However, though my mum’s Irish, my father is Nigerian. I am not white! This fact, one that I had never even considered before I returned to the land of a thousand welcomes, now became the defining feature of my existence.

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

From Wikipedia: A métis is a person born to parents who belong to different groups defined by visible physical differences, regarded as racial, or the descendant of such persons. The term is of French origin, and also is a cognate of mestizo in Spanish, mestiço in Portuguese, and mestee in English. In the Western Hemisphere, this term usually is used to describe someone born or descended from the union of a European and an Amerindian. However, the term was used by other groups around the world, mostly in countries which were under French influence, such as Vietnam. It is still commonly used by Francophones today for any multiracial person…

Comments by Steven F. Riley:

Scholar Jayne O. Ifekwunigwe, had used the term métis and/or métisse instead of ‘mixed-race’ in her early works as a way of focusing away from ‘race’ as a form of identity. Her desire was to create a common non-racist, non-sexist term that ‘mixed-race’ individuals could claim as one of their own. But later she states in Mixed Race Studes: A Reader…

“…Using a French-African term in an English context, even if simply for discursive analyses, could be percieved as potentially exoticizing and further marginalizing ‘mixed-race’ subjectivities…”

She goes on to state…

“…Furthermore, one could argue that partially deflecting the attention away from what I call the popular folk concept of ‘race’ to other forms of identification and stratification diminishes the significant and potent function institutionalized racism plays in the maintenance of privilege and power for some and disadvantage and discrimination for others. Finally, in attempting to construct a new lexicon, I am perpetuating a fictional history which ignores the ways in which the social processes of ‘racial’ mixing are themselves old.”

However, though my mum’s Irish, my father is Nigerian. I am not white! This fact, one that I had never even considered before I returned to the land of a thousand welcomes, now became the defining feature of my existence.

However, though my mum’s Irish, my father is Nigerian. I am not white! This fact, one that I had never even considered before I returned to the land of a thousand welcomes, now became the defining feature of my existence. I remember that first week or so back in Dublin, when I was sent out to play with the local kids. One of the first rhymes I heard was: “Eeny meeeny miny moe. Catch a nigger by da toe.” Who, or what in the hell was “nigger”, I wondered? I soon learned.

Emma Dabiri, “I’m Irish but I’m not white. Why is that still a problem as we celebrate the Easter Rising?,” The Guardian, March 29, 2016. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/29/irish-white-easter-rising-ireland-racism.

Tags: Dublin, Emma Dabiri, Ireland, The Guardian

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 30th, 2016 at 02:15Z and is filed under Excerpts/Quotes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Mixed Race Studies

However, though my mum’s Irish, my father is Nigerian. I am not white! This fact, one that I had never even considered before I returned to the land of a thousand welcomes, now became the defining feature of my existence.

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