Where Mixed-Race People Can Vent

Mixed-race black woman. ~If you would like for your ask to be answered privately, please say so in your message~

[mixedgirlrants]

Ok so I'm white (?) (or is it white-passing?) so I have white privilege and stuff but I'm wondering if I can really identify as mixed race because I'm like 33% non-white. My dad is mixed race latinx-white and my mum is white but her family is from Indonesia and I don't know much but I think my great-grandmother was mixed dutch-indonesian so my mums 13% Indonesian so we are all tiny lol.

I feel like I just have to shut up and accept I'm white and can't say I'm mixed and that I'm saying this because I want to be more special or something.

-

[mixedgirlrants]

Hello there! I'm a 26 year-old visual artist and illustrator born and raised in Argentina. I've been thinking a lot lately about my art, I want to expand my representations, to explore through art struggles that I feel are important as an activist. My great great grandmother on my mother's side was indigenous and my grandfather on my father's side was north african. I've lived my whole life in a south american country where people still claim to be mainly white (even when that is clearly not the case), and in our culture, racism isn't acknowledged. As a result, I've spent my whole life thinking that I'm white until I did some research into my family tree, I started reading and getting involved. I feel like I don't know exactly what to call myself. I have a strong desire to know more about my great grandmother's people. My father (who is very old) has tried to give me some info abour my grandfather. But I still don't feel entirely comfortable calling myself mixed race, I don't know if I can, if I'll offend somebody. I want to paint and draw from a different perspective, I want to take time to rediscover my identity, connect to my ancestors, and rethink my art, but then I feel like a fraud. I'm so scared of being insensitive and of making a mistake.

You can learn more about your family’s ancestry and culture without claiming to be mixed race or changing how you identify in any way. As long as you do not try to claim this ancestry as a way to seem more “exotic“, there’s nothing wrong with becoming more informed.

[mixedgirlrants]

I’m part Chinese and Cherokee but I look completely white, and it wicks because I feel like I can’t claim it if I don’t look like it. But I also feel bad because I’m upset that I’m white passing while people are literally being killed for not passing. Just guilt all around

You can have emotions about your own experiences while acknowledging that there are other people who are more marginalized and “have it worse“. Denying your own experiences will not help you heal. Also, you’re allowed to claim your cultures while all of these things are true as well.

[mixedgirlrants]

My mom is white and my dad is Sri Lankan (Sri Lanka is a small country most people don’t know about—it’s below India). Being Sri Lankan in the U.S. is already lonely because they make up such a tiny percent of the population, but being mixed is even more isolating. The only people I’ve met who are like me are my siblings, and they also carry the burden of not fitting in anywhere. I’ve never been white passing but I’m definitely ethnically ambiguous, so people would assume I was Mexican or native growing up. I was called “Pocahontas” too many times, and white women would always say “wow, how exotic” when they’d see me/hear my Sri Lankan name. I grew up surrounded by white people and wishing everyday that I was white. It wasn’t until I moved to the city and started meeting more poc that I started getting teased and othered by monoracial poc for being half white, which was even more isolating. My entire life I’ve just wanted to fit in somewhere. I wish I could meet more mixed people, especially people like me. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so alone.

-

[mixedgirlrants]

Im so tired of white people fetishizing mixed-race people.im not your post-racial future, not your lightskin blue eyed- baby, not your exotic creature.Its exhuasting to be around a white father who micro-agresses against me. Its alienating to grow up without experiencing my other heritages culture. Its isolating being the only poc in my friend group because the asian girls dont accept me either. I wish i could just connect with someone who has the same feelings, to finally be validated after so long.

-

[mixedgirlrants]

when i was growing up the topic of us being mixed came up then and again but i thought they meant Really distant.k ids teased me and called me names because when i was little i was less wpassing. when i was a teen people would constantly call me fetishizing things, usually in relation to e. asian girl stereotypes (were not e. asians). i realized recently the heritage my family brought up so often wasnt so distant at all, so i tried to dig (1/?)

but my family gives me avoidant or straight up contradictory answers. i could be anywhere btwn 1/2 n 1/8th nonwhite & i have no clue "what", just that it's some ethnicity from west/central asia. practically all documents which could give me even the slightest hint were lost in WW2, and my family, like i said won't talk to me. i grew up thinking im white, even as i experienced racism. now that im more wp, even though im more aware of my heritage, it feel wrong saying im mixed. i always end up piling on statements about how im Actually whitepassing, Actually more white than not, even though i still experience racism esp. fetishization even today i feel like i just dont Get to access those spaces. i brought it up with another friend who is half japanese and she legit stopped being friends with me over it because she felt i was making it up/racefaking because i didn't bring it up before. i feel so weird, like i should just forget it and keep saying im just white.

[mixedgirlrants]

(tw for like, stuff? possibly? a lot of it is barely touched upon but i know it could need it.)

my father was native american, and his biological parents were too (he was one of the ones that was forcibly adopted as far as i was able to discover) and my mom was white, and i grew up with my father mostly absent after about 5. i feel really uncomfortable calling myself mixed or native, because im definitely white passing and i dont really think i look like anything else besides that (i didnt have any examples growing up besides whatever my mom found online/was told by my fathers family.) i want to learn about things properly, and i dont even know where to start or go. i know some stuff about the tribes we were nearby and where he originally came from, but i feel too nervous to contact them right now. its all very confusing, and i dont want to be disrespectful or racist, but i cant really find any guidelines anywhere. thank you for reading this, i just want to know if im... okay, i think. -🍬 (signing in case i send any more)

You’re absolutely okay!

Your father’s identity, culture, and heritage are 100% things you should explore if you’d like to. You wouldn’t be racist - you’re looking into your father’s background. 

I’m not sure about what the most “respectful” way to learn about/contact his tribe would be, so I’ll open that to any followers who’d like to chime in.

[mixedgirlrants]

it sucks how there’s people both white and poc who think anything below 1/2 with people who have european heritage consider them white i saw a post that someone with 1/4 chinese heritage asked if it’s ok to identify as a poc but op said no and that someone sent an anon ask later saying that the “white” person just wants to be oppressed so badly and that them just celebrating lunar new year and knowing your full asian grandparent isn’t enough and that they can just hide behind being white and not actually support asians even though the original ask was basically just asking it was ok to identify as mixed and they said that they acknowledged that they were white passing and it makes me sad that a poc said this too (the anon who sent the ask about how they wanted to be oppressed claimed they were half asian and the op is a poc)

these are the types of things that make me feel conflicted about my race i normally identify with my ancestry and as a mixed and poc but i do acknowledge i have white passing privilege but then when i see these types of posts i just wanna stop because it makes me feel guilty and that i’m “too white” i am 1/4 non white and 3/4 white and i normally ignore when white people dictate race but when it comes from other poc i just feel guilty and that i don’t want poc to feel invalidated about that it’s these types of posts that cause me to have a racial identify crisis every month and i know some poc with european ancestry do just identify as white but there are some who do identify as poc like why does gatekeeping happen so much within our community 😞

First, unfollow those people. There’s no reason for you to follow people that make you feel bad about yourself.

Also, a big thing that I want to express to everyone with mixed ancestry is to stop asking other people if you’re “allowed” to identify as anything. No one can dictate how you identify. That is purely up to you and has to be based on your feelings and experiences. There’s no guiding document or governing body that oversees all mixed people’s identities. No matter what you choose, there will be someone, somewhere that disagrees with your choice. It truly does not matter!

[mixedgirlrants]

My grandad was Indian, but I always feel immensely guilty identifying as anything other than white even though it's the literal truth. I "pass" as white among poc and some white leftists (no white racist thinks I'm white... Though they guess Arabic and PI before they get to Indian), and I'm totally disconnected from grandad's culture and language - he passed nothing on, and we don't even know for sure whether he was from Chennai or Hyderabad (conflicting documentation). I'd love to learn more about this part of my heritage, but with no living relative to ask... Is there a way for me to respectfully reconnect with grandad's culture or even just learn about it, or am I just a racist white person who wants to feel special, who needs to just forget this whole thing?

There’s nothing racist about anyone of any race learning about different cultures, even if they have no personal connection to it. You can absolutely learn about and reconnect with your grandad’s culture. The only way it would be disrespectful is if it turned into a gimmick. 

[mixedgirlrants]

I'm mixed white and mexican, which is something I've always struggled with. I grew up in an environment where I didn't have the opportunity to learn spanish or about my culture, which has led to a lot of guilt. I also have to deal with people asking me what I am (or assuming that I'm asian) and it's just tiring. I struggle with identity issues and just a lot of guilt, because I can't relate to Mexicans as much as I want to. Sorry for the rant.

[mixedgirlrants]

My mom is Indigenous (Cree) and my dad is Ukrainian. Because I didn’t know him I went to a ukranian cultural thing at my uni bc I grew up on the Rez and wanted to learn about the other half of my culture. Buuuut they took down my name for the mailing list and never mailed me. Should have seen this coming after the bull I got from my dads family when I met them... any advice? :/

I don’t see why you should’ve seen that coming. It was very inappropriate for them to remove your name from the mailing list. If you’re still interested, would you be able to contact them directly? If not, maybe you could explore Ukrainian culture online as a start.

Does anyone else have advice?  

[mixedgirlrants]

As of recently I'm seeing some "popular" tweets going around claiming it's "eugenics" to call mixed people "half-" anything (despite the fact many MANY of us ID this way on a personal level). What are your thoughts on this?...

That’s interesting...I have definitely had to get out of the habit of identifying as “half black, half white”. I probably wouldn’t go as far as to claim eugenics, but to me it seemed very finite and did not capture the complexity of how view my identity. I also didn’t really like the imagery of being made of 2 separate, independent parts.

That being said, identity is a personal choice. It may be more appropriate to suggest that you do not refer to a mixed person as “half-” anything because of the variances in how people identify.  

[mixedgirlrants]

Hey, so I'm Indian/British (my mam is half indian, half white and my dad is white) and i often feel so crappy saying i'm Indian. I'm lightskinned and I look ethnically ambiguous, but I also can pass as white and even though my mam raised me and sisters to connect with our Indian culture as much as she/we could, I often feel bad saying I'm Indian bc fully Indian ppl might think I'm not Indian enough? I also sometimes feel a big disconnect with my culture bc my granddad died before i was born /1

and my mam and aunties only know a limited amount of their Indian culture bc my Nana wouldn't let him teach them about all of it and I think he tried to assimilate and I just really wanna learn more about my culture, but the only other Indian family members I have around are also mixed and don't know a lot. I'm sorry for the long ask, I just often feel so lost in my identity yk?

Definitely not trying to oversimplify a very important moment in identity exploration, but if white Americans feel comfortable calling themselves Irish, Italian, etc. when their families have been in the U.S. for multiple generations, you have every right to identify as Indian.

Also, I think I’m going to go back and add more specific tags to asks so that you can read similar ones and how they were answered. Maybe that’ll provide some insight or at least some comfort!

[mixedgirlrants]

so i'm very new to this whole mixed thing. my mom is white and my dad is half black half indigenous but i was raised by mom and she never really taught me about race. i have "medium" to light skin and very mixed features. i just wanted to know how i can identify myself y'know? can i say i'm black? cause i never grew up thinking that so sometimes i get a bit anxious about these things. excuse my english

This is a very common ask, and I have to say that I cannot tell you how to identify. Your personal experiences and feelings are unique to you! There is not a one-size-fits-all answer for mixed race identity. 

As always, I encourage you to think carefully about how you view yourself and your identity. What would be your reason for identifying as black? Is that how you truly see yourself based off of your personal experiences? There is no shame in identifying as a mixed race person with black ancestry.

[mixedgirlrants]

1/2 I am Latina/Indigenous/White. I used to look like the majority of my Dad’s family when I was a kid, but now I look more like my mom. So it causes a lot of white people to view me as fully white. Heck the day of my Quinceañera, one person asked me: Why are you having one? You aren’t Latino or Hispanic? I then had to proceed to explain my family history and they still didn’t understand why I was having one. (My mom agreed with my Nonna to hold one instead of a Sweet 16 when I was a toddler)

2/2 And then you have the racists. So my Mom’s father was a white supremacist and viewed me as a mistake. That and a couple other reasons were why I never fully knew him. That bugged me when I found out cause wtf?? My existence is somehow a mistake cause of your dumb ass bigotry and hatred?? And then I had kids call me Pocahontas when I mentioned before I fully found out my indigenous heritage that I could be Indigenous. And a white kid asked if my Dad’s family came here illegally. So f them. 

[mixedgirlrants]

Hey! I’m white & Lebanese/Syrian, it’s nice to have this blog to talk scout being mixed/multiracial! I sometimes feel weird about it since my maternal grandmother is the one who’s full Lebanese/Syrian, my mom’s biracial w white & then she married a white man but I’ve never really been connected to my white side of the family

Hello! I feel horrible about not being active on here, but I love seeing that different posts and asks are still resonating with people. I’ve considered deleting this blog a few times, but I’ve decided to keep it up because I think it’s a safe space for a lot of people. I’ve learned a lot through mixedgirlrants and I appreciate everyone who has been part of it through the years as well as those who just discovered it!

That being said, I’m glad you feel like this is a space for you to speak about your experiences!

[mixedgirlrants]

i’m the anon that talked about saying mixed race babies/girls were pretty: i forgot to mention that i’m mixed myself and a lot of the time i see my younger self in those kids- not saying that i should be right? but should i feel guilty for liking how mixed (black) girls look if i’m trying to identify with them?

Why exactly are you trying to identify with mixed babies?