Re: perceptions of mixed people by others.

This is in response to a comment that is commonly pitched towards people of color that are of mixed heritage. I just offer up another objective point of view in this video. Opinions, thoughts and feedback is cherished here.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• webcam
• video
• wrouillie
• Rouillie Wilkerson
• racism
• stereotypes
• racial issues
• racial stereotypes
• African-American
• African American Issues
• Modern America
• Black in America
• Mixed in America
• multi ethnic
• multiethnic
• black
• mixed
• bi-racial
• bi racial
• vlog
• social
• social issues in America
• Americans
• America
• social issues
• perceptions
• mixed heritage
• ethnicity
• ethnic
• heritage
• Puerto Rican

[CheezInspector]

Interesting. I haven't yet gotten a strange or hostile reaction. People always ask, "What are you?" and then I rattle off a few things and I ask them about their background.

There have been times when I've been annoyed by a few fellow alleged biracials who look monoracially Black and who volunteer that they are "Scottish, Irish, British, French, Indian [rest of long list] ... and [finally] Black".

[wrouillie]

@CheezInspector I wonder how my half-sister would feel after reading this; in the rest of the family’s opinion she looks black. It shouldn’t matter, but it does to some people. I wonder why you were annoyed by this; I’ve yet to feel that way, yet I have been the annoying one. On occasion, I’ve asked people of African-American heritage what they were mixed with to have them glare at me or laugh and say that they were just black (not what I see, but what do I know?) – goes both ways I guess.

[wrouillie]

@celena332 - funny how people how strange ideas. One of my favorites was when I was a little girl, a class mate couldn't understand how I could be more than 2 things if I only had 2 parents. :D

[wrouillie]

@ OneSummerSky - a person of Northern European heritage for instance may be referring to more than one heritage in the region, or genetic testing may have narrowed heritage to the region, or the person is being vague for reasons that are simply personal. I see no problem here and can respect that.

[CheezInspector]

@wrouillie, yeah, it could be annoying either way. My pet peeve -as stated above - is that it seems to suggest self-hate at times. Some of my family are maybe too Eurocentric, while the Black heritage is an after-thought at best. My bro won't even call himself Black/African, but proudly lists everything ELSE we are. My mom, whose mostly Black, talks proudly of her White heritage but thinks Black people are ugly and uncivilized. It's annoying because it all seems racist and weird.

[OneSummerSky]

@wrouillie (cont) To elaborate a little bit more on what I said about the meaning of the genetic heritage: what I meant to say is, it doesn't have much meaning in itself (other than what I mentioned). But it acquires meaning when it can be linked to a cultural heritage.

[OneSummerSky]

@wrouillie (cont) However, to avoid being seen as a cultural essentialist, I like to state out that I perceive people as individual beings first and foremost, instead of cultural beings. I reject cultural essentialism or cultural determinism. I also see race as a social construct, that’s why genetic heritage doesn’t mean much to me, other than the inheritance of certain physical appearance characteristics and to a lower extend some behavioural temperaments.

[OneSummerSky]

@wrouillie (cont) But personally, I prefer to make a distinction between acknowledgment and identification, whereby the latter entails aspects that are more actively ingraining into my daily reality.

I perceive identity as something relational, which acquires meaning and form through interactions with social contexts and through memories. The interaction with my paternal great grandmother’s ethnic heritage is too little to be able to speak in terms of a deeply ingraining imprint.

[OneSummerSky]

@wrouillie This is the case with my father. His paternal grandmother came from a different north European country than where my father is born. In my fathers case (although he does speak both European languages) he acknowledges his grandmothers heritage (and so do I) but he doesn't identify with it (and neither do I). I too speak both European languages and I’ve been to that country many times (also because my mother has family living there).