Please can we stop talking about ‘mixed-race’ identity (on its own)? |
Please can we stop talking about ‘mixed-race’ identity (on its own)?
Discover Society
2019-08-23
Chantelle Lewis, Ph.D. Student
Sociology Department
Goldsmiths, University of London
In response to recent mainstream media outlets featuring and celebrating ‘mixed-race’ populations as a symptom of progress in our society, my concern is this simplistic analysis conceals the broader structural implications of mixedness.
Given the opportunity, we all like talking about how we feel about our identity. If, like me, you belong to a racialised group, we become particularly animated by these opportunities because whiteness permeates so much of public life. We want to think about our varying family histories and how we embody them (or not) within our appearance and how we live our lives.
More often than not, when there is a public discussion about racialised identities, ‘mixed-race’ people are given too much space to grapple with theirs without critically engaging with their own structural positionalities. My contention is that these discussions will often position identity in abstraction from discussions of place and space, class, gender, and wider structural issues…
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Tags: Chantelle Lewis, Discover Society