in the identification of mixedrace people is the opposite of Neville’s policy. Neville thought that mixed-race children would be taught how to become White, however Brianna reminds us that mixed-race children are now considered Aboriginal. As well as suggesting that such an opinion is socially constructed (discussed in Chapter Six: Conclusion), because of the assumed identity of the children, she and other interviewees showed no evidence that there was a cultural value placed on who one dated: either it watered down their culture; it affected the way they were seen by some Aboriginal people in their area; it threatened their ability to represent your Aboriginality; or it affected their cultural loyalty.

This may be a reason why some interviewees 110 responded that they had dated more

White women than women from any other racial, cultural or ethnic group. This may also be a reason for the similarly expressed statements about their future partner’s personality traits. Both Alma and Brother Mouzone said that they did not want to date “bleeding heart liberals”, or “do-gooders”. They also did not want to be with

White people who thought that they had a “chip on their shoulder” about their

Aboriginal identity. They wanted to find a partner who understood their culture, and was not patronising in any way about their beliefs, not someone who felt sorry for them, had ‘White guilt’, or who wanted to be with them so that they could claim some sort of cultural legacy. This suggests that they would only choose to date, marry or have children with someone who would support their Aboriginality, and accept that their children’s identity would be Aboriginal.

This theme of finding a partner who would raise their children as Aboriginal seemed to be rooted in their own past. Grace stated that despite losing her Aboriginal mother at a young age, she has received support from her White father to seek her own identity. Bodie gave an example in which children of activists in the 1970s,



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1980s and 1990s were often raised by White women whilst their fathers were out fighting for equal rights:

The weird thing at that time is that a lot of Aboriginals at the time were married to non-Indigenous people so it must seem kind of quite weird to you when the activists are out doing what they’re doing, at home all the children of these activists are being raised by non-

Indigenous people…And not many people talk about this much at the moment…So, the thing is right from the beginning my family my mum was determined that my brother and I would be raised to be very proud of our Aboriginal heritage…And I think she probably sacrificed some of her own heritage.”

Grace has grown up with a White parent who has not only accepted, but embraced

Aboriginality, even at the expense of their own. This may be a reason why she expects the same from a life partner. As Kimmy said, it was mixed-race people’s responsibility to “raise their children with an understanding of Aboriginal culture”.

Theresa also suggested that it was essential that children of Aboriginal and White parents have an “understanding of both cultures”, and be “raised right”. I would argue, based on Theresa’s previous comments, that her implication is that the children should be raised with an understanding that they are Aboriginal in their identity. This aspect of the dating data reprises the question of choice. It would appear that there is an implicit understanding that children born from parents who identify as Aboriginal, will become Aboriginal. Whilst there is an assumption that the children will want to legally claim their Aboriginality heritage, I would be interested to know what would happen if their children did not want to identify as Aboriginal.



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This section indicates the following: i) Mixed-race people face scrutiny from both White, Aboriginal, mixed-race and other racial groups. The most intense scrutiny to adopt an Aboriginal identity comes from Aboriginal and mixed-race people, the most intense scrutiny to adopt a mixed-race or non-racial identity comes from White people. ii) There is a perception that a mixed-race group exists that is neither Aboriginal nor

White which is held by a minority of Aboriginals in rural areas, and by many White people. iii) Dating people of a different race carries minimal value because there is an assumption by mixed-race interviewees that their children will legally select an

Aboriginal identity when they are at an age where they have autonomy over that decision. iv) The young people will only date those who accept, or who understand their relationship with Aboriginality. v) Their identification is similar to their identity. They outwardly identify as

Aboriginal, whilst simultaneously have Aboriginal experiences.

Section Three: Photo Elicitation

During the interviews, candidates were asked to comment, speculate or state the assumed racial background of the individuals in 24 photographs shown to them. This section describes and analyses the results from the interviewees.

111

Overwhelmingly the data showed that candidates did not feel comfortable speculating on the identity of the people featured in the photographs. Primarily, candidates felt uncomfortable making any racial distinctions based on the photographs. This was conveyed most clearly by Rhonda, as shown below:

JW: And lastly we come to the pictures, what racial group would you place the following people in? I’ve



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got kind of a list of pictures here, where would you place them?

[PICTURES SHOWN]

R: I mean I, as you know I, I don’t really want to place anyone anywhere as I’ve said…we’re not in for placing people and we’re not in for halves, it’s about connecting with your history and finding out the history that speaks to you the most, it’s a voice, it’s a spiritual thing, it’s, it’s erm, it’s very difficult to define…it’s not altogether logical, it’s yeah it’s just how you feel.

For Rhonda, identity was inherent, internal, and something that existed within her because of her Aboriginal heritage. Consequently, it was impossible and immoral to determine someone’s identity through their appearance. Impossible, because skin tone and features did not represent identity; immoral because only the individual in the photograph could accurately determine their identity.

Some candidates understood and acknowledged why White people judged people on the basis of their appearance. Grace commented, “It’s a no brainer that people are going to measure people depending on how they look, you know they’re going to look at people’s ability between how they look.” However, they also felt that was, nonetheless, incorrect. Kimmy said that “There's a common mistake for non-

Indigenous people to judge Aboriginal people by their skin colour and we keep saying that skin colour does not define an Aboriginal person. As I said Black skin does not make you Aboriginal.”

As mentioned above, a number of interviewees argued that that identification is a personal choice, and therefore they could not identify the candidate until they knew



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how they had identified themselves. Interviewees often give examples of people who they knew who had blonde hair and blue eyes (who looked White), yet had the right to identify as Aboriginal because they had Indigenous ancestry. They also felt that it was wrong to force someone to accept an identity that they had not chosen for themselves. Rhonda stated that, “It just matters what you believe that you are. If you identify yourself as Aboriginal then you are Aboriginal and that’s, that’s good enough,” was the dominant opinion amongst mixed-race Australian people in this study. This perspective was also stated and re-stated during the interviews, and it was expressed as a fundamental aspect of Aboriginal civil rights. As explained in greater detail in Section Four, this information was delivered as if I, the outsider was being taught about Aboriginal cultural practice. As Brother Mouzone teaches me:

Ah but you see…you're judging people by percentages…you're looking at someone as kind of like as a percentage, like a mathematical question, and you can't judge me out of 100, this isn't like an exam. You know, so if I have more so-called European heritage in me then I automatically become European. Like I keep saying, it's the way you feel and I feel a connection to the land, I don't feel culturally European

Whilst talking about the right to self-identification, they would often also talk about their experiences or the experiences of others (in their lifetime or in the past) that had been denied that choice, or prevented from representing the identity that they feel closest to. Consequently, a significant part of the culture of mixed-race people has been the notion that no-one’s family should have their ancestry questioned, or denied. As Bodie explains:

So, anyway, um, so during kind of my teens, you know, a lot of people kind of, you know, raised that kind of



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apparent ‘clash’ between me having kind of European features and an Aboriginal identity. And, um, I know that hurt my dad and it hurt him a lot, um, you know, to…because it’s kind of it’s like it’s like a saying… you know, it’s almost like questioning your paternity; it’s almost like saying: well, you’re, you’re not actually the son of…you know, you’re not really my son, type of thing.

This comment was often followed by a conversation about the diversity of skin tones and features possessed by Aboriginals, validating the opinion that race cannot be determined by appearance. Rhonda justifies this:

When we look at our peoples, we see the massive physical differences, erm, between the geographic, we see, you know, the, the fact there are massive differences within the family or even with the clan and even between individual family members.

Originally, the relationship between myself, the researcher, and the interviewee was not data that I had considered analysing. However once the research had been completed, it became clear that the interviewees’ response to my questions were a vital source of data. With my use of the term mixed, and my questions relating to mixedness, interviewees often reacted to my questions, which became rich data to analyse in relation to their comfort/lack of comfort with the terms and issues that were raised. There were eight comments in total, and the majority were focussed on schooling 112 me about my terminology. Maria insisted that my “mind-set was wrong”, with Kimmy stressing the following:



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I notice you know you use the word mixed-race…but we're very…you’re not kind of mixed, that assume[s] that there is kind of a colour that's defining you…it’s just a bit pathetic really so…the problem still remains that Aboriginal identity is identified by White people…not indigenous person[s] And then there's all this idea about genetic testing and seeing that we've, I don't know…but you know before, the thing is…before colonialism…we identified ourselves by tribe, it depends what nation you’re a part of, so I don't know whether you've seen the film Avatar that's just come out because that's kind of a bit like…it’s not obviously it’s like it’s the same old story but it’s a bit like that where you have…anyone can be part of us you have to know about the history and you have to be accepted and that's all it takes.

Donette talked about the fact that having halves and wholes were counterproductive in a family setting, and that “either you were a brother to someone or not. You cannot be a half-brother to someone”. This was re-iterated by De’Londa who also argued that I should accept that culture was more important than skin colour, or even parentage.

Maria, Kimmy, Donette and De’Londa claimed that the language that I was using had been created for me by the “ruling class”/“oppressor”/“White people”. This suggested that their view of racial identity is considered more valid than other people’s (specifically European people’s) mode of thinking.

113

When I asked candidates to guess my racial background, the results revealed different data. Whilst some people still asserted that they did not feel comfortable



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casting judgement over my identity, Savino assumed that I was Black, and Omar stated that I was Black “unless you think you are something else”. This suggests that there is a discrepancy in their attitudes towards the choice of the participant.

However, they could be applying the same rule to me as they are applying to themselves: that they are free to identify as they want, as long as they decide to identify as Aboriginal, or in my case, a Black identity.

With this data, we can make three conclusions: i) The term mixed-race provokes intense reactions, and is considered a tool of

White superiority. As a result, amongst the interviewees, there is no group that identifies as mixed-race. ii) Publicly, young mixed-race people state that they prefer people to have the choice in their identity. I am unable to determine what the interviewees would say privately on this matter. iii) The history of racism and the subjugation of White people over Aboriginal people plays a central role in their identification.

Section Four: Language

This section focuses on the most frequently used words, phrases and subjects expended during the Redfern interviews. It initially looks at the issues or subjects that the young people spoke about, it then concentrates on the way that they define key terminology, and finally focusses on the subjects that generated emotional responses from the participants.

In this first segment, I discuss the issues and subjects that the young people talked about most often. This data is based on unprompted comments and were seen as topics that the interviewee wished to express outside of the questions asked by the interviewer. Issues were noted when the interviewee spoke on the subject for a period considered significant to the interview’s duration.



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A careful inspection of the data reveals that the most frequently mentioned subject was related to race.

114 Of those interviewees that spoke about race-related issues, the majority of the issues were based around the effects of racism: The History of

Aboriginal Struggle (including the European invasion, and the discrimination that

Aboriginals have suffered), the Stolen Generation, Colonialism (the manner in which

Australia was colonised) and Land Rights (the recent court cases about Aboriginal land rights and how land was originally appropriated from Aboriginals by Europeans).

These subjects were mentioned across all demographics, class, gender, parentage, partner’s racial background, occupation. This is perhaps because such an issue affects all mixed-race Australians. The subject of Land Rights was mentioned to two women, and those women were the only interviewees who had lived abroad at one stage in their lives. Three comments were related to racial issues currently being faced in their lives. These included the All-stars Rugby match (explained in detail in

Chapter One: Introduction), Identity (as covered throughout this chapter), and the

Present Day Discrimination of Aboriginals. Many of these topics were mentioned as part of their answer to the question, “How would you determine your identity?” This is indicative of the Australian interviewees, who would talk about Aboriginal issues when asked any question about their mixed-race identity, because it was instinctive to think about the answer from an Aboriginal perspective.

When talking to me about Aboriginal issues, interviewees also appeared to ‘school’ me, and it took the tone of a history lesson, a concept explained in greater detail in

Chapter Five. Participants would move naturally towards an opportunity to display their knowledge of Aboriginal culture and affairs. I would suggest that part of this was done for the benefit of an outsider (me) who understands little of Aboriginal history; and part of it was done to display their knowledge of Aboriginal affairs. For example, when Maria was asked by me, “From an English perspective you look mixed. So how do people regard you?” her answer initially tackled the question directly by saying, “It’s strange because mixed people are kind of…like we’re special.”

This then led to an extensive explanation of the way that White people have treated mixed-race Australians people. “You know, it’s this repressive legislation that



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there’s…you know, that tries to kill us. You know half-caste people were always a problem in this country.” This led into an account from her grandmother about the child removal policy, and the Stolen Generation issue. “So anyway, basically the government decided that the best way to do this would be, you know, like assimilation really.” This led to a discussion about skin tone. “I mean, for me with the whole skin…the skin thing, you know, there’s this kind of a difference between what

I would say is White privilege and light skinned privilege.” This finally led to her commenting on the way White people judge her and other mixed-race people. “And it’s the audacity of, you know, some, to decide what a person of a certain race or background should look like.”

This monologue was borne out of one question, and her passage took place without any interruption. This pattern was not unusual, and took place with the majority of participants.

The subject of racism was often mentioned when talking about White people, and was often in reference to White people’s perceived inability to understand how and why mixed-race people selected an Aboriginal identity. This is discussed in Section

Two. The only time when White people were discussed positively is when they were mentioned as a specific person. However, individual accounts or interaction with

White people whom they like do not have an impact on their overall attitude. Issues relating to the history of racism were mentioned in the form of stories, ancestor’s experiences, and what they had learnt in history. They included Aboriginals being forced to wear dog tags, Aboriginals not being allowed to swim in certain swimming pools, being forced to sit on the floor in cinemas, and the genocide that took place in

Tasmania during the early 1800s. Such comments re-iterate their attachment to their

Aboriginal identity, often only able to look at White people as a representation of their impact on Aboriginal lives, past and present.

An issue that arose independently of any questions that I asked was about the question of a real Aboriginal. Rhonda, Donette and Snoop all briefly mentioned that



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there was a source of mild tension between true Aboriginals, and those who do not speak the language (referring to themselves, who live in the city in NSW), or those who live the traditional Aboriginal life (the Northern Territory was often named as the place where true Aboriginals live). In this, we can see that there is an understanding that some Aboriginals are ambiguous about mixed-race people’s adoption of an Aboriginal identity. This assertion by mixed-race interviewees, expressed in a deflated manner (notably without a sense of aggression or anger) reveals that there is an acknowledgement that they are considered less Aboriginal by some Aboriginals. However, the inadequacy that they felt was considered to be the fault of European imperialism, and not as a result of their lack of a right to be

Aboriginal.

Mixed-race as a concept was rarely talked about, and none of the issues mentioned were directly related to their mixed-race identity. Even when Maria or Prop Joe mentioned the subject, it was departed from very quickly. I would argue that being mixed-race as an identity is seldom contemplated. They are Aboriginal not only by name, but in the words that they use, and the subjects that matter most to them.

Even when referring to their White heritage, the subject was only used as a means of explaining how little it impacted on their lives.

Issues other than race were not mentioned particularly often by the interviewees.

Only three issues mentioned were not directly related to issues of race; skating (as a pastime), women’s rights and the difference between rural and city life (the difficulties for Aboriginals to adjust). There were no conversations about youth issues, or employment related issues. As a youth practitioner, I am aware that for most people of that age, there are additional issues that play a significant part in their lives, such as their career and intimate relationships, and both issues rarely came up in the interviews. I would suggest that this was because the majority of the interview questions focussed on race; and the interviewees placed greater emphasis on their Aboriginal identity than on other identities.



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All candidates used the term Aboriginal to describe themselves, 115 some used the term Aboriginal and Indigenous interchangeably, and some used the term

“Blackfella” to describe themselves and other Aboriginals.

Maria, Bodie and Alma used specific skin or tribal terms to describe themselves or other people. These specific terms included “Gadigal”, “Koori”, “Torres Strait

Islander”, “Nyungar”, “Murri” and “Nunga”. Some interviewees mentioned this because they were able to trace their history far enough back to determine this.

Other interviewees who did not mention their skin or nation explained that they were not able to determine it. The representation of their skin or nation conveys a desire to be fully integrated into their culture, and suggests that their identification has been a journey in which they have had to be part of a process of self-discovery.

It is interesting to note that Maria used the word mixed to describe her or others who have two or more nation, skin or tribal mixes. When explaining that she was of

Nunga decent, but belonged to the Murri skin (or community), she explained, “My dad’s kind of from…he’s mixed, when I say he’s mixed he’s kind of from two different areas.” Crucially, the term mixed was never used to reference people of different racial groups, for example, someone who had Black and White ancestry, or Asian and

Lebanese ancestry.

There were two very brief departures from their racial script that I had become accustomed to in the language used about their Aboriginal ancestry. The first was made by De’Londa, who, when asked “So what about when you were young? How did you, what identity were you when you were young?” answered, “Er I suppose

[hesitation] I was more, I kind of, I felt like I was mixed if you can say that. Um, but then when I got a bit older, when I kind of got into my teens [hesitation] I, I just realised I was Black basically. Um, and then and there and there was never a choice.”

This could have been a mistake, or a slip that indicates that this phrase is one that is used, or thought about, and could suggest something more significant about the way in which she really thought about race in Australia, especially since she used the



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phrase “if you can say that” after saying mixed, to almost ask permission to use the word.

The second example was used by Brianna who, had said she was Aboriginal in her ancestry, felt mildly disjointed from people who identified as Aboriginal:

JW: So, do people try to pass as, um, as White at all, if they’re quite light?

BR: Um [pause], I think some people have but, but not much because it’s, because it’s their land, you know; it belongs to us. So, there’s no need for people to do that.

You know, this actually causes kind of profound sense of grief amongst people, um. [Slight pause] So, some people…

In this example, Brianna uses the word “their land”, and not our or her land. I could be making something out of nothing, or there could be the suggestion that although she identifies as Aboriginal, she is not confident enough to use the word “our”. This could be because either she is not fully accepted by other people in the area who describe themselves as Aboriginal, or because she is unsure about her personal identification.

When talking about their Aboriginal identity, fourteen of the respondents used emotional phrases when giving their answers.

116 For example Alma used words like

“difficult”, “awful”, “hard”, “offensive”, “traumatic”, and “raw deal”. Kimmy used words like “painful”, “weak”, “utterly racist”, “tiring”, “frustrating”, “harsh”,

“systematic, nightmare”, “hollowed out” in relation to colonialism and an inability to be accepted for their self-identification. This would suggest that they felt emotionally



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connected to what they perceive as historical and present abuse of Aboriginal people.

This data reveals the following conclusions: i) Race is one of the most important aspects of their lives and it dwarfs all other aspects. There is the possibility that this could be because the interview was about race, or that as an outsider I was being educated. If the former is true, then it could be argued that the data is misleading. However, if interviewees wanted to demonstrate their knowledge of Aboriginal history to me, it is an indication of how significant it is in their lives. ii) There is no evidence that mixed-race is seen as a distinct racial group by the interviewees from this section of the data. However, there is evidence, albeit small, that the concept of mixedness still exists, whether as a remnant of the

Stolen Generation, or because some people do feel a tension between being

Aboriginal, and not being fully accepted by all Aboriginals. iii) The relationship between White supremacy and the perceived Aboriginal brutalisation plays a significant role in their Aboriginal identification. From this, there is a responsibility to remember, internalise and promote the perceived crimes that took place in the past. This could possibly be part of the basis for their Aboriginal identification. iv) There is an almost universal mistrust of White people as a group, however the participants do not see all White people as a threat to their identity.

Section Five: Mannerisms and Body Language

The final section focuses on the non-verbal reactions from the participants to the interview, specifically their non-reactions, length of time they spoke, their attitudes towards the interviews, their tone, and their physical mannerisms.

Eighteen of the respondents gave what can be considered open responses, with 16 regarded as positive (positive in this case describes an interviewee who was



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compliant, appeared to maintain a positive demeanour during the interview, and who did not appear unduly hostile or aggressive).

These respondents sat forward during most of the interview, were assertive in their answers, gesticulated during their answers, and maintained positive expressions throughout. The majority of the interviewees’ answers included personal stories, personal experiences, and the interviewees often either consciously or subconsciously moved onto other points or issues that they wished to express. Phrases like “…cos…you know…”, “but I mean…”,

“now to go back to…”, indicated that the interviewee was often responding according to their train of thought, and had much to say about the subject. Even when they had finished a point, they often went back to a previous point, to offer clarification, to embellish a point, to elaborate, or to reiterate.

117

The majority of answers to questions were completed from what I would call prethought questions. This is where the interviewee had thought about many of the issues that they were asked about before, or had thought about the subject matter on a number of occasions previously. Their answers were not characterised by periods of silence or introspection before answering the questions. I did not need to repeat or rephrase questions. Their responses were not initiated by ‘fillers’, such as

“ums”.

118 In fact answers often began with phrases like “well, for me”, or “it’s interesting because”, or “well, I mean” which suggested that the interviewee took an interest in the subject matter prior to the interview.

A table was compiled, calculating the number of words spoken by interviewees against words spoken by the total number of words spoken during the duration of the interview. The table can be viewed in the appendices. The results showed that there were only four interviews conducted in which the interviewees spoke for less than 80% of the time, suggesting that the vast majority of the interviewees had much to say during the interviews.

There are a number of reasons why this may have been the case. There is the possibility that they were all talkative, open, reflective and helpful individuals. I, as



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the interviewer, may partly have been a reason for their willingness to talk. (This is covered in greater detail in Chapter Three: Methodology.) These may be true, however, I would argue that there are more fundamental factors behind their readiness to contribute: schooling the outsider; and interest in Aboriginal history.

As an outsider, the interviewees were given an opportunity to express their opinions on matters that they may not often have the opportunity to speak about. They were aware that I knew little on the subject, and we were in an environment where I was interested in their answers, and they were given the space in which to talk freely about the issue of race, their identity, and Aboriginal history. As a consequence of this, not only did the respondents speak for lengthy periods of time, but they would frequently talk about how the perception of Australia from abroad is very different from the reality. In other words, they were telling me in an indirect way that my perception of Australia was very far from the truth. I would argue that this is why I was asked on four occasions, (paraphrased), “Have you seen how racist our country is yet?” I would answer the question politely, but the answer would always give the interviewee the opportunity to advance their views on Australian politics.

The other explanation is that the duration of their answers were linked to their knowledge and pride in their heritage. This is because on a number of occasions, the interviewee would answer questions that they wanted to answer. An example of this is was when I asked Alma “Why are you called Black?” The response lasted unbroken for seven minutes, and touched on a variety of subjects, including the Kevin Rudd

Apology speech, relationships with White people, racist attitudes towards Aborigines and the One Nation political party. This concept was elaborated in Section Four where I explained that interviewees kept talking about a particular aspect of

Aboriginal history, rather than directly answering the question that was posed to them, and that I wanted them to tackle. The reason posited was that when asked about their identity, the answer could only base itself around Aboriginal affairs, because they believed in every way, that they were Aboriginal.



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Their confidence in what they were saying, coupled with their factual knowledge, expressed by the statistics often quoted, showed that they were well informed in this area. The uniformity with which this was expressed by the majority of the respondents suggests that there was a racial script (spoken about earlier in this chapter). There were a number of statements, subjects and phrases that were repeated throughout the interviews that implied that there were elements of their answers that were either rehearsed, gathered from a similar source, or were taught to a number of people. The subject of the Stolen Generation was raised numerous times, the issue of self-identification was also frequently mentioned and I vividly remember hearing the phrase “which part is half” in response to the question, “Do you consider yourself mixed-race?” many times. This was recorded in my diary:

The answers that mixed-race young people give with regards to the way they see other mixed-race people, the way that they view their place in Australia, and the way that they feel about mixed-race history is very similar to the people that I have interviewed. It seems quite clear that there is fairly uniform way in which mixed-race history and positioning is understood by mixed-race in Australia at the moment.

The only mild levels of aggression received from the participants were related to questions that I had asked. Whilst using the term ‘mixed’, or in reference to a section in my book, What Being Black Is And What Being Black Isn’t which talks about “fullblood” Tasmanians (Whittingham, 2010: 103).

One interview which required a great deal of coercion took place with Omar. Here the respondent replied with comments such as “as I said” or simply very short statements.

119 However, after an examination of all the data from the other interviews, there may be specific circumstances for this particular interview, since it



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took place in a police station, from someone who was participating in a form of community service for theft.

120 T he interview took place at 8am and it is possible that the young person had only slept for a short space of time, and was therefore drowsy, and possibly hungry. Additionally, he could have thought that I was connected to the police, and was fearful that I could tell the police information that he may not want them to know.

121

The one introverted respondent was Theresa. Since the interview was positive I would suggest a combination of explanations for this: she may be a shy person and has difficulty expressing herself; and/or she may feel intimidated participating in an interview with a male interviewee.

One can close this section with three conclusions relating to the non-verbal communication. i) Young mixed-race people in Sydney are both interested, knowledgeable, think carefully and enjoy expressing their opinions on Aboriginal issues. This is regardless of social class, educational attainment, occupation, gender or background. ii) They have strong opinions and are willing to confidently challenge and correct views of Aboriginality and their identity that they disagree with. iii) The use of terms to describe mixed-race young people is highly contentious, emotive and plays a significant role in their identity. iv) It is my contention that there is a uniform and unvarying narrative circulated among Aboriginal people in the area which is both understood and re-stated in discussions about Aboriginal issues. I would argue that this is the reason why so many of their responses were so similar.

Summary

The Australian data reveals that amongst the participants, race is perhaps the most important aspect of their identity that they possess. Whilst there are other aspects of their lives that add to their identity, it is their Aboriginality that plays the central



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role. Mixed-race young people feel a desire, if not responsibility to represent and promote their Aboriginal identity, and merely acknowledge their White background.

Mixed-race people occupy a recognised space within the Aboriginal people, and their identification is identical to their identity: candidates both outwardly represent an

Aboriginal identity, and feel Aboriginal internally.

Mixed-race people face scrutiny from White, Aboriginal and mixed-race people.

Those mixed-race individuals who identify as mixed-race or White risk becoming at best questioned and at worst rebuked by their family or friends; whilst many White people cannot understand how a mixed-race person can identify as Aboriginal. As a result of this attitude by White people, there is a universal mistrust of them, because they believe that Whites, through their attitude towards race, diminish a mixed-race person’s ability to self-identify. The appearance of the young people plays a factor in the scrutiny faced by White people, and not with Aboriginals, and candidates were aggravated by these means of identification.

There is a concept of mixedness that exists in Australia, but largely amongst White and non-Aboriginal people. Though the concept also exists amongst some rural

Aboriginal people, amongst most urban Aboriginal and mixed-race people, it is a considered to be a highly offensive concept, and term. As a result, terminology among the young people played a significant role in their identity.

The history of racism plays a significant role in their Aboriginal identification, the belief that their Aboriginality is a representation of something that their ancestors could never do under European rule. This was shown through their knowledge of their history, their inclusion of statistics about Aboriginal issues to prove or challenge arguments, and their reference to personal or family experiences in which they or others received discrimination. This led to many interviewees indicating that they had a responsibility to represent an Aboriginal identity.



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The data revealed that mixed-race people strongly believe that Aboriginal heritage and identification is inherent in people who have Aboriginal ancestry. As a result, there is a conviction that all children and young people who are mixed-race will identify as Aboriginal. Hence, interracial relationships are fully accepted since the identity of their offspring is assured.

The proceeding chapter will now describe and analyse the data from the UK interviewees. Its format will be identical to this chapter, to allow for more accurate comparison of the data which will take place in the final chapter.

82 M: Male

83 Indig: Indigenous

84 Fitzpatrick Scale Fair and Flawless http://www.fairandflawlessskin.com/skintone.html

(accessed

09/03/12).

85 Ab.: Aboriginal

86 F: Female

87 Nunga is a term of self-reference for many of the Aboriginal peoples of southern South Australia.

88 The Murri are the Indigenous Australians that traditionally occupied most of modern-day

Queensland.

89 Barada Barna Kabalbara Yetimarla people are based in Sarina, Queensland.

90 NEET: Not in Employment Education or Training

91 In more detail, she noted as a fact that she had heritage from different races, however she later clarified that she did not identify as mixed-race.

92 This includes the Native Title Act 1993, which recognises the rights of the inhabitants of land occupied before European involvement in the island.

93 All people interviewed gave at least two or more reasons for their identity choice, and a total of 24 were recorded.

94 In Australia and amongst Indigenous peoples, tribes are regarded as language groups made up of people sharing the same language, customs and general laws. Often the tribes use the term nation to describe themselves. As a result, both terms are used interchangeably, however nation is preferred. Skin refers to a section or sub-section of within a nation. See Baldry and Green , 2002.

95 In relation to the demography, younger participants tended to talk about the concept of Shame, and

History in relation to their identity. There were no further patterns established. Therefore, it is interesting that, for example, regardless of the skin tone of participants, they would believe that skin tone had no effect on identity.

96 This was explained during both the interviews and the photo elicitation.

97 ‘Internal reasons’ were mentioned 33 times.



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98 In the same way that if someone suddenly discovered that they were Scottish, they might start to take an interest in Scottish culture, and might start wearing a kilt.

99 These include dog tags, swimming pools, Stolen Generation, colonialism etc.

100 The term White people and other Australians are used interchangeably throughout the passage.

101 This is a theory formulated by Robert Williams (2007) who originally wrote about it in reference to

White people’s perceptions of Black people in the USA. It is the process by which White children acquire racist attitudes. More specifically, it is a book about what White parents, relatives, media, schools and religious organisations teach children about Black Americans. The main thesis of the book is that racist attitudes are taught (and learned) at an early age through a process known as "racial scripting". A racial script is a series of programmed stereotypes and myths about a racial or ethnic group other than one's own. After a racial script is learned, it can then be activated upon the appearance of race-specific stimuli in the environment. Racial scripts guide the mind's eye in deciding what to perceive and what not to perceive. They work backstage, but may be activated and "pop into consciousness". Scripts determine "see this and not that", that is, scripts determine not only what we will notice, but what we do not notice. An activated racial script dominates awareness. The scripts may be positive and influence accurate perceptions; they may be negative and pre-dispose one to false perceptions; they may be neutral and dispose one to unbiased perceptions or they may be mixed and influence ambivalent perceptions. A racial script results from an early identification process by the immature child in which he/she adopts the parents' (the primary group) behaviours (scripts) and align his/her behaviour with the realities of the home situation. The family is the basic institution through which children learn the fundamentals of life and parents are the primary agents of socialisation. They define the child's world. They teach the "three Rs” (reading, writing and arithmetic). But, in addition to teaching children "the three Rs" there is also another instructional system taught to young children called the fourth "R" or RACISM.

102 There were 15 comments in total relating to skin tone.

103 5 out of ten comments.

104 12 out of the twenty comments.

105 19 of 20 interviewees.

106 This is what is known as strategic essentialism. See Eide, 2010

107 Catherine Astrid Salome “Cathy” Freeman, (born 16 February 1973) is a former Australian sprinter, who specialised in the 400 metres event. She became the Olympic champion for the women's

400 metres at the 2000 Summer Olympics, at which she lit the Olympic Flame. She has White,

Aboriginal and Chinese ancestry.

108 Auber Octavius Neville aka Neville the Devil was born 20 October 1875 and until his death on 18

April 1954, was the Chief Protector of Aborigines in Western Australia. He believed that biological absorption was the key to “uplifting the Native race”, and was responsible for the policies of forced settlement, removing children from parents, surveillance, discipline and punishment, arguing that

“They have to be protected against themselves whether they like it or not. They cannot remain as they



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are. The sore spot requires the application of the surgeon's knife for the good of the patient, and probably against the patient's will.” During this period, he presided over the controversial policy of removing

Aboriginal children from their parents; more than 25% of Noongah children were confiscated.

109 Noongah people are an Indigenous Australian people who live in the south-west of Western

Australia, from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the south coast.

110 25% in total.

111 The photographs used were featured in Chapter Three: Methodology and are also featured in the

Appendices.

112 To ‘school’ someone is to ‘teach’ them about a subject whilst assuming the persona of a teacher.

113 It must be noted that as an outsider, I interpreted many of the comments during the interview as implicitly directed at me, the interviewer. However, this issue is explored in greater detail in later chapters.

114 Of the 10 most frequently mentioned issues, only one was unrelated to race (this was the issue relating to the difficulty that young people face moving from rural areas to urban areas). Only three issues were mentioned that had nothing to do with race. Indeed, of those that were interviewed, only four did not specify an issue that I would consider was mentioned with significance. They were

Stringer, Bodie, Prop Joe and Donette. They were a group of varying skin tone, class, and occupation, although three of the four were male.

115 A total of nine people used the term “Aboriginal” when describing themselves and other Aboriginal people (Brianna, Stringer Bell, Bodie, Donette, Theresa, Barksdale, Omar, D’Angelo), whilst 11 used the term “Aboriginal” and “Indigenous” interchangeably. A quarter of the participants used the word

“Black” or “Blackfella” when describing their Aboriginality. However it seems as though it has similar connotations to the N word, as explained by Alma.

I suppose the use of the word Black is kind of tricky, because…when it's…used by non-Aboriginal Australians it does have kind of racial connotations. And they're usually quite negative…but recently there was a lot of coverage about Aboriginal [sports] players being called

Black…and nowadays…they're not allowed to call [you] that, and that's fair enough. So if an Aboriginal Australian doesn’t want to be called

Black by a non-Aboriginal, you can't argue with them. I know that my fiancé would avoid using that just 'cause it might offend people. On the other hand, a lot of Aboriginals embrace the term Black, so I use the the term Black quite a lot. I just think it's our choice. It's probably the same as the N word. It's one of those things where some people kind of don't really feel like they can use it, and some people do feel like they can. Just



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'cause a Black person uses it doesn’t mean that other Black people can do that, do you see what I mean?

116 In relation to White people, only three people referred to White people as “Whitefellas” (Bodie,

Donette and Snoop), and six people (Prop Joe, Kimmy, D’Angelo, Omar, Nerese, Brianna) used the term “Australian public” and “most people” when referring to White people.

117 Only two answers were considered negative, with the interviewee reacting to the interview by giving short, sharp answers with frustrated facial expressions. These two respondents who were judged to be introvert in their attitude, and showed signs of apprehension, nervousness and anxiety during many of the answers.

Three respondents answered questions in a questionnaire-like manner, Donette, De’Londa and Savino: their manner was polite and willing, responding to the questions only, and with very little elaboration in relation to their lives, or experiences. De’Londa’s significantly brief answer came when asked about her identity, perhaps because she was unsure how to answer the question, or perhaps because she was unsure about how she would state her identity. Donette gave the impression that she was clear with what she wanted to say, since here answers were characterised by clean, succinct endings to her sentences. There is also the suggestion that she may have not wanted the interview to go on longer than necessary. Savino identified as Aboriginal but had little interest in politics or the social aspects of his racial background, and as a result, had little to say about, for example, issues such as skin tone. His interests lay in skating, and consequently, may have felt it was the wrong arena to talk at length about such a passion, since he was aware that my interests lay in racial identity.

118 A ‘filler’ is a sound or word spoken in conversation by one participant to signal to others that he/she has paused to think, but is not yet finished speaking.

119 Irrespective of this, it did not reduce the length of the interview, or the answers given and, in fact, the interviewees on both occasions used this as an opportunity to challenge my thought process, and reeducate me. In other words, it was a situation in which they could enlighten me, or ‘set the record straight’.

120 It must be noted that for anyone in police custody, regardless of the circumstances, it can be distressing experience, especially if they view themselves as innocent for, or if they have been detained for the first time.

121 If someone has been arrested before, they may know the system, and therefore may either want to make my life difficult, or not say anything that could incriminate them, especially since I was recording the interview. One cannot also discount his educational levels, and his inability to communicate may have been limited.



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Chapter Five: Analysis and Interpretation –

Brixton, UK

There’s all, like, little rules with my age group anyway, like mixed-race boys with White girls, but mixed-race girls with Black boys and…have I missed anyone out?

No, Black boys and White girls [laughs] and you don’t really tend to get to get Black girls and White boys from my experience, or, um, mixed-race girls and White boys very much, don’t know why that is, but, no, I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t find White, like, people attractive, but I just tend to not to be inclined to…it’s not…it’s never, like…I don’t know.

(Jhondar)

Using the same format as the previous chapter, Chapter Five: Analysis and

Interpretation – Brixton, UK presents, describes, discusses and analyses the results taken from 20 unstructured individual interviews and three group interviews with young people from Brixton, between February and May 2010. It is an account of what was found in Brixton, and included are summary tables and figures of results to illustrate patterns in the data, all analysed within the context of the research questions. Below is a review of the research questions:

1. Do mixed-race people believe ‘mixed-race’ is a definable social group?



4. To what extent does race play a function in the overall identity of mixed-race

young people?

Each section tackles a different element of the interview in reference to the

Jacob Whittingham Is Mixed-Race A Colour? The Factors Involved in the Construction of the Mixed-Race Identity Chapter Five: Analysis and Interpretation – Brixton, UK (2014)

192

investigative questions. The first section is an exploration into the research participant’s identity and manner in which they define themselves, from a racial or any other perspective.

The second section focuses on the participant’s comments which relate to racial groups – these include White people, Black people of African descent (both lightskinned and dark-skinned) and mixed race people.

Section three investigates the results provided from the photo elicitation section of the interviews, and analyses responses to the questions relating to the photographs of White, Black, mixed-race and Aboriginal celebrities.

Section four concentrates on the language employed during the interview. It will look at the most used phrases, analyse patterns of strings of words, linguistic features, most frequently cited issues and the issues that they spoke most passionately about.

The fifth section considers the physical mannerisms, attitudes, and verbal reactions by the interviewees to the subject matter that either the interviewer raised, or that they raised themselves, in each case giving reasons for the implications and importance of these characteristics. It will concentrate on how the interviewees responded to the interviewer’s questions, and how the interviewee used language, both body and verbal. This segment will also look at the level of encouragement needed to answer specific questions, whether they appeared open or closed in their approach to particular subjects, how long their answers were, their confidence in tackling the issues explored, the tone of the interviewee, and the length of time they spent on issues or questions.

The final section concludes with an exploration of significant learning outcomes from the research in London.

As with the previous chapter, each section will analyse and interpret this data in


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relation to interviewee’s gender; social class; parentage; skin tone; age; level of education; their partner’s racial group; the environment they grew up in; and occupation/career aspirations. This is designed to determine if there is a pattern with regards to their demographics.

Section One: Identity

This section analyses the answers, responses and comments given from interviews in

Brixton which referred directly to their identity. Several reasons were given for their identification. Below, Figure 1 shows a table of the interviewees’ demographics and their chosen identity.

Figure 1: Identity

Name

Narishma 19 M D: Black (Ghana)

Algarin

M: White (English)

23 M D: Black (N.K) 122

M: White (English)

Minly

Age Sex Parents racial group and nationality

Kisman

21 F D: Black (Ghana)

M: White (German)

18 M D: Black (Jamaican)

M: White (English)

Lyrelle

Mezar

Kurin

Harella

18 F D: Black (Jamaican)

M: White (Irish)


M: White (English)


M: White (English)

Job

/status

NEET

Social group

Skin tone

Identity

Working class

Medium Mixedrace

Social worker

Working

Class

Teacher Middle class

Medium Mixedrace

Olive Mixedrace

College Working class

Medium Mixedrace

College Working Brown Mixedclass race

NEET

Uni 123

Working class

Middle class

Fair Mixedrace

Medium Mixedrace

Maigan 24 F D: Black (Jamaica)

M: White (English)

Trakand 18 M D: Black (Jamaica)

M: White

Uni

College

Middle class

Working class

Medium Mixedrace

Medium Mixedrace

(English/Italian)


194

Name

Kumira

Age Sex Parents racial group and nationality

21 F D: (Danish)

M: (Ethiopian)

Herminon 18 F D: Black (Guyana)

M: White (English)

Dachen 18 F D: Black (Jamaican)

M: White (English)

Jhondar 18 F D: Black

(Suriname/Guyana)

M: White

(Irish/English)

Jagad

Cain

18 M D: (Scottish, Italian)

M: (Trini/Batian)


M: White (English)

Nyram 21 F D: Black (Jamaican)

M: White (English)

Nachiman 18 F D: Black (Jamaican)

M: White

(French/English)

Nachenin 18 F D: White (Australia)

M: Black (Jamaican)

Namelle 18 F D: Black (Grenada)

M: White (Irish)

Be’lal 20 M D: Black (Jamaican)

M: White (French)

Job

/status

Social group

Intern Middle class

College Middle class

Skin tone

Identity

Brown Mixedrace

Brown Mixedrace +

British citizen

College Working Medium Mixedclass race

College Middle class

Fair Mixedrace

NEET

Football er

NEET

Working class

Medium Mixedrace

Working class

Medium Mixedrace

Working Medium Mixedclass race

College

College

Working class

Working class

Olive

Fair

Dual heritage

College Working class

Medium Mixedrace

Mixedrace

NEET Working Fair class

Mixedrace

All the interviewees stated that they were mixed-race. All but one of the participants solely defined themselves as mixed-race, the alternative definition used by

Nachiman who labelled herself ‘dual heritage’ as well as mixed-race. None said they were singularly Black, singularly White, Black mixed-race, or White mixed-race.

124


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There were a number of reasons given for their identification, and all people interviewed gave at least two or more reasons for their identity choice. The details for their identity choices were placed into comparable groups of which there were

16 in total. These were as follows: their Environment; Racism; Family Were Both;

Closer To My Black family; Closer To Black People and Black Friends Or Live in Black

Environment; Am Still Learning About My Identity; My Skin Tone Dictates My

Identity; Am Not Accepted By Either; Don’t Want To State; There Are More Mixed

People Today (and therefore feel more comfortable); My Mum Is More Black;

History; I Feel Both; I Am More English/British; Race Is Not Important; Accepted By

Both; Closer To My White Family; I Am Not Either.

From this, there are three inferences that can be made.

i) There is a difference between Identity and Identification. The data indicates that interviewees in this setting acknowledge the existence of a mixed-race group, however it appears only to be used as a social marker, and/or as a starting point for their identity. I would argue that it is easier for the interviewees to say that they are mixed-race because it is a neutral term that comes with significantly less cultural baggage than suggesting that they were of another racial group (explained in the next two sections).

The reality of their identity, however, is far more complex. An illustration of this was when candidates answered the question, “What would you call yourself?”

Interviewees would always answer the question by stating that they were mixedrace, and would then go on to explain what mix they were. IN explains:

Um my mum’s, mum’s French, she was born in France and um my granddad’s English. And my dad’s, well my granddad is three-quarters Jamaican but he’s quarter Indian and then his mum, my grandma, is fully

Jamaica so I’m basically Jamaican and French.


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This suggests that the participants used the label, mixed-race because it is a term that loosely defines them: it is a catch-all term. However, it is also a term that is unable to fully represent their identity. It is as though being mixed-race is the beginning of their identity, the first stage in a long and intricate narrative; and that their mix was a more critical aspect of their identification. So mixed-race is their identification, whilst their mix is their identity: Identification signifying the label that represents them; with identity being the dynamic feature of their individuality. In this example, Jagad explores his background:

My mother's from, she's a quarter Trinidadian. She's half Trinidadian, half Indian…my father's just Scottish and I don't - I think he's got Italian in him, 'cause he was adopted.

Their actual identification appears to be frequently based on their parent’s background, or the culture that was imparted into them. This is why interviewees went to great lengths to explore how experiences related to the particular nationality of their parents that has affected their sense of identity. Minly explains:

My strongest part I would say is a fusion between

German and Ghanaian…Because of the organisational skills and the regimented being on time all the time is

German. And is very, very German. And the culture side, like the cooking and the flavouring in my food and the way I get annoyed is very, very I would say

African…It’s Ghanaian. In my house we’d speak

German but everywhere around us, the décor, was always Ghanaian. Like you know… have you ever been to an African home?...they’ve always got carpets, glass tables, big sofas, African stuff on the wall. And


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then they’ve always got a Kente cloth somewhere if they’re Ghanaian. That was my house.

This shows that their parent’s cultural background is equally as important as their race, and although they use the term mixed-race, they are aware that as a group it is limited in its explanation of their heritage. Here, Kumira explains that her nationality played a role in her identity, and that although she is mixed-race, there are many facets to her identity. As Kumira explained:

I say I'm half-Danish, half-Ethiopian. But the thing is I grew up in Belgium. So I was just, I'm quite confusing to a lot of people. But yeah I don't…I say I'm half-

Ethiopian and half-Danish but I don't really – I'm not fully either one of them because I didn’t grow up in

Denmark, I didn’t grow up in Ethiopia. Especially I don't feel very Ethiopian because I didn’t grow up with any Ethiopians around me, even in Belgium I was in an international school but Danish section. So all my friends, I had lots of Danish friends so I feel more

Danish than Ethiopian. But then obviously when you look at me I look more Ethiopian than Danish.

A further anomaly was that the candidate’s racial identity tag was also at odds with many of the subjects raised during the interview.

125 An example of this was provided by Narishma. Although he stated that he was mixed-race, during the interview he stated that, “If the world went to war I'm going to Black. I'm going to a Black side, pick up a Magnum.” The suggestion was that if there was a race war, he would not only prefer to be on the Black side, but that he would be unable to be on the White side, as he was not accepted as White.


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Jhondar also suggested that she held a greater affinity with her Black heritage, and that although she would qualify every statement with a disclaimer, insisting that she identified as mixed-race, she frequently made comments that would express the intimacy of her relationship with Blackness. “If I see a magazine advert, I will spot the

Black person without even realising it.” When she is reading a magazine, or watching a film which infrequently featured Black characters or models, she would take note of their involvement. The inference here is that she feels kinship towards other Black people.

Comments such as these indicate that there is a difference between the label that they gave themselves, and how they feel internally about their identity. So whilst there is the very public presence of a mixed-race group, the people who accept and use the term mixed-race have complex ways of interpreting it.

Despite this paradox, a collective understanding and a kinship towards other mixedrace people was also expressed. Be’lal talked about the sense of pride he felt with the election of American President Barack Obama in 2009 as well as the success of the Hip-Hop artist Drake.

126 As Be’lal explained, the success of these mixed-race celebrities made him feel honoured to be part of the group.

Maigan explained that she felt sorry for mixed-race people who grew up two decades ago, when there were less mixed-race people in Britain. She felt that the growing numbers (in terms of its numerical proliferation) provide her with a sense of security, that there is less negativity towards mixed-race people because they are seen less as a unique entity. Herminon corresponded with this attitude and talked about the normality of being mixed-race in Britain today. Herminon explained that,

“I’m just a girl who does dance and goes home, and I happen to be mixed-race. I forget about it. It’s like I’m used to it. It’s normal to me. It’s more common.” Jhondar stated that mixed-race people have “become more accepted. So hopefully people are starting to see we’re just like normal people. You don’t have to be categorised.

Before you were Black but now it’s more accepted that you’re two races”. These


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interviewees convey an understanding of what it was like to grow up mixed-race in the past, and their awareness of this makes them appreciate the less hostile environment that they suggest they exist in now. ii) The presence of a push/pull effect: External reasons were given as the main motives for their identification. They included: their Environment; Racism (the effect that racism has on the participant – in this context, often the racism experienced was received from White people); Feeling Closer to their Black Family Members, Having

Black Friends, or Being Around Black People More Often; Features (including skin tone, hair type etc., which produce different assumptions about their racial background from people); Not Being Accepted by as White by White People, or Black by Black people, Being Accepted Black and/or White People (in this context, not being discriminated by either their White or Black family members and friends);

Greater Numbers (the fact that there are more mixed-race people, and more mixed couples has led to a sense of acceptance by more people in Britain); Politics and

History (the notion that if there was a war between Black and White people, mixedrace people would be on the Black side, and therefore this shapes mixed-race identity).

When examining the data, a pattern of alienation from White people is revealed whilst simultaneously, candidates express the development of a closer relationship with Black people. This is what I would call the push/pull effect: candidates were pushed away from a White identity by White people; and are pulled towards an affinity or relationship with their Black heritage by Black people.

127 Although there are exceptions, which will be explored in Section Two, when asked about their identity, candidates would often provide examples in which they would talk about their negative experiences with White people, and their positive experiences with

Black people.

Negative experiences with White people would come in the form of covert or overt racist abuse, and positive Black experiences would almost always come in the form


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of an acceptance as a Black person – therefore providing a greater sense of comfort with Black people, and a sense of alienation with White people.

128

An example of covert racism is provided by Kisman, who talks about his experiences in outer London. “I’ve been laughed at a lot, when I, like, go to the suburban areas, everyone stares.” This is an example of a ‘push’ factor. Here, Kisman is considered an outsider. Because of his features, he is made to feel foreign around White people.

Cain provides an example of overt racism when he was in primary school:

One day I was next to my school and then some woman was like, my dog must have tried to bite your dog. And she was like, “go back to your country”. She was chatting rubbish, she was like “dumb nigger”. I just laughed.

The use of a racial slur which primarily operates as a form of abuse towards Black people indicates that from an early age, he and many other interviewees were socialised as Black, and as not White. Cain provides another example, this time experienced with his family. Here he talks about the way his grandfather treated him, teaching him that his racial background was problematic to White people.

I’ve even got a racist granddad…This year, this is the first time he started talking to me, back in August, he actually sat down and spoke to me…I was thinking

“what?”. My mum was just like it’s because he’s getting older, he’s getting lonely. My nan used to treat me normal, but him, he’d just say “Hello…are you all right mate?” I’d say “All right mate” until you say “bye” in a bit. If you go to my White cousins and that he’d give them cuddles and that, chat to them. That’s why racism doesn’t really affect me. He hates Black people. My


201

mum even told me. He kicked my mum out of his house for getting pregnant with my sister.

We can see that for Cain, it is likely that he would understand that those who disliked

Black people would also dislike him. As a consequence, it would be instinctive for him and others who have similar experiences, to be aware that they were not White people.

Other respondents such as Trakand, Jhondar, Jagad, Cain and Natalie also talked about their families’ attitudes to race which would suggest that it is an important factor in their identity and character development. Jagad explains that he didn’t have many White members in his family, and so did not feel White. “As a family goes I got a Black family. So it’s like it’s only my dad that’s White in my family, and I ain’t seen my dad for a little while…when he was there it still was a Black family with a White dad.” Jagad is therefore explaining that his identity was demarcated as

Black, all the people he associated as close family members were Black.

An indication that the interviewees were aware of their relationships between Black and White people, and the extreme differences in the way they are received by the two different groups (even if the recognition is subconscious) is expressed by

Herminon. She recalls a situation in Poland in which she received racist abuse from

White people, and at the same time, positive recognition from Black people.

Basically it was so scary. We were like on a platform…These men, like literally 30 of them, came onto the platform…a few of them came and sat like in between us and next to us, and my dad started like pacing up and down the platform because it was obvious that they were talking about us…And then like when they were walking past, I couldn’t work out what they were saying, but I made out that one of them went like that and then said something; they said “Nig…”.


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The following passage is also from Herminon’s experience in Poland:

But also while we were there we bumped into this other, just this random Black man saw us from like behind, and was like: brother. And we didn’t know him. We were like: hi. Where are you from? And we were like: Brixton, London. And he was like: yeah, I’m from Streatham. And then like he was with two other

Black men that he’d started talking to whilst he was there, and he’d literally just made friends with them because he felt safer with them than by himself.

Here we have the model example of both the push and the pull effect. Whilst White people interpret her as Black (and in this case as a threat), Black people identify her as Black (and in this case as a friend).

Additional motivations for a greater affiliation with their Black heritage came in other forms. Here, Nachenin explains how her understanding of history has been the basis of her identity.

…feel more Black cos during slavery I would still be cast as Black and you’d still be slaves. Even if you choose to act more White or Black, you’d still be more

Black, even if you’re White cos from history, you’re still kind of Black.

Here, her knowledge of the ‘one-drop rule’, the relationship between Black and

White people, and her understanding of slavery has in this case affected her identification.


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iii) The perpetual attempt to be neutral: An investigation into the environmental reasons for their identity reveals a tension between attempting to remain “in the middle” – from a racial perspective, whilst yielding to the push/pull effect. As mentioned in the previous point, racism, or experiences that they have had which involve issues of race, were the most frequently mentioned environmental reasons for their identity choice. In spite of this, candidates would repeatedly reaffirm their neutrality. Some people, such as Nachiman chose to reject labelling themselves from a racial perspective, and extricate themselves from the process entirely. Other young people would state that race was not important to them, an example of which is provided by Cain who, in spite of his racist experiences from his grandfather said,

“Race shouldn’t be brought into it. I’d rather just say colour’s not involved” when it came to his identity. This is also a sentiment expressed by Nachiman who says, “I’m not really White but I’m not like fully Black; I’m mixed-race in a sense that I, I’m not fully neither of them.” Some interviewees such as Jhondar identify outside of the

Black/White spectrum. In this case, Jhondar shows us she’s “English by definition. I was born here, I speak English.”

Namelle chose to assert her neutrality by stating that White and Black heritage plays an equal role in their identification immediately after talking about a racist experience from a White person.

I’m not fussy about what people class me as, cos I know what I am like…I don’t think I’m more Black or more

White. I think I’m like more or less in the middle.

Here, Namelle reaffirms her neutrality despite suggesting with her previous sentence that she is not comfortable around White people. Natalie also pursues this approach.

Despite saying earlier in the sentence that, “White people they see me as Black and

Black people see me as one of their own”, she ends the answer by saying, “Literally felt like I was a mixture of both. I feel equal actually. Wouldn’t want to be called

Black. Would want to be mixed. For me it’s kind of important. Because of my White


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family, they’ve obviously influenced me, it should be recognised that I’m, like, both really”. In this case, Nyram expresses the difficulty that she has with discounting one of her parents. She feels a responsibility to associate with both, and therefore despite her affinity with her Black heritage, she intends to end her statements with a disclaimer. Therefore, the notion of split loyalty played a significant role in their identification. Because of an allegiance to both their parent’s racial background, many felt that by denying one aspect of their heritage they were discounting their parent’s existence, and therefore would prefer to say that they represented both, or neither. This is best shown in this passage by Jagad:

Like I’m a Black guy with a White dad…obviously I know I’ve got White in me…Race is really never an issue to me.

Here it would appear as though he believes that he is more Black than White, but wants to make it clear that he is not denying his White heritage. He therefore ends the passage by stating that race isn’t important, seemingly changing his position, attempting to remain impartial.

I believe that part of the determination to remain neutral is based on their cognisance of the framework within which they exist in – that the concept of mixedness is highly politicised, and that the social consequences of their public statements profoundly affect the racial equilibrium in their environment (which will be explained in greater detailed in the following section). I would argue that safe statements such as these illustrate an awareness of the way in which they are viewed in their environment.

This argument is strengthened through the interviewees’ attentiveness to the cultural variances that exist for mixed-race people in different environments. Several times, participants would explain how they would be viewed racially in different countries. As Be’lal explains:


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It’s difficult because in America they see mixed-race as being Black; you could have a quarter, you could be a quarter Black and you’re still Black. So in America it’s like if you’ve got any Black in you, you’re Black. So that’s why I think they’re, they don’t have mixed-race, do you know what I mean. Black even if you’re mixedrace. Over here it’s like you’re, if you’re mixed-race you ain’t Black, you’ve got to be Black, your skin’s got to be

Black to be Black, do you know what I mean?

This suggests that the participants are sensitive to the rules on racial identity that are created by different environments in relation to mixed-race people. It therefore gives credence to the notion that mixed-race people in this study are fully aware of their position in society, and therefore they establish themselves in a safe space to operate in.

To conclude this section, it is important to note the affect of class on the respondent’s answers. Whist in most cases age, gender or occupation was no indication of a participant’s answer with regards to their identity, a significant difference was to found to exist within social class.

Middle class respondents were more likely retain a centrist position. As a result, young people such as Nyram and

Kumira gave answers that suggested they were not concerned with race; had not yet made up their mind about race; or believed that race was not a crucial characteristic of their identity.

I would probably want to be my own person, 'cause I am so confusing. But err, but I'm very, I'm always like like…Denmark is the best, you know like. But…I mean like I can represent them as well as I can but then not fully ((pause)) yeah,…either one.


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(Kumira)

In contrast, working class interviewees provided references which suggested that they were closer to their Black heritage, and gave more strongly political or personal reasons for their decision, often based on extreme examples. This is despite their attempts to retain an element of their neutrality.

Race is really never an issue to me, but like if a race – like in school if like a race fight ever occurred I was on the Black side. And my mum's a Black woman. Not

'cause I want to be Black, I just see yeah I came from a

Black womb see what I mean.

(Jagad)

There are six conclusions which can be drawn from data in this opening section: vi) The term mixed-race is pervasive amongst young people, with newer terms such as ‘dual heritage’ gaining some recognition. vii) There is a noticeable difference between their identity and their identification.

Their identity is a neutral racial tag and an illustration to their peers that they are not confused, or acting out an identity that they are not accepted as.

Conversely their identification is a personal, complex interpretation of how they feel, often based on experiences in their environment, their relationship with their parents, and their interests and hobbies. viii) There is a push/pull effect away from a White identity, towards a Black identity. ix) The motivations for selecting their identity or identification were largely external, in that they were clearly shaped by their environment. Indeed, the reasons that most young people gave for their identity choice were often based on stories of experiences that they had in their lives, or responsibility towards their parents.


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x) There is a mixed-race identity. However it is not permanent, and is both recognised and rejected by White and Black people at different times and at different periods of their lives. xi) Their racial identity is important to them, and they have thought seriously about it. They understand the nuances of racial politics, and the way that mixed-race people are interpreted both in the UK and in other environments.

Section Two: World View

This section compiles, codes and describes the data presented from the interviewees which relates specifically to their racial positioning: how and what they perceive their relationship with other ethnic groups to be, how they are seen by other ethnic groups; and how their experiences and interactions with them have shaped their understanding of their characteristics.

It focuses on four areas: v) Stereotypes: The interviewees’ understanding of the stereotypes that are associated with White, Black and mixed-race people in Britain. vi) Social relationships: The interviewees’ experiences and relationships with White people, mixed-race people and Black people of African heritage who are both light-skinned and dark-skinned. vii) Intimate relationships: The interviewees’ views on friendships, interracial relationships, and interracial marriages.

Part i) Stereotypes: This section will explore the ways in which the participants believed that they were seen by people in their environment.

The stereotypes of White people were talked about by eight young people:

Narishma, Algarin, Minly, Kisman, Lyrelle, Mezar Kurin , Trakand and Maigan. Algarin argued that White people were seen to be “arrogant, pompous, vain, self-centred, materialistic” and there was also the stereotype that White people were “weak”, a comment made by Kisman. Lyrelle described them as a people with no culture, and


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used the example of “roast dinners” as an example of the lack of flavour in White

English cooking.

Whilst these were merely stereotypes, there was the impression that the young people believed that there was an element of truth to them, since many of these stereotypes were repeated as explanations for their detachment with White culture, provided later on in this section.

Two young people talked about White people wanting to subsume Black culture, and

White women wanting to be with Black men. Maigan explains how this stereotype affected her. She explains:

My friend was shocked – from work – was very shocked to meet my Mum because she thought my

Mum was going to be a Shazza or whatever she thought. She was like, “Oh, I didn’t expect your Mum to be like that. She’s all, like, well spoken.” And I was like, “Oh you…mmm… Okay, f*ck you then.” It’s weird, like…They think your Mum would be like a

Shazza wearing Kappa and smoking 40 fags a day and that is the stereotype.

Her friend’s assumption was based on the stereotype of a White woman having children with a Black man; that such a woman would be part of the underclass – which carries with it a variety of connotations. This shows that there is still a very real conviction that White women who are intimately involved with Black men do so because she is prepared to have sex with virtually anyone; that she is unclean; and has few morals. Such a representation exposes the negative assumptions that still exist about interracial relationships. I would argue that this also plays a part in the continuation of the negative stereotypes towards mixed-race young people that the interviewees expressed later on in this chapter.


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There were 15 different stereotypes that were referenced by 18 participants about mixed-race people: Narishma, Algarin, Minly, Kisman, Lyrelle, Mezar Kurin , Harella,

Maigan, Trakand, Herminon, Dachen, Jhondar, Jagad, Cain, Kumira, Nachenin,

Namelle and Be’lal. The majority of the stereotypes were negative and were mainly referencing women: that they had Slick Back Hair (a particular hair style); that they were Man Hungry/Skank/Loose (promiscuous); that they were Kinda Like Black Girls

(they were appropriating Black culture); and that they were Arrogant. As Jagad explained, “mixed-race girls think they are too nice. Girls are a bit loose. They think they are too good looking”. And Natalie expressed that “People think mixed-race girls are skank”, which is a word used in Brixton which has two meanings, one of which refers to promiscuity.

Here we can see that some of the stereotypes were sexualised, based on their attractiveness; their arrogance as a result of being sexually desirable; and their promiscuity. It is worth noting that such a stereotype of mixed-race women has been a feature of mixed-race people since slavery. Its focus on women is significant in that the stereotype of mixed-race men is far less malicious (examples of which are shown further on in this section). It clearly conveys the disparity in the way their environment regards mixed-race men and mixed-race women.

It appeared that as a result of those stereotypes, there was a determination by some interviewees to distance themselves from them. As Dachen explains, “I don’t carry myself like a stereotypical girl so I don’t get treated like one.” Some of the participants stated that they could get on with White people because, as Nyram states, “White people don’t see me as a typical mixed-race girl, cos of how I carry myself, and how I dress.” Namelle also expressed a similar position, saying that “I get on with anyone, because of the way I come across like my attitude…They’ll be like

‘Aah you’re not like a typical mixed-race girl.’ But I know that people have a mind-set of what mixed-race girls are like,” As a result of their awareness of the stereotypes of mixed-race women, both Dachen, Namelle and Nyram are either proud that they are


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not regarded as a typical mixed-race woman, or are actively attempting to represent themselves in a different manner. It is interesting that neither are explicitly attempting to fight against the stereotype, or believe it to be false. Instead, they are solely concerned with not being a typical mixed-race woman. More importantly, it shows the impact that the stereotype has on the young women, and that they shape their appearance so that they can present an image that opposes it.

Stereotypes that were related to both men and women such as, They All Look Alike and were All Good Looking were seen both positively and negatively. Kisman,

Maigan, Trakand, Mezar Kurin and Jhondar explained that mixed-race people are seen as a novelty, and that they get noticed by people. Jhondar explained that at modelling and dance auditions. “…they scout you on the shoot, like you get recruited and I had my hair out…Dancing auditions, get noticed because of my hair, which might be a positive.” However, interviewees like Lyrelle explained that because mixed-race people are considered good looking, the expectation to be attractive affects her confidence. She got the impression that she does not receive the attention that other mixed-race girls receive because she was not as good looking as people expected.

Well it’s not a good stereotype when a boy says, “Oh I like…” You know, if he was meeting up with a group of boys, and they said, “Oh yeah, I’m meeting this mixedrace chick”. And all of a sudden then she comes and it’s like, uh, okay!

Here Lyrelle suggests that there is a pressure to be considered attractive. Because she does not feel that way about herself, she suggests that the distance between expectation and reality is broader, which affects her self-confidence.


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The data presented in this section provides us with an insight into the effect that the environment has on mixed-race people, and especially mixed-race women who in this study receive substantially more of the negative stereotypes.

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Part ii) Social relationships: This subsection is a description of ways in which the interviewees expressed and illustrated their attitudes towards mixed-race people,

White people and Black people of African descent who are both light-skinned and dark-skinned.

All 20 young people interviewed made comments regarding their opinion of White people. Their responses were placed into three groups categorised as the following:

Tactlessness; Racism That Mixed-Race and Black People Receive From White People; and Whiteness As The Opposite of Blackness. These groups and their meaning are explained in the following section.

Tactlessness is an expression referring to people (in this case White) who convey a lack of awareness, consideration and understanding when interacting with mixedrace people. They include White people’s inability to determine their racial background and situations in which White people did not realise that the interviewees were related to their parents. This was expressed by Lyrelle, Jhondar,

Namelle and in this example, Jagad. “My mum used to take me to primary school and pick me up. Like on the bus, they’d say, ‘That’s not your kid.’ People are looking at my little brothers like, they’re looking at my mother, ‘Can that really be their kids?’ I think it’s just stupid.”

Participants were also frustrated by White people who would incorrectly

‘guestimate’ their race. Guestimate refers to the scenario in which a person or persons speculate on the identity of, in this case mixed-race people. Here the young people were often mistaken as either Black, as non-White or as non-Black. Jhondar talked about being thought of as Asian, and then being racially abused for it. “I remember growing up in Eltham, I was in a park in Eltham…a group of White boys – I


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think they were around the same age or maybe a bit younger – they shouted out,

“Oi, you Paki” to me. I’m not even Pakistani or like Asian.”

Namelle was also frustrated about being frequently guesstimated as not having any

Black heritage. “They like…I don’t know like they’re always confused. They never think I’m mixed-race. Rarely they think I’m mixed-race. They’ll either say I’m White, yeah? Or I’m quarter caste. Do you know what I mean? Like they always think I’m more to the White side, but then when they see my attitude they think I’m to the

Black. So it’s like they don’t…they can’t make up their minds. So I’m just like, ‘I’m mixed-race.’ I feel like I should just write it on my forehead so everyone knows.”

Finally in the tactlessness section, participants complained about people stereotyping mixed-race people as “cute-but-confused” – assuming that any problems that they develop, or issues that they have can be linked directly to their mixed racial background. Be’lal, for example explained that when he was in primary school, his head teacher told his mum that his mixed-race background was the cause of his behavioural problems.

The second heading was Racism That Mixed-Race And Black People Receive From

White People. Interviewees spoke frequently about their negative racist experiences with White people, specifically in terms of racism received personally. Lyrelle talked about being told “to go back on my banana boat” by a White woman when she was younger. Herminon talked about a different form of racism whilst on holiday. “In

France where it’s quiet I get a bit paranoid. They are staring at me…it’s quite bad but

I just…I don’t know”. Kumira talked about being thought of as a non-Dane amongst

Danish people. “Everyone in Denmark is 100% Danish…If I’m hanging out with Danish people then I’ll be an outsider…and they can tell that I’m not 100% Danish.”

Participants also talked about ways in which White people reacted to mixed-race people, and that this affected their friendships with White people. Be’lal confirmed that he had “one or two White friends but White people feel more cautious to


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approach a minority gang”. Herminon said that “I think that White boys are intimated by me. Not that I’m scary”, indicating that White people were frightened of her. These examples restate the push that mixed-race people experience (as set out in section one), in which the participants are persuaded to accept that undertaking a White identity is problematic.

The cultural similarities that the candidates expressed towards Black people were conveyed when they talked about racism towards Black people from White people.

This was expressed as a form of resentment and frustration, as though these comments were being made about people with whom they had a kinship. Jhondar expressed that “White people make comments about Black people bringing knives into this country”, and Narishma explained that, “White people always think they are better than Black people.” It is noteworthy that the candidates talked about racism from White people against Black people, and not against any other racial groups, indicating that they take greater offence to negative comments about Black people from White people.

The last category featured contains comments on Whiteness As The Opposite of

Blackness. Later in this section, we see that Blackness carries with it negative assumptions by some of the interviewees. The perception of Whiteness contrasts this view, as seen by some of the interviewees. Maigan and Lyrelle talked about a need to, and a way of “acting White” (Hogg et al., 1995). They explained that they needed to present themselves in a certain way in order to fit in with White people and to achieve their career goals.

Maigan explains:

When I say play the game…obviously when I was getting interviewed for my Ph.D. and I was going round trying to find somewhere, I was very conscious of everyone being White and “Oh god” obviously thinking even if I did come up with something smart to say in interview, they wouldn’t necessarily…but… So


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in a job I still identify myself as Black, but in a social sense I would say I’m mixed.

Terry and Hogg refer to this in their identity theory as role-play – acting out an identity (Hogg et al., 1995). They also state that some people may be selective about if and when they will adopt the norms of a particular group, as long as it achieves their personal goals. Here we can also see the interviewees are aware of the social manoeuvring necessary to achieve in a White environment, suggesting that it is a cultural arena that is different from theirs, in terms of how they talk, act and dress.

We can therefore argue that this is a further indication that some of the mixed-race participants do not feel close to their White heritage.

There is also an inference from Maigan that acting White is interpreted as acting in a more professional manner. Dachen elaborates on this point, suggesting that her sisters are closer to their White heritage because they have more motivation:

Yeah. I feel like people that feel they’re more maybe

White for example, they’re more outgoing then, I think, rather than [slight pause] may be how a Black person would act. Um, they’re more like want to get somewhere as well, I feel like. Um, and they’re going to do what they need to do to get there, I think, sometimes. Yeah I feel like ... don’t know ...yeah, I think.

In this passage, Dachen seems to suggest that those with a White identity are more aspirational than those with a Black identity.

130 In this section we can see that the prevailing assumptions are that White people assume that mixed-race people are

Black, that White people’s impression of Black people are negative, and therefore when acting White, candidates such as Maigan, Lyrelle and Dachen interpret that as acting in a more professional manner.


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There were 15 young people who spoke about their relationship with, and opinions of Black people. It reveals many similarities with the data describing their relationship White people which is explained in greater detail later in this section.

However, the major difference in the data relating to the perceptions of White and

Black people from the participants was the validation with Black people which was not expressed amongst White people (Rockquemore and Brunsma, 2002). More specifically, a feeling of comfort; having shared interests; and the ability to joke with

Black people about race.

Herminon, for example explains that she felt intimidated by White boys. “There’s been times when I’ve felt like intimidated, but that’s by White people. Like I’d personally rather walk past a group of like ten Black boys than a group of like ten

White boys.”

Other young people, such as Kumira, explained that through a shared interest in similar music types, she developed closer friendship ties with Black people her age.

“At Uni…I started hanging out more with Black people. My best friends after that were one Rwandan, one Trini, and a mixed-race girl. And then there was a

Zimbabwean girl…we started going out to places where they listen to more RnB and or Black music, and then we’d meet more Black people.”

Candidates also talked the ability to joke about racial issues with Black people. Jagad explains that he and his friends often joke about race, and that ”Anything I'm getting called by my friends and I'm classing it as a joke. They call me half-breed and that…its joke, I never take it to heart.” It is often said that one can only tell racialised jokes to people who understand the context and framework within which you are working from. It is significant that Black people are allowed to joke with mixed-race people about their identity. Perhaps this also says something about the power relations that


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exist between Black and mixed-race people in this environment (explained later in this section).

Stryker suggests that people become members of a particular group because of a common identity and shared belief system, and we can see that this is the case in this situation (Stryker and Burke, 2000). Some interviewees talk about feeling accepted by Black people. Cain is quoted as saying, “Like White people they see me as Black and Black people see me as one of their own, it’s kind of mad.”

However, the relationship with Black people was complex, and there were a number of negative aspects which were covered by the interviewees. They were placed into groups and were categorised as follows: Exclusion; Being a Racial Spy; Always Asking

Questions About Their Identity; Getting Their Racial Group Wrong; Attempting To

Judge Whether They Are More White Or More Black; and Thinking Mixed-Race

People Are Confused.

Many of those categorises were indicative of a sense of alienation felt by the interviewees, similar to feelings of alienation with White people. Maigan stated, “If you say that [I’m Black], Black people would get affronted by it – or have done.”

Trakand comments that “Sometimes I got abused at these house parties and all that, they’re all Black and stuff like that and I’m like the only mixed-race one there.”

Others, such as Nyram talked about the racism they had received from Black people who didn’t know that she had White ancestry. This is what I would term as being a

racial spy. Since the appearance of a mixed-race person may be interpreted differently by people, they have found themselves in situations where people may have been discussing the racial characteristics of a particular people which correspond with their parents’. As Nyram recalls:

I might have been, sort of, in, like, social situations where I’m with…Say, if I was in a group of all Black people or all White people. So I think I’ve been in those situations where they might make slight remarks, like,


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not necessarily racist but they might say something like,

“You know how White people are,” or something like that...because obviously, like, I’m half-White, like my family and stuff like that. So it could be offensive if they were using…yeah…if they were saying something negative …yeah, they almost forget, like, that that’s your family as well.

In this situation, we see how being a racial ‘spy’ can be an uncomfortable experience, in part because they could be subjected to racist abuse by a friend, acquaintance or a colleague without the offender being aware that they had caused offence.

Another negative aspect raised about their relationships with Black people was being perpetually asked about their identity. Be’lal explains, “When they meet you they try to decided which one you’ve…They’re trying to figure out how did they hang out with all the Black people. It’s a conversation starter, and I suppose you wouldn’t get that if you looked at it, like, obviously, like, where are you from. But it’s funny when people like, try and tell you where you’re from. Oh your Dad is Black.” It would appear that in this part of the interview, Be’lal is suggesting that some Black people inquire about his identity so that they can determine how to act around him.

Namelle was also frustrated by people’s mis-interpretations. Here, she explains that when she was young she wanted darker skin so that people would be able to determine her ethnicity based on her appearance.

Oh yeah I wanted to be a bit darker though ‘coz not- not that I want to be a different race…because people always think I’m White and like… alright say for example there’s a dancehall song playing, I’m mixedrace and I’m singing it, yeah? Because of my skin tone people assume, “Oh like she’s a bit…” like do you


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know what I mean? Like, “Why is she doing this?...They just look at you like, “what are you doing?”. I hate that so much. It just makes me feel uncomfortable like…I don’t think that should make you wanna change, but sometimes it does make you wanna change.

Here, Namelle alludes to the constraints of being mixed-race, that people in her environment have social rules based on their interpretation of her. It is not socially acceptable for a White person to wile out 131 to dancehall music (neither is it understood how a White person would know the lyrics to a dancehall song). As an individual with pale skin, Namelle is regarded as White, and is therefore inhibited from participating in cultural activities that are deemed as Black or of Black origin. By doing this, she is bringing unwanted negative attention to her, and people assume that she “begging it”.

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Young people also commented on the sexual politics amongst Black people in relation to mixed-race people and particularly with women. Be’lal commented that young Black men his age are attracted to and show attention towards young mixedrace women, and as a result of this interest, young Black women resent young mixed-race women. “Black guys want a mixed chick, White guys don’t want a mixed chick. Black girls hate mixed chicks.” Trakand also comments that “mixed-race girls, they get, they’re just loved by everyone”. Here is more evidence of the significant level of scrutiny placed on the sexuality of mixed-race women.

Some candidate’s commented on the relationship between Black people and British society, talking about the criminal activities that many of them are blamed for in the

British media. In this passage, Be’lal talks about the victim mentality that some Black people have towards this perception.


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Why can’t Black people look after them themselves?

...obviously sometimes I get mad at Black people because I’m thinking like: come on, like, you’re kind of playing into their hands, do you know what I mean, sometimes, like, and that annoys me. Because whether I like it or not, like I’m sort of, people will see me as

Black sometimes, so I don’t want to be seen as one of them people; never, I’ve never played a victim, do you know what I mean? Nah.

In this example, we can see that Be’lal feels a sense of closeness with his Black ancestry, since his statement suggests that he is bothered by what he perceives as

Black people “playing into their hands”. The use of the word “their” also suggests that he regards himself as not white, and his explanation that he has “never played a victim” further suggests that he feels a kinship with his Black ancestry. Narishma felt that some Black people were disorganised, and used his understanding of African politics as an example of this:

Africa started fighting each other 'cause they were like everyone, let’s take slavery. We can't be bothered to build something 'cause that’s why even in Africa right now, it's still not built right, there's only some places built up. Even in towns…when I went there in like,

Accra. Why, because most of the people there are corrupted. We’re still fighting each other, you've still got like here you don't want…we don't have people on like a whole town.

Both Be’lal and Narishma both talked about their detachment from White people and their closer relationship with Black people, yet at the same time held negative views of the way some Black people acted. It could be claimed that this represents a


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contradictory position, however, I would argue that their social class is a factor in this assessment. Both interviewees are from working-class environments, and were educated at schools in deprived areas. At the same time, their areas are heavily populated by Black African and Black Caribbean, and it is therefore likely that many

Black and White people failed in school. However, there are always fewer positive examples of Black people represented in the media, and as a result, it is rational that their opinion of Black people is less than enthusiastic. This argument is supported by comments made during my interview with Herminon. She is from a middle-class background and has a contrasting opinion of Black people:

I think it’s cos I went to really posh school, so I never got the stereotype of Black people being gang members,

I’ve been around a lot of Black people that have been lucky in that, like, been educated, been driven, so I’ve never really seen it like how, like the media will say. It annoys me because I think, my dad gets quite…looked down his…not about Black people – but again about the stereotype.

Because Herminon was educated in an environment for more wealthy students, in which there were high expectations and greater resources, her opinion of Black people was more positive.

With regards to their relationship with mixed-race people, candidates felt comfortable and could relate more easily to them. As Dachen explains, “And I just think it’s so much easier to get on with someone that’s mixed race.” Here we see that it is the understanding of a shared experience in their environment which is responsible for an attraction towards mixed-race friends. It could be argued that this demonstrates that there is a mixed-race consciousness emerging. Be’lal, in the previous section, explained that he felt pride when he became aware of the


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achievements of mixed-race people in the public eye, and therefore the data illustrates an awareness of common experiences, and shared cultural norms.

Participants also expressed positive opinions of mixed-race people in terms of their appearance. Algarin thought that mixed-race people were the most attractive people. “You got the perfect balance – eyebrows, hair, eyes, nose.” However, they also believed that mixed-race people (of the opposite gender to themselves) were arrogant, presumably in part because they were considered the best looking. Dachen describes her view of mixed-race men:

Oh they’re so vain! I think, I think from my experience

I think they’re so vain...if they saw you on one day and you’re looking nice and then they saw you the next day not looking quite right they wouldn’t want to talk to you all of a sudden.

The assumption here is that mixed-race men are fickle about the women that they will date, since they are considered attractive and are in greater demand.

Part iii) Intimate relationships: This data relates to how the interviewee responded to the notion of mixed relationships, and who they dated or would want to date.

When it came to issues of dating and marriage, Namelle expressed the view that she was more interested in someone’s personality, and not their racial background. “I never base things on race ever. If I like someone and they’re Black or if I like someone and they’re White then I’ll go for them.” Many candidates gave similar opening statements to this question, which would initially suggest that race does not impact on their relationships with others.


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However, when probed, it became clear that Cain, for example would frequently consider how the racial identity of a future partner could impact upon the skin tone and racial identification of his children. As Cain lamented:

If I have a baby with a brown-skinned girl, it’s going to come out a little darker than mixed-race. If I have it with a White girl, I don’t know, probably come out proper light. That’s the only thing that worries me, having a baby with a mixed-race girl. I need to do my research. I don’t know what colour’s coming out. That’s the only thing that worries me.

Here we can see that Cain is concerned about the racial identity of his partner, for fear of having light-skinned children. It could be argued from his response that Cain wants a darker-skinned child because he believes that that best represents who he is, or suggests that he would prefer a legacy more closely tied with his Black identity.

It could also be argued that he would prefer a darker-skinned child so that his identification by people in environment is less problematic.

Lyrelle suggests that having a child with a White or a light-skinned man would mean that her children would have less hair issues. As she explained:

I thought about it a lot actually, like, if I have a kid with a Black guy, if I had a kid with a White guy, if I had a kid with a mixed-race guy, I’ve, I’ve actually thought about that. So like I said, when it came, came down to hair, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve thought if I, if I have a child with a

Black guy, you know, they might…my children are gonna hair issues! [laughter] But so, with a White guy they might have lovely curly locks, d’you know what I mean? Um, but yeah I’ve def – it’s definitely, it’s


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definitely gone through my head and um, I know certain people that only go for specific guys due to that reason.

This thought process may not necessarily be unique to mixed-race people, as the same consideration is likely to take place with people of other races. However, it is interesting that later in her interview, Lyrelle mentioned her hair as a problem (in that it was difficult to comb), and Cain mentioned that he received significant racial abuse from White people – both strangers and family members (as discussed earlier in this chapter). It is therefore not surprising that Cain was interested in having a child that was darker, distancing himself further from White people, and that Lyrelle wanted a child with a White man so that it would have ‘good’ hair.

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When asked who they had dated most often, Narishma expressed the view that it was easy to date White girls because they were considered more promiscuous, and more likely to sleep with men who were mixed-race. However, most of the participants, and particularly the women stated that they were more likely to date

Black or mixed-race men. Two reasons were given for this: (i) Lyrelle believed that

White men had no desire to date mixed-race girls. She commented that she is “not against White but White guys don’t approach me that much. Bermondsey boys go for White girls.” 134 Kumira echoes this and says, “I mean I do find them [White men] attractive as well but it’s a question of quite often I feel like they don’t find me attractive.” (ii) Herminon suggests that White men are scared of mixed-race girls.

She explains, “I think they’re [White men] intimidated and they like, think mixed-race girls are quite fearsome.” This resulted in the candidates dating men who found them the most attractive and who approached them more often. We have already established in this section that the participants received attention from Black and mixed-race men, and this is probably the reason why they had mostly dated mixedrace or Black men. It is worth remembering that the female interviewees were aware that mixed-race and Black men understood them to be promiscuous, and “skank”. As

Jagad explained, “Mixed-race girls are pissing me off, like, they think they’re too nice,


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think they’re above Black girls, that’s what pisses me off.” Hence, data showing that they were dating people who had the most damaging perception of them might seem odd. However, it also worth pointing out that in the part of London that they live, they are more likely to interact with Black and mixed-race men, and that the data they provided shows that their friendship groups are mostly Black and mixedrace. Therefore, it is unlikely that they would come into much close contact with

White men. In addition to this, as mentioned, they don’t receive attention from

White men, and therefore their dating options are constrained by their racial background.

From this data, we can make three deductions: i) There are pervasive, negative and damaging stereotypes associated with mixed-race young people, and particularly towards mixed-race women.

Hence, mixed-race women feel pressurised to act in manner that distances themselves from this perception. ii) Whiteness is considered a foreign cultural concept, and is the opposite of

Blackness. As a result, although mixed-race people are not always considered Black, they are never considered to be White. iii) Both Black and White people convey racism, and a tactlessness towards mixed-race people. There is a closer relationship with Black people, based on a perception that there are greater cultural similarities. However, difficulties exist with both communities. iv) Candidates were most likely to date a Black or mixed-race person, since their peers tended to be Black or mixed-race.

Section Three: Photo Elicitation

This area looks at the results from photographs shown to interviewees. Candidates were asked to speculate on the racial group of the individuals in the 24 photographs shown. The photographs presented to the interviewees are featured in the

Appendices, and Chapter Three: Methodology. All Brixton interviewees took part in this exercise and attempted to judge the racial heritage of the people involved.


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A striking element of the data was the manner in which the interviewees would guestimate the racial background of the interviewees, conveying a sensitive and extensive awareness of the rules that apply to racial categorisation. There were four approaches taken in which respondents would judge people’s racial background:

Facial Features; Understanding of Cultural Trends; Background Knowledge; and

Understanding of Photographic Technology.

The primary means of determining the racial background of the people featured in the photographs were through their facial features, in particular: eye colour; hair colour; hair texture; hair length; eye shape; face shape; skin tone; and nose shape.

Maigan stated that “I would judge it [a person’s racial background] by their appearance”, and Dachen said that “I judge people on how they look.” Examples of this took place when Narishma attempted to guess Albert Hughes’ racial background, and was quoted saying, “His head shape means he has to be mixed.” Minly stated that Jason Kidd was “American/Hispanic cos of texture of skin and hair”, whilst

Kisman said that Jason Kidd was “White, but could be mixed. He doesn’t have the nose.” When guesstimating the racial background of Barack Obama, Trakand claimed that he was “Black cos of his skin. Can’t be White cos of his hair.” 135

Participants would also use their understanding of recent, historical and international cultural trends in order to guesstimate the person’s racial background: skin lightening products; cosmetic surgery; weave; hair dye; and hair styles. When guestimating the racial background of Ice T, Lyrelle commented that his “hair’s coolie, too straight to be Black. He’s relaxed it.” Lyrelle also believed that Kelis was

“Black, wearing a weave.” The suggestion in these examples is that whilst Kelis and

Ice T may look mixed-race because of their straight hair, they had either straightened it, or wore a weave, and therefore it would deceive some people into assuming that they were mixed-race. In other words, Lyrelle’s understanding of this cultural practice gave her the opportunity to offer a more educated deduction.

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Candidates would often use information that they had gathered in media reports as indications of their racial background, as shown by Dachen who commented that

Kelis is “Black cos she was in an airport and someone was racist to her.” Dachen explained that she had remembered a news item in which Kelis had been the victim of racist abuse in an airport. She therefore felt that it was probable that Kelis was

Black. This is an interesting conclusion to reach by Dachen, in that it assumes that if you are Black, and not mixed-race, you are more likely to receive racism. This is despite the fact that she expressed a number of situations in which she herself received racism.

Finally, the young people would employ an understanding of photographic trickery, and make an informed choice based on the ability of a photographer to distort a true depiction of the person’s facial features and skin tone. As Cain explains of Vanessa

Williams, “It’s the lighting that makes her look kind of dark. But I’d say she’s kind of

White. The people in the background, they’re all the same colour as her.”

I would argue that the respondent’s detailed analysis and consideration of each person in the photograph was a reflection of the scrutiny that they receive from other people. This comment by Nachiman in relation to Anita Heiss conveys the substance placed on every aspect of the person featured. “She’s probably got like a bit of Indian in her, she’s got like quite a nose, but she’s Whiter but she’s not fully

White and she’s got a bit fatter.” However, it also reflects their adoption of these methods in their own consciousness.

When I revealed the true racial background of the person featured in the photograph, some interviewees began to debate whether it was socially acceptable to assume a racial identity that didn’t fit in with their appearance or to assume an identity that was different from their actual racial background. So, for example, I would ask interviewees whether Barack Obama was within his rights to identify as

White. Of those who discussed this issue, all felt that it was acceptable for him as a mixed-race person to identify as Black, regardless of how pale his skin tone was.


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However, respondents did not feel comfortable with any mixed-race person assuming a White identity, even if they could potentially be mistaken as White.

When Maigan talked about a mixed-race woman she knew who identified as White, she commented that the “girl’s twisted mate”. When I asked Trakand if Barack

Obama could call himself White, he replied, “No, it just wouldn’t seem right…Just more the dark like, ‘cos his hair, just his skin colour is just more on the darker side…I don’t know. It wouldn’t seem right though, ‘cos he’s mixed yeah, but I don’t think he’s like…”

When discussing this issue, both Narishma and Lyrelle explained this logic by using historical examples. Narishma referred to White supremacist ideology featured in

Nazism, and raised the hypothetical scenario of a war between Black and White people. In his scenario, he explained that mixed-race people would be considered

Black, and would face extermination from the White side. Therefore, he concluded that “If the world went to war I'm going to Black. I'm going to a Black country and pick up a Magnum.” Lyrelle used a similar argument. “I’ve always said, since I was young I’ve always said, if, if, you know, we had a racist dictator and they wanted to kill all Black people, would I survive or would I not? I wouldn’t because I don’t look

White.” These examples show that their understanding of the historical relationship between Black and White means that they believe that they can never claim a White identity. Since they acknowledge that the world still operates from a binary perspective on race, and that despite the recognition of mixed-race people in the public sphere, they emphasise their Black heritage, and do not recognise their White heritage.

Lyrelle’s justification for accepting Barack Obama as Black was that he might be more able to identity with Black heritage, making it acceptable.

When…I, I thought I…it kind of hacked me off to be honest when they said, “Oh he’s the first Black president”, ‘coz he’s not, he’s not, he’s not ‘Black’


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Black. You know, um, he’s mixed-race, and um, it wouldn’t have taken up that much space to say first mixed-race president. Well I think…I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, because, you know, he might be able to identify with his Black-self more than his White, and that’s purely down to, to him – that’s got nothing to do with what, what we say.

In this example, Lyrelle seems to suggest that she is prepared to give Barack Obama over to Black people, even though he is mixed-race. There is no sense of ownership over Obama by her, and neither is there a sense of outrage at him attempting to identify as something that he is not. We have seen from previous statements from

Lyrelle and other mixed-race young people, that although mixed-race people have a relationship with Black people, it is rarely acceptable to identify as Black publicly, although it appears there are exceptions. A mixed-race celebrity, or an individual with cultural capital is allowed to make the transition from mixed-race to Black (since the only time during the interview that respondents accepted a mixed-race person publicly identifying as Black, was when those were people in the public eye). I would argue that this suggests that there is a compliant attitude from Lyrelle towards Black people she has interacted with. There is also a recognition that mixed-race is a temporary group, with shifting and overlapping boundaries with what she she’s as

Black.

With this data, we can make four deductions: iv) The young people were comfortable making racial assumptions about the racial group of the people in the photographs. v) Young people receive a considerable amount of analysis and examination by their peers, both White and Black. The most common experience is when nonmixed-race people say, “You look just like [insert the name of a mixed-race of


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light-skinned celebrity]. Has anyone ever told you that before?” This often affects how they are seen and responded to by others. vi) Young people possess an in-depth and detailed awareness of what defines one’s racial categorisation. vii) All respondents believed that you could be mixed-race and claim Black heritage

(if accepted by Black people), but that you could not be mixed-race and claim

White heritage.

Section Four: Language

This section focusses on the most frequently used words, phrases and subjects employed during the Brixton interviews. It initially looks at the issues or subjects that the young people spoke about, it then concentrates on the way they defined the key terminology, and finally focusses on the subjects that generated emotional responses from the participants.

In this first segment, I discuss the issues and subjects that the young people talked about most often. This data is based on comments that were made unprompted and were seen as topics that the interviewee wished to express outside of the questions asked by the interviewer. Issues were noted when the interviewee spoke on the subject for a period of time considered significant to the interview’s duration.

A careful inspection of the data reveals that the topics most often mentioned were related to their self-identification (Self-identity; Hair; Food; and Music), and how other people viewed their identity (The Perception of Mixed-Race People; Skin

Lightening; and the Media).

With regards to Self-identity, a common theme was the guesstimation effect, and the stereotype that mixed-race people are confused. As Be’lal explains:


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Yeah, people will assume you’re confused, they’ll assume you’re confused. But it’s like: “Not really, you know what I mean, I’m a lot less confused than you are,” only because I’ve accepted the fact that I’m never going to get to the bottom of this mystery. Do you know what I mean?

This passage exposes the emotional impact of this stereotype. One can argue that being told that one is confused repeatedly for several years, from a variety of different members of one’s environment (in Be’lal’s case by teachers, friends, strangers) requires resilience. For this reason, it appears that his environment is extremely challenging, and one could even argue, hostile.

The data also revealed that the topic of race plays a subtle but significant role in a number of aspects in their lives. Whilst interviewees often spoke about the lack of importance that race plays in their lives, in actuality the concept presented itself in a number of topics. Food, for example was an issue talked about which related to their racial identity, often indicating the difference between their Black heritage and their

White heritage. In many of these cases, the introduction of food as a topic was used to disparage English culture (example used previously in this chapter). These examples show that race plays a role in their lives, even if the participants do not realise it.

Hair was another issue that was talked about in detail, which in my personal experience has been intrinsic to the issue of race and their identity among Black people.

137 Lyrelle talked about it in terms of how Black people talk about her having

“good hair”. Nyram mentioned hair in relation to White people’s lack of understanding of how Afro hair works and Jhondar talked about her problems with

Afro hair.


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Hair, always an issue, like, all my friends would go to school and I would have to spend, like, an hour and a half doing, like, and when I got head lice it would take, like, literally 12 hours, just two, two six-hour days and everyone else had put, like, the treatment in their hair.

Themes involving skin lightening products that Black people were using were commented on in a negative manner by several young people, including Cain’s comment below.

Beyonce is fully lightened. From Destiny’s child when she was young to the Best I Never Had video, you wouldn’t even think it’s the same person. I’d rather have Alicia Keys, she’s natural. Nicky Minaj is the worst, wearing dumb kind of wigs…come on man, a brown girl with pink hair, sort your life out. I told her

[an ex-girlfriend with weave] to stop that though. I’m not into fake stuff.

Again, skin lightening has been an contentious issue among Black people in both the

USA and the UK, 138 and it is significant that the interviewees mention it. I would argue that this conveys their understanding of the issues that dominate debate amongst Black people; conveys their interest in and consideration of these issues; but also illustrates their level of confidence in discussing them. It is not known whether they voice these opinions amongst people other than close friends, but it is noteworthy that they feel ‘Black’ enough raise them in the interview.

Despite the importance of race, interviewees frequently mentioned other interests, hobbies and aspects of their lives which were important to their identity. Herminon,

Nyram and Dachen, all dancers, talked about how important it was in their lives.


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Indeed Dachen said that they would like to be remembered as a Ballet dancer who was mixed-race, rather than a mixed-race ballet dancer, conveying their desire to be respected for their ability, and not their racial background. Other aspects mentioned were their parent’s country, or the countries that they enjoyed visiting. Mezar Kurin , for example, spent much of his interview talking about his relationship with his

Jamaican family, and his future plans to emigrate to the island.

An issue that was mentioned frequently were relationships, and often the interviewee would drift onto the subject, often without any relation to race. Subjects around relationships were usually centred around their likes/dislikes with particular members of the opposite sex. These interests show a willingness to express interests other than race, despite being in an interview in which the core subject was race which signifies the importance that these interests have in their lives.

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With regards to the terms the candidates used to describe themselves, all used the term mixed-race. The explanation for this was put forth by Nachenin who explained that:

I just guess it’s easier to say mixed-race, I mean mixedrace is more general, instead of like actually going into it, you just say mixed-race because you are mixed-race

‘coz your parents are from different places so mixedrace really.

However, Nachiman believed that the word “mixed-race sounds like your race has been separated, and it’s mixed together and just like it’s not really. Like its paint or something, mixing the paint and you just get a colour.” As a result, she used the word ‘dual heritage’ as an alternative (although she still identified herself as mixedrace). This illustrates a pattern that we have found with all interviewees in London.

Although Jhondar stated during her interview that “I would say mixed-race just because if you try and say anything else you sound really pretentious”, there is a


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common understanding that the term mixed-race is decorative and cosmetic. Even

Jhondar’s statement, that dual heritage “sounds pretentious”, indicates that she uses the word mixed-race because it is acceptable to her peers.

The views on the term half-caste were split: some participants disliked the term; and others finding no issue with the term, whilst appreciating that the term can be considered offensive. Algarin believed that the phrase didn’t make any sense. He explained that:

The reason why I don’t like half-caste is because it means that…for me it means that only one party consented to the conception.

Here, Algarin take issue with the word half, because it does not recognise the other half involved in the conception of the child. Natalie dislikes the word half-caste because of her parent’s interpretation of its meaning.

…don’t really like half-caste, the connotations associated with it, and I remember doing, like the poem half-caste, erm, by John Agard. I remember doing that in like primary school…Does that mean I’m half a person? Generally you don’t really hear it used nowadays. The first time I heard that word was when I think I was about six or seven. I didn’t even understand what it meant, and then obviously asked my parents and they kind of like explained what it was, but they weren’t too happy about the word that was used.

However, all participants who commented on the word half-caste, whether agreeing with the term or not, believed that the word could be offensive to some people.

Dachen stated:


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Um, I don’t ...I think half-caste, I don’t find it offensive but I think when you think back to where it originates from and all of that then maybe it could be. But I don’t really ... if someone said that I wouldn’t really be offended.

This was also the case with Kisman. When I asked him, what “if someone calls you half-caste, is that a problem?”, he responded, “I wouldn’t see it, I could see why it would be a problem, but I don’t personally think it is.”

There was a universal dislike of the term ‘half-breed’. As Nachiman explains, “…don’t like half-breed, but people don’t really call me that, that’s really rude, like you’re kind of looking at an animal or something”. Dachen had a similarly negative and emotional response to the same term.

I hate ...this is one thing that I hate, when someone calls you half-breed. I ... that, that actually just gets to me so much…I hate it. I hate it.

It is therefore noticeable that the words that caused greatest discomfort were those that contained the word “half”, since it suggested either non-consensual sex, or that the offspring were sub-human.

A number of interviewees had specific terms that they did not like being used to describe people. Maigan did not like term ‘ethnic’, Narishma did not like Black people using the ‘N word’ [nig*er] to describe themselves or himself, and Cain did not like the term ‘Coloured’. This continues the pattern of some interviewees taking an interest in discussion topics that are pertinent to some Black people, suggesting that feel closer to their Black heritage. We have already seen Narishma talk about

Black African politics, Nyram talk about racism towards Black people and Cain talk


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about skin lightening. Here we see candidates Narishma and Cain talk about their dislike of the ‘N word’ and the word ‘Coloured’, each used to describe Black people in a derogatory manner.

The data showed that the older interviewees – those interviewees 20 years or older, such as Be’lal, Minly and Algarin – spoke with a greater sense of passion and used more emotive language, such as using swear words when they were talking about political issues, racism, or discrimination. The younger participants only conveyed an emotional response when speaking about issues that related to personal experiences such as the way people judged them. As is discussed in the next section, younger interviewees had less to say about the topics asked about, and also made comments after the interview about having not considered the issues discussed in the interview before. I would suggest that this is because their identity formation is at an earlier stage, and their understanding of race is still developing. Whilst all interviewees expressed a subconscious understanding of the issues discussed, I was aware that the younger interviewees had not explicitly considered many of the concepts discussed.

One can draw the following five conclusions from this material: v) Although race is not the only important issue in their lives, and that it could be argued that race is not explicitly thought about by the interviewees, it is important, and plays a role in many aspects of their lives. vi) Being thought of as confused was the most often mentioned stereotype that affected the participants. vii) Their career, relationships and hobbies were also stated as important aspects of their identity. viii) Terminology plays a minor role in the candidate’s lives. However, using the word

‘half’ was deemed unacceptable to some interviewees and all young people had an appreciation that the term half-caste either had been, or could be considered offensive.


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ix) Older people spoke with a greater sense of passion about racism in their environment, whilst racism that directly affected the individual affected all interviewees.

Section Five: Mannerisms and Body Language

The fifth section focuses on the non-verbal reactions and communications during the interview, specifically interviewees’ non-reactions; the length of time they spoke for; their attitudes towards the interviews and the interviewer; their tone; and their physical mannerisms.

The data in this section would suggest that many interviewees had not considered many of the topics they were interviewed about, however, they would take an interest in their identity if it was raised with them. Eight interviewees were nervous at the beginning of the interview, stating that they were unsure whether they had enough to talk about in the interview, and whether their views of race and their identity would be substantial enough to justify being interviewed. Nyram, Kumira,

Herminon, Dachen, Lyrelle, Kisman, Nachiman and Nachenin asked at the beginning of the interview whether there would be any difficult questions, and were unsure whether they could adequately provide the information that I may have required.

The most often used phrase during the research, ”I dunno”, was used as they were answering the questions, conveying a lack of confidence in some of their answers, but also suggesting that this was the first time that they had thought about these issues.

In addition to this, interviewees such as Minly, Nyram, Dachen often paused before answering the question, or during the question, thinking about their answer. This suggested that these were issues that they had either not thought about, or were still in the process of coming to a conclusion about. Interviewees such as Kumira were often thinking as they were speaking, and I, as the interviewer, would often let them pause for a moment, and allow them to think through the issue as they were talking about it. This is a reason why she and other interviewees often asked for


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clarification of the questions, or were slow to answer the questions, and needed them to be rephrased.

Some interviewees replied to questions with interest. For example, when asked specific questions, Lyrelle answered “It’s not a weird question. Um, I would say. I did go through a stage…”, Jagad answered on a number of occasion, “That’s a good question actually”, “It’s interesting that you ask that because…”. Nyram, Kumira,

Be’lal, Cain, Minly and Jagad stated to the key informants after the interview that they had either not thought about some of the issues questioned, or wanted to think more about the issues raised. Six young people after the interview expressed an interest in the thesis, commenting that they enjoyed talking about and considering the issues raised in the interview. Whilst showing us that they had not thought about the issues before, this data shows that candidates found talking about their identity enjoyable. I would argue that the way in which candidates such as Cain, Algarin and

Nyram revealed private information based on the context of their race, such as sexual abuse, racism within their family and personal insecurities is further evidence of this.

One could argue that whilst race is important to them, it is something that operates subconsciously. Perhaps the pervasive, all-encompassing nature of the subject (an issue that plays a part in everything that they do) means that they are acutely aware of it whilst, simultaneously, instinctively oblivious to it.

Be’lal and other interviewees frequently used the phrase “for me personally”. The following is an example of Jagad winding up his answer to a question. “That might sound racist but that’s my point of view as growing up we were White dad and a

Black mum.” This refers back to the issue of neutrality amongst interviewees: the awareness of the intense speculation and judgment that surrounds their attitudes towards race, resulting in a need to present an inoffensive and safe opinion of their identity. This concept was explored in greater detail in section one.

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There are three significant points raised from this section: i) Race was not overtly a consideration in their lives, however this did not diminish its importance to them. ii) There remained a sensitivity toward, and an awareness of how litigious and divisive their comments could be perceived. iii) Candidates had a desire to consider issues of identity in greater depth than they had done previously.

Summary

In conclusion, the data from the young people from Brixton reveals that all interviewees regard themselves as mixed-race. However, there is difference between their racial identity tag, and their racial identification – the term mixed-race is used as a racial tag because it is neutral, causes the least offense, and is representative of both of their parents. A similar point was raised in the Literature

Review by Kobena Mercer (Mercer, 1994: 4).

Being mixed-race has a dramatic effect on their lives of the young people.

Consequently, there is a mixed-race consciousness based on shared experiences and the emergence of public figures (such as Drake and Obama) who are recognised as mixed-race, that their racial identity is not permanent, it is fluid, and shifts between being Black, and mixed-race, depending on one’s cultural and social capital. Mixedrace people feel closer to their Black ancestry: indicated through the topics that are most important to them (skin-lightening, the hair versus weave argument etc.); the words that cause the most offense (Coloured, the N word), the racism that upsets them (racism directed by White people against Black people); and their cultural similarities (music etc.).

Mixed-race people being confused, and mixed-race women as promiscuous are some of the damaging stereotypes that mixed-race young people have to deal with. This scrutinisation and tactlessness produces an immense amount of pressure on


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individuals to position themselves in their environment where they are least likely to receive a negative reception.

Their motivation for their internal identification is dominated by the push/pull effect: away from a White identity; towards a Black identity. However, the relationship with

Black people in their area is complex, and though mixed-race people here identified more closely with Black people, some of the most damaging stereotypes associated with mixed-race young people, and particularly those associated with mixed-race women are most pervasive in their interaction with Black people. Mixed-race people in this study were most likely to associate with other Black or mixed-race people, and as a result they were most likely to date Black or mixed-race people.

Race proved to be (subconsciously) an important issue for the candidates, despite the fact that many did not acknowledge its significance in their lives. However, their career, relationships and hobbies were also as equally important parts of their identity. Terminology played a lesser role in its importance in their lives.

The following chapter, Chapter Six: Conclusion compares the results from the two sites, and compares these with the relevant literature on the subject. It will then comment on the meaning of the research, note any implications resulting from the discussion of the topics, as well as recommendations, and outline the need for further research.

122 N.K: Heritage Not Known.

123 Uni: University.

124 An exploration and greater description of the terminology used in the interviews are pursued in

Section Four.

125 Racial Tag: The identity label that they represent themselves with. It is not necessary their true identity, or the way they wish to be perceived.

126 Aubrey Drake Graham (born 24 October 1986), who records under the mononym Drake, is a

Canadian recording artist and actor. His mother is White Jewish and his father is Black American. He has sold over 5 million albums worldwide.


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127 Over half of the determinants for the interviewee’s identity were external. This means that the participants believed that their identity was formed most strongly from outside influences, as opposed to their own feelings and beliefs.

128 It must be noted that there were examples where candidates were pushed away from a Black identity, details of which will be explored in Section Two.

129 There are two stereotypes expressed by mixed-race people in relation to how British people see

Black people. The young people who gave their opinions on this issue were Narishma, Algarin, Minly,

Kisman, Lyrelle, Mezar Kurin, Trakand and Maigan (eight participants), and they all gave what I would argue are negative attitudes towards Black people. There were seven different stereotypes stated:

Lack Of Ambition; Not Organised; No Sense Of Direction; In Prison; Loud; and the most frequently mentioned, They Are Scary/They Will Mug You.

130 There were also significant comments relating to envying White people’s hair, as expressed by

Kumira:

Well when I was at school I was always with White people and they would do their, they would do stuff to their hair and they'd give me advice and stuff but it wouldn’t work on my hair and I wouldn’t get that it's just

– that it just doesn’t work the same but so I would try and do it you know their way and my hair would look even crazier than before. But yeah I mean, I like my hair curly but it's just hard so I do relax it and stuff, but –

I'll leave it like I'll braid it and have it curly or whatever, without you know, it's not a problem, don't want to make my hair more White or anything like that but um.

However, some of the same young people who explained that they had received racism, also stated that their experiences of racism was negligible, or that they were still able to be accepted by White people.

Mezar Kurin stated that London’s environment meant that he did not receive racism. “In London, the percentage of London… more of London there’s mixed-race, there’s White people are the lower percentage of people in London.”

131 To act in a crazy manner. In this case, to act in a crazy manner to a certain type of music.

132 “Begging it” is a term used in south London which relates to somebody who is trying to assume a culture or traits of a culture with which they are not part of.

133 It is interesting that the male interviewee was interested in the skin tone of his child for identification purposes, whilst the female interviewee was interested in the attractiveness of the child.

134 Bermondsey is an area of south-east London that carries a reputation for being populated largely by

White working class people. I would infer that a ‘Bermondsey boy’ and a ‘Bermondsey girl’ are White boys and White girls.


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135 Additional statements include the following: “She’s tanned, but she’s slight skinned.” (Statement made by Herminon in relation to Anita Heiss.)

“His hair and his lips aren’t that Black.” (Statement made by IN in relation to Ryan Giggs.)

136 Similar comments in this area are as follows:

“This woman, she looks Black. She’s just brown innit, but obviously a light one. You know them models who change the colour and that, she looks brown.” (Statement made by Cain in relation to

Vanessa Williams.) “All of them I think 95% of them use it, I don’t know why but should be the colour you are man. She’s a hottie though.” (Statement made by Cain in relation to Leona Lewis.)

137 Amongst Black African communities in the United States of America, the Black Caribbean and the

UK, hair plays a very complex role for black women. A common narrative in European and American culture is that the straighter the hair, the prettier the woman; whilst Black women wearing hair naturally (with no chemical processing) is viewed as unkempt or unprofessional. This has developed into a debate about how Black women should wear their hair, with films from comedian Chris Rock, shows on Oprah Winfrey, and books by Simi Bedford. In the black hair business, the most profitable portion is the sale and maintenance of weaves. Women can expect to invest six to eight hours in the salon getting their hair braided into sections and then having tracks of hair attached onto the braids. The hair relaxer is another integral product in black hair care. Women of other ethnicities usually use a perm as a way to curl their hair, but the opposite is true for Black women who perm their hair to get it straight. Sodium hydroxide is the active ingredient in relaxers and it is strong enough to burn through a soda can if left in the solution for long enough, or a woman’s hair. Writers such as Gordon Allport

(Allport, G. 1954) argue that groups who are oppressed often internalise the ideologies of their oppressors, in this case, they take on the idea that the natural Black American hair needs to be straightened in order to be considered beautiful.

138 Skin lightening and skin bleaching refers to the practice of using chemical substances in an attempt to lighten skin tone or provide an even skin complexion by lessening the concentration of melanin.

In recent years the practice of skin lightening has come under fire because of its potential negative health effects and association with colonialism and self-imagery. There is evidence to suggest that some types of skin-whitening products use active ingredients (such as mercurous chloride) that can be harmful and have been linked to a disfiguring condition called ochronosis that causes a splotchy darkening of the skin.

139 A noticeable absence from the list of topics were political or national issues. Narishma talked about

Black Africa’s corruption in relation to Europe’s progress, however the issues that the interviewees most commented on were specific to their local environment, and their experiences with the people directly around them.

140 The responses from the older interviewees (those participants 20 years old and older), such as

Maigan, Minly, Algarin and Be’lal, and female candidates, were very confident, and the interviewees talked for longer. Males aged under 20 were the least responsive to questions, and required greater prompting. Interviewees such as Trakand and Kisman required a higher proportion of questions from myself in order to obtain answers, and many of the issues raised by myself had not been considered


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much by the interviewees or, at least, had not been thought about in great detail at this point in their lives. This could also have been because they were less confident in expressing their opinions on such issues. As a result, their interviews were much shorter, and many of the answers were incomplete, or contained little context. As mentioned, all female interviewees, regardless of age were able to express themselves verbally in a confident manner and spoke adequately on each topic, answering all questions posed to them.

All interviewees except for Mezar Kurin appeared positive in their reactions to questions about issues of race. They appeared willing and committed to giving honest and thoughtful answers to the questions.

Some interviewees such as Algarin and Narishma often had so much to say that they drifted from the topic, and I was forced a number of times to try to veer the conversation back to the parameters of the thesis. This appeared to be a subconscious aspect of their thought, and Algarin would, during a long monologue say, “But umm yea, going back to the Qu.” The median aged interviewees were far more disciplined in their answers, and for example, participants such as Cain would often finish his comments by saying, “that’s about it man”, suggesting that he had said all that he possibly could about the issue, and that he was ready to move on to the next topic.

Interviews such as the ones that took place with Minly, Algarin, Be’lal and Narishma could have lasted for much longer, however had to be cut short because of prior appointments that they had to maintain.

Again, it is worth mentioning that they were the eldest interviewees in the research.

The type of language used by the interviewees was directly affected by social class. The interviewees from working-class backgrounds would express themselves using slang synonymous with South

London, whereas the middle-class candidates spoke with minimal colloquialisms. The young people of a working-class background would use words like “skank” [loose woman], “trapping“ [drug dealing] and “nank” [sharp weapon], popular phrases in South London. The vocabulary was generally basic throughout the interviews, again, regardless of gender, age or social class. Swearing was used by half of all participants, and transcended social class divisions.


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Chapter Six: Conclusion

Introduction

They like…I don’t know like they’re always confused.

They never think I’m mixed-race. Rarely, they think I’m mixed-race. They’ll either say I’m White, yeah? Or I’m quarter-caste. Do you know what I mean? Like they always think I’m more to the White side, but then when they see my attitude they think I’m to the Black. So it’s like they don’t…they can’t make up their minds. So I’m just like, “I’m mixed-race.” I feel like I should just write it on my forehead so everyone knows, but yeah I don’t have a problem with race.

(Namelle)

Is Mixed-Race A Colour? The Factors Involved in the Construction of the Mixed-Race

Identity is a cross-cultural comparative study of the racial identity of Black/White mixed-race young people aged between 18–24 in Redfern, Australia and Brixton,

United Kingdom.

This thesis looked at the interactions that mixed-race young people have with their environment, and determined the effect that these interactions had on their identification.

The main empirical findings were summarised in Chapter Four: Analysis and

Interpretation – Redfern, Australia and Chapter Five: Analysis and Interpretation –

Brixton, UK. Within these chapters, findings were split into the following areas:

Identity; World View (Stereotypes, Social Relationships and Intimate Relationships);

Photo Elicitation; Language; and Mannerisms and Body Language.

Jacob Whittingham Is Mixed-Race A Colour? The Factors Involved in the Construction of the Mixed-Race Identity Chapter Six: Conclusion (2014)

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Following the results of the empirical research, Chapter Six: Conclusion will compare the data from the two sites, relate these results to the relevant literature on the subject found in Chapter Two: Literature Review, comment on their meaning, note any implications resulting from the discussion of the topic, offer recommendations towards policy in this area, and outline suggestions for further research.

The chapter sections are as follows: The first section will provide a comparative analysis and synthesis of the empirical findings from the study within the context of the four research questions. The second section of this chapter is a dialogue between the literature on the subject matter, and the results obtained. Section three looks at the implications of the synthesis in relation to the research questions, and how they have contributed to filling gaps in knowledge in the subject area. Section four will identify the policy implications of the findings, and how they may impinge on existing theories or understanding. Section five will look at possible recommendations for future actions, whilst also discussing any changes that I would have made to the project. Section six proposes some recommendations for educational work with young people. The thesis will then be concluded.

Review of the Investigative Questions

The aim of this project was to determine the dynamics that influence the identity of mixed-race young people. I therefore endeavoured to answer the following questions in both environments:

1. Do mixed-race people believe mixed-race is a definable social group?



4. To what extent does race play a function in the overall identity of mixed-race young people?

Section One: Empirical Findings

This section will synthesize the empirical findings from both Brixton and Redfern to answer the study’s four research questions.


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Research Question 1: 1. Do mixed-race people believe mixed-race is a definable social group?

There is an emerging shared consciousness by mixed-race people in Brixton, however in Redfern, mixed-race people are only a group, inasmuch as they are part of the Aboriginal racial and cultural group.

In Australia, mixed-race people occupy a clear and recognised space within the

Aboriginal racial group, both legally and socially. The history of colonialism and the

Stolen Generation were significant factors in their identification. To identify as mixed-race is seen as agreeing with the policies implemented during the Stolen

Generation, and therefore those who identified as mixed-race were seen as confused, or denying their culture and are looked upon negatively by some mixedrace and Aboriginal people.

There are variances. Most White Australians have trouble understanding the concept of a mixed-race person in Australia identifying as Aboriginal, and there are voices of discontent on this issue from some Aboriginals in the Northern Territory. However, evidence suggests that the dominant principle among Aboriginal and mixed-race interviewees is that mixed-race people are Aboriginal, and that assistance should be provided for mixed-race people to persuade them to reconnect with their Aboriginal heritage. This comes in the form of participating in Aboriginal community groups and the Aboriginal civil rights and land rights movement.

Within the UK, there is collective understanding of the way in which mixed-race people are seen by their peers, an awareness that mixed-race people share a unique experience, and an element of pride associated with mixed-race achievement. This has led to a stage in which mixed-race people appear to be putting a greater emphasis on befriending and dating other mixed-race people. Therefore, as stated earlier, there is the development of a shared consciousness.


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British mixed-race people in this study occupy a space that is regularly repositioned either by others, or by themselves. By others, the most common perception is that they are Black. However, this inclusion often depends on a variety of unstable categories: the social and cultural capital of the individual; the manner in which their peers define them; their environment; and the circumstances at the time. This is called the push/pull effect. Mixed-race people in this study were never given the option by White people to be White, which meant that they were seen as an ethnic minority. Black people considered them as members of, what I would call (to use a footballing phrase) the Black substitute bench – only called in when needed. In other words, mixed-race were part of the team, but weren’t in the starting line-up – mixed-race people understood the Black experience, and had an affinity with their

Black ancestry – however they were not considered fully Black, unless they were given permission to do so by their Black family, friends, acquaintances and strangers.

Consequently, the young people who were interviewed in Brixton saw a difference between their identity, and their identification. Their identity is a neutral racial tag as a representation to their peers. Mixed-race people define themselves publicly through the social, cultural and political perimeters that their environment affords them. As a result, they play this game to reduce any negative attention, and so as not to be labelled as confused (by “begging” a racial tag that is not genuine) – however their identification is a personal, complex understanding of their place within their environment, their relationship with their parents, and their interests and hobbies. Hence, whilst British mixed-race young people identified as mixed-race, in reality they felt closer to their Black heritage (Harris and Sim, 2002).

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This contrasts with Australia, where the young people interviewed shared a similar identity and identification, regardless of scenario or circumstance. There were a number of reasons for this. Primarily, the dominant discourse among Aboriginal people that says that any Aboriginal heritage denotes an Aboriginal identity, and one’s identification as Aboriginal is essential to the development of a more equal relationship with European Australians.

142 Secondly, the incapacity of their older


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relatives to assume an Aboriginal identity due to the policies of the previous governments has led to a greater desire to reclaim and represent their heritage.

Finally, for darker-skinned participants, their skin tone prevented them from identifying with anything else other than an Aboriginal identity.

Therefore, in Redfern, the journey to self-identification is charted and conclusive. In the UK, the journey to self-identification is long, with no conclusion certain. Neither set of young people were confused, but were instead engaging with a series of negotiations. Within in themselves, their racial identity was a fluid, contradictory, and complex lived experience with no clear developmental beginning or end that shaped the participants (Root, 1990).

Most (not all) of the young people were aware of their racial position, the importance that their racial position carried, and the range of racial indicators that they are judged on (hair colour, hair texture, eye colour, eye shape, nose shape, face shape, sporting ability, dress sense, interests and hobbies, career, income, level of education, musical tastes, ability to attract members of the opposite sex etc.).

Through this extensive scrutiny, the young people had become racial politicians – experienced in the racial guidelines in place of their in other environments.

Consequently, despite being candid about their ambiguities, interviewees were careful to provide an impression that was politically neutral to the audience they felt they were speaking to during this research: Australians were speaking on behalf of

Aborigines to the outside world; the British were speaking on behalf of themselves to a mixed-race interviewer.

In Redfern, terminology played a noteworthy role. Interviewees referred to themselves as Blackfellas, Aboriginals, Indigenes, or specific references to their skin or nation – each one of those terms relating to their Aboriginal identity. White people and some rural Aboriginals referred to mixed-race people as mixed, or “Yellafellas” respectively (due to the complexion of their skin tone), however, terms that


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referenced their mixedness were considered deeply offensive, and I would suggest that they are as offensive as the N word is in the UK.

143 This is because of the relationship that the concept of mixed has with the policies of the previous

Australian government, attempting to breed out Aboriginals.

Terminology was less significant with the interviewees in London. Mixed-race was the most popular term principally because it was socially accepted by both White and Black people. Terms such as ‘dual heritage’ were used amongst those young people who critically analysed the terms that they wanted to be known as (as opposed to their environment defining the parameters of their identity). However, new terms such as these were seen as pretentious by non-mixed-race people, and therefore in order to maintain the least offensive persona, they were unpopular with mixed-race interviewees. Using the word half to describe mixed-race people in the

UK was viewed in the same way that mixed was viewed in Australia, since it suggested that there was one superior and one inferior individual involved their conception.

I would conclude this section by arguing that whilst both sites have different criteria for interpreting mixed-race people, mixed-race people in both settings have a sense of kinship towards other mixed-race people. Their expectations of mixed-race people, experience of similar issues, and appreciation for the notion of selfidentification is a theme that exists equally, as well as their understanding that there are a number of factors that are involved in the way in which they focus their identity.

Research Question 2: What are the motivations for mixed-race people’s racial identification?

In Redfern, the motivations for racial identification came from candidates’ understanding of historical (and continual) role that White people have played in the denigration of Aboriginal values and culture. They also felt a responsibility towards their Aboriginal ancestors who had suffered and therefore believed that they had an


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obligation to represent their culture publicly. Mixed-race people also felt an aversion towards the attitudes of White people who could not comprehend their identity choice. This directed them towards an Aboriginal self-identification.

In the UK, the motivations for identification were their lack of acceptance from

White people and, in particular, whilst at the same time experience a fluctuating level of acceptance from Black people. However, candidates also felt a responsibility towards their parents and therefore did now want to identify with a racial category that would deny their parentage.

Therefore both sets of candidates gave reasons for their identity that suggested a greater sense of belonging with the Black and Aboriginal communities and a rejection as a White person, labelled previously as the push/pull effect.

Responsibility also proved to be a significant motivation for mixed-race people’s identity – in Brixton it was towards their parents; in Redfern it was towards their

Aboriginal ancestors. Again, it is worth pointing out that this only affected their motivation for their outward identification. Whilst I was able to collect data showing that British interviewees had a range of perspectives in their internal identification, in

Australia I did not detect any ambiguity since they emphasised the role of personal choice, and that their identity choice was based on an inherent feeling. I argue that this concept is part of what David Buckingham (2008) refers to as “identity politics” which is often used in relation to forms of indigenous nationalism, religious groupings and frequently entails a call for the recognition of aspects of identity that have previously been denied, marginalized or stigmatized . Identity politics is about transformation at the level of the group, rather than merely the individual: it is about identification and solidarity.

144 To assert solidarity, a strategic essentialism is necessary (Buckingham, 2008) – in this case, it is to assert a “racial” authenticity with reference to unique historical origins or roots of Aboriginality, which establishes clear and definable differences between themselves, and White people (Hall, 1992).

Here, I


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would argue that mixed-race candidates are encouraged to feel as if their identity is inherent (Buckingham, 2008).

Research Question 3: To what extent does being mixed-race shape relationships with other people?

Being mixed-race has had a dramatic effect on the lives of the young people, because binarism is still the most pervasive ideology in people’s understanding of race. I would argue that there is a greater impact on their relationships with other people from being mixed-race in Britain, where there is a greater ambiguity in this racial position from both Black and White people. In Redfern, it can be argued that many Aboriginal people and community organisations provide recognition for mixedrace people, (and therefore political, social and emotional cover), for their choice to identify as Aboriginal, even if some White people do not. I would also argue that women in Brixton are subjected to the most extreme consequences of being mixedrace, where they are exposed to the most derisive stereotypes.

In the UK, a mixed-race person is seldom described as White by White people, but can be described as Black if they receive validation from Black people, signifying the complex, fluid and ever-changing relationship that some British Black people have with mixed-race people. This research reveals that on any given day, a mixed-race young person can be described as any of the following: that they are racially Black; that they understand what it is like to be Black but are not fully Black; that they do not understand what it is like to be Black but are Black; that they act Black without being Black; that they can be Black but only in certain circumstances; that if they choose to be mixed-race then they are acting White; that they have the right to joke or comment on Black issues; that they don’t have the right to joke or comment on

Black issues.

Despite this, many Black people are regarded at all times as a close cousin of mixedrace people (in that at no time did participants ever suggest that Black people regarded mixed-race people as outsiders). This means that mixed-race people are


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perpetually manoeuvring themselves between racial spaces, being forced to change their racial tag depending on the circumstance.

Young people in Australia experienced a similar ambiguity, though not to the same extent. Phrases such as “Johnny-come-lately” or “White-just-discovereds” are part of the national and Aboriginal discourse conveying divisions (though small) between mixed-race Australians, and Aboriginals. I would also argue that the only reason why my data did not record deeper divisions was because all 20 candidates identified as

Aboriginal. For those mixed-race Australians who identify as mixed-race or White, I am certain their experiences would have been more challenging and complex.

The effects of being mixed-race were most explicitly felt by mixed-raced women.

Both Australian and British mixed-race young people are sexualised, fetishised and eroticised. The majority of the stereotypes in Brixton were perceived to have originated from Black people’s observations of mixed-race people, whilst the

Australian stereotypes were perceived to have originated from White people’s observations.

Whilst both perceptions of mixed-race people were of a gendered and sexualised nature, the British stereotype went further – these were mostly aimed at women and suggested that they were more aggressively sexual and promiscuous. Names such as Lightie are used to refer to this stereotype. The pressure for mixed-race women to look attractive, whilst at the same time distance themselves from the negative aspects of the stereotype was challenging.

Young people in both settings asserted that the most irritating aspect of being mixed-race was the scrutiny, or as I call it tactlessness that they faced from both

White, Aboriginal, mixed-race and other racial groups – being analysed and examined, thought of as confused, incorrectly judged, asked where their parents are from, and being racially abused for belonging to a race they are not actually part of.


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With regards to interpersonal relations, Australians had friends who were both

White, mixed-race and those who identified as Aboriginal. This contrasted with the data from the UK, in which young people stated that their friends were mostly Black or mixed-race, because of their shared cultural interests and variable relationship with White people. However, the demographics of the area in which they live in play a role in this.

In Australia, the young people stated that the race of their partner did not matter because their child would always be identified as Aboriginal. But they only wanted to date White people who understood Aboriginal culture, and respected the choice of their children to identify as Aboriginal.

In the UK, the young people were more likely to date a Black or mixed-race person.

This is as a result of their friends being Black or mixed-race, but also because mixedrace women believed that White men were scared of them. In terms of marriage, mixed-race people wanted to find a life partner based on what they wanted their children to look like, which was dependent on their experiences with White or Black people.

Most importantly, the data suggested that their social environment played a significant factor in the fluid nature of their identity. Whether with their family, their peers, in another part of their country (Australia or the UK), abroad, their assigned racial identity may change. Similarly, this allowed the individual to shift from one identity to another depending upon the situational context (Sue & Sue, 2003).

Research Question 4: To what extent does race play a role in the overall identity of

mixed-race young people?

Race dominated the discussion with the Australian young people, who had been provided with a significant amount of information around this, particularly in relation to their history with the British.


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Interviewees from both sites spoke about the importance of culture. For the UK interviewees, identity was closely related to the national or ethnic background of their parents. In Australia, some interviewees acknowledged their nation and their skin as more accurate forms of identification.

However, in Sydney, young people felt that their Aboriginality was the most important factor in their identification, and it played a role in all other aspects of their lives, with all other characteristics serving this central identity. Candidates spoke with confidence on the issues of race, and their responses appeared rehearsed, as if they were educating the interviewer. This suggested that the candidates had spent a considerable period of time either being taught, or thinking about Aboriginal issues. I would also argue that their extensive knowledge about their racial identity was representative of a racial script.

The UK data provided evidence that race was not the most salient issue for the young people. Other issues were apparent that were based in youth culture: the notion of celebrity, consumerism, individualism which unfortunately I do not have the capacity to go into detail at this point. The UK interviewees spoke for a shorter length of time, required greater prompting, and delivered more pauses, conveying a less confident approach to their answer. Prior to the start of the interview, a number of British candidates stated that they were nervous about not being able to talk enough during the interview. After the interview, many said that they had not thought about the issues featured in the interview before. I would argue that this was because the British candidates thought less critically about their racial position in British society. Despite this, the young people in Brixton understood the nuances of racial politics, and the way that mixed-race people are interpreted both in the UK, and in other environments. Therefore whilst they did not think analytically about race, subconsciously they were aware of the racial analysis and examination by their peers (both White and Black) and possessed an awareness of what defines one’s racial categorisation.


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Section Two: Analysis of Literature

This section focuses on the relationship between the data from the two sites and the literature presented in Chapter Two: Literature Review. The first part will look at literature that discusses identity development in relation to the data produced from the Australian and British respondents.

The Concept of Identity. The results found that Bosma and Kunnen’s (2001) theory that identity is inextricably linked with one’s environment, was accurate in the case of the UK, but was not necessarily the case in Australia.

In the UK, the respondents’ environment was very closely related to their identity.

The push/pull concept was a direct result of their interaction with people in their locality. However most Australian interviewees claimed that identity was an inherent, internal concept. It must be noted that there is no evidence to support this claim (as explained in Chapter Four). As a result, it appeared that their knowledge of their history (Stolen Generation, colonialism, theft of land) and their current experiences of White people, gave them a mistrust of European people which played a major role in their identity. Therefore, one would conclude that is an environmental factor, and that it was their exposure to ideas and experiences that shaped their identification.

In terms of the major environmental factors, Berndt’s theory that friends play a major role was applicable for the young people in Brixton (Berndt, 2002). Here, many of the young people had either Black or mixed-race friends because of shared interests, and because they were accepted by those communities. Many White people associated mixed-race people with the negative stereotypes that they associated with Black people, and therefore it was less customary for White people to associate with them. Both of these factors had a dramatic effect on their identity.

However, wider attitudes about the promiscuity of mixed-race race women held by

Black people also shaped mixed-race people’s identity. Here, mixed-race women did


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not want to be associated with the mixed-race stereotypes. It must also be noted that positive and negative encounters with Black and White strangers played a part in the way they identified.

With mixed-race interviewees in Australia, their family proved to be the major influence in their identity, primarily those Aboriginal relatives or ancestors that had been raped, been a member of the Stolen Generation, or had received what they recognised as brutality from White people. It was a sense of responsibility that compelled them to assert an Aboriginal identity, in recognition of their struggle.

Phinney’s three-stage model of ethnic formation (Cross, 1978) or any other development models proved to be difficult to match with the UK data (Phinney and

Alipuria, 1990). This was because the interviewees in Brixton appeared to be learning about their identity, and in a transitional period that was in its infancy. Interviewees talked about wanting to learn more about their culture; some said they needed to experience more in life before they could confidently feel able to decide on a means of expressing their identity; others talked about how they had changed since they were younger. This therefore suggested that between the ages of 18–24, British interviewees’ identities were still fluid. Indeed, I would argue that the data suggests that they remain in that state for some time.

This contrasted with the Australian data, where interviewees gave the impression that between the ages of 18–24, they had reached the conclusion that they were

Aboriginal. Their testimonies suggested that their journey through Phinney’s three stages – unexamined ethnic identity, a stage of exploration and ethnic achievement

– took place at an early stage, and would also end when they arrived at a decision that they were Aboriginal (Phinney and Chavira, 1992).

The last point to be made in this section is about multiple identities, an argument made by Burke and Reitzes (1981). They suggested that we may have several identities that interplay with each other at any one time. This was very true in


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Brixton, where the young people placed a different emphasis on their identification, and outwardly expressed their identity. They also freely expressed interests that were unconnected to race. Important aspects of their identity such as relationships and their hobbies were equally as important, which was very different to Australia, where it appeared that all aspects of their identity were connected to their

Aboriginality.

The fluidity and the often changing and ambiguous nature of mixed-race identities which was represented by the UK data were themes reflected in Ifekwunigwe (2004),

Mahtani (2002a, 2002b, 2002c) and Root (1992, 1996, 2004), all of whom have published widely on the topic. All of the participants I spoke to talked about the contextual nature of their identities, but what remained constant was that they identified as non-White. For many of the mixed-race people who were ambiguouslooking, racial identity became a choice that was influenced by a myriad of factors.

As documented, most participants spoke about having strong connections to their non-White cultures, but they were unable to articulate what White culture was, except in the context of White racism, where they talked about feeling uncomfortable in all-White or majority White environments.

It is interesting that UK participants talked about their connection to their culture, but not their Whiteness. Minly for example talked about her German heritage, but makes a distinction between ‘White’ and ‘Italian’. Her construction of Whiteness links it to White power, which is about White racism and oppression. She constructs

Whiteness negatively, and therefore her German culture does not fit into his construction of Whiteness because it has distinct cultural practices and traditions that can be articulated, and because it is a positive part of her identity.

Among my UK participants, many others also described their White side using specific ethnocultural labels: Trakand said he was of Italian heritage, Kumira said she was Danish, Jagad talked about his Scottish ancestry, and Be’lal talked about his

French mother. In each case, the participants had a strong cultural connection to

Italy, Denmark and France, and language and culture were a part of their upbringing.


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Class was also a factor in identification, as reflected in the works of France

Winddance Twine (1996a), who published a study that looked at how young mixedrace women, who are of part-African American descent, can take on White identities in suburban, middle-class environments, where they grew up having little contact with Blacks or with poor people. Twine explains that the mixed race women she spoke to saw themselves as White, which they constructed as neutral and invisible, but that their identities shifted to non-White when they moved to environments where there were many more politicized people of colour. Twine’s participants link

Whiteness to being middle-class or upper class, and in the case of her participants, this was the main basis for them forming White identities. As Twine states, “The importance of material consumption cannot be overstated in its ability to confer an identity that makes residents of any racial background culturally invisible and acceptable members of the community.” (Twine, 1996a, p.213) In other words,

Twine stresses the importance of socioeconomic class, where middle class equals

Whiteness, and where definitions of ‘White’ exclude poor Whites. Twine reminds us that Whiteness also implies individualism, so the tendency is for people with White identities to think of themselves of as individuals first, rather than as members of any racial group. In a middle class environment, racial identity is not important because it is not stigmatized. Social class is more important, and when everyone has middle or upper class backgrounds, non-Whiteness is less pronounced (Lafond

2009).

Such a sentiment was expressed in the data presented by some of the UK respondents. Most of the participants described their family’s social class as working class or poor, and often more strongly identified with their Black heritage. This is contrasted with Kumira, for example who said they grew up in a middle class environment. She said she that until recently she had not formed a strong non-White identity and did not feel she had experienced any discrimination in her lifetime. As a result, I would speculate that her level of education and social class had influenced her sense that her racial identity was not that important and that issues like racism, prejudice and discrimination had little impact on her life. The stark difference


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between Kumira and the other working class participants suggests that social class influences one’s self-identity, and there are clearly links between race and class that could be explored in future research.

However, it must be noted that whilst there is fluidity amongst the respondents, there appears to be less freedom when it came to declaring an identity. For example, as Lyrelle illustrates, her Blackness is visible to others, and therefore she feels he is treated as Black. Thus, despite the fact that she defines herself as mixed-race, she feels that her life experiences have been most strongly influenced by her Blackness, and has negative perceptions of white identities and whiteness.

In consideration of gender, the results show that mixed-race men were frequently subjected to racism and discrimination because they are perceived as Black more often than they were racialized or sexualized as mixed-race. Mixed-race women however, were seen sexualised and constructed as exotic. This is reflected in much of the literature which presents evidence of mixed-race women being objectified and thought of as promiscuous (Camper, 1994; DaCosta, 2007; Dagbovie, 2007; Mahtani,

2002b; Streeter, 1996; Twine, 1996a).

My findings are well supported by the few scholarly articles that exist on this topic.

Dagbovie (2007) is one of the few that looks at how mixed race people are racialized;

Tiger Woods serves as the example that Blackness, Whiteness and Asianess are differently understood. As Dagbovie (2007) points out, Tiger Woods is never considered Asian by Asians, and he is not referred to as ‘Asian’ in the media. By contrast, he is sometimes labelled ‘Black’, though he is no more Black than Asian, and he is often held up as a multiracial celebrity. Dagbovie’s claims that although the colour line is shifting (with the boundary of Whiteness frequently being moved), and although other mixed-race people and other identities are highly valued, Black people remain on one side of the divide. As Dagbovie states, “‘Whites’ obsession with multiracial bodies allows for the ‘consumption’ of a more palatable form of

Blackness, while still allowing Whites to distance themselves from the supposedly less ‘attractive’ aspects of Black identity” (Dagbovie, 2007:233).


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Finally in this section, participant’s identification was often regulated by their age, namely elements of youth culture, as argued by Heaven and Tubridy (2005).

However, they indicated that Australian hip hop was “largely a desire to reject the generation that went before them, as from an identification with what they have become.” (ibid:76), yet the data shows that young Aboriginal people have utilised the musical art form to bring attention to socio-economic Aboriginal issues and promote their affinity towards their Aboriginal heritage. The fact that rappers such as MC Wire, who champion their indigenous ancestry were mentioned by the interviewees suggests that their youth culture is actually used to reinvigorate their association with their Aboriginality, not distance themselves from it.

Identity Choice: Interpretations of factors Involved in the Racial Identity Selection

Of Mixed-race People. The second section will compare the literature which articulated the opinions of those mixed-race authors from Australia, the United

Kingdom and the United States. There are two major findings when comparing the literature researched that the results of the data – Identity Formation and

The Absence of a White Identity.

An initial discrepancy found between the data and the literature is the difference between the manner in which the Australian mixed-race writers expressed their identity, and the manner in which the mixed-race Australian interviewees talked about their identity.

Although there is the common theme that White people are negative, the data from the interviews suggests that Aboriginal identity is unquestioned, permanent and the central aspect of their character. Snoop explains that “your heritage is…based in the air you breathe, in the way you move, the way, you know, grass grows, the way trees blossom, it’s everything, everything about you is Aboriginal. It’s about the way, the life that we led, um, and it’s, it’s something that I, I think is paramount for my kids. I would rather, um, it’s, it’s just, not even a consideration that they won’t receive that level of, er, support from me.”


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In the literature, notions of identity are more complex. Issues of passing are briefly mentioned by Clancy McKenna in the book Somewhere Between Black and White

(Palmer and McKenna, 1978); personal struggles to find out their identity, and difficulties convincing mixed-race people to recognise their identity were frequently cited. In contrast, very few interviewees discussed their identity as a project, or as a journey, and very few talked about any problems with their family in recognising their identity.

An explanation for this anomaly could be that the majority of the publications referred to were written by individuals who were significantly older than the interviewees. Marnie Kennedy, for example, was born in 1919, whereas the

Australian interviewees were born between 1987 and 1992. Indeed, the works of the

Australian authors were, in the case of Kennedy and McKenna, based on their experience being part of the Stolen Generation (Hooper, 2012). Therefore, the generation from which the data was extracted would have very different opinions or experiences in their identity development from the previous generation.

However, research suggested that their commitment to their Aboriginal identity came from an appreciation of Aboriginal suffering experienced by their relatives

(either close or distant) from, a variety of circumstances, but in particular the Stolen

Generation. I argue that this understanding presented a notion of responsibility towards what they perceived as the traumatic effect of the policy of Aboriginal heritage, and was the reason why they were so committed to their Aboriginal identity. Many of the Australian participants, including Brianna, talked about wanting to represent their ancestors, who are essentially the experiences of those expressed in the literature, such as Marnie Kennedy.

Having looked at the concept of Aboriginal identity, it is important to now look at the way in which the concept of a mixed-race identity was discussed in the UK research.

The literature reveals that there is a confident mixed-race identity emerging. The


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proliferation of T-shirts, websites and Facebook groups promoting greater selfesteem for mixed-race people are all an indication of this.

145 This is equally true from the comments made by the young people. Be’lal describes how he feels when he sees mixed-race celebrities achieving in the public sphere. “Because I know we like to see Drake 146 succeed, we like to see Drake do well…I’m like, like you can kind of relate to him, so I want him to do well, do you know what I mean? So it’s a bit, a little bit of pride there. Um, I think that’s about as far as it goes, to be honest.” In the next example, Herminon explains that she feels more comfortable around mixedrace people.

But like for example with like Rosalie [a mixed-race friend] like I feel like I have more of a bond with her, and I don’t…I don’t know. Quite a few of my friends are mixed-race, and, yeah…Like experiences and stuff, like if I was to say something they’d like… not that they’d like be more likely to agree, but…they’d be able to be more like: yeah, I understand, yeah.

This is an indication that there is a sense of pride associated with mixed-race achievement; and an appreciation that being mixed-race is different from being

Black.

Interestingly, both the literature and interviewees rarely considered the possibility of assuming a White identity. During interviews, the British candidates could not conceive of a White identity, even if they felt more White. For the Australian candidates, the point was made several times that skin tone was no indicator or racial identity, and therefore a very pale, blonde looking person could and should still assume an Aboriginal identity if they possessed Aboriginal ancestry. The literature and explanations from Bindi Cole, Barack Obama, mix:duk, David Towney and from Kingsley Palmer and Clancy McKenna, agreed with this (Palmer and

McKenna, 1978).


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I would argue that there are different reasons for this. US Author Reginald G. Daniel explained that whilst the ‘one-drop rule’ was historically used to impede Black people, it has now been fully embraced by them as means of maintaining political strength (Daniel, 1996). We can see that this still exists with the UK interviewees. As

Maigan elaborates: “If I had a mixed-race person and she had a White parent and a

Black parent and I knew that but she was saying that she was White, I’d be like,

‘Girl’s twisted, mate’.”

I would argue that the Black people’s voluntary emigration to the United Kingdom is also a factor (Tizard and Phoenix, 2001). In mixing with White people, the mixed-race offspring are still outsiders (ibid.). Furthermore, the idea of racial mixing was considered problematic for many White people in their environment, since Black people were considered lesser human beings (ibid.). In this situation, mixed-race individuals were unable to claim White heritage.

In Australia, the common thread running through the data was the fact that the land was perceived to belong to the Aboriginals. The young people in Redfern talked about a sense of belonging to the landscape, and therefore, regardless of their mix, their Aboriginal heritage meant that their ancestors had originally lived on the island.

Alma explains, “I think part of that is, um, is something that almost can't really be explained, but it's something that, that we feel. It's a connection that we have to the land that we that we inherit, that we represent that our ancestors have, er, have been on an um…yeah.” With the concepts of colonialism and land dispossession, and the attempt to breed out Aboriginals, and segregation, added to the concept of land ownership, the ability to represent a White identity becomes problematic. Wee-Bey sums this conflict up:

You see inside me there are two issues…in order to...to be able to sufficiently represent my White identity I have to be able...I need to dedicate myself to my Aboriginal identity,


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because only when Aboriginal issues are dealt with, can there be a situation where White people and European people can respectfully represent themselves. I can't represent myself because if I represent my White identity it is at the expense of my Aboriginal identity…when the struggle is finished, when it is completed.

Mixed-race People’s Place in their Environment: This section examines the literature that commented on the implications of the identity choice of mixed-race people, and how this related to data from the interviews.

The literature written by non-mixed-race authors complimented the views of the interviewees from both sites. A frequently noted remark from the young people was the inability of White and Black people to judge a mixed-race person’s background correctly and to have preconceived ideas of how a mixed-race person should act.

Dachen explains, “Um, maybe the way I carry myself might change how they think how maybe I would be. ‘Cos, you know, the stereotypical of mixed-race girl.”

I would argue that this approach was expressed by academic and non-academic writers, such as Andrew Bolt (Herald Sun, 2009) F. James Davis (1996) and Stephen

Small (1986), in their attempts to either explain how mixed-race people determine their racial identity, or to argue for a suitable racial category for mixed-race people.

Debra Dickerson, in her book End of Blackness explains that, “If a mixed person says they are Black, then they accept that European is the norm” (Dickerson, 2004:11).

Whilst she has mixed-race children, and may feel in a position to comment on mixedrace identity, I would contrast this statement with Be’lal from London: “But I think if you’re not mixed-race you can’t understand it, you can’t understand it, because we can’t even explain it yourself, do you know what I mean, really. You can’t understand it. So a lot of the time, you know, people, people like your mum can tell you something that they don’t know, I mean you’ve got to figure out yourself.”


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Whilst I am not suggesting that these or other author’s observations are valueless, or obstructive, I would argue that they are part of the category that mixed-race people referred to when complaining about, what I would call, tactlessness. Below, Maria talks about manner in which her racial group is guesstimated.

You know, it’s just some people, you know, if I call myself Black in front of an unknown…in front of unknown White people, you know, they like to argue.

People will laugh at me. Tell me I can’t use the word…All the time I hear people, they’ll say, you know, “She has features that look European, or they look Northern European. I don’t think she has any ancestry. I reckon it’s only a tiny bit. She doesn’t look native or Indigenous to me. You know, the only thing that makes her look like that is the fact that, I don’t know, she’s wearing…I don’t know, or she hangs out in

Redfern or whatever”…People don’t understand that it’s really, really difficult being Aboriginal in this world.

Whilst such writers might argue that they were attempting to explain or determine the most suitable racial categorisation for mixed-race people, it inevitably challenges the concept of personal choice, since it takes the discussion of identity into a public forum. This aggravates the difference between young people’s identification and their identity, since it pressurises them to publicly identify with a racial categorisation in order to reduce the probability of misinterpretation, whilst concealing very different personal feelings about their identification.

The young people in both Australia and the UK were adamant that they wanted to determine their own identity. This is conveyed firstly by Namelle and secondly by

D’Angelo.


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Alright say for example there’s a bashment tune…I’m mixed-race and I’m singing it, yeah? Because of my skin tone people assume, “Oh like she’s a bit…” like do you know what I mean? Like, “Why is she doing this? De, de, de…” I don’t know why people do that ‘coz even if I saw a White person singing I do not care, do you know what I mean?…I feel like I should just write it on my forehead so everyone knows.

(Namelle)

…it’s not about how… you know, if you’re half or not; it’s about if you’re Aboriginal or not, um. But it’s everyone’s choice: everyone gets to choose what they want, um.

(D’Angelo)

The difference between the young people in both sites is that Australian young people seemed to want the freedom to be Aboriginal, and to be respected for that choice. In the UK, the young people simply did not want to be judged.

Being judged on the basis of one’s accent, dress sense, features, skin tone, interests and occupation has led to an acute appreciation of the factors that influence racial identification in their environment. Interviewees such as Be’lal, Mezar Kurin , Kumira,

Minly and Herminon all gave examples of how mixed-race people are treated in other nations. Australian interviewees gave accurate and specific examples of how

White people view mixed-race people. Furthermore, there were examples given of being a racial spy. Grace from Redfern and Nyram from Brixton both explored experiences in which they had been conversations with people who had made disparaging remarks about Aboriginals or Black people, without realising that they were Aboriginal or Black.


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Yeah but it's so kind of so as a as as White Australian you know I'm privy to remarks about um about by other White Australians about you know about the good Aboriginals; you know those ones that they think you know those those full bloods, the ones who are living in rural and remote communities and they live traditional lifestyles kind of, well they consider that you know as kind of like low end farming.

(Grace)

Say, if I was in a group of all black people or all White people. So I think I’ve been in those situations where they might make slight remarks, like, not necessarily racist but they might say something like, “You know how White people are,” or something like that. You know, like, that kind of, like, making stereotypes and…erm…it’s something that I would never, sort of…I wouldn’t make an issue of it…but then I guess that, sort of, could be offensive in a certain way, because obviously, like, I’m half White, like my family and stuff like that.

(Nyram)

Kobena Mercer argues that “the mixing and fusion of disparate elements to create new hybridized identities point to ways of surviving, and thriving, in conditions of crisis and transition” (Mercer, 1994:259). Mercer is right. In the UK we found that young mixed-race people are careful to choose terms that cause least irritation to others, and instead keep their identifications private. I would also argue that from the qualitative data, mixed-race people, rather than challenge racial difference, face greater racial scrutiny, helping to continue the debate. The irony being that whilst some UK young people talked about the lack of influence of race in their identity,


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and others talked about the desire to be judged without race playing a role, it would seem that White and Black people play an active and relentless function in reprising the issue.

One last comment on this point: The Australians remarked more frequently on White people’s tactlessness in racial identification, whilst the British commented on both

Black and White tactlessness in racial classification. This was similarly reflected in the literature, with the US and UK sources coming from both Black and White authors, whilst the majority of the Australian sources where White.

Australian authors included Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, all of them White.

The second critical comparative observation to be made is the manner in which the mixed-race people chose their identity. Naomi Mezar Kurin asked, “If Black Jews have to be deliberately ‘observant’ in order to reassure other Jews that they are

Jewish, isn’t their piety made false?” (Zack, 1996: 150) I would argue that aspects of this could be seen in the Redfern data.

I must first state that I do not believe that the young people were dishonest, and I would suggest that the information given was a true reflection of their personal beliefs. However, the statements that the young people in Sydney expressed were very similar. Many raised similar reasons for identifying with their Aboriginality, and gave similar examples for their identification, including those who were very pale. I am not suggesting that their identity is false, but I am suggesting that there is a social pressure to adopt not only an Aboriginal identity if mixed-race, but to assume cultural norms. This pressure is not necessarily negative, neither is it necessarily harmful. In fact, I would argue that its inclusivity, and focus on Aboriginal rights, is proving to be a positive component of the movement for greater civil and economic rights for Aboriginal people.

Such an observation was the reverse in the UK. The young people explained that outwardly, they maintained a neutral racial identity, whilst internally had more


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complex attitudes. This would therefore contrast with Naomi Zack’s interpretation of some mixed-race individuals (Zack, 1996: 150).

The Effect of Being Mixed-race in their Environment. The following area will focus on the data related to the perceived difficulties with being mixed-race, and its relation to the literature featured on this issue.

Erik H. Erikson’s analysis of the difficulties of being mixed-race proved similar to the data analysed (Erikson, 1968). The push/pull effect and ambiguous relationships with

White and Black people was evident in all of the UK interviews, and with many of the

Australian interviews. All of their experiences, positive and negative with Black or

White people had shaped their identities, particularly within the UK, and particularly the lack of a consistent relationship with Black people.

As a result of this, some interviewees expressed a sense of belonging to a mixed-race group, a sentiment also expressed by Hall, who explained that being mixed-race, experiencing similar reactions from people in their environment, would create a mixed-race identity (Hall, 1996).

However, this did not create a negative effect, as suggested by Erikson (Erikson,

1968). On the contrary, both the UK and Australian young people were acutely aware of the position they held in their environment. Their decision-making process was logical and considered, even if it was an issue that they appeared to have seldom considered in the past.

The Australian young people, from the perspective of the interviewer represented themselves in the manner that they wished to project to the outside world. They presented facts, statistics, national examples and personal stories of a group of people struggling to obtain the freedom to self-identify, and greater economic and political influence in a nation that has led a sustained campaign to eradicate their existence. Below are three passages from Snoop which convey the range of


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information that the young people in Redfern possessed in relation to their

Aboriginal identity.

There’s like over a hundred and…er, yeah, it’s 150 different nations, there’s 350 different languages, and there’s nine different tribes. Um, so yeah, so it’s, you know, it’s very varied.

We’re only a tiny percentage of the population, we’re like 2% of the population, but we’re, you know, the make-up, I don’t know, like 15% of the prison population.

You still have racism in sports, there was that whole thing about, um, Nicky Winmar, um, you know, couldn’t get picked for a team, you know, just because, just because, or there was jokes about, you know, “If it gets dark, how are you going to be able to see them?”

All interviewees were careful to promote this perspective, and revealed very little that could suggest there was an alternative perspective.

The UK interviewees, whilst holding conflicting opinions with each other, were cautious to promote their mixedness, despite revealing their very different private convictions, sensitive to their environment’s perceptions of their racial identification.

Nachenin gives a measured answer to the question, “Which side do you identify with more?”:

“Well I feel like I’m in the middle but when you look back at it, I mean I’d still be cast as Black so you’d still be slaves…so I don’t know if it a choice between one and the


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other, if your personality is White or Black, you’d still be more Black, even if you are more White ‘coz from history, you’re still kind of Black but I’m just…but if I don’t take it like I’m more Black than White, I just say I’m both; you know more White than

Black and that.”

Despite suggesting that she would identify with her Black identity more, she refuses to confirm this. This conveys an awareness that is controlled, not “confused”, as inferred by Everett Stonequist (Stonequist 1937).

The Dialogue in Terminology: Most of the literature sourced from the UK literature included a discussion about terminology, however this was a topic seldom discussed within the UK data. The opposite is true with the Australian literature, where its inclusion mirrored the analysis of the data.

It appears that the academic discussions on terminology from British writers and scholars are either aspirational, or fail to appreciate the practicalities of the linguistic development in their environment, specifically amongst the young people they are attempting to get to adopt it.

In London, the use of the term ‘half’ was acknowledged as offensive to people, since it suggests that their inception was the result of a superior and an inferior person.

Cain said that he “Don’t like mixed breed – trying to call me a dog, basically that’s the worst one. Gets me mad.”

New terms such as ‘lightie’ were gaining popularity, and were used to define a specific stereotypical type of mixed-race woman. When asked “What does ‘lightie’ mean“, Dachen answered, “The slick hair and the kind of attitude are there” – the stereotyped promiscuous, arrogant mixed-race woman.

What is clear is that British mixed-race people in the interviews were universally comfortable with the term mixed-race. The young people’s desire to represent their


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parent’s background in their identity and remain neutral was paramount to this, a concept which was not picked up by the literature researched.

This was in sharp contrast to the data from Australia, in which the young people talked extensively about their dislike of any term that suggested that they were part of a race. De’Londa explains:

Despite the fact that I obviously had both heritages, I just knew that, I don't know that mixed doesn’t really work for me. I just felt Black.

Hence, the comments made by White people using the term mixed accurately conveyed the fact that this is a relevant issue. As previously reflected in the

Methodology chapter, I myself felt racist when I used the term mixed-race, even when writing up this thesis.

Conclusion. In comparing the literature reviewed for this project, and the analysis of the results, we can make six deductions: i) There is a generational difference in the manner in which Aboriginal identity is formed in mixed-race individuals in Australia. ii) There is a greater sense of pride and shared understanding between mixed-race people in Brixton, however not to the extent that the literature suggests. iii) Both the literature and the data share the conclusion that a White identity is not a viable option for mixed-race people in either Australia or the United Kingdom. iv) The identity of mixed-race people in Australia is in many ways a political contrivance. v) The concept of mixed-race people being “confused” or having identity “issues” in literature is inconsistent with the results of the data. vi) The issue of terminology is not a major consideration amongst the British interviewees, however they were most comfortable with the term, ‘mixed-race’. This is contrary to the vast and detailed discussions in literature. However, in Australia,


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the interviewees suggested that the topic carries immense significance, despite little evidence of this in the literature.

Section Three: Theoretical and Practical Contributions to the Subject

This section proposes contributions to existing theories and understandings on mixed-race issues. Through research of both the literature, and an analysis of the data, there are five significant contributions that I brought to this subject area. i) Identity and Identification

This study revealed that a fundamental aspect of being mixed-race is the push/pull effect – the constant pressure to be moved away from a particular identity, towards another that often is not ready to accept you. Part of this is a result of the constant examination and judgement by others, with everything that you do being seen as a racial marker in an environment that is obsessed with their identity. In the UK, this resulted in the difference between young people’s identification, and how they identified.

Vin Diesel acted in, directed and produced the film Multi-Facial, which is a story of an actor who spends a day auditioning for various roles.

147 He moves from an Italian identity, to a Hispanic identity, to a Black identity by changing his clothing, language and demeanour – however, his fundamental self-understanding does not change. He is code-switching from one context to another because in order to play different roles, he must shift his self-presentation to fit other’s expectations.

This is the experience of a mixed-race individual in Brixton. There will always be a pressure to choose a side. The identity of a mixed-race person will depend on a variety of environmental factors (Rockquemore and Laszloffy, 2005: 18), however, the reaction from one’s environment will depend on an unending number of factors: accent, level of attractiveness, ability at sport, design of footwear, dress sense, social class, level of education, genre of music, hair style, hair colour and many others. This


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is a significantly different experience from being a White person, who is unlikely to get questioned, for example, for having a tan, or listening to Hip-Hop.

This is perhaps the most valuable concept to grasp for any practitioner. Whilst most mixed-race people understand how their environment views them, they rarely have the opportunity to discuss this. A vital part of address issues of identity would be a space in which young mixed-race people could express their experiences and strategies, partly to share good practice with others, but also because it provides a means of addressing thoughts and emotions about a concept that they may never have openly discussed before. ii) Fluid / Restricted Nature of Identity

It has been shown in this study that whilst identity is fluid, this fluidity is more restricted amongst mixed-race people of African descent. Whilst studying the literature for this thesis, I have taken into consideration Dagbovie’s research (2007 on the different ways in which various mixes of mixed-race people are constructed within a context that continues to devalue Blackness, and the work of Lee and Bean

(2007), which argues that the colour line is shifting toward one where a Black/non-

Black colour line (as opposed to the traditional divide of White/non-White) is increasingly relevant. My research takes these findings one step further, showing that there are important reasons why anti-racists and multiracial people need to be aware of how the increased presence of mixed-race people may be contributing to a colour line that disadvantages Black people. I found that mixed-race candidates in the UK are much more restricted in the ways in which they can cross socially constructed cultural and racial lines, as compared to their non-Black mixed-race counterparts (Lee and Bean 2007). Ultimately, if people of colour are more cognizant of the tricky ways that race and racialization shift over time, we may be able to take a more dominant role in shaping the dynamics of change in our favour. This is an important area for future research and I would argue that it is critical that scholars


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understand the way the colour line and racial hierarchies are being constructed in large urban, diverse cities like London. iii) Dominance of Whiteness / Dominance of Blackness

My findings indicate that White identities are constructed amongst both set of participants as cultureless, normal, and as lacking in tradition (Storrs, 1999). This reflects the dominant power that Whiteness holds, where non-Whiteness is

‘othered’, but Whiteness is normalized to the point of invisibility, and it is so hegemonic that candidates often only able to articulate Whiteness when referring to

White power, oppression and White racism. Given these, it is understandable that some mixed race people may want to identify as non-White; Whiteness appears to offer little in terms of meaningful cultural practices or traditions, while non-White cultures are in both Redfern amongst many Aboriginal community groups, and youth culture in Lambeth being constantly held up as desirable and consumable (Perry

2001). The irony is that their construction of Whiteness as ‘cultureless’ identities and as the constructed as the norm serves to maintain White supremacy over others.

In the UK, we are at a point where some mixed-race people are unwilling to accept the notion that a mixed-race individual can meaningfully claim a White identity, unless they are confused, self-hating or it is meant in as an insult. Consider the decision by mixed-raced Liverpool footballer Glen Johnson on December 21 st 2011 to wear a T-shirt in support of his teammate Luis Suarez (Guardian, 2011), a player who a day earlier had been given an eight-match ban and a £40,000 fine for racially abusing Manchester United footballer Patrice Evra (BBC, 2011).

His decision was criticised by mixed-race ex-professional footballer Paul McGrath, Reading striker

Jason Roberts and a number of other Black and mixed-race people via Twitter, since

Glen Johnson was expected to speak out against racism directed towards another

Black footballer primarily because of his Black ancestry. Glen Johnson was the only player in that game to be of Black African descent, and no other players were personally criticised in the same manner as Glen Johnson by some Black and mixedrace people. In this example we see how British society accommodates a significant


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and vociferous group of mixed-race people which not only identifies more closely with their Black heritage.

In Australia, we found a situation where a feature of the one-drop rule exists in an almost a complete volte-face of the manner in which it was originally founded – a means of safeguarding the imperatives that determined slavery in the Americas. At present, it is (many right-wing and other) White people who are troubled by the concept of mixed-race Australians assuming an Aboriginal identity. Whereas it is

(generally) Aboriginals and mixed-race Australians who are of the firm belief that one-drop of Aboriginal blood qualifies an individual for Aboriginality; that the concept of mixedness is racist; that those who assume a White identity are confused; that those who oppose these rules are ignorant.

In summary, the one-drop rule is very much in existence in British and Australian society, but it is a concept that is emphasised by Black and mixed-race people to an extent equal to or greater than White people. iv) Stereotypes

The research revealed the level of scrutiny that mixed-race people face, most notably from Black British people, but also from White British people. It also shows that the scrutiny is revealed through a number of negative and potentially damaging stereotypes, which have encouraged young people to either act in accordance with the stereotype, or to distance themselves from their heritage.

For example, the concept of tactlessness highlighted during this research has shown that assumptions based on cultural markers, negatively affect the confidence and self-esteem of mixed-race people, either encouraging them to accentuate aspects of their personality, or to cause them to feel isolated. Even stereotypes such as “They are the most beautiful, unique people in the world”, whilst appearing positive, place a tremendous amount of pressure on a young person who may not necessarily feel very attractive. It could also encourage the young person to place an unnecessary


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emphasis on their physical features, and may also maintain the damaging stereotype of the highly-sexualised mixed-race female.

An understanding of these issues are essential for someone working with mixed-race young people – appreciating the power that the stereotypes, and the language used around the issue of mixedness have on the development, self-confidence and identity formation of young people. v) Racial Guilt

It must be understood that young people’s racial identity will be heavily dependent on whom they feel responsible for.

In the UK data, the majority of the young people felt a responsibility to represent both parents, and chose an identity accordingly. In Australia, the young people felt a responsibility to identify with their Aboriginal heritage, and towards the suffering that their Aboriginal family members had endured. It is clear that mixed-race people are aware and appreciative of the fact that their identity choice affects other people’s perception of them, and also affects how they feel about the world in which they reside. 148 Whilst the data suggests that they negotiate this process successfully, much of the process is dictated by duty, and not necessarily through want. This is vital for practitioners to understand.

When discussing issues of identity with young people, Black or White, it is essential that those in positions of authority are aware that it is necessary to emphasise this

process of identification for mixed-race young people: that their choice is not an easy one, but is often designed to cause the least offence possible, which is something that, if relayed to other young people, would help them to temper their (often aggressively negative) judgement.

It is also important to relay this to other young people, and particularly teachers who work with young people: whilst mixed-race people are forced to consider the racial


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implications of their actions as a consequence of their racial background, race may not be the most important issue for them in their identity. Despite existing in an environment in which an individual is pressed to come to terms with and learning to understand the signals, mannerisms and physical attributes of each racial ascription, they may not take an interest in their racial background, and have additional facets to their personality which take precedence.

149 Therefore, when attempting to understand their behaviour, it would be naïve to assume that it was solely related to race.

Section Four: Policy Implications

This section will outline essential learning outcomes of the research. The data from mixed-race people in both Redfern and Brixton have uncovered three conclusions which can be drawn from the data, which are significant for people who care for, or work with mixed-race young people: i) Terminology is a Diversion

In the chaos around discussions about terminology, it seems there is very little point in developing a name when their identity is still very much in question.

Kerry-Ann Rockquemore and Tracey A. Laszloffy in their book, Raising Biracial

Children give credence to this criticism. They argue that the area of research that is most pertinent is a representation of how they understand and define themselves

(Rockquemore and Laszloffy, 2005: 9).

I acknowledge that terminology can play a significant role in the way in which people define themselves, and can often help to build a sense of consciousness. The overarching term Aboriginal has assisted with the development of a national identity and a political movement that has affected a number of changes in the Australian constitution. However, I would argue that the movement developed the conversation about terminology, and not the other way round.


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An example of this was the data that showed that some of the young people interviewed in London still use the term ‘half-caste’. Despite its lack of popularity within academic circles, all the young people interviewed use the term ‘mixed-race’.

Newer and more politically correct terms such as ‘dual heritage’ and ‘mixedparentage’ are seldom used by the young people. Evidence found by Barbara Tizard and Ann Phoenix acknowledges the fact that mixed is a term that mixed-race people use. Their researcher found that in 2001, 24% of respondents used the term ‘mixedrace’, and 45% of mixed people interviewed considered themselves to be half-caste

(Tizard and Phoenix, 2001: 10).

It is for these reasons that I would suggest that the discussion in terminology needs to put aside, whilst the determination to help develop an identity is developed first. ii) It is important that researchers and theorists are careful not to over emphasise the influence of race on the identity of mixed-race people.

I am conscious of the data, particularly from British female interviewees, who despite the importance placed on racial politics, frequently spoke about a desire to be defined and identified for characteristics unconnected with race. I am also aware that many of the Australian interviewees seldom spoke about interests unconnected with race. Whilst I am not arguing that their interest in this area is unhealthy, I am suggesting that young mixed-race people must be given the opportunity represent aspects of their identity that are not exclusively symbolized by race (Wise, 2009: 2).

Therefore for researchers, I would suggest that it should be noted that continual weight placed on the racial identity of mixed-race young people obscures the complexity of the lives of mixed-race young people that I have studied, and that I work with.

150 Whilst race plays a vital part in their identity, it must also be recognised that mixed-race people’s identities are made up of parts that are not connected to race, such as the area that they are from, their musical interests, and their gender

(ibid.).


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However, I would also argue that, after reviewing data from this research project, race still plays a significant factor in the identity of mixed-race young people’s lives.

At present, there is an arena for a conversation about shared experiences that is proving essential for building confidence in their understanding of their racial position. The growth in websites, Facebook pages and YouTube clips relating to mixed-race issues convey a desire for an interaction between mixed-race young people, which has led to the beginning of a mixed-race consciousness, and the possibility of a mixed-race collective.

The young people from both Redfern and Brixton understood that their position was deeply political, and highly contentious. They also understood that their identity was racialised, even if race was not important to them. In Australia, there is a movement by conservative commentators to encourage mixed-race people to adopt a neutral racial stance, and not identify as Aboriginal. As Debra Dickerson states in her book,

The End of Blackness, “Whites worshipped at the cathedral of race obsession when it worked in their favour. And they taught an entire nation’s mind to work that way.

Now that overt racism must be denied, Blacks are blamed for thinking as they long have been trained to think. For centuries, race affected every aspect of American life

– now we are to believe that it affects nothing” (Dickerson, 2004:17).

In the UK, although the interviewees did not regard race as an issue that they wanted to dominate their lives, they were still acutely aware of their racial identity. I therefore argue that mixed-race people should be continually encouraged to dictate where they want the conversation about identity to go from now. The results suggest that external discussions about mixed-race identity, even from parents of mixed-race children suppress the ability for mixed-race young people to express themselves openly.

Whilst the end of racial classifications would be ideal, I would suggest that the key learning from this research project is that greater efforts should be made to assist


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mixed-race people with strategies to cope with the level of scrutiny they face, rather than hope that the world changes its attitude towards race.

Section Five: Reflexivity and Recommendations for Future Research

This section investigates aspects of the research that I would have changed, had I had the opportunity to do so again, and suggests areas of research that would be valuable to investigate in the future (Geertz, 1988).

As explained in Chapter One, this has been an iterative-inductive project. At every stage of the research process, I have reassessed the method in relation to the research questions. At this stage in the project, it is important to cite areas of the project that I would have altered, had I had the opportunity to do it again. i) Narrower Controls

In retrospect, I believe the parameters of study were too broad to make more focussed conclusions. Whilst the deductions that I established were satisfactory, it would have been more productive if I had reduced the number of variables, two of which are briefly discussed below.

The age gap 18–24 years old was too broad. My experience with young people suggests that the difference in maturity and life experiences between an 18 year old and a 24 year old is immense. Candidates who were 24-years-old may have a fixed career path, have completed higher education, had longer and more established interpersonal relationships, could have more experiences of travelling, and could possibly be living on their own, away from their parents. This is very different from an 18-year-old who may not have considered which career they want to pursue, may still live with their parents and have less stable relationships.

With regards to gender, the results showed that the distinctions between the stereotypes associated with men and women meant that it would have been better to focus on one gender. Therefore, it is my contention that by starting with a


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narrower set of parameters, I could have provided a more in depth analysis of the issues discussed. ii) Photo Elicitation

Because the photo elicitation proved such a successful method of encouraging conversation, in retrospect I would have spent more time employing it. However, I would have used fewer photographs in greater depth, and for a longer period of time. I found that I used too many photographs to consult the young people, and that I did not have enough time during the interviews to fully discuss all the pictures. iii) Depth of Identity Tags

The final improvement that I would have made to the project would have been to acquire participants who had alternative racial identifications. There were no young people interviewed in the UK who identified as White, or those who identified as mixed-race in Australia.

I would also have liked to interview more young people in the UK with a Black

African parent, or gained a greater understanding of what it is like to be a Black

African in Australia. Whilst I was satisfied with number of people interviewed, I failed to secure or obtain any contact with any schools or teachers in the Redfern or

Sydney area which would have offered a different perspective. iv) Comparative Sites

Whilst utilising a comparative approach enabled me to use data from Australia to analyse processes of self-identification and attitudes towards race and identity, it ultimately meant that I was restricted in the time I had to analyse each site. After compiling the data, and looking through the data analysis chapters, it became clear that there were a number of interesting results and conclusions that could have benefitted from additional time and analysis. As a result, whilst I am content with the results, I feel somewhat dissatisfied with the depth of investigation offered, and


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on a personal level, I would have liked to have focussed on fewer issues which would only have been possible had I based the research on one site. v) Definitions

Significant changes were made to the language used in this paper based on the difficulty of defining particular concepts, and the lack of time necessary to fully discuss and appreciate the means in which these concepts would be used. Examples include references to the ‘Black community’ essentially because of my lazy use of the term.

There are paths that, whilst conducting this project, I took an interest in pursuing, but was unable to due to time constraints, and the already agreed parameters of the project. I would like to briefly recognise and outline two of these.

1. Do young people with more than two racial backgrounds have similar patterns in determining their racial identification, from those with two racial backgrounds?

The majority of the mixed-race books in the Biracial biography boom are about people who have two different racial backgrounds, and specifically those with

Black/White ancestries. However, there is only a limited amount of data which focuses on those young people with parents who are from three or more backgrounds. To be clear, I am not referring to those people who have multiple heritages based on their lineage, but am referring to parents with whom one of their parents specifically identifies as mixed-race, and they have formed a relationship with an individual who is of an entirely different racial background to theirs.

I developed an interest in this concept after I interviewed participants in Brixton.

Many were careful to describe the extent of their complex racial backgrounds, however they asserted that each parent (irrespective of such racial complexities) would identify as a single racial group.


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This then posed the question, does having a parent who identifies as mixed-race affect the identification of the child – especially since the dominant concept of binarism may in this situation, have diminished.

I am aware that should I choose to start a family with a partner who is neither White, nor Black, the children will have three or more very distinct racial backgrounds.

With this particular question, I would be interested in finding out the following:

Whether racial identification is more or less closely aligned with their identity?

If they continue to identify more closely (not necessarily exclusively) with a single racial background?

If the convictions of their parent’s identity plays a significant role in their racial identification?

Which racial group their parents see them as?

Whether there is a separate identity and set of experiences for tri-racial people?

2. Can you be mixed-race Aboriginal/White in Australia?

After the Australian courts found journalist Andrew Bolt guilt of contravening Section

18C of the Racial Discrimination Act for questioning the Aboriginal self-identification of mixed-race young people, I became interested in the concept of young people in

Australia who identified as mixed-race. Some of the young people interviewed in

Redfern suggested that there were people they knew who identified as mixed-race.

This was a surprise to them, since the vast majority of young people with any

Aboriginal heritage identified as Aboriginal. However I was unable to interview any of these people whilst in Redfern.

This is a topic of immense controversy, since its roots are deeply embedded in the painful history of those people part of the Stolen Generation. However, I am interested in obtaining the views of those who hold such an identity.


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I am assuming that those who identify as mixed-race are a small group, with particularly specific reasons for holding such an opinion. I would be interested in understanding:

-How their experiences have led to their identification?

-What their relationships are like with Aboriginals and mixed-race people who identify as Aboriginal people?

-How they view the conservative commentators and writers who doubt the legitimacy of mixed-race people who identify as Aboriginal?

-Whether racial identity is important to them?

-Do they believe that having a mixed-race identity is in some way disrespectful to those who were forced to be part of the Stolen Generation?

Section Six: Recommendations for Educational Work with Young People.

Racial Identity Module

I would suggest that there needs to be a component in education (probably most suited to the Citizenship curriculum), which would focus explicitly on racial identification. This would be included for students of all racial backgrounds. It would look at the history of racial identification, which the inclusion of a mixed-race element. It would look at the issues that affect mixed-race people, the impact that mixed-race people have on race politics, and perceptions that exist of mixed-race people. This is designed to provide a greater understanding of mixed-race people’s position in history, which would bring attention to and challenge some of the issues and stereotypes that people hold about them. I would also suggest a specific module looking at mixed-race women’s identities. The data in this thesis has uncovered some disturbing disparities with the way in which mixed-race women are seen in relation to mixed-race men.

A Short Publication for Young People on the Mixed-race Experience

This would act as means of validating the unique experiences that mixed-race people have, challenge stereotypes, and acknowledge that there are similar scenarios that mixed-race people collectively go through.


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This would take the form of a brief, easy to digest, colourful pamphlet. It would be entitled: What It Means To Be Mixed. Underneath I have included the names of some of the units:

 Push/Pull: Where You Feel What You Feel When You Are Where You Are (how you are manoeuvred racially in the UK)

 Being Confused and Other Annoying Things You Wished People Didn’t Say To You

All The Time (stereotypes that you dislike, and stereotypes that you like)

 Race Is Important To Me/Race Isn’t Important To Me (when is your race important to you, and when is race unimportant to you?)

 No-One Will Ever Know What You Know: Being A Racial Spy, Feeling Racial Guilt and Other Things That Make Your Experience Unique (what is different about your experience being mixed race, and what is similar?)



Mixed-Race Achievement: Did you Know…(famous people you didn’t know were mixed-race)

The sections featured in this publication would be based on the data researched.

Practitioner Race, Equality and Inclusion Training

Finally, and briefly, I would suggest that the concept of mixed-race identity, and the effect of tactlessness is included into race, equality and inclusion training. From the research that I have carried out, I have been unable to locate any training specially addressed for working with mixed-race young people (Lee and Bean, 2007).

Workers would be asked to reflect on their own preconceptions of mixed-race identity and challenge their understanding of a healthy racial identity choice.

Stereotypes and preconceptions of the issues faced by mixed-race young people would need to be tackled, as well as an understanding of the relationships between mixed-race young people and other racial groups (Brunsma and Rockquemore, 2004).


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Conclusion

Mixed-race people face unique challenges. The greatest challenge, however, arises when individuals develop a racial identity that is routinely rejected by others in their environment. Over the years, British social scientists have shifted their position on what is considered the healthy ideal for mixed-race people, all the while clinging to the assumption that there is one ideal racial identity for members of this population.

The clearest example of the shifting paradigms in racial identity research is in the case of individuals with one Black and one White parent, where researchers have shifted between two different ideal identities: Black and mixed-race. Before the mid-

1980s, researchers assumed that the only healthy way for members of the mixedrace group to identify racially was as exclusively Black.

Because anyone with Black ancestry was assumed to be Black, Black identity models were used to assess the racial identity development of mixed-race people. In this context, mixed-race people who resisted categorisation as exclusively Black were often seen as “confused” and were pathologised by researchers (Rockquemore and

Laszloffy, 2005: 3). With this new assumption, some researchers in the UK now assert that those who define themselves as Black suffer from “denial”. They are now pathologised in the same way that the previous generation of researchers stigmatized those who claimed any identity other than Black.

The purpose of this thesis has been to challenge the stigmatisation of the identity of mixed-race people, but also to try to understand more about my own identity, and how it developed.

At a personal level, I have begun to open my mind to the possibility that my identity does not have to be determined by how I feel that society sees me. By understanding the impact that society has on the lives of the young people that I have studied, I have become aware of the possibilities that are available for one’s personal identification. In other words, by listening, analysing and understanding the various ways in which people reaction, and interact based on their identity, by appreciating


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the difficulties, the coping strategies, the resistance methods, and their reflection of this, I feel empowered to take a greater sense of control over how I want to present myself.

Whilst this has not happened immediately, this journey has allowed me to see how different mixed-race people are around the world, and how fluid identity can be.

Through this, an element of self-awareness has begun to develop, where I have been able to reflect and make decisions on my racial identity that involved myself, and was based on my thoughts, feelings, behaviours or appearance (Fenigstein, Scheier, &

Buss, 1975). I have begun to be more aware of the way in which I have exhibited a form of self-monitoring, where I have in the past and still do, shape my publicly presented self so that it more closely matches current situational expectations.

Several researchers before me (e.g., Miller, 1992; Stephan, 1991, 1992; Tizard &

Phoenix, 1995) have regarded the mixed-race individuals with the ability to adopt various identities within different contexts. I have learnt that I have the ability to change the perception of self in order to accommodate other people’s needs, but what is significant about my learning in this project is that I am also more aware of

what I am willing to, and unwilling to change in order to accommodate to other’s needs.

However, during the experience of interviewing and analysing the responses from 40 mixed-race individuals from Redfern and Brixton, I realised that my experiences growing up, whilst vastly different, have a similar pattern to all of theirs: there was an internal conflict between what they felt they were, and what they were allowed to be. Sometimes they were the same things, but many times they were different.

For me, this led to years of re-assessment about how I should act, talk, think and dress. Mixed-race young people are going through the same experiences.

This is not a bad thing. The young people were acutely aware of their position, and understood the nuances that transmit particular racial signals to their peers. Some


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chose to adhere to the perceptions of their peers, others chose to ignore them. But they were all aware of them.

The difference between myself and the young people interviewed is that in both environments, there is a growing appreciation of a shared experience. This exists regardless of their identification. Mixed-race people may not agree with each other, but they understand each other. This collective understanding is taking place in the very biggest and very smallest of forums – on the Internet and on the street, and this is the key difference between my generation, born in the 1970s and 1980s, and young people in 2013.

It seems as though academics, writers, journalists, and even myself at the beginning of this project, have wanted to shape the direction of mixed-race identity; taking pity on mixed-race people and trying to help them. However, I would argue that the current generation of mixed-race people have developed a mutual understanding, and are acutely responsive to where they are from a racial perspective. In other words, within themselves, they are in a better position than we gave them credit for.

Whilst I have suggested devices for improving their means of dealing with the world in which they live – which I believe are useful tools, the truth is, they are alright.

Despite this, we cannot ignore the effects that their environment has on the identity of those young people who have not had the opportunity to develop a coping strategy. I would therefore argue that it is time that practitioners and racial equality and inclusion campaigners acknowledged the unique processes that take place in mixed-race identity, and confronted the stereotypes that, at present are allowed to exist unchallenged.

141 Harris and Sim argue that racial identities are fluid and can be distinguished along three dimensions: internal racial identity, external racial identity and expressed racial identity. Internal racial identity refers to what an individual believes his or her own race is, while external racial identity refers to what observers believe about his or her race, Expressed racial identity refers to an individual’s words, actions and mannerisms that convey certain beliefs or expectancies about his or her race.

142 See racial politics section at the end of research question 2


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143 This is seen in a very similar way to someone in American for example, representing the confederate flag.

144 See the discussion by Cressida Hayes in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-politics/ (accessed 29/5/07).

145 Intermix website. Mixed-race London Facebook Group. Mixed-race T-Shirts.com. Mixed

Folks.com.

146 Drake is a mixed-race (half-Jewish, half Black American) rapper from the United States.

147 Multi-Facial (Dir. Vin Diesel) (1995).

148 By the use of the term ‘world’, I am suggesting that the data shows that there are two very different environments in which White people and Black people exist in.

149 It is important to note that a similar dichotomy occurs with all people where race is only one dimension of the multiple set of identities that they have to perform.

150 Examples of such publications and authors are discussed in greater detail in Chapter Two: Literature

Review.


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Appendices

Appendix A – Interview Questions

Question prompts used to interview young people aged 18-24 from Brixton and

Redfern

Initial Questions: What is your name? Where do you live? How old are you? What is your occupation?

Interview Prompts:

1. In England, I am legally considered to be mixed parentage, though society has generally labelled me as Black. What determines how you are seen on a racial basis by white Australians people?

2. What racial group who you put me into, and why?

3. What stereotypes do you associate with being White (i.e. parents, education, family, jobs, cars, music they listen to)?

4. What stereotypes do you associate with being Black (i.e. parents, education, family, jobs, cars, music they listen to)?

5. What stereotypes do you associate with being mixed (i.e. parents, education, family, jobs, cars, music they listen to)?

6. Can you be mixed, white and Aboriginal in heritage simultaneously – If so or if not, why?

7. Does shade make any difference as to how you are seen?

8. Is there any racial group that you wouldn’t want to marry? Why? Is there any racial group that you think wouldn’t want to marry you? Why?

9. How would you react to the argument that it is better for the good of mixed parentage Australians to continue to identify with, and represent the Aboriginal community?

10. What racial group would you place the following into? *Show Pictures


of the Mixed-Race Identity Appendicies (2014)

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Underneath is a list of topics, questions and follow-up questions that I plan to ask the interviewees.

INITIAL QUESTIONS

What is your name?

Where do you live?

How old are you?

What is your parentage?

What is your occupation?

TERMINOLOGY

What term do you use to describe yourself?

Why do you use this term as opposed to any other i.e...

What terms for mixed people/yourself/your ethnic group do you not like used to describe you and why?

CHILDHOOD

Can you recall when you first realised that you were mixed (if you’ve ever felt mixed) and what was it like?

PEOPLE’S PERCEPTION OF YOU

Generally, what do White people label you as racially? (How does this make you feel? Do you resent such a label? Do you embrace such a label?) Do they ever accept a kinship towards you when they find out that you have White heritage? (If not, why do you think this is?) Do you ever feel accepted as part White? (If not, why not?/If so, why?) Have you ever been regarded as White by a White person? Have you ever been regarded as Black by a White person? Have you ever been described as mixed parentage? Which race are you normally defined as mostly?

Generally, what do Black people label you as racially? (How does this make you feel?

Do you resent such a label? Do you embrace such a label?) Do they ever accept a kinship towards you when they find out that you have Black heritage? (If not, why do



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you think this is?) Do you ever feel accepted as part Black? (If not, why not?/If so, why?) Have you ever been regarded as Black by a Black person? Have you ever been regarded as White by a Black person? Have you ever been described as mixed parentage? Which race are you normally defined as mostly?

How do Asians/Somalis/Chinese/Greek/Lebanese people see you? (How does this make you feel? Do you resent such a label? Do you embrace such a label?)

How you feel British/Australian society view you racially…? (How does this make you feel? Do you resent such a label? Do you embrace such a label?)

How does these labels affect how you act, dress, think, what music you listen to, words you use…?

What determines how you are seen by people? What is it about the way you look/texture of your hair/your shade of skin/features of face/accent/how many

White or Black relatives, affect the way you are treated?

Have you been called any racist slurs? What were they? Who did they come from?

How did they make you feel? Has that shaped the way you see yourself? What effect has that had on your identity?

BLACK AND WHITE IDENTITY

What stereotypes do you associate with being White (i.e. parents, education, family, jobs, cars, music they listen to)?

What stereotypes do you associate with being Black (i.e. parents, education, family, jobs, cars, music they listen to)?

What stereotypes do you associate with being mixed (i.e. parents, education, family, jobs, cars, music they listen to)?



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What does being Black mean to you? Would you say that Cathy Freeman is Black or

White? Would you say that Obama is mixed or Black or White? Why? Can you be both – If so or if not, why?

What experiences do you think makes a mixed person feel more Black or more

White?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE OF CERTAIN RACES

Or do you not feel racialised at all?

What is the reason for this answer/What makes you feel the way you are?

In Your Community…

Does looking the way you do affect your life in anyway i.e. applying for jobs, raving, walking down the street, being in an all-White environment/being in an all-Black environment?

Are there any advantages to being mixed/what’s the best thing about looking the way you do – if so, what are they?

Are there any disadvantages to being mixed/what’s the worst things about looking the way you do – if so, what are they?

In Your Country…

Does looking the way you do affect your life in anyway i.e. applying for jobs, raving, walking down the street, being in an all-White environment/being in an all-Black environment?

Are there any advantages to being mixed/what’s the best thing about looking the way you do – if so, what are they?

Are there any disadvantages to being mixed/what’s the worst things about looking the way you do – if so, what are they?

ABOUT BEING MIXED PARENTAGE

If you could choose a role model, who would it be?



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If you could choose your favourite actor/actress, who would it be?

Which historical figure do you most identify with and why?

What’s your response to people who think that mixed parentage people are confused about their identity?

What’s your response to people who think that mixed parentage people are lucky to be from two backgrounds?

How did you feel when mixed parentage people say that they are not Black/not

White?

SKIN TONE

Does shade make any difference as to how you are seen? Do you think that lighter skinned mixed parentage have things easier i.e. with jobs, police etc. If so, why? For mixed parentage people, what is the most favourable shade to be in terms of street credibility/police/jobs etc? If you were paler (or darker), do you think that it would affect how you were seen and treated? If you looked like Evonne Goolagong/Leona

Lewis, do you get treated better or worse or the same as Ernie Dingo/Clinton

Morrison.

POLITICS

When people talk about slavery/colonialism, do you feel like your relatives were the victims or part of the oppressors of it?

RELATIONSHIPS

Is there any racial group that you wouldn’t want to marry? Why? Is there any racial group that you think wouldn’t want to marry you? Why?



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FUTURE

How would you respond to the claim that now, mixed parentage people in Australia have an identity?

How would you feel if Australia’s mixed parentage community detached themselves from the Aboriginal community and created their own racial group? How would you react to the argument that it is better for the good of mixed parentage Australians to continue to identify with, and represent the Aboriginal community?

Is there anything else that you would like to add?

Issues That Need To Be Discussed With Community Leaders, Teachers, Politicians,

Residents

Do Black Australians identify with Black people around the world

How does the state of play with the Aborigines in Australia compare to the state of play with Black people in England?

Are mixed parentage Australians counted in the census?

What are White Australian’s attitudes towards Aborigines

What are main issues concerning the Aboriginal community in Australia?

What are main issues concerning the Aboriginal community in Sydney?

What racial group would you place the following into? *Show Pictures*



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Group One: People of Mixed-Race

From top left to right: Albert Hughes, Alesha Dixon, Jason Kidd,

Gabriella Reece, Derek Jeter, Kelis,

Ryan Giggs, Barack Obama, Leona Lewis.



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Group Two: People of whom both parents are considered Black

From top left to right: Ice T, Thierry Henry, Vanessa Williams,

Keyshia Cole, Lee Jasper, Monica

Group Three: People of whom both parents are considered White

From top left to right: Angelina Jolie and Tom Jones



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Group Four: Australians of Mixed-Race

From top left to right: Bruce Trevorrow, Anthony Mundine, Evonne Goolagong,

Mary Terszak, Nicky Winmar, Leah Purcell,

Ernie Dingo, Anita Heiss



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Appendix B – Skin Tone Classification Scale

Fitzpatrick Classification Scale developed in 1975 by Harvard Medical School dermatologist, Thomas Fitzpatrick, MD, PhD

Type

I

General

Light

Pigment

Pale White or Freckled

II Fair White

III Medium

IV Olive

White to Light

Brown

Moderate Brown

V Brown

Dark Brown

VI Black Very Dark Brown to

Black



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Appendix C – Contact With Gate Keepers and Interviewees

Copy of correspondence sent via email to possible gatekeepers in Sydney

Bristol UWE University

Frenchay Campus

Coldharbour Lane

Bristol

BS16 1QY

United Kingdom

16th September 2009

Dear XXX,

My name is Jacob Whittingham, I am 30 years old and I am a first year PhD Sociology student from Bristol UWE.

I am writing a dissertation called 'Why Am I Black' - A Study About The Global

Manoeuvring of Mixed Parentage People. My project focuses on the similarities and differences in the identities of mixed-race children in London, Britain and Sydney,

Australia between the ages of 16-21.

After the conflicts between the police and the community in 2004, many members of the British Black community became aware of Redfern and the issues that it was facing. Consequently, I decided to base my project on the relationship between mixed race children in both Redfern and Brixton, and the countries in which they live in.

I was informed by a colleague that your department may be able to help me contact youth groups, or develop links with Aboriginal groups in Sydney.

I am in Sydney from 5th November - 22nd November and I was wondering whether I might be able to visit your group and possibly interview some people about some of the issues faced by aborigines or mixed aborigines:

- What it means to be mixed parentage in Australia

- What it means to be mixed parentage in a mostly Aboriginal community

If this looks ok, I was wondering whether it might be possible for me to arrange a time in which it would be most convenient for you and I to speak over the phone and for me to set a meeting - or possibly contact via email if that's most convenient

If you have any further questions or queries, please feel free to contact me at the details found at the foot of this letter.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you shortly.

Kind Regards

Jacob Whittingham

+44 (0) 7771 565 099



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Appendix D – Additional Interviewees

List of the academics, residents, and community workers interviewed in Australia

between October 2009 and January 2010

Anthony Moran: Author of Nation, Belonging, and Globalization, and teaches politics at La Trobe University. Born in UK but has spent the majority of his life in Australia and identifies as white

Bob Vinnicombe: Blaxland One Nation candidate (white, UK lives in Aus)

Gordon Syron: Artist. Identifies as Aboriginal

James Arvanitakis: Lecturer in the Humanities at the University of Western Sydney and is a member of the University's Centre for Cultural Research. He is a Australian citizen

Janet Mooney: Director of the Koori Centre University of Sydney. She identifies as

Aboriginal

Lyn Turnbull: She resides in Redfern and set up REDWatch and Redfern Residents for

Reconciliation. She is an Australian national and identifies as white.

Mark Spinks: CEO of Babana Aboriginal Men's Group Redfern and Centrelink's indigenous community program. He identifies as Aboriginal

Rebecca Conroy: Artist who works with Aboriginal communities. She identifies as white and is an Australian citizen.

Renee Williams: Youth worker and project manager for No Wrong Door Phase 2. She identifies as Aboriginal.

Rob Welsh: Chairperson of the Metropolitan Aboriginal Land Council based in

Redfern. He identifies as Aboriginal

Shane Phillips: The Founding Director of the Australian Indigenous Chamber of

Commerce, and Tribal Warrior Association. He identifies as Aboriginal.

Thalia Anthony: Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney and specialises in connections between the criminal justice system and Indigenous people. She is an Australian citizen.

Tiffany McComsey: Manchester University PhD Social Anthropology student, who has lived in Redfern. She is an American citizen and identifies as white.



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Trevor Davies: News Editor of South Sydney Herald. He is originally from the UK, and identifies as white

Irene Dutly: Redfern resident. She identifies as white and is an Australian citizen.

Un-named1: West Sydney resident of Indian original. Australian citizen

Un-named2: West Sydney resident. Identifies as Aboriginal

Ursula Stephens (Senator): A member of the Australian Labor Party, and elected to the Senate for New South Wales in 2001. She is an Australian citizen and identifies as white.

Vicki Grieves: Has completed a PhD thesis entitled Approaching Aboriginal History:

Family, Wellbeing and Identity in Aboriginal Australia. She identifies as Aboriginal

Be’lal Brewster: Is a young person and works as a Till operator. He identifies as

Aboriginal.

Montgomery Durand: Lives in Bankstown and works as a taxi driver. He identifies as

Aboriginal.

Gladwin Treloar: Lives in Central Sydney and is a Student. He identifies as

White/Scottish.

Emmanuel Carlisle: Lives in Goulburn and works as a Journalist. He identifies as

White/Irish/Scottish.

Jocelyn Monday: Lives in Erskineville and is a Student. He identifies as White/English

Zayd Brandon: Lives in Auburn and is a shop owner. He identifies as Lebanese.

Fitz Moray Finnin: Lives in Mittagong and is a shop owner. He identifies as

Irish/German.

Yiannis Katsaros: Lives in North Sydney and is a student. He is of Greek heritage.

Cadelle: Lives in Mittagong and works as a taxi driver. He identifies as White/English.

Qasira: Is a young person. Lives in Auburn and is a Student. He identifies as

Lebanese.

Roimata: Works as Door Security. He identifies as Maori

Kendrick: Is a young person. Lives in Campbell Town and is NEET. He identifies as

Aboriginal.

Elenora Randal: Lives in Museum and is a Student. She identifies as

White/English/Irish.



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Tuyến Ngo: Is a young person. Lives in Sydney Central and works in Sales. She identifies as Vietnamese.

Ianella: Is a young person. Lives in Macquarie University and is a Student. She identifies as White.

Dimosthenis Papadopoulos: Lives in Marrickville and works in retail. He is of Greek heritage.

Gwyneth Hallman: Lives in Sydenham and is a Dancer/Performer. She identifies as

Aboriginal.

Saundra Stirling: Is a young person. Lives in Macdonald Town and is a

Dancer/Performer. She identifies as Aboriginal.

Isla Mccrae: Lives in Granville and is a Journalist. She identifies as White.

Jardine: Is a young person. Lives in Macdonald Town and is a Student. She identifies as White.

Elisabeth Acciai: Is a young person. Lives in Wollongong and is a Student. She identifies as Italian/English.

Raelene: Lives in Campbell Town and works as a Bartender. He identifies as

White/German/English.

Aace: Lives in Campbell Town and works as a Bartender. He identifies as White/Irish.

Vlassis Raptis: Lives in Marrickville and is a Shop owner. He is of Greek heritage.

Saacha: Is a young person. Lives in Meadowbank and works in Retail. She identifies as Aboriginal.

Gabbrielle Kovač: Is a young person. Lives in Guildford and works in Retail. She identifies as White/Irish/Serbian.

Rachana Sharma: Lives in Homebush and works as a Waitress. She is of Indian heritage.

Unknown: Residency unknown. Is a Student and is of Italian heritage. Is a young person.





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List of the academics, residents, and community workers interviewed in the United

Kingdom between February and May 2010.

Abigail Tripp: Works as a business consultant in Waterloo, London and with a number of community groups in the area. Is of White English descent

Akeem Cruddy: NEET Young person and member of the Hip-Hop group, STP (Stack

That Paper/Struggle to Proceed). Is of Nigerian descent, born and resides in south

London.

Alika Jeffs: Hip-Hop artist of Nigerian descent, born in south London

Angelica: Youth practitioner who runs a homework club. Is of Trinidadian,

Venezuelan, Malay and Chinese descent, born in Belgium, lived in France but educated in the UK

Ayanna: Young person, A-Level student and committee member of the youth forum and charity, SE1 United Ltd. Is mixed West Indian and English descent, born and lived in south London

Chopz: Young person and Amateur boxer. Born and lives in south London. Is of

African-Caribbean descent

David Knight: Film-maker and editor.

Davy: Young person, employed at Pimlico School and aspiring actor . Is of

Martiniquan descent, born in Paris, France and resides in south London.

Eli: Used to work for Lambeth council in the Youth Service, and for UNL (University of

North London). Is of mixed-race White/Black descent

Eman: Young person, A-Level student and committee member of the youth forum and charity, SE1 United Ltd. Is of Nigerian descent, born and resides in south London.

Feyi: Young person, A-Level student, attends Lambeth Youth Offending Team. Born in Nigerian and moved to south London four years ago.

Graham Jimpson: Works for Enfield Council in north London. Youth worker in London for over twenty years, of White English descent

Ibtisam: Works for Stockwell Partnership. Born in Eritrean descent, and moved to the

UK eight years ago.

Jean-Michel: Young person, University student. Is of Congolese descent, born in

Paris, France and came to live in south London twelve years ago.



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Jeni Hinds: Youth Practitioner for the community organisation, Blackfriars Settlement and has worked in south London for over fifteen years. Is of Guyanese descent, born and resides in south London

John Jones: Works for London Youth, is of White English descent.

John Roberts: Used to works for the MPA (Metropolitan Police Association). Is of

White English descent.

Josh Slimz: Young person, University student and co-founder of the youth project which works with Gung Fu, teaching basic self-defence and awareness to young people in South London. Is of Ghanaian descent, born and resides in south London.

Ju-B: Young person and member of the youth drama group, MND (Mayhem Never

Dies). Is of Nigerian descent, born and resides in south London.

Keith: Editor of Unheard Words. Is of African-Caribbean descent

Kevo Grinz: Young person, University student and co-founder of the youth project which works with Gung Fu, teaching basic self-defence and awareness to young people in South London. Is of Nigerian descent, born and resides in south London.

Lawrence: NVQ student of Nigerian descent. Was born in Scotland, briefly education in Nigeria, and now resides in south London.

Leroy: Football coach and youth practitioner. Is of Jamaican descent, born and resides in south London.

Mark: Works as a youth practitioner for the youth organisation, Positive Futures. Is of White English descent.

Melba: Work as an accountant. Is of Ugandan descent, born and resides in south

London.

Miss Drayons: Teacher at Pimlico. Is of White English descent.

Rachel: Youth worker from The Hub youth organisation. Is of White English descent.

Richard: Photographer

Robin: Youth worker in Kennington, south London. Is of White Scottish descent.

Ros: Project manager for CPCG (Community Police Consultative Group). Is of African-

Caribbean descent.



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Scarlett: Young person, A-Level student and participant of the music group,

Tomorrow’s Warriors. Is mixed West Indian and English descent, born and lived in south London

Teo: Works as a constructionist in East London. Is of Angola descent, has lived in

Germany and moved to the UK four years ago.

Timbo Slice: Young person, University student and member of the Hip-Hop group,

STP (Stack That Paper/Struggle to Proceed). Is of Nigerian descent, born and resides in south London.

Topy Tops: Young person, University student and aeronautical engineer student. Of

Nigerian descent, born in south London

Traci: Works for the Colombo Centre. Is of White English descent.

Wisdom: Works as a youth practitioner. Is of African-Caribbean descent



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Appendix E – Example Sydney Interview

Example of interview in Redfern with Donette (Dt) and myself, Jacob Whittingham

(JW).

Jacob Whittingham: First I should start off by introducing myself. I’m a youth worker from south London, based in Lambeth. Over the past few years, we’ve been experiencing an increase in youth-on-youth crime, and particularly youth-onyouth murders which have been in the headlines a lot. I’m not sure whether the news ever reached you.

Donette: Er no not really…

JW: Well anyway, there have been a lot of projects trying to deal with these issues, and there has been some recent discussion talking about the identity or lack of that young Black and mixed parentage people have of themselves. This by the way, was because the youth on youth violence has been touted as the consequence of young Black and mixed men and women having issues with their identity.

I was always interested in looking at the subject of so-called mixed people – especially because I’m regarded as one in the UK. Also, right now in the UK, mixed parentage people are the third largest, and fastest growing ‘ethnic minority’.

Now, the thing is, in Australia, the only things we ever hear about Aboriginal people in Australia is Cathy Freeman’s 400m Sydney Olympics win, and that’s about it. I mean, we and I know pretty much nothing about Aboriginal people.



308

And the only things we ever see on TV about Australia are perhaps, Home and Away,

Neighbours…we saw Crocodile Dundee obviously, and er…that’s about it. Oh, and Dame Edna and Clive James. Other than that, we know very little.

So anyway, when we saw the film Rabbit Proof Fence back in, what was it, sometime in…about five or six years ago, we realised that there were actually mixed people in your country, though I know you don’t use that language, but in

England we do. And that’s when I realised that you guys have some very similar issues to the ones that we have back in England.

That’s why the kids I work with asked me to do a project on this, and I thought about doing it for my PhD. The title of my PhD is called ‘Why Am I Black?’ and it’s a comparison between the way in which we in England deal with the issue of

‘mixed’ identity, and the ways in which you guys look at people of two different heritages. So, without going on too much, basically, I’m trying to find out how you guys see so-called mixed parentage people, what identity they choose to possess in Australia, and how their identity is seen by other people in your country.

Cos, I mean, the way I’ve been told, is that there’s no such thing as mixed, is that the case with you or...

Dt: Yea, I dunno. I suppose for me and most Blackfellas, I just don’t like being called mixed because I’m not mixed. I know that I have different heritages, but my identity is Aboriginal. And that’s the thing, it’s about my identity, not my heritage. And I should have the right to choose that.

JW: And why do you feel like you should have that right. I mean, is that a universal right with all people in Australia?



309

Dt: Well I suppose it’s cos so much has been taken away from us, and we should have this. I have uncles who don’t even know that they had sisters, or grandparents, or relatives and things. That’s because of what they did to us. So I think that I should have the right to choose who I see myself as.

JW: So do most Aboriginals with different heritages think of themselves as

Aboriginal?

Dt: I’m trying to think…I don’t really think I know of anyone with Aboriginal heritage who doesn’t call themselves or recognise their Aboriginal heritage…or who, like, accept an Aboriginal identity. I have heard that there are some. I’ve heard people use words like coconut…

JW: …Oh yea, we’ve got that too…

Dt: …there’s 9-to-5ers, part-timers, and er…I can’t remember anymore but there are lots more. They’re basically Aboriginals who try to pretend that they’re something else.

JW: Wow. Cos you see, in England, things are really different. So, like, how comes you don’t use the word mixed. I mean, how comes when I use the word mixed, you guys are like, “we’re not on that”.

Dt: With us, we don’t have half, mixed, quarter decimal point or anything, not even brothers and sisters. I remember once being introduced to this gallery thing, and being told about my half sister. I had to correct her, cos we don’t do half anything. Our tribe is our tribe, our nation is our nation, and our skin is our skin.

It doesn’t matter how far back it goes.

JW: Skin? As in tone?



310

Dt: No. When we use the word skin, it doesn’t mean skin, as in skin colour, I mean not all the time anyway. We mean skin, when we use skin, we mean like, your tribal affiliation, or where you come from.

JW: But what if you’re really light, like you for example. What do people think your heritage is when they see you?

Dt: I mean, of course I’m not saying that a lot of people don’t see me as Black.

Whitefellas always ask me if I’m Italian or something. They think I’m European cos I look a bit European. But more Italian, not really Spanish. They never ask me. I don’t waste my time trying to explain. Well, I do but I can’t tell everyone. It gets on my nerves.

I remember, when was it, yea that was it, some Lebanese guy came up to me on the train while we were sitting there at some delay, and we were talking for a bit and he asked me whether I “was half caste”, so I asked me if he was “gonna blow me up”.

JW: That’s funny. But deep down, does that annoy you. I mean, in a way, in a small way, do you wish you looked more Aboriginal?

Dt: Um…I dunno really…maybe sometimes…but actually not really. I suppose I just wish that people could understand that I’m Black. Or just say nothing.

Whitefellas don’t really understand what we’re about, you know. I don’t like people labelling me. I’m the lightest of my family. Of my brothers and sisters I mean. The rest are very dark. I’ve never really wanted to be darker or anything like that, but I’ve wished people would identify me as Aboriginal without me having to tell them. It’s important to me and my relatives.

JW: Yea, I can understand that. I have the same problem myself sometimes. As you can see, I’m probably a little lighter than you. In fact, let me have a look. Arm to



311

arm. Yea it’s the sun that made you darker than me! But in England, you see, someone like me, it’s weird, I always wanted to be darker so that Black people would think, no actually so they would know I was Black. But it’s weird cos in places like the US, the lighter you are, definitely, you get things better. Does it matter in the Aboriginal community how light you are or dark you are?

Dt: Yea sure, we have all that too. But not that much though. I mean, we just tend to get on with things. But I can remember getting called Yellow Fella by some people from Northern Territory once.

JW: And how did you feel about that?

Dt: It hurt me a little. Obviously. Because I’m one of them and I don’t like us splitting things up. I mean, what does it matter? But the thing is, we’ve got so many different languages and things, and nations, and things so I suppose sometimes it gets complicated.

JW: So what about the opposite? If you’re light, is it better in some ways. With

Whitefellas and people who aren’t Black. Or even people who are Aboriginal.

What I mean is, has this ever been a ‘good’ thing for you?

Dt: It’s weird. Light is definitely considered more attractive…um…to whites I mean…but amongst us, dark is better. It means you have a position. You have an identity without having to prove it. Light means that you have to prove your identity. It means you are more beautiful, but then…um…language is also important.

JW: So lightness has no advantage at all?

Dt: Ok I see what you mean. So I do get a lot of Black men hitting on me, I mean like dark guys hitting on me and wanting to date me because they think it’s cool to



312

have people think that they’re dating a white girl. One even told me that. So I mean, with whitefellas also it’s quite good, but then bad because people don’t respect me for me sometimes.

So actually, it’s more of a bad thing. And then of course you get all these people saying things like, to me, or maybe not me, but maybe paler, that we’re jumping on the gravy train. Y’know, to get jobs, or money and stuff.

JW: What do you mean?

Dt: You know, you get people who want to be Black when it suits them. To get rights and things. There was this guy from the Papua New Guinea who got caught in the paper recently.

JW: Papua New Guinea?

Dt: Yea, he had no Aboriginal in him at all.

JW: Does it ever go the other way. I mean, are there Aboriginals who are so pale that they try to deny their heritage. Or even don't accept it.

Dt: Yea man, I mean I’ve known some people who’ve tried to pass. I know this guy who works in the movies or he acts or something like that, an old family friend.

All I know is that he doesn’t think of himself as aboriginal, he thinks of himself as....well I know he doesn’t think of himself as white, but I know that he identifies himself as mixed. He’s got his own problems though.

JW: So wait, if you’re that pale anyway, how would you even know that you were

Aboriginal in the first place?



313

Dt: Well the British kept records of things and documents so you can find your history quite well. But there are three things that you need to do. You need to check your history, then you need to identify as Aboriginal, and then you need the community, or a community to agree to accept you. It can be any community, or it can be the community that you find out that you belong to. But they have meetings every so often, and you can become one. But to really become a member, you have to contribute something…like…er… community events, er…do some voluntary work…that kind of stuff y’know. Right now, we’re the fastest growing population in Australia because so many people are discovering their identity. Because of the Stolen Generation.

JW: That’s kinda mad. I’m impressed. You guys really think hard about things. We’re a bit different to that. I mean, we don’t really plan things out like that. Cos I mean you guys got some pale Aboriginals. I mean, people I would never know until they told me.

Dt: Yea it’s all about how you feel inside, in your heart. But I know what you mean. I remember that when I lived in Queensland, I lived next door to an Aboriginal family, and didn’t even realise it. Some of us are just pale. I think you can be one

16 th or something and still be Aboriginal. I don’t know. But for most of us, it doesn’t matter. If you have Aboriginal heritage, you can have blonde hair and blue eyes and still be Black. You just have to have those three things.

JW: So why do you think you think of yourself as Aboriginal, and not as someone who would wanna pass?

Dt: I think it was my family. It was a big factor. And for lots of other’s too. I mean, my grandfather was taken to a foster home. He had his name changed. He was beaten by his foster parents. I think he did return home at one point. But his father died. He was an alcoholic. I don’t think he could handle losing his land. It killed him. Even to this day, it hurts me to think about it. I mean think about it,



314

one of my aunties was given to her grandmother as a present. He got told that his parents didn’t want him or that his parents were dead or something. It cut him deep. But also my mum died when I was very young, and I never want forget her.

JW: Wow, that’s deep. And was it easy for your mum and dad to get married and be together, being that they’re from different backgrounds.

Dt: Yea it was OK actually. It’s not really a problem here. Marriages or relationships these days between people who are mixed are common. I know a lot of people who are in relationships with Whitefellas people. It doesn’t matter to people a lot.

JW: Even when it comes to stars like Cathy Freeman?

Dt: Oh no, I or we don’t care about who you marry. As long as you identify as Black and represent your heritage, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what your colour is. White, light, dark…

JW: But then, so, what would Cathy Freeman’s children be considered. Aren’t you worried that that’s similar to the way it was before, with Aboriginals being assimilated out?

Dt: Yea I’ve heard that one. That if I intermarry with someone else then we will be assimilated out but it’s actually the other way round. The Whitefellas are being assimilated out. But you have to remember that mixed relationships have been happening for years in Australia. Even during the Stolen Generation. In fact, there were lots of children that were taken away from families who were in proper relationships. I remember my dad telling me this story about this

Whitefella, living in the bush. I don’t think he liked Whitefella people much, or maybe he did, but he just wanted to live away from people in the bush. Anyway,



315

he really liked Aboriginal culture, and when he moved to the bush he began to get into the culture, you know, he learnt the language, and how to talk to people. He started to eat the food, and know how we lived. So anyway, he met this woman, and even his kids were taken away. When the gubba found out about it, he had to, well I guess it wasn’t even a consideration, but the state took his children from him and sent them to a special school. That’s what they did.

Love marriages did happen. It wasn’t like we were all raped or anything.

JW: So how you feel about your ‘white’ side? I mean, do you represent it, do you deny it, or do you just not think about it?

Dt: Erm, ha ha, it’s not really as simple as Black and white. But then again, it is really.

I’m still proud of my Irish ancestry, I just identify as Aboriginal. I’ve got this half

Japanese half white friend who always gets called a Jap cos that’s what

Whitefellas people identify her as.

JW: So then, what’s more important to you? Being Aboriginal, a woman, being from

Redfern, or being Christian? What comes first? What defines you the most?

Dt: Hmmmm....I suppose...well I’d definitely say that I’m Aboriginal first, a woman second, and probably Australian third.

JW: So you’re gonna need to explain something to me. You live with your Dad who’s white but you still have a strong connection with your Aboriginal side. How’d that happen?

Dt: My mum died when I was young but my dad always took care of me. I know he was white but he acted like an Aboriginal should. And the rest of my family were there for me. I’m really close to my Indigenous side. In fact, I’m closer to them than my white side. I don’t even really talk to my white side very much. My



316

white relatives don’t understand the way things are. They don’t really get it. I see my grandmother every week, and my uncles are like my brother.

JW: That’s kinda mad. Ok, so like, one thing I don’t understand is why you keep using the word Black to describe yourselves?

Dt: How d’you mean?

JW: Well, you keep talking about Blackfellas, and obviously, in England, we use the word Black too to describe people who are of African descent. So did you call yourselves that or was it a British thing?

Dt: I only use Black cos that’s what we’re known as. It doesn’t mean that we’re Black, like you might be, but we do see ourselves as Black. But just our kind of Black.

Though I suppose it’s only because the British called us Black. But Indians aren’t

Black or anything, its just Aboriginals.

JW: So do you guys identify with Black culture at all then.

Dt: Me personally, I think me and my friends and others like the way Black people have dealt with racism. So that’s why we listen to things like Rap on Koori radio and stuff.

JW: So are you guys considered ‘Black’ in the same way that West Indians, and

African-Americans are considered Black?

Dt: Ha ha, no not really. In fact no way. Black people can dance, they got music, they’re kinda cool. Us, nah, we’re not really the same though. Aboriginals? Not at all. They’re kinda the bottom of the pile. Even new people who come into the country are higher than us.



317

And then it’s also odd cos when I travelled to Canada, and I called myself Black,

American Indians thought it was strange, cos when you think about it, they don’t call themselves Black either. I’m not sure about the Maoris but I’m sure we’re the only ones.

JW: So when you think about your position in this world, who do you identify more with, the indigenous peoples, or Black or African people?

Dt: I’d say, I think I find Black people more inspirational. They seem to be easier to relate to.

JW: So what does it mean for you to be Black and Aboriginal. I mean, you said that that’s who you identify with, but what does being Aboriginal, I mean how to being Aboriginal differ from being white for example.

Dt: What do you mean?

JW: I mean, like, what for you are the representative features of being Aboriginal?

Dt: It depends from who’s side. I mean, Whitefellas, they think that we’re all drug addicts. Like we’re smack heads. But we do have so many issues with heroin abuse. My brother had problems a few years ago. Erm, I suppose the other main stereotype is that we all go to prison. Or that we’re ugly, I mean like not very attractive. Some girls are thought of as attractive, but only ones who look they’re white with a tan. I remember seeing this advert. What was it saying, it said something along the lines of, “Some people say I’m too beautiful to be

Aboriginal”. But she was very very light skinned, with European features, and didn’t look Aboriginal at all. But it’s weird though, because Blackfellas are considered bad, but Torres Strait Islanders are even worse.



318

JW: So are the Black stereotypes are different the Aboriginal ones. Cos we’re supposed to be amazing at sport but is that the same with you guys?

Dt: Well we’ve actually got players who are the best in Australia. Australian sport is full of us now. We got Aboriginals in the NBA, Shot-putters, Football in League and Union, and Aussie Rules…

JW: Really?

Dt: Yea, we got some pretty good players in all sports. Oh no, you’re not gonna be here in February are you? You gotta come back for that. We’ve got a game between us and the Whitefellas. This is the first game they’ve ever allowed us to play. Before then, they wouldn’t play us.

JW: How comes this is the first game?

Dt: Cos they knew that we’d win. And they couldn’t have that. We’d absolutely kick their backsides. And if we did that, it would destroy the myth that we’re drunk, skinny, thin animals who can’t organise a piss-up in a brewery. I’m telling you, I can’t wait for this match. I can’t wait for us kick their arses.

JW: Sounds amazing. I suppose this is something to do with the anniversary of the apology right? Incidentally, how did you feel about that?

Dt: Nah the apology was amazing. Rudd apologised for everything, not just a few things. It was emphatic. I was surprised. I watched the thing live and I did expect a lot. But I didn’t think that it would be that good. But it was incredible. But that doesn’t mean that things are better now. I think things are changing, but I still refuse to celebrate Australia day.

JW: Why’s that?



319

Dt: It’s a day which my people lost their country. Everyone just gets drunk and forgets, but I’m not gonna forget. And I don’t see why everyone forgets. This is still the most racist country in the world. With everyone. Whitefellas got a problem with everyone. If it’s not the Lebos, it’s the Indians, or the Chinese.

There’s always some problem with who belongs where, and what’s right, and what’s supposed to be Australian. Things are changing, but…um…not much.

We’re still the worst people to be. We were given equal pay until the 60s, and we weren’t even considered humans until around then.

I remember once, coming back from somewhere, from this trip that I was on with the kids that I work with…and we passed these Sudanese refugees…very young…they can’t have been in the country for long…anyway, they started to shout things like, “you alcoholics”, “get a job”, “stop sniffing glue”…even they picked up the stereotypes. We, I mean, the kids we were with started calling them “jungle people”.

JW: That’s pretty funny

Dt: Yea I mean everyone’s got their issues right. But it does upset me that we’re always at the bottom. I remember in history finding out that back in the 60s we were still considered flora and fauna. But then that’s the Gubbas for you. I remember an auntie telling me how she used to have to sit on the floor in the cinema if she wanted to watch a film. She wasn’t even allowed to go swimming either. And when she was, I think the law changed or something, she had to wash herself extra hard before she went it. That whole Aussie ‘fair go’ thing never really applied to us eh?

Back in the day, half-caste people had to sign agreements so that they could own land saying that they were white. We had to wear dog tags at this time. And to



320

prove that you were white you had to get a stamp. But people are coming back now. Some think they know everything and are coming back to ‘save us’.

In some towns that I went through in Queensland, or in the Northern Territory, the bars and the shops would have mesh down and bars on the windows – especially in the country side in case Aboriginals rob them. They even have night patrols. And in the Northern Territory right now there’s The Intervention. D’you know about that?

JW: Yea I think I heard a little bit about it.

Dt: Yea well it’s pretty bad huh? You know, it would be good for you to talk to the police. They’re not much better.

JW: So I don’t understand, if this is the way things are, and racism is so bad. Then why would people who are so so pale, or someone like you who could get away with being ‘Italian’, claim Aboriginal heritage. Surely that goes against common sense and self preservation.

Dt: I dunno. Maybe its cos it’s our land. Why are we trying to pretend to be like the

British, when it’s our land?! I know that some Johnny-Come-Lately’s or ‘Whitejust-discovered’s’ do it for the jobs and funding, but you can’t hide what you are sometimes. I don’t what’s wrong with those other people. I mean, if your white or half white, which part of your arm is white and which one is Black?

JW: Yea but I don’t think you understand. Things are very different in England.

Dt: That’s us alright. Despite everything that’s been done to us, we still represent who we are. We all know where our mob is.



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JW: So I suppose that’s what I was trying to get at before – but very badly. Why are you Aboriginal first? What is it that makes you represent your Aboriginal side first?

Dt: Erm, I think it’s the fact that the land is ours. I’ve heard stories of people who’ve come to the city, been amazing footballers, but can’t handle being in the city, and have had to go back to the country. We have a very strong connection with the land. So we still teach people about who we are. Like I said before, I always talk to my aunties about things and they always teach me about my culture. But especially my uncles. You see, in our culture, all our Uncles are fathers and teach us a specific role.

And the thing is, elders are respected to the max. At events they never have to stand

– youngers always given seats to them and they are always served first. If an elder tells you something or talks to you, or tells you stories, it is a sign of respect. Our history is an oral history and is passed down by word of mouth.

If there are ever any problems with the police, I mean if the police have any problems with the kids, they speak to the elders, and then they sort it out with the kids.

JW: So, last question. How would you see me? Am I Black or White?

Dt: …how ever you see yourself? I can’t really speak for you.

JW: Alright, so how would identify Tiger Woods and Obama. They already say that they’re mixed? Do you agree with how they see themselves.

Dt: Yea I don’t mind, but Tiger Woods and Obama don’t need to claim Black heritage because they don’t need to. In Australia, there are very few Black people who aren’t famous for not being Black.



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JW: Ok, well that’s pretty cool. I’m not gonna waste too much more of your time since I’ve taken way too much. Is there anything that you might wanna add, or anything that you’ve forgotten, or were gonna say but I cut you off.

Dt: Nah I’m ok thanks.



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Appendix F – Tables of Results: Redfern

Table 1: Redfern Interviewee’s Demographics

Name Age Sex Parent’s Racial

Group

Job/Status

Brother

Brianna

Rhonda

Maria

Nerese

Kimmy

Mouzone

De’Londa

21

18

18

20

20

20

M

M

F

F

F

F

D: White

M: Indig.

D: Indig.

M: White

D: White

M: Indig.

D: White

M: Indig.

Unknown

24 F D: White

M: Indig.

23 M D: Indig.

Stringer

Bell

Bodie

M: White

20 M D: Indig

M: White

Prop Joe 22 M D: Indig.

M:White

Unknown

Donette

Snoop

Alma

21 F

22 F

D: White

M: Indig.

23 M D: White

M: Indig.

D: White

M: Indig

Grace

Theresa

19 F

23 F

D: White

M: Indig.

D: Indig.

M: White


M: Indig.

Omar 17 M Unknown

D’Angelo 20 M D: Indig

M: White


M: Indig.

Savino 17 M D: Indig

M: White

Media

NEET

College

University

University

University

Lawyer

Taxi Driver

University

Law Student

Middle

Class

NEET

Youth

Worker

Youth

Worker

Uni

Working

Class

Working

Class

Class

Working

Class

Broadcaster Working

Class

Middle

Journo

Artist

Middle

Class

Working

Class

YOT

Uni

NEET/

Rapper

NEET

Social

Group

Working

Class

Class

Class

Class

Class

Working

Class

Working

Class

Working

Class

Middle

Class

Working

Class

Working

Class

Working

Class

Working

Working

Working

Working

Skin Tone Address History

(Most recent first)

Olive New South

Wales Town,

Redfern

Olive Brisbane,

Sydney

Suburb,

Redfern

Medium NSW Town,

Light

Olive

Olive

Light

Light

Light

Dark

Olive

Brown

Brown

Brown

Brown

Brown

Brown

Brown

Medium

Redfern

NSW Town,

Redfern

Redfern

Redfern

Redfern

Redfern

Redfern

Redfern

NSW Town,

Redfern

Redfern

Europe,

Redfern

Redfern

Redfern



324

NSW Town,

Redfern

Queensland,

Redfern

Redfern

Rural NSW,

Redfern

Medium Bankstown,

Redfern

Table 2: Redfern Interviewee’s Demographics and Identification

Name Social Group Skin Tone Identity

Brother

Mouzone

Age Sex Parent’s

Race

21 M D: White

M: Indig.

Job

/Status

Media Working

Class

Olive Aboriginality

Olive Aboriginality Brianna 18 M D: Indig.

M: White

De’Londa 18 F D: White

M: Indig.

College Middle

Class

University Working

Class

Medium Aboriginality

Rhonda 20 F Light Aboriginality

Maria

Nerese

20 F

D: White

M: Indig.

University Working

Class

Unknown University Working

Class

Olive

Olive

Aboriginality

(Nunga &

Murri Group)

Aboriginality

Stringer

Bell

Bodie

Kimmy

24 F D: White

M: Indig.

23 M D: Indig.

M: White

20 M D: Indig

M: White

Prop Joe 22 M D: Indig.

20 F

M:White

Lawyer Middle

Class

Taxi Driver Working

Class

University Working

Class

NEET

Unknown NEET

Working

Class

Class

Working

Light

Light

Aboriginality

Aboriginality

& Barada

Group)

Brown Aboriginality

& Redfern

Brown Aboriginality

Donette

Snoop

Alma

21 F

22 F

D: White

M: Indig.

23 M D: White

M: Indig.

D: White

M: Indig

Youth

Worker

Youth

Worker

Working

Class

Working

Class

Radio Host Working

Class

Medium Aboriginality

Brown

Brown Aboriginality

Light

Aboriginality

& Yella Fella

& Torres

Strait

Islander

Aboriginality Grace

Theresa


M: Indig.

Omar

19

23

F

F

D: White

M: Indig.

D: Indig.

M: White

University Middle

Class

Journalist Middle

Class

Artist

17 M Unknown NEET

Working

Class

Working

D’Angelo


Savino

20 M D: Indig

M: White

M: Indig.

17 M D: Indig

M: White

Uni

NEET /

Rapper

NEET

Class

Working

Class

Working

Class

Working

Class

Brown

Dark

Olive

Brown

Brown

Medium

Aboriginality

& mixed-race

Aboriginality

Aboriginality

Aboriginality

Aboriginality

Aboriginality



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Table 3: Identity Group Headings for Interviewees in Redfern

Name

Brother

Group Headings

- Against the term mixed or ‘half’ - Connection to Land - Skin Tone is not

Mouzone relevant - Hip-Hop

Brianna - Opposed to Shame - identity isn’t a choice - identity is a feeling

De’Londa - identity is a feeling - Closer to Aboriginal relatives - identity isn’t a choice

- History

Rhonda - Connection to the land - History - identity isn’t a choice - identity is a feeling

- Anything other than Aboriginal shows confusion

Maria

Nerese

Stringer

Bell

- identity isn’t a choice - Many identities, although Aboriginal is primary

- History - Skin Tone is not relevant - Personal Racism

- Community Acceptance - Skin Tone is not relevant - Personal Racism

Bodie - identity isn’t a choice - Community Acceptance - Represent Skin

Prop Joe - identity isn’t a choice - identity is a feeling

Kimmy - Skin Tone is not relevant - Community Acceptance - Individual Choice

Donette - Heritage is different from identity - Connection to Land

Snoop

Alma

- Connection to Land - Skin Tone is not relevant - identity is a feeling

- Individual Choice - identity is a feeling - Connection to Land

Grace - Skin Tone is not relevant - Opposed to Shame

Theresa - Identity is a feeling – Gender - Education

Barksdale - identity is a feeling - History - Many identities, although Aboriginal is primary

- Colour dictates - Arsenal FC

Omar - identity isn’t a choice - Colour dictates - Connection to land - Closer to

Aboriginal relatives - Hip Hop

D’Angelo Individual Choice - History

Wee-Bey - History - Opposed to shame

Savino - History - Environment – Money - Skating - Graffiti



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1

1

1

1

1

1

2

2

1

1

1

1

1

2

2

3

2

6

3

7

7

3

Table 4: Frequency of Reasons for Identity Choice

Frequency

8

Groups identity is a feeling

7 identity isn’t a choice

History

Connection to Land

Skin Tone is not relevant

Community Acceptance

Opposed to Shame

Individual Choice

Hip Hop

Personal Racism

Closer to Aboriginal relatives

Many identities, although Aboriginal is primary

Colour dictates

Anything other than Aboriginal shows confusion

Against the term mixed or ‘half’

Represent Skin

Heritage is different from identity

Gender

Education

Arsenal FC

Environment

Money

Skating

Graffiti



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Table 5: Issues Raised by Interviewees

Name

Brother

Mouzone

Brianna

De’Londa

Rhonda

Maria

Nerese

Stringer Bell

Bodie

Prop Joe

Kimmy

Donette

Snoop

Alma

Identification

Aboriginal

Aboriginal

Aboriginal

Aboriginal

Aboriginal (Nunga and Murri

Group)

Aboriginal

Aboriginal

Aboriginal

Aboriginal

Aboriginal (Barada Group)

Aboriginal and Redfern

Aboriginal and Torres

Straight Islander

Aboriginal and Yella Fella

Issues Raised

Northern Territory

Railway

City/Rural

Rugby

Relationships

Redfern history

Rugby

Apology

Land

Land

History identity

History

Present Discrimination

Stolen Generation identity

Women’s Rights

Northern Territory

Police brutality

White Ignorance/Racism

Stolen Generation

History


Stolen Generation identity (shame)

Stolen Generation

History

Apology identity (skin tone) identity

Grace

Theresa

Barksdale

Omar

D’Angelo

Wee-Bey

Aboriginal

Aboriginal and mixed-race

(Brownie)

Aboriginal

Aboriginal

Aboriginal

Aboriginal identity


White Ignorance/Racism Stolen

Generation

Railway identity

Hip Hop

Skating Savino Aboriginal



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Table 6: Frequency of Issues Spoken about by Interviewees

No Subject

1 Stolen Generation

2 White Ignorance/Racism

5

6

3

4

7

History of Abuse/Colonialism identity

Land rights

Railway

City/Rural

8

9

Rugby

Apology

10 Present Discrimination

11 Women’s rights

12 Police Brutality

13 Male/female relationships

14 Northern Territory

15 Skin tone

16 Hip-Hop

17 Skating

18 Aboriginal Culture

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

2

1

2

2

3

2

4

4

2

Times

5

5



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Appendix G – Example Brixton Interview

Example of interview in Brixton with Be’lal and myself, Jacob Whittingham (JW).

Jacob Whittingham … and that’s it basically. And it’s just about, um, like I’ve started to record it but like obviously I don’t use names or anything like that…But yeah, basically it’s just, like it’s just, it’s nothing serious, nothing heavy, so it’s just about like, um, so the project is basically, yeah, just about identity of mixed people and stuff. So I’m just going to like just ask you just questions about like your identity and just how you feel about it, and, um, like, well, if there’s anything that’s like a bit, um, that you don’t feel comfortable answering, then just say so, and it’s cool, it’s no problem, it’s no big thing. Um, so yeah, just like the first thing, oh yeah, so, um, so what’s your parents’ background then?

Be’lal My dad’s Jamaican and my mum’s French.

JW Oh, French?

Bn Yeah.

JW How, man! So your mum’s like, is your mum actual French-French?

Bn Yeah.

JW So can you speak French?

Bn Yeah.

JW You can?

Bn Mm.

JW Fluent? 100%

Bn Yeah, 100%.



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JW Damn! That’s very skilful! So is that …? Okay, that works for ladies, obviously, that’s kind of…

Bn I don’t even use it that often, to be honest, because I take it for granted, do you know what I mean, sort of for me it’s..

JW Really? Yeah, no that’s true, that’s true, yeah, yeah, true.

Bn Yeah, that’s what it is.

JW Okay, that’s kind of mad, okay, that’s decent. How do you actually, how do you even know Geivlan then?

Bn Oh, we know each other from athletics, because we both used to athletics.

JW Do you do a lot of athletics?

Bn We used to …

JW He’s so stiff! Bnnd I was like … ((laughs))

Bn Yeah, yeah. But I used to do athletics, like Crystal Palace.

JW Yeah, yeah. What distance does he run?

Bn Oh, he did the 100 metres! ((laughs)) Yeah! So we met through there, um, then, obviously then realised that we live in the same area and we didn’t even know that before athletics, and I was just, yeah.

JW Okay, fair enough, that’s decent, I’m impressed. Um, okay, and so your dad’s

Jamaican then, yeah?

Bn Yeah.

JW Okay, cool. And then, so like, so what do you, um, like if someone says like,

‘What are you?’ how do you normally say?



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Bn I’m never really asked that but I just tell them I’m mixed race really, because nowadays people see mixed race as like a race, kind of thing, you know what I mean?

JW Yeah, yeah, that’s true, that’s true.

Bn So yeah.

JW And so are there any, are there any words that you, um, any names that you don’t like being used to describe you?

Bn I don’t really mind, to be honest. Some people I know, some people get offended, say, if some people put them half-cast, but for me, I see it more as like a description of your mixed race and you’d be like: like that guy is mixed race but he’s quarter- cast so he’s not classed as black, he’s quarter black, he’s quarter, half black. It doesn’t really bother me, to be honest, you know what I mean?

JW Yeah, true, true, no, that’s true. And so like if, um, and so like, okay, and this is kind of like a bit of a difficult question, but like if, like where do you, like where do you feel like you sit? Like are you one of these people, like do you feel like:

I’m just mixed, straight up? Or do you feel like: I’m mixed but I’m closer maybe to my French side, or closer to my Jamaican side? Or isn’t it even something you think of?

Bn To be honest, I don’t really think about that. Um, obviously you can’t really feel like white because you don’t look white, that’s different. But then at the same time you have like black people don’t really see you … some might see you as black, others might see you as like not ((00:03:09?)) black, do you know what I mean, so you can’t really rely on that. So, at the end of the day, I don’t really think about it, because to be honest, like, that’s probably the thing, because I don’t really have any sort of like particular black pride or white pride,

I don’t really have any sort of racial pride, it doesn’t really bother me. It’s not like a bad thing or a good thing, it’s just not something that crosses my mind,



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do you know what I mean, so I can’t really relate when certain people, you know, go on like Black History month, or ‘I’m really proud’ because I don’t really get that feeling.

JW Yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, um, why do you think that is, um …?

Bn Because you don’t really have, um, you don’t really, you don’t really have a sense of belonging, if you understand that. I see mixed race as not really being a race; I see it as like you’re a mixture of like two things. So you’re basically, you’ve got, you’re basically on your own, and you don’t really have, you can’t relate to your parents because your parents ain’t like you, you know what I mean? So you basically just have to, you’re there on your own, just, you’re an individual, I see myself as an individual more than like needing to belong to a certain tribe or group, or whatever. Do you know what I mean? It doesn’t bother me, it just makes you stronger, do you know what I mean, and more confident with what you do, do you know what I mean, because you can do stuff by yourself, you don’t need the approval of other people.

JW Yeah, that’s true, that’s interesting, actually, yeah, yeah, because that’s, because that’s kind of like a, that’s a unique way of looking at it …

Bn It works two ways, though. I mean some people feel lonely and they don’t like being mixed race and all that, because they don’t have a sense of belonging. I kind of like, you know, because I’m quite, I’m a bit of a loner sometimes, I like being alone and, do you know what I mean, and doing my own thing, instead of having to, you know, feel like I belong with these lot, or with that lot, do you know what I mean, I’m more like I’d rather just do my own thing, you know.

JW Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s true, that’s true. And so do you feel like, um, and so I suppose for you, like, then, um, yeah, so like in terms of what’s important to your identity, would you say that ethnicity, how, how high is that?

I mean like is being like, I don’t know, like, like being interested in athletics, or



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being interested in your studies, or your job, or even your gender, is that more important than race? Or is race like …?

Bn No, race doesn’t really matter to me at all, to be honest. I’d much rather focus on, you know, my future and getting money and, you know, my life, rather than focus on, you know, who, what I am, because it can be your whole life, the whole of your life, trying to figure out what you are, and so you’re never going to, you’re never going to come to the conclusion to issue…

JW Yeah, true. Yeah, no that’s true, that’s true.

Bn Everyone, everyone’s got something to say, do you know what I mean. When you meet somebody in the street, if you ask them, they’ll always have something different to say than the next person. Everyone’s got something different to say so there’s no real right or wrong answer, do you know what I mean.

JW And so do you think that is, because is that a lot of that down to, in fact yeah, how come you have that attitude? Is that because you’re, like your parents, like were they quite, um, open with like exactly how you defined yourself, or

…?

Bn Not really, to be honest, because I don’t live with my father anyway, so, um, I live with my mother, so I’ve really, I don’t, do you know, I don’t even really know, because, er, it’s not even, with me, like mixed race isn’t really like the main thing because I can understand that, and another issue, for example, has been, you know, be, feeling more French than English, because at home, you know, I speak French …

JW Oh, you speak French at home?

Bn I speak French at home, so I mean I learnt French before I spoke English. I was born here, bred here, and everything, but in our home I speak French and all that. Um, so, so I’d say more times people more kind of say, oh, like ‘You’re



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French rather than you’re mixed race.’ So it’s never really been an issue for me, do you know what I mean, because it’s not like I’ve had like two English speaking parents, do you know what I mean, I’ve got like one that don’t speaking English, one that does, and all that. If you think too much then, you know! ((laughs))

JW Yeah, true. No, that’s true, that’s true! ((laughs))

Bn Know what I mean?

JW Yeah. No, that’s true. And so I take it, like, um, when it comes to hanging out with people, like, um, do you have like, does it tend to be more of like a black crew, or a mixed crew, or white crew?

Bn That’s funny you say that, actually, because at school I had a lot of Asian friends. Um, outside of school I had a lot of black friends. I’ve got one or two white friends, but it’s because I don’t think, I think it’s a certain type of white person who’d have to, because, I don’t know, I don’t even think it’s about colour, I think it’s more like social, it’s like social class, so I think it’s that more than anything. It just happens to be that from the social class we’re in, there happens to be more, you know, um, ethnic, minorities. Obviously I haven’t got a problem with white friends, I haven’t got a problem with white people, you know what I mean, I’m cool with everything. Er, I think it’s more, er, that white people feel a more, a bit cautious to approach, you know what I mean, er, a minority gang, that’s what it is, because, yeah.

JW Yeah. No, that’s true, that’s true; that’s a good point actually. And so, yeah, no I, so suppose, um, like, and what about even, like what about dating, like when it comes to girls, like is it more … ((laughs))

Bn ((laughter)) I’m lucky if anything come my way! Again you obviously have preferences: you know, big batty, big tits! That’s basically it, I don’t really mind about the colour or whatever, do you know what I mean? But I always rate, um, black men that go out with white chicks because, you know, they get a lot



335

of black girls screaming for that, do you know what I mean? And I’m thinking: why, though? Do you know what I mean? Because you don’t, I think, to be honest, it’s because white guys don’t really dig black chicks, in general. Some, or two might, generally, but most of them don’t, so it’s like when a black guy goes out with a white girl, then the black girl’s a kind of … taken on and nothing left, you know what I mean.

JW Yeah, no that’s true, that is true, yeah, yeah.

Bn That’s what I think. But I don’t really care who you’re talking to, you know what I mean, date who you like, do you know what I mean.

JW And so I take it, even when you think about like with children, or whatever, and like even like a potential like wife or whatever, although that’s a long way in the distance, but like does that like, do you think about kind of what they might look like or …?

Bn Funny you say that, like a couple of month, like I mean a year ago I was thinking that I could have a kid for like every race, do you know what I mean. I could have a Chinese looking kid, or a black kid, or a white looking kid, an Asian looking kid; you could have whatever you like because you’re able to do it.

Um, but at the end of the day, you know, I’m more of, if it was a wife thing, it would have to be personality, straight up; you’d have to have the mind-set rather than, I’d look more into the mind rather than the looks and the colour, do you know what I mean. But if all of them are combined, well, obviously colour don’t matter, but obviously looks and the mind does matter, yeah, then that’s fine.

JW True, true. Yeah, yeah, no that makes a lot of sense. And like, okay, so, um, so if you became like, so what’s your passion, like what are you kind of really interested in?

Bn Um, well, that’s hard! ((laughs)) Um, I don’t know, I just want to be, just live…Passion’s sort of, kind of went out the window, do you know what I mean,



336

when you kind of, because I used to do athletics, and I took a year out, I took a year out, I had a game, I came back recently, but it’s not really the same, um,

I’m still having doubts whether I should have come back, and stuff like that, you know. It’s one of them things where I’ve got to think about it, like what I really want to do and stuff like that, and that’s probably about it really, though.

JW Because how old are you? Like 20?

Bn No, I’m 19.

JW Oh, 19. Oh, you’ve got time, man, you’ve got lots of time. Most people don’t think like, it’s weird because like when I was 19 it was like by the age of 25 I have to have everything sorted, and then, but do you know what, like by the time you get to 25, actually it’s like one of them things where you realise you’ve got a lot more time than you think you have.

Bn That’s what I’m saying, that’s what I’m saying: like to be honest, I can’t really see much changing by the time I’ll be 25, maybe a little bit more money, um, a bit more matured, I suppose.

JW Yeah, true, true. No, that makes sense. So like have you ever, um, have you ever received, like what do most people think that you are when they see you?

Bn Er, loads of things, loads of … Er, obviously the most obvious one is mixed race, so people think, er, er, some, really some people might think I’m light skinned black. Some people might think: ‘Hold on,’ like, ‘Are you white, have you got black …?’ ((laughs)) Er, I’ll let you guess! Um, some think I’m Latino, um … some people think … somebody said, ‘Oh, if you shaved your head you could be Arab.’ I’m thinking, okay! So many things! Do you know what I mean? So

I’m like I’m whatever you want me to be! That’s about it.

JW So do you mind if people come up to you and like ask?

Bn I like, I don’t really have people from the random public asking, but obviously like people, obviously you might ask me once you know me, and they don’t



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really ask you, though, it will be until you tell them it’s a bit, ‘Oh, I thought you were this’, or something like that, do you know what I mean? And like back in

Year 7 I was like, I used to have Afro hair, and one black guy said, ‘Oh, you’re mixed race? But I swear your mum’s light skinned.’ And I’m like, do you know what I mean? So I don’t know, it is what it is, because someone’s going to think you’re white, someone’s going to think you’re black, someone’s going to think you’re Latino or something, everything, do you know what I mean?

JW Yeah, true. No, that’s true, that’s true. And like have you ever received, um, like do you ever, have you ever, not necessarily discrimination but like, um, but like maybe denigrating comments based on your ethnicity?

Bn Not being mixed race. At the end of, like most people, if I received any kind of racism, it would be because of being black, but I’m not, I’m not really black so it doesn’t bother me, do you know what I mean, like let someone else worry about that! It don’t bother me, do you know what I mean. No, but I haven’t really been, not really, do you know what I mean, because I don’t, we don’t,

I’ve never been in a position where I’ve just had like just white people, I would just hate it, do you know what I mean. But I think black people … so that’s what I think, so …

JW Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, do you know what, I’ve, even, and even, because it’s interesting, because I’ve got a lot of Asian friends as well, and like, um, I don’t even know why but they’re …

Bn They’re racist towards black people.

JW Yeah, like seriously, and do you know what, I originally thought, because when

I went to uni I was thinking to myself, right, like, so Asian people, like, it’s like kind of my enemy’s enemies are my friends, type thing. So like alright, so they’ve got issue with white people, white guy issues, and white people have issue with black people, so maybe it will be, like we should be cool, and that’s like dating an Asian girl …



338

Bn Yeah, they hate it.

JW … it’s a whole different situation, a whole different situation.

Bn Yeah. Um, but I think it’s because their parents are like old ways against black people. I think most of that came from slavery and things have moved on, er, you know, whether it’s … I tell girls this all the time: ‘Whether you’re wearing

Weave and all that, you’re just trying to be like the white woman.’ They don’t know it, they don’t realise it, and if you tell them it they get mad. Do you know what I mean? If I tell them, for example, you know, ‘Why is it, you know, if you go to the Weave shop why is always run by an Asian man? Why can’t black people look after them themselves?’ But they get mad whenever I say this, you know! Do you know what I mean? But I’m not really kind of, I haven’t really got the notion of, um, being careful with that, because to me race doesn’t really matter to me, so I can’t really feel that, how you would get hurt by that, because I just say it how I see it. Do you know what I mean? But I think, obviously sometimes I get mad at black people because I’m thinking like: come on, like, you’re kind of playing into their hands, do you know what I mean, sometimes, like, and that annoys me. Because whether I like it or not, like I’m sort of, people will see me as black sometimes, so I don’t want to be seen as one of them people; never, I’ve never played a victim, do you know what I mean? Nah.

JW No, I know exactly what you mean, yeah, yeah, no, I get that, I get that. So what do you think like the stereotypes of, then, like of mixed people are?

Bn Of what, guys our age …?

JW Yeah, guys your age.

JW Er, gets better girls, um, sweet, type of thing, er, some lovey dove kind of …, you know what I mean,…and yeah, do you know what I mean? Like the sucker, do you know, I hate that stereotype, I hate it! ((laughs)) Do you know what I mean? Like a lot of the time it will be like, a girl will tell me, ‘Hi, you look really



339

sweet,’ until you open your mouth. Do you know what I mean?...((laughter))

Do you know what I mean? I kind of, it annoys me, because I see, again I see mixed race guys playing to that stereotype, thinking: come on man, it’s corny, do you know what I mean? It is corny, do you know what I mean? Like it’s one of them cringe things, like ahh! Really corny, because that means whenever I go out people think I’m that guy. And I’m sure it’s happened to you as well.

JW Yeah, yeah, no it’s true.

Bn Like think you’re some soft guy as well because you’re, because you’re mixed race. Come on!

JW Yeah, it’s weird because it’s like, like it never really, like it’s, I know when I was a bit younger it was like, it was difficult, like girls would be like: ‘Yeah, like you’re sweet’ and stuff, but like it wouldn’t mean they’d want to go out with you, it was just like: ‘Yeah, you’re nice,’ or like, ‘You’re the type of person I’d want to marry,’ but maybe not like for a while, so it’s kind of just a bit weird.

But what do you think about the stereotypes of mixed, what are the stereotypes of mixed girls?

Bn Slags! They are slags! But that’s because everybody wants them, do you know what I mean? It’s one of them things, it’s crazy, cos black guys want a mixed chick, white guys don’t want a mixed chick. And black girls hate mixed chicks.

Er, white girls, I’m not really, I’ve never really kind of looked into what white girls feel about mixed chicks. Mixed chicks, a lot of the time, think they’re the shit. Um, I don’t know, I don’t really …, do you know what I mean? I think it’s a bit kind of, I wouldn’t go with a girl just because she’s mixed race, do you know what I mean? But mixed race is really not … ((laughs)) Do you know what

I mean? There’s nothing that fazes me, do you know what I mean? So, um, I don’t know, I think, I think a lot of people … but then they say this about us: I would say mixed race girls rely too much on being mixed race, but then they could just say the same thing about mixed race guys, do you know what I mean, so I’m not really going to say that. So I don’t know.



340

JW Yeah, no that’s interesting, that’s interesting.

Bn I don’t really know that many mixed race girls, though, to be honest. I think they’re … I don’t know, I don’t really know that many mixed race girls, I know more mixed race guys than mixed race girls.

JW Yeah, that’s it, that’s it. Yeah, that’s true, actually. And so like if you became really famous, like, would you, um, would it be a situation where … like let’s say like, like there was a newspaper article written about you and it was like, it was like you’re famous and you were doing something, and they were like, yeah, like you’re, like a black role model, and all that, or like you’re a positive black role model, would you feel like, would you feel like, like, you’d feel like you’d want to correct them, even if you’re like, you didn’t but you’d feel a bit like: ‘Okay, that’s not the case because I’m mixed.’ Or would you be a bit like:

‘Right, cool, I’m a role model’?

Bn It’s difficult because in America they see mixed race as being black; you could have a quarter, you could be a quarter black and you’re still black. So in

America it’s like if you’ve got any black in you, you’re black. So that’s why I think they’re, they don’t have mixed race, do you know what I mean, they have like: ‘Oh but he’s black, but he’s biracial.’ So it’s like you’re black and then you describe if you’re mixed race, so you’re black even if you’re mixed race. Over here it’s like you’re, if you’re mixed race you ain’t black, you’ve got to be black, your skin’s got to be black to be black, do you know what I mean? So in the UK it obviously wouldn’t really be like that, they’d probably say mixed race but, do you know what i mean, they wouldn’t say you’re a mixed race model, just say a role model for urban youth, or whatever. Er, in America they can say what they like, it’s not really bothering me, do you know what I mean? At the end of the day, if you correct them you’re going to get, it’s a whole other story and don’t bother me!

JW So do you think you could be like a mixed race role model? I mean like let’s say, like do you think there can be mixed race …?



341

Bn Mixed race role models? ((hesitates)) Er, I don’t, I think so, I think so, because

I know we like to see Drake succeed, we like to see Drake do well.

JW Yeah, we feel it, we feel it.

Bn That’s it. I don’t, personally I think he’s a bit corny sometimes, but sometimes

I’m like, like you can kind of relate to him, so I want him to do well, do you know what I mean? So it’s a bit, a little bit of pride there. Um, I think that’s about as far as it goes, to be honest.

JW ((laughs)) Drake! What about Barack Obama?

Bn Yeah, Barack Obama, again, do you know what I mean, um, yeah, he’s

America’s leader. But then black people want to kind of say he’s black, er, but I don’t know. But then I don’t know, I’ve had, obviously I’ve heard some, ‘No, he’s not black, he’s mixed’, okay, that’s fair enough! You know what I mean?

Um, but in America he’s black. I don’t know. He, he couldn’t really be white, though, could he?

JW That’s the thing.

Bn Yeah, he couldn’t be white.

JW But that’s what I was going to ask you, like, so because like obviously a mixed person can be black, but then do you think a mixed person could be white?

Bn Can’t be white. Actually my brother, actually, because my brother actually looks very white. Um, I ended up looking more like my father and he ended up looking more like my mum. Um, so yeah, most people don’t even think he’s mixed race, or like he looks more like, er, like Algerian or Iraqi or something like that, do you know what I mean? So I think he could, I think he’s going to find it easy to be more white, but then I think that’s going to, in the long run he’ll be thinking: ‘Yeah but I don’t really like these lot …,’ say if they’re like guarding black people, and everything, feel a certain way, because they might not know he’s black, do you know what I mean. That’s what I think. But I, me



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personally, er, I don’t know. I always assume people are going to think that I ain’t white, but I don’t mind if they do think I’m white, do you know what I mean? I don’t mind if they do! It’s just like I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t rely on it, do you know what I mean, I wouldn’t go uncover as a white guy!

JW ((laughs)) Yeah, true, true. Because even like I found out the other day that

Bob Marley’s mixed.

Bn Yeah, I knew, I always knew.

JW Because his dad’s welsh or something.

Bn Scottish.

JW Scottish, yeah, yeah, yeah, and that’s kind of mad because it’s like yeah, it’s just mad.

Bn People think he’s a black icon and he’s mixed race. His mother’s Jamaican and his father’s Scottish, he’s mixed race, do you know what I mean? But I think in

Jamaica they know he’s mixed race, do you know what I mean. Um, I don’t know, I don’t think it really matters.

JW Yeah. Have you ever been to Jamaica at all?

Bn I’ve been to Jamaica before.

JW So where abouts is your family from in Jamaica?

Bn Kingston. You’re Jamaican as well, yeah? Whereabouts?

JW It’s, well, Portmore basically, so it’s just outside Kingston.

Bn Okay, yeah, yeah, just outside Kingston, yeah.

JW Some swamp outside of Kingston and …

Bn ((00:20:44?))



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JW ((laughs)) It’s a horrible place, it’s a horrible place, yeah it’s not nice, but …

Bn You’ve got a beach, you’ve got Hellshire beach.

JW Hellshire beach is nice, and it’s natural and it’s like, the people actually can go on the beach, it’s not, you know, like, like some company charging for it, but yeah, it’s alright. What did you think of Jamaica then?

Bn Er … obviously it’s very based on the colour of your skin, so someone like me, or you could just be in Jamaica and girls would love you anyway just because you’re like … But it’s not even because they like you, it’s because they’re thinking, right, they can get a nice life, maybe get a good home. But I mean that kind of stuff and it’s like, it’s a bit sad sometimes, I think, can’t you be proud of like who are? Do you know what I mean? Because you say what you want, ‘Yeah I’m proud of this, I don’t like …’ but you ain’t really proud, though.

You ain’t really proud. Do you know what I mean?

JW ((laughs)) Yeah, that’s true, though, yeah. Someone needs to say that to people like that, though.

Bn But then you tell them that and then, you know, they start cussing and whatever. The thing is, they’re in denial, so they’ll never recognise it, do you know what I mean, I just feel sorry for them because I’m thinking, okay, well, maybe one day, like when you’re eighty or something, you might realise. But I don’t think they will, I think it takes, er, there’s got to stop being emphasis on race, do you know what I mean, because racism, you know, it creates division.

But I think racism is needed in society.

JW You think?

Bn Because it’s how governments like keep people separated. It’s like if everyone was like one unit together, people would be a lot more powerful and would have one opinion, you know, everyone would have one opinion on this and that, it wouldn’t be like, ‘No, F**k these guys, we’re together’ do you know



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what I mean. It does make me think, you know, why do you think they call crimes like black-on-black crimes? That’s not needed, do you know what I mean, you don’t hear that white- on-white crime, it’s always black-on-black because it’s meant to make you at home think, ‘Oh, shit black people, crazy,’ and it’s like …, do you know what I mean. So it makes the white person, who doesn’t really know any black people, that’s what black people do. They don’t like black people, their vision. It’s the media like feeds into it; do you know what I mean?

JW No, that’s true, that makes a lot of sense. I mean even it’s like the whole, like that’s, because there’s the whole mixed group thing now, like everyone’s talking about, like kind of … There was a whole series of programmes on the

BBC, like a few weeks ago, about being mixed …

Bn Oh, was there? I didn’t catch that.

JW I heard a lot of things that people were kind of saying, so like this is the thing, so like certain black people were like, ‘Well, like mixed people really like, they need to like stand firm with black people, because if there’s like a mixed group it’s like it further divides people.’ But then, but then even like what you’re saying, it’s like if you just take yourself as an individual and you just take the race out of it, that’s just enough, do you know what I mean.

Bn Yeah, I never really think about race, it’s not a thing that crosses my mind, do you know what I mean. So I never look in the mirror and think what am I? I just think like, you know, I know my name, I’m Be’lal, er, that’s about, that’s all that matters to me, do you know what I mean? Um, yeah, why, why the emphasis on race? Unless you’re trying to, you’re trying to stay away from people and separate each other; do you know what I mean? It doesn’t really bother me.

JW And so, like when you were younger, um, like did you ever … cos obviously the way you are now, like …



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Bn Yeah,

JW … was that, was that because like you’ve gone through a journey, or is that just, maybe just the way you’ve always been?

Bn No, I’ve always been like, and obviously like when you’re a teenager, when you start kind of, when you start thinking, because when you were a little baby you don’t really think about colour and all that, do you know what I mean, you’re, you’re your mum’s son and that’s about it, you assume you’re like your mum, you don’t realise you’re no different. Er, I didn’t even really, really notice, I didn’t even really think about mixed race until I got to about secondary school, because in primary school, like you’re just with all your friends, and at secondary you’re with different people. I mean people would have, you know, four different things being taught, different things. So no, you are kind of confused, because like you’ll, you’ll end up hanging out with a black guy who seems to be more like you. Er, he’ll, he’ll come and speak to you instead of speaking to the white guy. Er, you ended jamming with him. Er, the white people would then kind of, somehow you’re now in a black group, um, you never planned to do it but it’s how it happened, and the white people don’t come and talk to you because you’re in a black crew, you look scary.

Um, yeah, I don’t know, I, I was confused, I was confused. I was thinking like, ah, like I wish if, I was thinking, you know, sometimes thinking, right, if I was born I would have rather be born one colour because you wouldn’t have to go through that madness, having to identify where you are, what you are, where you belong, and all that. Er, you know, but I think if you’re not mixed race you can’t understand it, you can’t understand it, because we can’t even explain it ourself, do you know what I mean, really. You can’t understand it. So a lot of the time, you know, people, people like your mum can tell you something that they don’t know, I mean you’ve got to figure out yourself. Do you know what I mean, a lot of the times it will be like if you’ve got a problem then they’ll somehow assume it’s because you’re confused about your race, but it’s like it’s



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not really, it’s just that it’s something, like somebody’s just annoying me, do you know what I mean. It doesn’t have to be about I’m confused about my race or whatever.

I mean one time I got expelled, and I got back in, and the teacher must have been like: ‘Okay, well, we’ve heard that, you know, it’s because you’ve got some sort of crisis going on.’ And I was like really? ((laughs)) And he was like

‘Yeah’ and he was like, ‘Ah, but basically, you know, put it simple, you’re not, you’re not, you’re black and you’re white, you know, you can’t be both, you’ve got to be one or the other, it’s up to you to decide.’ And I was thinking: okay, like I’m going to make a decision on the spot here, you know, from now on I’m going to be white! Yeah? Nah. Um, but that’s what I mean; they don’t understand it, that’s what I’m saying. So yeah. You’ve just got to, you’ve got to think of it your own way. For me personally, I don’t, it doesn’t matter to me, so … I mean people are free to their opinions and I’m thinking you can’t be getting mad over things because otherwise you’re going to be mad every day, so I don’t really let it play into it, do you know what I mean.

JW Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that’s true.

Bn Like what kind of barber’s do you go to? A black barber’s or white barber’s or what?

JW I had to go to a black barber’s when I was in Brunel

Bn Because that way, you know what I mean, so it’s, you are whatever you are, do you know what I mean?

JW Yeah, that’s true, though, that’s an interesting point, though, that’s true, yeah.

But then that’s, that’s the thing, so for me like it was like yeah, you go to a black barber’s, and then the school I was at, everyone was like, ‘You’re black.’

Well, they, they know you’re mixed but you’re, you’re mixed black. So then you kind of grow up just thinking, okay, so I must be black, but then when



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certain black people start saying you’re not black, you’re kind of in a bit of a situation where it’s like, damn, like … ((laughs))

Bn No, yeah I hear that, but, er, at the end of the day I thought, but who are they to tell me what I am? Just because you’re black what’s, how are you going to tell me if I’m black or not? Like, would you, like, what do you know? You know, you don’t know nothing, like. Because most times, all these people that think they’re black, especially Caribbeans, like you find out, like somewhere along the line, you’re not even that black, you’re about 60% black, you’ve got loads of Indian in you, or you’ve got loads, you’ve even got white in you. But they don’t know that, do you know what I mean, so why are you going to tell me I’m not black? Because of your decision that ‘he ain’t black, he is not black,’ do you know what I mean? Obviously I’m black and I’m white, but I don’t, I’m not, I don’t feel like I am black or I am white, but I’m both, do you know what I’m saying?

JW Yeah, true, true, yeah, yeah. No, that’s true, that’s true. It is, it’s tricky, but then it always gets to a point like, then yeah, like you say …

Bn There’s no conclusion to it, there’s no conclusion to it.

JW So do you think you’ll be … and I know it’s like a stupid question, but do you think you’ll be the same, like do you think as you get older you’ll change your views, or do you think that you feel kind of comfortable in the way you see things?

Bn I’m comfortable how I am now; I wouldn’t want to have no mid-life crisis, it’s black power … I think, because I think I’ve got the best mentality too, do you know what I mean, you’re just not fazed by it, it don’t really impress you, do you know what I mean? Yeah, it just doesn’t, it’s not a thing I think about. I don’t, I don’t know whether my friends think about it or not. Er, I don’t know, for example, in, in my age, you know, me, Geivlan , all of them are black, I don’t really think whether they, you know, really think too much about me



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being mixed race, sort of me being white, they all know my mum, my mum’s white. Er, I don’t know, I’d need to ask them, do you know what I mean. You talk about the same things or you do the same things, do you know what I mean.

JW Yeah, yeah, but I bet they’re thinking ‘He can get girls, though,’ right?

Bn Yeah, but do you know what? They say that, but at the end of the day, you should see Geivlan though!

JW Yeah, no I saw Geivlan, he told me he was stiff, right, he was some stiff guy, then suddenly this girl came in here, like, do you know, like …

Bn I’ve seen him with so many girls.

JW Like the thing is he’s, the guy’s undercover. Like, no I rate him, I rate him a lot.

I didn’t rate him and then like when girls just come in here, like he, he’s got a way about it, though.

Bn ‘Something interesting’s come up, something interesting’s come up.’

JW Yeah, yeah, he’s like that.

Bn ‘Stay there for a second.’

JW Yeah! ((laughs))

Bn Like, ‘Wait here, wait here.’

JW He’s on it, he’s on it! And he knows how to like work it as well, but it is true.

Bn Yeah, I suppose, but there has been some…

JW Do you know what? Because the thing is, his style’s so specific that it will work like really well with some girls, but then other girls will be just like, ‘What are you on? Move away from me.’ But the thing is, like it’s because it’s specific, he’ll either be like a hit or a complete loss.



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Bn A complete mess.

JW It’s not like, alright, we’ll just like, we’ll see how it goes. But then that’s kind of good, at least it saves the time. You know if like a girl’s going to like you or not, and that’s the way he moves.

Bn That’s true, that’s true! ((laughter)) He’s funny, he’s a funny guy.

JW No, he is, he is.

Bn You won’t meet no one like him.

JW Yeah, no, definitely, definitely! ((laughs)) But no, that’s another thing. But yeah, it’s true, though, because like people are always like, people would always say yeah, if you’re light skinned you’ll get girls, but you’re right, though, it’s not always necessarily the case. It’s just the assumption.

Bn I think some people rely on that, though, I think a lot of people just rely on the fact of being light skinned, and then the girls will just assume that you rely on being light skinned. But I don’t even rely on it because most of the time when girls speak to me they’re like: ‘Right, you don’t give a shit.’ Because I don’t, I don’t really care, do you know what I mean, like, um, I haven’t got time to be entertaining, you know, some little girl, it doesn’t, do you know what I mean.

I’ll say how, how I feel, do you know what I mean, I’m not going to try and sweep the story up for you, do you know what I mean.

JW But then that’s the interesting thing. So then do people, some people say to you, ‘Okay, well, like no, actually, hold on a second, you’re confused because you should be more like …’ Because it’s weird, because no matter what position you take, but I mean it might not be the case, but sometimes, whatever position you take, people will always say you’re confused. If you’re black, ‘We know you’re not black.’ If you’re mixed, ‘Hold on, you should be black.’ If you’re white ..



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Bn Yeah, people will assume you’re confused, they’ll assume you’re confused. But it’s like: ‘Not really, you know what I mean, I’m a lot less confused than you are,’ only because I’ve accepted the fact that I’m never going to get to the bottom of this mystery. Do you know what I mean? ‘While you’re here in denial, you’re claiming you’re black and this, but, you know what I mean, only last week you realised that your grandma was Cuban, or something like that, and I know that rocked your world. So are you going to call me confused?

Because I know now you’re thinking really, like what is this whole black thing about? Bnnd I’m not confused, you’re more confused than I am.’ Do you know what I mean?

JW Yeah, true. So then, like, when you see like mixed parentage people, or when you see people like, um, like, so someone like Barack Obama, for example, like do you think, like what ethnicity would you say he is, basically?

Bn He’s mixed race, though, I’d say mixed race because that’s how we’re brought up in England to think. In America you’re probably like he’s black. In America me and you would be black, we definitely wouldn’t be white. Yeah, it depends whether you’re in America or whether you’re in … I don’t know, but in Jamaica

I’m sure they’d probably think you’re, they might call you white, and so I don’t know.

JW Yeah, I was white in Jamaica, I was a white boy.

Bn So I mean yeah.

JW Or a yellow man.

Bn Yeah, but I mean I’m whiter than you so …!

JW So that was hard to take, that was hard, I must, I’ve got to say, that was just, it was weird.

Bn … you never had that before.



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JW But I’ll tell you what was mad: I was in Ghana, right, I got arrested, yeah. Like a long story, but anyway, when I got released the guy was like: ‘Alright, look, like yeah you’ve been released and stuff,’ but he was like, ‘Look, but you have to understand this is what happens to our people when we’re in your country.’

And I was thinking to myself: but you don’t understand, like in England I am black, so now I’m here and I’m getting treated like a, like a white guy, basically, and being imprisoned for being white …

Bn ((laughs))

JW … and then in England I get stopped for BS

Bn Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it’s because they don’t know mixed, they don’t even know mixed race exists. If you’re in Ghana what are you going to know about that? I mean you’ve got, just assume you’re white and play the white cards, you don’t bother explaining you’re half-black, they’re going to be there for ages trying to examine you, like, ‘He’s not black, no he’s not dark-skinned.’

Just play the white card, you know. Um, yeah, I don’t know, because they, they’ve never seen mixed race before, do you know what I mean. Like most of them have never kind of never seen a white person, let alone a mixed race person. And you probably, my skin ain’t too different from a white person’s, er, I’m probably going to be seen as white. And that’s probably about it, they just see the colour and I don’t really think they take the features into account.

It’s just kind of like, do you know what I mean.

JW And so what about you, like, when you see people, um, like do you kind of, like even subconsciously, do you kind of like try and work out what they are? Or, or do you, or is it more of a situation where you, um, where you’d rather … ?

Well, do you, do you think that people basically judge themselves based on the way they look, or … sorry, judge themselves on how they feel, or judge themselves, or should be judged on how they look?



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Bn Um, it’s a hard question. Um, I think that people should feel … I think, first of all you have to be comfortable with yourself, er, and just let other people … you have to justify yourself, yeah, you have to tell the world what you are. Er, you’re still a human being, at the end of the day. Er, as long as you feel comfortable with what you are, as in like you know what you are. You know, it’s not even what you are, you need to know who you are, that’s what I think, and then you’re fine. People, as I said, people always think you’re this or that, or you’re not this, you’re not that; let them think. If you’re comfortable, if you really know yourself, it won‘t bother you. So I mean it won’t bother you. If you feel like you’re leaning more to one side, then you might get offended.

That’s when you will get offended because if a mixed race guy thinks, ‘Oh, he thinks he’s more black than white,’ and suddenly someone tells him something, like: ‘You ain’t black, you’re more white,’ he’s going to get offended by that. Do you know what I mean? Whereas someone like me, I don’t care, I haven’t got time for that, do you know what I mean. I ain’t got time for it!

JW Yeah. No that’s interesting, no that’s true.

Bn You know. Like don’t feel like you have to be like one or the other, know what

I mean, you don’t have to be, you just have to be yourself, that’s what it is, and then people from both will take it or leave it, do you know what I mean?

That’s how I see it. At the end of the day, people say, ‘Oh, what would you do if you was in a war between white and black?’ At the end of the day, like F**k, in a bunker, do you know what I mean? You’d be fine in the war! I’m going to be fine in a war, be at home! You know. That’s what I say. I don’t like … But, but why would there be a fight anyway? Over what? ((laughter))

JW That’s true, that’s true, that’s true.

Bn It don’t really bother me, do you know what I mean. But then what kind of girls would you say I’m more into, black girls or white girls? Well, both, see what I mean. I, I don’t even know. I think all kind of girls like mixed race guys.



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But it’s just sometimes I get wary because it’s like: ‘I know you only like me because I’m mixed race.’

JW That’s the hard thing, that’s, yeah, that’s kind of, yeah, it’s difficult.

Bn They like me because I’m mixed race, but I can’t take it seriously, do you know what I mean. Like a girl, when you first meet her, she’s all throwing herself on you, and all that, and all your friends are there, and you know, you know you ain’t the best looking guy, yeah. If you’re real with yourself there’s no way you’re the best looking guy in the room! ‘And why are you on me?’ ((laughs))

And you know why, do you know what I mean, you know why, it’s just because of your colour.

JW But then the problem is, is like you have expectations so you think: okay, so because I’m mixed, like surely girls will be on me? Because like it’s one of them things, and then when they’re not you’re a bit like: damn, so that doesn’t work then, do you know what I mean?

Bn I don’t really take it for granted, I don’t take, I don’t, I never, I never use my colour as a factor with girls, er, so it never really happens to me like that: she should like me, do you know what I mean. More times, the girls either really like me or they just think I’m a prick, do you know what I mean. It’s

((inevitable 00:37:03?)), do you know what I mean. But if you don’t really know me, yeah he’s okay, but when you get to know me it’s either I’m a good guy or I’m a dickhead, so one or the other. Yeah, and it is what it is, do you know what I mean, it’s not going to bug me, it’s not going to bug me, there are plenty of fishes out in the sea, you know, so …

JW Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s down to game, basically.

Bn Yeah, it’s down to game, it’s all in your head, do you know what I mean, like looks ain’t even … looks is nothing. Do you know what I mean? As I said, you could be a 5 out of 10 and have like loads of money, and whatever, and the girls will still love you. Looks is nothing, you’ve got to be, you’ve got to be like



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reasonable, do you know what I mean, you’ve got to like be presentable, but that’s about it, do you know what I mean. You have to be like some music video star, or some rapper or some singer, do you know what I mean. But the thing I notice is that nowadays people say I look like Drake.

JW Yeah, do you know, I was going to ask you that, I was going to ask you that.

Bn Have you got that?

JW No, no, it’s, before Drake was even big, my cousin was like, showed me a picture, was like: ‘This is who I think you look like.’ And it was just like, I didn’t even really know who Drake was, and this was years ago, like about three years ago, and I was like: I don’t see it myself. But then there’s something where I always get everything, like, um, what’s the …?

Bn If you got your haircut you’d look like, people tell you you look like Drake.

JW Yeah, there was Drake, so there was Drake as well, because I used to have my hair short. Then it became Lewis Hamilton, and Lewis Hamilton was ages ago

…

A Okay, yeah, yeah.

JW … like just because he’s mixed, and now it was like, and then Theo Walcott …

Bn Like Theo Walcott looks like Lewis Hamilton, they kind of look the same.

JW Yeah, that’s true, that’s true. And then there was Jermaine Pennant, Jermaine

Pennant’s the new one …

Bn Yeah, I can see that, I can see that…But that’s not even because of your colour, it’s more because of the…

JW Yeah. I don’t really mind it, to be honest, it’s one of those things where, like it’s cool.



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Bn Um, now Drake, now come on, man, I don’t look nothing like him! ((laughter))

Someone famous like, like a girl was saying, ‘Oh, like, um, you know, you look like … my God, you look like Drake!’ We was talking about that. ‘Really?’ I’m like ‘Really?’

JW Just start spitting some ballads around! ((laughter))

Bn But I think it’s just because I had my hair a little bit longer then, because I had a shape up and that, so I mean it’s because I had a shape up, but I’m pretty much the same colour as Drake. So yeah, ‘You Drake?’ But I’m lucky, there’s a guy in my form that was more like Drake than me.

JW Oh, is there?

Bn Yeah.

LW Is that door open?

JW No.

LW Can you open it?

JW Yeah, you can, just …

LW I’m going to unlock this one. I can give you the key.

JW Cool, cool.

Bn Yeah, this guy looks more like Drake than me, but he thinks I look more like

Jake than him! I don’t care…I’m not going to let Drake …

JW But do you get rated for it at all?

Bn What?

JW Nice.

Bn From girls?



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JW Yeah.

Bn I don’t know, I’ve never really … I must say I’ve met some girls that just assumed, they say I look like Drake so obviously I don’t know if they’re really saying that because they like me or I look like Drake. But I wouldn’t want to look like Drake, do you know what I mean. So I think that’s a bit like, if someone says I look like Drake I go to a black guy: ‘You look like 50 Cent,’ and that’s about as close as it gets!

JW Exactly, yeah, just a mad generalisation.

Bn Like even you get like the darkest girl, telling her, ‘Oh, you know, you look like

Kelly Rowland.’ ((00:40:01?)) No. It’s like calling me Drake, do you know what

I mean? That’s just how it is.

JW Yeah, true, no that’s true. Yeah, that’s a mad one.

Bn Telling a man, ‘You look like Fiddy

JW ((laughs)) That’s harsh! But it’s true, though, it’s true.

Bn It’s the same, do you know what I mean?

JW Yeah, yeah. Yeah, true, true.

Bn But it’s a funny things…But obviously, as I said, we like to see him do well.

JW Mm, yeah, yeah.

Bn Because he is sort of, he’s the first black biggest star there is out there.

JW What’s up? ((door opening)) Oh nice, nice one. Yeah, that’s kind of weird, though.

Bn It is, it is but always they’ll tell you you look like this and that, I think, I just don’t really see it! I don’t see it but …



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JW You see, now that, yeah, that’s true, yeah. I’m thinking … so does anyone say you look like anyone else, or is it just Drake?

Bn When I had cornrows people used to say I looked like Max B.

JW ((laughs))

Bn That’s about it.

JW What’s that rapper called, French, as well?

Bn French Montana, yeah.

JW Yeah, yeah.

Bn I’ve had that as well. What, you thinking that?

JW ((laughs)) No, I was just thinking, because I’m thinking of rappers, because when you said Max B I was like okay, and then I say, oh yeah, French Montana.

Bn No, I’ve heard people say I look like French Montana but French Montana is like half Somali and half Moroccan.

JW Is he half Somalian?

Bn Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Obviously colour, he’s got like kind of skin like us, er, his hair’s not really like us. But I don’t know, at the end of the day, he might have a tash like mine but that’s about it! That’s about it really.

JW That’s true.

Bn Yeah, French Montana, I like their music, though.

JW Yeah, yeah. No, the music’s decent, yeah.

Bn It’s my music, so …! But obviously I think it’s good people … I don’t know, I think it’s good that, I think it’s ((00:42:21?)) taken over, kind of predominantly



358

dark skinned people’s share of the hard music and ((00:42:28?)) I think it’s good that everyone’s getting into it, even white people.

JW Mm, and that’s more acceptable as well, that’s the thing, that people kind of accepted it. Yeah, that’s true, yeah, yeah. Yeah that’s true. Yeah, man. No, that’s much appreciated, that’s, that was it, basically, that was it. Yeah, yeah.

Sorry it took a bit longer than I thought it did. Yeah, that’s it.



359

Appendix H – Tables of Results: Brixton

Table 1: Redfern Interviewee’s Demographics

Name

Algarin

Age Sex Parents Race

Narishma 19 M D: Black (Ghana)

M: White (English)

23 M D: Black (N.K)

M: White (English)

Minly 21 F D: Black (Ghana)

M: White (German)

Kisman

Lyrelle

Zack

Harella


M: White (English)


M: White (Irish)


M: White (English)


M: White (English)

Maigan 24 F D: Black (Jamaican)

M: White (English)

Trakand 17 M D: Black (Jamaica)

M: White

(England/Italian)

Kumira 21 F D: (Danish)

M: (Ethiopian)

Job/Status Social Group Skin Tone Address History

NEET Working

Class

Medium Brixton

Medium Brixton Social

Worker

Working

Class

Teacher Middle

Class

College

Olive Germany

Denmark

Brixton

Medium Brixton

College

Working

Class

Working

Class

Brown Brixton

Fair Brixton NEET Working

Class

University Middle

Class

University Middle

Class

College Working

Class

Medium

Medium

Medium

Haringey,

Brixton

Brixton

Brixton

Intern

College

Middle

Class

Brown Denmark

Belgium,

Brixton

Brown Brixton Herminon 18 F D: Black (Guyana)

M: White (English)


M: White (English)


Jagad

(Suriname/Guyana)

M: White (Irish/Eng)


M: (Trini/Batian)

Cain

Nyram


M: White (English)


M: White (English)

Nachiman 18 F D: Black (Jamaican)

M: White

(French/English)

Nachenin 18 F D: White (Australia)

M: Black (Jamaican)


M: White (Irish)


M: White (French)

College

College

Middle

Class

Working

Class

Middle

Class

NEET

NEET

Working

Class

Footballer Working

Class

Working

Class

College Working

Class

College

College

NEET

Working

Class

Working

Class

Working

Class

Medium Brixton

Fair Brixton

Medium Brixton

Medium Brixton

Medium Brixton

Olive Brixton

Medium Brixton

Fair

Fair

Brixton

Brixton



360

Table 2: Redfern Interviewee’s Demographics and Identification

Name Age Sex Parents Race

Narishm a

19 M D: Black (Ghana)

M: White (English)

Algarin 23 M D: Black (N.K)

M: White (English)

Minly 21 F D: Black (Ghana)

M: White (German)

Kisman 17 M D: Black (Jamaican)

M: White (English)

Lyrelle 18 F D: Black (Jamaican)

M: White (Irish)

Zack 20 M D: Black (Jamaican)

M: White (English)

Harella 22 F D: Black (Jamaican)

M: White (English)

Maigan 24 F D: Black (Jamaican)

M: White (English)

Trakand 17 M D: Black (N.K)

M: White (???)

Kumira 21 F D: (Danish)

M: (Ethiopian)

Hermin on

18 F D: Black (Guyana)

M: White (English)

Job/Status Social

Group

NEET Working

Class

Social

Worker

Working

Class

Teacher Middle

Class

College Working

Class

College

NEET

Working

Class

Working

Class

University Middle

Class

University Middle

Class

College Working

Class

Intern

College

Middle

Class

Middle

Class

Skin Tone Identity

Medium Mixed Race

Medium Mixed Race

Olive Mixed Race

Medium Mixed Race

Brown

Fair

Mixed Race

Mixed Race

Medium Mixed Race

Medium Mixed Race

Medium Mixed Race


M: White (English)


(Suriname/Guyana)

M: White (Irish/Eng)

Jagad

Cain


M: (Trini/Batian)


M: White (English)

Nyram 21 F D: Black (Jamaican)

M: White (English)

Nachim an


M: White

(French/English)

Nacheni n

18 F D: White (Australia)

M: Black (Jamaican)


M: White (Irish)


M: White (French)

College

College

NEET

Working

Class

Class

Class

Class

Class

Class

Class

Middle

Working

Class

Footballer Working

Class

NEET

College

College

College

NEET

Working

Working

Working

Working

Working

Brown Mixed Race

Brown Mixed Race

But British

Citizen

Medium Mixed Race

Fair Mixed Race

Medium Mixed Race

Medium

Medium

Olive Dual

Heritage

Medium Mixed Race

Fair

Fair

Mixed Race

Mixed Race

Mixed Race

Mixed Race



361

Table 3: Identity Group Headings for Interviewees in Redfern

Name

Narishma

Group Headings

-Society -Colour Dictates -War

Algarin -Society -Mum is more Black -Racism

Dachen

Jhondar

Jagad

Cain

Nyram

Nachiman

Nachenin

Namelle

Be’lal

Minly

Kisman

Lyrelle

Zack

Harella

Maigan

Trakand

Kumira

Herminon

-Family both -Still learning

-Society -Not accepted by either -Environment (black)

-Still learning -Not accepted by either

-Environment -Accepted by both

-Accepted by both -Don’t want to choose

-More numbers -Still learning

-Family both -Mum is more black

-Environment -Not accepted by either

-Am more British -Race not important -Don’t wanna choose -More numbers

-Closer to white family -Don’t want to be MR/Black stereotype

-Am more English -Skin Tone -Family both -Closer to Black

-Closer to black family –Racism

-Racism -Closer to black family –Society -Don’t wanna choose

-Feel both -Society -Family both

-Not either –Society -History black

-History -Dad more black -Don’t want to choose

-Am both -Black family

-Society -Black friends -Skin tone -Race not important -Racism



362

I

Table 4: Frequency of Reasons for Identity Choice

Frequency

7

Groups

-Society

4 -Racism

1

1

1

1

2

2

2

2

2

Total

3

3

3

3

4

3

4

4

3

-Family both

-Closer to black family

-Don’t want to choose

-Closer to Black people or friends, or live in Black environment

-Still learning

-Colour Dictates

-Not accepted by either

-More numbers

-Feel both

-Environment

-Mum is more Black

-History

-Am more English/British

-Race not important

-War

-Accepted by both

-Closer to white family

-Not either

External – 29

Family – 11

Internal – 15



363

Table 5: Issues Raised by Interviewees

Name

Algarin

Identity

Narishma Mixed

Race

Mixed

Race

Minly

Kisman

Lyrelle

Mixed

Race

Mixed

Race

Mixed

Zack

Harella

Maigan

Trakand

Race

Mixed

Race

Mixed

Race

Mixed

Race

Mixed

Race

Kumira Mixed

Race

Herminon Mixed

Race /

British

Citizen

Dachen

Jhondar

Jagad

Cain

Mixed

Race

Mixed

Race

Mixed

Race

Mixed

Race

Nyram Mixed

Race

Nachiman Dual

Heritage

Nachenin Mixed

Race

Namelle Mixed

Race

Issues Raised/frequently mentioned issues

-Girls

–Japan -African corruption

-Hair -Girls -Music -MR external attitude

-Food -Boys -MR external attitude

-Music -Hair

-Hair -MR external attitude

-Jamaica

-MR external attitude

-Girls -Self-Identity -MR external attitude

-Family -MR external attitude

-Family -MR Boys -MR external attitude

-Racism -Ballet -Hair -Self-Identity

-Self-Identity -MP Girls

-Media -Skin Lightening -Racism -Family

-Self-Identity

-MR external attitude -Self Identity

-Australia -Self Identity

-MR Boys

-Family

-Self Identity

Be’lal Mixed

Race

-Self Identity

- MR external attitude



364

Table 6: Frequency of Issues Spoken about by Interviewees

No Subject

1 Self-Identity

Times

8

2 MR external attitude

3 Girls

8

4

4 Hair

5 Family

6 Racism

7 Food

4

3

2

2

8 Music

9 Boys

10 Japan

11 African Corruption

12 Jamaica

13 Ballet

14 Media

15 Skin Lightening

16 Australia

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

2

2



365

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Abstract - UWE Research Repository

Is

Mixed-race

A

Colour?

The Factors Involved in the

Construction of the Mixed-race

Identity

By Jacob Whittingham

Table of Contents

Page no.

Acknowledgements iv

Acronyms and Abbreviations vii

Glossary viii

Chapter 1: Introduction 1

Chapter 2: Literature Review 43

Chapter 3: Methodology 98

Chapter 4: Analysis and Interpretation 142

Redfern, Australia

Chapter 5: Analysis and Interpretation 192

Brixton, UK

Chapter 6: Conclusion 244

Appendices 291

Bibliography 366

Acknowledgements

Acronyms and Abbreviations

NT:

AB.:

F.:

Northern Territory

Aboriginal

Female

IDPs: Internally Displaced Person Camps

Indig.: Indigenous

UK:

Uni:

USA:

M.: Male

NEET: Not in Education, Employment or Training

N.K: Not Known

NSW: New South Wales

United Kingdom

University

United States of America

Glossary

“If I was born one colour…wouldn’t have to go through all this madness, having to identify where you are, what you are, where you belong, and all that…No-one but us can understand.”

(Be’lal, Brixton)

Chapter One: Introduction

Chapter Two: Literature Review

Chapter Three: Methodology

Introduction

Section One: Identity

Section Two: World View

Section Three: Photo Elicitation

Section Four: Language

Section Five: Mannerisms and Body Language

Section One: Identity

Section Two: World View

Section Three: Photo Elicitation

Section Four: Language

Section Five: Mannerisms and Body Language

Chapter Six: Conclusion

Appendices

Appendix A – Interview Questions

Appendix B – Skin Tone Classification Scale

Appendix C – Contact With Gate Keepers and Interviewees

Appendix D – Additional Interviewees

Appendix E – Example Sydney Interview

Appendix F – Tables of Results: Redfern

Appendix G – Example Brixton Interview

Appendix H – Tables of Results: Brixton

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