"Biracial isn’t black!" The rising tension of the one drop rule 👀 | Khadija Mbowe
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
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I was just coming to comment about how beautiful this video was!!! You're literally so talented and gorgeous
I see the quotes around it. I get it. That's a rough title. Something obviously used against us. But then again, that's everything lol
I love the pole dance opera combo on TikTok I quite literally was mesmerized for a min before I realized it was you❤❤❤❤
Dad says yes. Mom says boy we not doing that 😂
@@coffeewednesday553you are not the authority. You might not think they’re ethnically mixed but that doesn’t make it untrue. Open your mind and heart.
Personally, after reading the definition of ethnic, I can definitely see how being ethnically mixed is a thing. I’m interested as to why you think it isn’t.
I’m Blasian. I consider myself black and Filipino. No matter what anyone tells me. I’ve been told I didn’t belong on both sides. Idc though. My life experience is still a Black and Filipino experience. No one is gonna tell me who I am except for me.
Period! NOBODY can tell ANYBODY what THEIR lived experience is just bc they’re suffering from insecurity, resentment and or inadequacy which I as a Caribbean American Black woman feel is the ROOT of why I’ve ONLY been seeing monoracial BW at the HELM of these trash revisionist gaslighting delulu think-pieces about OTHER mixed race Black WOMEN, it’s never abt the mixed race Blk MALES. It’s very clear to me by them being the only ones spearheading these discussions the past few yrs on twitter and UA-cam. It’s very much giving projection that the LIGHT SKINNED biracial Blk girlies are beneficiaries of colorism-a system they did not create yet receive all the flak for because they’re pedestalized in the Blk community by colorist Blk folks and mainly colorist Blk MALES. It’s always abt desirability for women and jealousy.
Projection projection projection. I emphasized and put in all caps the term light skinned bc God knows these same “pro Black” “Black” women, who posture themselves as Blk superiority while they themselves are descendants of chattel slavery and are mixed, do not give af about including biracial Ryan Destiny in their “she ain’t Blk she biracial” delulu rants, bc her dark skin and beauty validates these women and makes them feel represented as far as dark skin beauty goes, which is fine, except it’s insanely hypocritical lol.
Notice how these same “pro black” anti-Black descendants of chattel slavery who love to stoke yt supremacist divide&conquer tactics and are unfailingly women, never got the same energy for Malcom X who was biracial and both fought and died on behalf of ALL Blk folks , Frederick Douglass who DESPITE being biracial was born into slavery and became an abolitionist, Bob Marley who was biracial, Jimi Hendrix, Prince who was visibly MIXED, Lenny Kravitz who is MIXED, Colin Kaepernick, J Cole, Drake, Joyner Lucas, not even Rihanna who has a biracial FATHER and a yt grandparent, lol, not even Beyoncé who is CREOLE aka inherently MIXED race with a mother who is VISIBLY mixed and who was even white presenting upon first look to Beyoncé’s father according to him, nah, Rihanna and Beyoncé are convenient enough for these anti Black perpetually resentful women to claim as Black women since they are by far the most positive representation for us in the media, and bc of course they came out during a time when these “she ain’t Blk she biracial” delulu rants weren’t being spouted since there was no social media thus nobody was crazed enough to say that bs in person.
Point is, it’s ONLY EVER the LIGHT SKINNED, biracial Black WOMEN, never the males. Why? Bc it’s a projection of RESENTMENT on their end that LS biracial BW are pedestalized in the community due to hue, and bc they benefit from colorism and or featurism which makes them more desirable superficially according to these systems. Their shxt is never rooted in reality or fact rather than projection and petty ass jealousy abt not feeling as tho they’re seen enough in the media so let’s just lash out by saying that the biracial Blk girlies ain’t Blk and gaslight them until they’re beaten down and brainwashed enough to create a “lightskin” and or “mixed” community. Lol.
You know who else they don’t say “she’s biracial not Black” abt? Lauren London. She came out during a time when that bs wasn’t being spouted too and any anti Black monoracial “Black” woman knows that she would b looked at crazily if she attempted to say that Lauren wasn’t Black. They pick and choose and think that God descended from the sky and knighted them gatekeepers of Blackness lmao. Also, referring to the inherently revisionist and incorrect title of this video in which the topic is so played out at this point, the one drop rule upon its creation as a concept historically NEVER ONCE applied to HALF BLACK people as they were Black then and now and as their having a Black PARENT would indicate more than a “drop of Blackness”
I mean it’s pretty self explanatory and yet creators like this knowingly continue to spread lies re the term to ostracize biracial Blk people it seems; the concept applied to WHITE PEOPLE with DISTANT AFRICAN ANCESTRY who upon getting found out by their yt counterparts, were ostracized by white folks and had their privileges revoked according to their DROP OF BLACKNESS.
It’s easier to say it applied to biracial Blk people tho with 50% African ancestry although easily disputable so that it could convenience the argument of these anti Blk women many of whom are, again, descendants of chattel slavery and yet think they’re 100% African and have authority to tell light skinned BW how they navigate society, that are looking to push them out of Blackness due to their deep seated insecurity and resentment about their phenotypes.
Beyoncé herself is mixed and although the anti Black bitter Betty’s attempted to say that her light skinned behind was “tryna be white” even tho she only did what heaps of Black women have done before her regarding the wearing of a blonde wig , not even now is the critique that “she ain’t Black she mixed,” bc THEY know how much backlash they’d get. So they go for the light skinned Blk women who are not as revered to lash out at. Like Yara Shahidi, like Tyla, like Ice Spice, like Cardi B, like Zendaya, like Tracee Ellis Ross etc.
All to say, I agree with you. Blackness is more than skin color; it’s a birthright, it’s culture. You have it. Nobody can tell anybody how THEY navigate society. I remember in 2020 reading in the news how a biracial, lightskinned Black girl with “pretty privilege” who would’ve never suffered from racism according to many of these anti Black “Black” women, suffered from an acid attack IN the states by white supremacists.
Claim ur Blackness until the day you mf die regardless of what these chronically online, envious, anti Black “black” women who constantly switch up the goal posts according to who the subject is b sayin. Blackness comes in different shades and it is very diverse, it always has been. This is a reality those kind of women want to eradicate bc for their own reasons, they want to b the only depiction of Blackness and the only source of coolness in the US, it ain’t gonna happen tho. Frederick Douglass the abolitionist was “biracial” yet born into slavery. Malcom X was mixed and yet was a leader for ALL. Please.
@@SupernaturalLove100I understand your point, it is true that some people underestimate the discrimination that mixed people go through.
However, I do think that it is a disservice to the complexity of the mixed identity to just call anyone with one black ancestor black, why can’t they be both ?
Same. I'm Black/Japanese
If you bircial then you biracial. Don’t let nobody tell you different from what you born with chile
As a mixed person it really disturbs me how people will strip you of your own culture if you aren't completely of that ethnicity/race or don't "look like it" enough. It gets especially weird when concerning hispanic people. We aren't a whole race, yet people expect us to all look the same. Hispanics can be Native, white, black, asian, yet many chalk "real" Hispanics up to looking a certain way. Doesn't that sound kind dangerously eugenics-y?
This bothers me too, southerners are whiter, that doesn’t mean we aren’t south american or that we don’t speak spanish just because of being yt
No. It doesn’t sound like eugenics in the slightest.
If you don't a black mother and black father your not black. That's just a fact.
The word you're looking for is ethnostate. There's this idea that nation states should contain within own borders only one ethnic group which is very easily translated into one race
It's usually an internal issue. In an x country you will find nationalists rejecting immigrants (even white immigrants) and subjugating ethnic minorities (again, whiteness won't always save you). Sometimes it's projected from the outside. Like Americans being surprised that there're black Irish people. Or that there're French minorities in Germany
Or maybe it's just bigotry. There're so many form of it
I'm mixed with black n Mexican, my mom worked really hard to raise us with a fusion of both cultures so we identify as mixed. My sister gets told all the time she not black because of her light skin an Hispanic looks, I get told I have self hate because I don't identify only as black. All this mind you is being told to us by black people. In my personal experience, it appears the black community picks n chooses when to acknowledge its mixed populous.
One of the things about the discussion about the "One Drop Rule" is that it was a system created by white people to maintain whiteness and to keep Black people out of whiteness. It also wasn't created for simply biracial or people with 1/4th Black ancestry. It was for people with 1/8th to 1/16th Black ancestry. Not to mention white people felt threatened by mixed raced Black people for both moral reasons and also the fact that you can't maintain white supremacy if you are clearly showing that mixing races has no negative impact on generations. In that context you would then have these biracial people growing up in Black spaces and being seen as Black unless they chose to leave and pass because that was the only community they had. Things have moved so quickly, that I think it is easy to forget that legal interracial marriage is relatively new and that we are now dealing with the aftermath how how white supremacy has always used colorism to its own advantage. I think Rachel Dolazal did so much damage to the broader idea of Black community because Black History is filled with Black folks who were light and were 10 toes down for the culture and it is just beyond fucked to appropriate the phenotypes that came out of rape and sexual violence to grift.
What it means to be Black has always varied because most of those definitions were defied by oppressors. IMO what matters now is actively pushing back against colorism and ensuring that we are attacking anti Blackness at the root. Showing up for Black people and dismantling systems of oppression needs to be a new kind of baseline.
Anyway, sorry for rambling in your comments lol
You rambling is always appreciated
🫡‼️
That last part! We need to center those affected by colorism and and anti-blackness, and build a community that is politically engaged and caring for each other.
Well Said. 👏🏾
Thank you so much! Too many people be making up their own history around how the one drop rule came about
Theres an assumption that mixed people "look" mixed. In instances when that is not the case, all arguments fall apart
like H.E.R is mixed and no one questions whether shes black ….
My wife is brown and darker than me, she is mixed ethnicity white British mother and Afro Caribbean father. I have four ethnic mixes in me and Jewish, German white, west African dominant ancestry and Indian.
Correct. This is especially true in the American context when most Black Americans have mixed ancestry. It also becomes obnoxious when others try to redefine who gets to be part of an ethnicity that fought 400+ years to be free.
@@SunnyDaysAOK not even most more than 90 percent are mixed. Sometimes heavily and they still mostly look black but nobody cares about perentages if someone looks slightly african. In the end the dominant phenotype dominates especially if a person is in the sun all the time and doesn't straighten or color their hair or wear wigs. The reality is most other 'races' don't like anyone who even looks black and they end up being rejected if they don't look like their other side. People arguing with the one drop rule are arguing with the wall. Be mad at the people who are racist and refuse to accept members of their race who look different. But they won't. They'd rather make videos talking to the black community about an issue we have no control over. Argue with asians who don't like dark skinned individuals of their race and call them black people, or with middle easterners and europeans who dislike black features. It's annoying cause in reality interracial mixing isn't new at all. The reality is if other races wanted to accept black looking offspring they would of been did it thousands of years ago. Even if they look mostly like the other race all they see is the tiny bit of black in them.
I'm half black but everyone thinks I'm Spanish. I just turn my brain off when people get *this* deep into the rabbit hole. Been there, done that.
i'm biracial and in summer 2020 during the peak of the BLM movement my white therapist asked me if i felt "torn". i just stared at her like what the hell 😭
yo that's wild. I hope you found a more educated and supportive therapist
You just reminded me of the time I was getting ready for a solo at church and the organist told me that I was sounding half white and half black and I just had to laugh. Still don't know what he was trying to say. White people man.
I'm so sorry that's horrible but "do you feel torn?" is hilarious 😭😭😭😭
that is fucking crazy wtf
Torn is crazy cuz why would yt ppl feel torn this ain't a race war its a fight against a one-sided oppression
Hey Khadija! South African coloured person here, the definition you found is the simplified one often given by western sources, which is okay but lacks context.
Coloured South Africans have "mixed" genetic heritage, but due to hundreds of years of colonialism and 46 years of apartheid, we have a unique culture, cuisine, languages and dialects. Not every mixed person is coloured in South Africa, and very few coloured people are "mixed" because both their parents and all of their grandparents and even great grandparents are from the same ethnic group (coloured).
We have the most genetic diversity of any single ethnic group on the planet and come in all shades from very dark skinned to very light skinned, and hair textures just as diverse, but fundamentally we are one culture with lots of influences, rather than just a collection of mixed race people.
Even calling Tyla "mixed" is a little weird to me, because her parents and grandparents are all from the same race, we just have a lot of diversity in that race.
Last example, Trevor Noah, in South Africa, Trevor would not be considered coloured, even though he is mixed, because he doesn't have a coloured parent. He is mixed, and he can identify however he chooses, I believe he identifies as black, which would be accepted by most South Africans.
Also, fun fact we also have a large influence from Indonesian culture, so we have heritage from Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and India, so you KNOW our food is delicious 😂😂
It's also important to know that many (if not most, in my experience) coloured people identify with the political Blackness, whether is the struggle for black liberation, pan-africanism, economic empowerment, etc. We recognise that we're are Africans and are affected by anti-blackness, but in South Africa we don't think that recognising our cultural differences prevents solidarity.
This is so interesting! Thank you for sharing
this is interesting! it reminds me of creole people of louisiana which is my dad's side
It's also important to note that the reason Trevor identified as black was because the Apartheid regime didn't recognize mixed race children and he had to "pass as black" so he could not be taken away from his parents. Most mixed race children born post Apartheid identity as mixed race
I feel like as a biracial mixed race person our identity is always up for debate and discussion and it’s exhausting. It feels like my existence is just a talking point in a pointless echo chamber
Lol because full black obsess over us!
Because biracials should have never been forced to identify as black in the first place , their was a time that biracials were considered their own separate race but to keep wealth out the black community the whites created the one drop rule and made them identify as black
@@coltrached4601 no ,because alot of full blacks have self hate , they consider the less black you are the better you are , that's why they glorify white phenotypes, like different color eyes or looser hair texture or slim nose or lighter skin complexions , but they don't want to admit it
This is how I have felt all of my life
Biracial mixed race people should be called just that and not black
I'm Nigerian, Scottish and Irish. As a black passing mixed race person. The only thing that I hate about being mixed is people are mean,rude, unfriendly and unhelpful towards me when I wear afro textured hairstyles.
Im the same but im closer in skin tone to my Mexican friends. If my hair is natural black and white people are after me. But if i braid it then im racist. If I straighten it im every other mixed girl.
@autumnof1992 Come to Brazil, we will give you so much love ❤️
We also need to have a conversation about black folks that are just light-skinned but are not mixed. Like my sister is dark skin, and her boyfriend is caramel complexion, and their son is literally light skinned. Families are both black
We need to talk about the people that are mixrace or biracial that are black. Because not all of us are light skin either
@@ms.shinerayso you mean people that are mixed race that are dark-skinned or brown skin?
Real spill. Most ppl think I'm half white but I'm not just high yella lol and I don't have the wavy silky hair... 9 ether afro nd all plus I know half white ppl that range from red to dark brown skinned. Genetics just be geneticin
@@SirDave yes, some people think only light skinned people are mixed but come in all shades too
@@DiamondD-zc1egyeah, I have 2 brothers that are light skinned, but both of their parents are black, one being my dad whose caramel complexion, the other being their mom, now deceased , who's caramel complexion. They're both black, though it's possible that the mom might have a little bit of mix if Indian.
I'm a South African coloured girly. This conversation is particularly difficult to have because of the fact that we've had our heritage stripped from us. Many people like me, do not know exactly what it is they're mixed with. In some cases - if not most, they'll never know without a DNA ancestry test which costs way too much for the many of us living below the poverty line. We're much more than our racial or ethnic identity - we've built a community and culture as a collective despite our ethnic differences.
I hope we can all do that in the future.
Culture doesn't define race girly...
@a.sydney5036 I didn't say it did.
read the comment slowly .THEN respond@@a.sydney5036
ALL HUMANS ARE BLACK. see science.
white people are black people Asians are black people, Africans are black people, Australians are black people.
-----------------------> that is the error; we the globe told white people from day 1. race do not exist. Like how to do think the Polynesians do it? they come with random hair texture and skintones.
-----------------------> DNA ancestry test do nothing: other than tell you the last place your ancestor stop walking and settled.
Dutch + Britannia were all BLACK KINGDOMS. 🤴🏾 🤴🏿 👸🏽 👸🏾 __
that is why all language are BLACK. see history
ALL HISTORY IS BLACK even after the DNA ancetry test; your ancestor history is going to lead you to a black man and black woman. it end that way 1000% of the time.
Queen Victoria grandmother is black so is her granddad. *it doesnt matter how white you are) - ask the Irish: solid pale skin, solid black history.
ALL HISTORY IS BLACK
@@a.sydney5036 Weird
Hey Khadija! Australian here, indigenous Australians have the one drop rule as well, but as an inclusive “you are part of our community”. They like to say “it doesn’t matter how much milk is in your tea, it’s still tea”.
This is especially important since we have the stolen generation, where the government ripped indigenous children away from their families and culture to try and integrate them into white culture, it only ended during the 1970s so there are a lot of light skinned indigenous folk nowadays reconnecting with their culture after decades of generational trauma.
I love to hear that. I've seen conversations from indigenous people talking about how it doesn't matter what your percentage is, if you're indigenous you should get to learn about your history. While it is important to acknowledge that being mixed CAN give you a more privileged life, as some who was never hispanic enough I love to see this type of inclusion in the conversation.
Hence the future erasure of their culture
Yeah, as a white Aussie that's what confused me about the "biracial isn't black" thing in America. Cos from what I've seen, it's the opposite with Indigenous people here, but it seemed to be like you said, about including people, especially when the govt. had tried to erase their identity & culture. It's particularly relevant here in Tasmania, of course- if "biracial isn't Indigenous", then nobody here is Indigenous, & that's exactly why it was the official history.
I came to say this! It's almost flipped in terms of the origin. US- trying to keep Black people out of white society. Aus- attempted genocide by breeding blakness out.
Connection to mob, culture and land is more important to Aboriginality than the colour of someone's skin.
Yes! I was just gonna come here to say this so boost
My maternal grandmother is zulu, my maternal grandad is indian. I have khoisan roots from my paternal side as well as pashtun. So proudly coloured🇿🇦 the rainbow nation lives within us.
This comment is an example of how instead of saying “I don’t know where to fit in” you could be yourself, and that’s how there are very proud coloured/mixed communities within Africa. A lot of people’s issues with being biracial is claiming it’s not a race but as you’ve shown, it can be if you want it to be. If you’re not afraid to make it so.
@@faaizahkhan9959 awe awe
lol.
Coloureds are not khoisan
Shame on you
to me, the conversation surrounding this seems to moreso be online. IRL i've never had someone try to tell me i'm not black because i clearly look like it and there's no point denying that. but online, i've had more than one person call me WHITE solely because i'm mixed 💀
Out of curiousity, what circles or people are you surrounded by? I have seen and heard from my light skin friends who experience their idenity being challenged IRL, to why I'm asking.
I take it you’re American? Where I’m from biracial people are never referred to as black. They’ll even correct you if you do refer to them as black. It’s only Americans in my experience who lump black and biracial people in the same group.
Literally this! I also realize that a lot of white people call me white but black folks recognize im mixed with black? Its a lot. Sorry you had to go through that.
@@Muffinga Why do y’all insist on this “America bad” narrative. African Americans paved the way for people of color around the globe to access equal rights. Do you really think black Americans invented the one drop rule?? Do you think we want to be put in a box and denigrated for literal genetics?? Educate yourself bro
Do you have an issue identifying as mixed race? If people are questioning you, then you likely look mixed. What’s wrong with that? Serious question..
I'm biracial and have my own problems with how the world treats biracial people/mixed families. I grew up in a time where you could only pick one race on a standardized test; there was no other, mixed or more. So, I have my own opinions and lived experiences. What you said at the end about claiming your identity, or rejecting it, being a double-edge sword is very true. You feel like you're betraying yourself no matter where you stand and everyone makes you feel like you have to pick a side. BLM and not only because it's half of what makes me. It's just the undeniable truth. I remember this stupid moment where I heard Haitians were upset with tennis player Naomi Osaka for not claiming Haiti louder and prouder. I'm Haitian, and it was ridiculous. I get wanting to be recognized in a positive light (since we never are) by media, but where was everyone before her name was on TV? She is not responsible for all of us, and we are not responsible for her success. SHE worked hard. In being biracial it always feels like people claim you the most when it is beneficial to them, and reject you when you don't align with their vision.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm curious as to why you had to pick your race on a standardised test, was that a survey or like an actual school test?
@@kseniav586That is/was how it is done in the US for like ITBS and SAT. Its for demographic studies
@@kseniav586 standardized tests( state, SAT, etc) did not have an other option. Required for demographics reasons? For state tests it's to track different groups education but for the SAT/PSAT it's for ???? I dunno , college board is a weird monopoly.
@@kseniav586In my state, "mixed," or "multi-racial" is not on most forms, including for Driver's Licenses or other state IDs. In school, I was always told to just put whatever my father's racial identity was on everything. He's black, so I list myself as black on all my state IDs, though I'm very light-skinned and have had folks argue with me that I'm not black at all (until I whip out a picture of my father, because I look a lot like him). It's very weird, but we're kind of forced to pick a camp by society, though that's changing a bit.
@@kseniav586 they ask you in almost any form you fill out, even as an adult lmao. I remember having to check a box at least 100 times before turning 18
I'm so glad you mentioned that the one drop rule doesn't exist everywhere. It annoys me when people online will attack people for not buying into it. In the UK the one drop rule doesn't really exist. Biracial people are biracial and are less often considered black or white. There are some people who identify that way but it's more rare. People are allowed to be mixed and have unique experiences and challenges
Yea in my country.....kenya and alot of predominantly black countries if your mixed they'll just say your white
That’s so refreshing to hear. It’s like ppl in America want to be victimized so bad instead of identifying with what they are-which is biracial! Biracial is literally its own category that comes with its own experiences, issues, etc. it’s so exhausting.
I'm mixed race, live in the UK and have always been similtaneously considered black. I dont know a single mixed race British person who doesn't also consider themselves black tbh. I dont recognise your description of the UK.
@@dillilyeverage315 literally same
@@dillilyeverage315 I’m a British white person and I call my aunts and uncles who are mixed race black.
I'm black & Mexican (American) and I never felt confused or torn between either one. I've had many instances where people tried to make me feel like like less than one of the other; telling me that unless my mother was black, I'm not black - if I wear my hair in braids, I'm not Mexican... I never really paid it any mind. This is just my experience & reaction. I know a lot of people who are torn and confused & I really think it stems from letting other people (not yt ppl) tell you who or what you are.
If ya mama ain’t black you ain’t either lol
Yeah do you, ❤
❤❤
@@Amayzun1 I genuinely never understood the you’re not actually black if your mother isn’t argument, it seems stupid. Like I’m black but I’m also mixed, wether my mother or father is black doesn’t effect that
Babe, wake up! Khadija's making us think and question ourselves again!
👁
eyes wide OPEN shawty
South African girl here, immigrated to Canada 8 months ago now and have been incredibly frustrated by this misunderstanding. Coloured is a completely different race, it isn't black, nor white and it isn't even characterised by a specific makeup of ethnicities. The exact breakdown of the identity is so complex, and has been shaped by hundreds of years of positives and negatives, such as oppression, isolation, community building, generational trauma, finding of identity ect. We even have our own language created from a Creole of Dutch and South African, indigenous languages, it is unique to our country and our country alone. It's just so interesting to see confirmation that, like I've always thought, many Black North Americans who view Africa as the motherland and idolise our culture from an orientalist perspective, have no understanding of what Africa is truly like, bad and good. Just because you are a minority group, doesn't mean that you too still don't have biases to unpack.
Knocked this comment out of the park! 🤌🏾🔥
We need a term like orientalist but for Africa
As a South African too I approve of this!!
I think the confusion is in North America colored is an offensive slur. So if an artists performs in a place where your ethnicity …or the word used is a homonym for that slur it is a slippery slope. I believe that it’s only a slur in North America. When on the international internet, Americans should recognize that colored and coloured aren’t the same and coloured is an ethnicity….specifically in Southern Africa. If people only informed themselves and listened to other people’s perspectives and cultural experiences and not project ….we would all be better off. Your comment is so informative and nuanced and it must be terribly frustrating.
@@smarti1144It used to be a slur here too ,we just took the power of the word by embracing it , like the black Americans did with "Nigga/Negro" , the problem is western countries want to be the centre of blackness,they live in the northern hemisphere afterall
As an indigenous person (Diné [navajo]), I am fully done with this blood quantum nonsense. Back in the day, if you weren't white, the majority would've certainly found a label for you, regardless of how much "other" you were. Now, we're doing it to each other. And that's just it; this is a white man's game to keep us divided. Look around, who does all this serve? It isn't us, I can tell you that much.
A movement of Empathy, Understanding & Community is the only revolution that'll succeed.
Exactly. In the states, if you ain’t white monoracial, and you’re half anything and not white presenting, you’re of color. Even Logic had to deal w being called the n word growing up by racist kids. These chronically online, anti Black “black” women just resent these light skinned and mixed BW for being beneficiaries of colorism, and so they lash out at these women for a system they didn’t create by being delulu and telling them that their lived experience ain’t a Black one despite their experience and phenotype, lol.
Notice how it’s only toward the women too. Never have I seen the “she not Blk she biracial” pea-brained nonsense abt Malcom X’s mixed behind, Prince, Frederick Douglass, J Cole, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, Colin Kaepernick, Drake etc, ONLY the women, apart from Rihanna and Beyoncé of course who are both mixed; these yt supremacist “Black” women don’t attempt to say they ain’t blk bc to Blk America, B and Rih are loved and respected and came out during a time in which this nonsense wasn’t being spewed due to the absence of social media.
Rihanna has a biracial father, a yt grandparent and Beyoncé is creole i.e mixed, and yet they’re Black. lol. “Black” women aka descendants of chattel slavery who posture themselves as “superior Blks” like to pick and choose who Blk and who not depending on who makes them feel threatened re their positions in society esp as far as desirability goes. What’s crazy to me is that Blk women like this knowingly perpetuate divide and conquer tactics taught by yt supremacists and they do so proudly if it means it’ll make themselves feel “less erased,” as if they’re actually being erased off the side of the earth. As if the light skins and biracial blackies just came into existence yesterday.
Wow. Just as I said it to my South American mother, "it's not serving anyone but the white man", I read your words here.
💯💯💯
You are speaking 100% truth, but it doesn't matter. The vast majority of mixed, indigenous, Asians and some black people will be submissive to whites until the end of time.
Well said!
My son is 4 and he knows already he mixed 😂 kids are smart. It’s funny I take him to the park and he goes straight to the mixed kids and plays with em. Every time 😭 He gonna grow up and know he came from the best of both worlds. Haitian 🇭🇹and Mexican 🇲🇽🩷 And he will acknowledge BOTH SIDES. Period 💁🏾♀️
We all knew it. Your kid ain't special. We just stop saying it when we realize the rest of the world doesn't see it that way and that white folks seem to think that claiming mixed means you don't support black people or black issues. I was actually very proud of being mixed as a child. Y'all swear we're all self hating and confused and we're not. You are what you look like in this country. Youll see. Unless your kid actually looks Mexican and can speak Spanish they're gonna call him black regardless of what he calls himself and eventually you get tired of arguing over semantics. It probably won't even matter that he can speak Spanish. If he's dark and got nappy hair they're gonna call him black. I know from personal experience that Hispanic people are colorist AF too.
Using mexican and the best in the same sentence is wild 😂
PERIOD, as he should
Period as he should. He won't have identity issues. He loves who he is as a whole.
So, he avoids the white, black, and Mexican kids? That does not sound very open to other racial groups.
I think we need to understand context more than anything. The same ideologies (racism, white supremacy, tribalism, colonialism) affected multiple geographies and manifested in similar ways. But they weren't exactly the same. People who are considered "black" in the US might not be seen as black in South Africa for example, because of the pasts that those countries have.
Tyla faced backlash for identifying as "coloured," a people group that exists in South Africa, rather than calling herself a POC or mixed. For people who aren't familiar with the South African context they wouldn't know that coloured communities have their own culture and heritage that is different to the other people groups in South Africa, but a lot of them were quick to pass judgement because of how that word might be interpreted in their milieu.
I only learned about that this week. Reviewing a Clive Cussler book that largely takes place in South Africa for.... *REASONS* ... and wondered why they referred to Black and Colored people differently. I guess this book was good for something!
this context matters SO much, we need to remember that not everyone has the same exact history as black americans with words
So coloreds is as nonsense a term as Latino is what I'm getting here.
Let's extend compassion to one another. Honestly, we're all going through it in our own ways...
How can anyone not know what "coloured" means?
I think it’s interesting how we (the black community) love saying “nobody wants to be black until it’s time to be black” and then when someone who is lighter, yet mixed with actual black heritage shows up as black, we are upset. we also say “black people come in multiple hues, sizes, curl patterns, etc” but love using that against mixed people! and at the end of the day when someone who is mixed and presents more like yara shahidi does something, they get to be black. it’s like someone doesn’t get to be black until the community as a collective deems it appropriate vs their actual lineage determining it
Im light skin and black. People often mistake me for mixed race, I feel offended because I grew up in a black home. It’s a completely different life and experience. If we’re talking white and black mixed. The privilege of having a white parent in the home is HUGE, it’s also a completely different way of being raised and what opportunities will be afforded to your family. It’s more complex to me then the “one drop rule” I can’t stand when I’m mistaken for a mixed person, I feel it invalidates my experience as black woman.
@@Sofianova17 I don't know you but more then likely you ethnicity mixed just not directly. I'm chocolate as hell I have 13+ ethnicities,I don't have the mixed aesthetic. Most black Americans are mixed at the end of the the day our phenotype is black. Because a person came out with 3c hair and a lighter skin tone don't excuse thier blackness they use that to denie it.
the term is "everybody wants to be black until its time to be black"
meaning, they like they music, food, culture etc... but as soon as the struggles of black ppl comes up then its "oh, im biracial, or whatever".
Ohhhhhhhh chiiiileeeeeee you said a whole word. Im not light by any means so blk ppl get REALLY aggressive and annoyed with me and say i look blk as an insult (which i literally dont. Im no where near unambiguous but you know how thr blk community literally lies and also they center wyte people alot. So mixed to them is ALWAYS part wyte and proximity to wytness…which is so racist and problematic on so many levels). What i find crazy is how the community literally thinks its their obligation to tell people who they are and are not. One minute its we all mixed, next minute when it comes to male validation…we become mutts. We behave in a way that isnt deemed acceptable…we become mutts. Ppl will compare admixture due to slavery, to a legit multiracial person. Its all very telling. And the beauty of me being VISIBLY blk adjacent presenting mixed person…it really showed me how much blk people hate themselves. I wish i could show you the sick wyte supremacist crap blk people spew at me because they are salty i look so close to them. The way the obsess over puerto ricans and dominicans (THE MIXED ONES BEFORE SOMEONE TRIES TO GASLIGHT ME AND PLAY IN MY FACE) is weird af. I only ever grew up around my korean and my Jamaican family. I know VERY well im mixed. Meanwhile IN REAL LIFE ill have blk people becoming aggressive and “correcting” me telling me im JUST blk. Like no. Im blasian. You cant fully relate to me and vice versa. I am strongly against mixed people identifying as one thing. Reality is, its racist, erasure, and it can give you a complex. I hate how america is so weird to mixed ppl. And what annoys me with blk ppl “we are all 35% mixed” no. Thats a lie. If this was true american “blk” would look very similar to PR/DR/Nola Creoles. And they just dont. Even if on the darker spectrum they would look Trini or Malagasy. But they dont. I realized blk people continue to uphold wyte supremacy and center wyte people which is the ONLY reason they think when someone identifies as mixed that “you think you better/ur anti blk/u self hateful”. People literally call me self hateful for identifying as what i am. Like thats literally insanity. They arent mixed but will tell me what im going to experience. Wyte cops mark me “other” yet im such a “n word that would be swinging from a tree just like me” like, u cant make this crap up. Also if we are all mixed, then why complain about mixed women in masses erasing actual bw in media. Peep you dont see bw even embracing and uplifting unambigous BW. Nah they mainly support the girls like mariah the scientist. Yet in masses dont look like her. I love bw and it breaks my heart when little blk girls or bw precieve me as blk and then get sad about not looking like me. I had on a whole blasian pride shirt and a bw told her daughter to look up to me as hair goals. Im biracial with type 3b hair. Why tf would you tell your kid that. Then complain about texturism and all thr other ism. At some point we HAVE to be honest. If i was the standard look, then how come i was never treated that way? You said a whole word.
thank you for touching on coloured identity from SA! I'm coloured, but grew up in America and it has been a bit of a struggle to map coloured identity into US racial politics. the boxes here are so specific and square that it doesn't allow for the full representation of heritage and identity that we all have. As multi-racial identities increase, it's so important to have these convos, especially on the left as we do deeply needed solidarity work across ethnic and racial identities
Trevor Noah's book unpacks the identity of coloureds in South Africa ✨️
💯
I am "Morena" from Brazil, but Americans refuse to accept me for who I am. They think that their way of seeing race is the only way 🙄
@@sumimaindwell you can just stay in Brazil and not have to worry about it ….
@@SE-gs6gd wtf
I'm forty-nine years old. Mexican mother and black father. Growing up in cincinnati ohio. I had never felt like I was Mexican nor black. I've always just felt like I was a mixed person. Because that's how I was treated. Even though people constantly told me you're black. I got bullied in school. I have never been able to have a black female friend. You get it treated differently when you're biracial. People think they can say anything to you.
They think you're weak until they find out you're not
I'm pretty sure there were tons of nice non stereotypical black women you could've befriended
@libfuzzy4629 How can you be sure of that? I'm mixed, and from 6-12th grade, I had one black female friend who accepted me. I was friendly, but they were either not interested or catty. I was friends with mostly foreign students or students who were 1st generation born in the USA. White girls usually weren't interested in being friends with me either. As an adult I have awesome adult black women friends though 😊
@@CiaoColeG I can see that , im Haitian american I don't fit in with most blacks but haven't had issues with running into black women who also aren't stereotypical. I've never discriminated against mixed race women. For me forming friendships has more to do with shared values and Interest
well of course you were treated differently, you ARE different. you're not fully Mexican or black, otherwise you would have to pick one side. why didn't you just befriend other mixed people?
and let's add the societal context of half-black, biracial women being a preferred standard of black beauty/feminity/womanhood over mono-racial black women, the perpetuation of that standard in skin preferences, hair preferences, eye-colour preferences proliferated throughout media and how that deeply affects the self-esteem of young, black girls. and could contribute to our/their aversion towards you as children. outside of the basic human tendancy to gravitate towards and form communities around people who are similar to you and reject people who aren't, especially as children.
but hopefully as we enter a less racially segregated world, children will be less likely to discriminate against each other based on race.
MEXICAN is not a race!
As a white South African as far as I understand the term coloured is more complex than just being mixed, there are full coloured families where every person within them is mixed race. It doesn’t just refer to the physical outcome of mixing black and white for example. They also have a distinct culture than feels separate from the parts that comprise it’s whole.
And u r white and u believe u hve a valid opinion about this.
u r white
SA black woman here. You're right. Coloured in South Africa is more than just mixed race. It's actually been said that South African coloured people are some of the most mixed people there are cause there are multiple races mixed in and that goes on and on.
U r white that's your race u will never experience what fully blk girls and women go thru with
In America the word colored is considered a slur , because during the Civil rights movement in the 50's and 60's African Americans were call and refered to with derogatory names such as colored or negro
as a mixed person the toxicity of picking a side is absolutely exhausting! why cant i be proud of all that i am without putting one race above the other? it’s like i was never enough of one or too much of the other, and it really messes with your self identity.
It's just absurd. It's like saying, pick a parent - you can only be your mother's child or your father's, but not both. Um, no. I'm literally both. Luckily, I haven't really had to face that nonsense outside of the internet, but if I did I'd just shrug. I don't care what people think.
@@luna-p Your Black side will disown you the moment you give us that "Blacks don't deserve reparations" "Slavery was a choice" "HBCU's are divisive" talk. Whites will disown you based on your lack of "Purity". Never has a White person identified a biracial person as [Half White]
I feel those that are mixed take the best of both worlds, being able to see from a new and different perspective, one with fresh eyes and new ideas on how to go about creating a more balanced society and loving community. It's definitely a difficult place to be in but just keep shining your light ❤️
Well the fundamental issue with a mixed persons self identity stems from their parents. Alot of interracial parents seem to have extremely superficial, corrupted reasoning for having kids together.
@@berickslime6718 these issues don’t stem from parents. the overall consensus of the issue is our society. people feel as if (especially in the black community) you have to pick being one or nothing or you’re seen as anti black. i shouldn’t have to only state that i’m black to validate others and not own or be proud of all that i am. this is where the division begins. everything and everyone is beautiful and the day we stop separating ourselves things will be better.
I'm a Black South African (Zulu and Sotho for more clarification).
I can't belive this is even a discussion they way We categories race in South Africa is different from the US and Canada.
Because Unlike The US and Canada black people Africans are the majority not the minority and as a result despite having a similar history of racial oppression and Segregation amongst people of colour in our country its impact will manifestate in a different way.
The fact that many people is first reaction is to get offended instead of understanding our cultural context is so annoying to me.
Don't jump to assumptions especially about cultures that aren't your own.
Im not south African but i am a mixed person from a Brazilian family & race is similier here too(with biracial people being refered to as either mulatto or mestizo), only its often catragrised on skintone due to many Brazilians being mixed race
I was often called white by my mom due to me being lightskinned even tho im not white i would even be bullied in school due to havin Black features like my nose and hair
Thank you for this clarification bhuti I am Bhaca and I live in Cape Town
It frustrates me when Americans think their ideology is law and if anyone that's "mixed race" should automatically identify as Black becuase that's the American way of identification
I just wish they would let Africa do and run our countries the way we see fit
Man I'm a zulu from Qwa qwa I understand your point
As a fellow African (Zambian)....I agree with your statement
@@BhayekaTshaziAgree! they cant even comprehend that each country, region and cities have their own clans and tribes but want to lecture us on how we should be classifying ourselves🫠
As a mixed chick with over half a century dealing with this. Everyone hates us and noone wants us, until they want us. Depending on where you fall on the color wheel. While everyone tells you your experience. While also telling you why your experience isnt true😒
growing up, i used to envy light people, not light skinned, and wondered why they always had everything. Around age eight, i realized after seeing slave movies what happened to my ancestor. jumping ahead to high school, i hung around white people mostly and now that i am an adult looking back, i realized the trama and learned to love my own. WE have been taught white supremacy and it started in the schools. But now that i am older and wiser and woke up to our truth, we are Gods Choen people, the people of the book, those people in the bible are black, the bible is a history book not a religious book, it was stolen from us during slavery, as weird as it may seem, its the truth, King David is or was a black man. He authorized the bible to be translated. We have been bamboozled to believe that it is a white mans book. We believe it becuase they have dumbed us down, put us in a low estate to make us believe we are nothng and come from nothing. that is far from the truth. In these last days, people wishing to be white will change their tune real fast because the so called black, hispanics and natives are the children of Israel, Gods chosen, the people that he is sending christ to redeem, to save. i could go on but i digress. If your father is a so called African american, Hispanic and native of indigenous decent, you are an Israelite, I'm sure you would not want to be an edomite.
I completely relate 🫂
Boohoo. There are enough mixed people to do your own thing. Run along and sob to each other.
imagine what a fully blk girls and women go thru with
This is the best comment.
I really like the term "racialized". I am racialized as Black by most people. I am a biracial black person. I have Biracial nieces and nephews who will not be racialized that way. It's super complicated, as always I appreciate your nuance.
It's interesting to see "biracial Black woman". I've never seen biracial white woman.
@@rahbeeuh there’s plenty of biracial white women. jennifer beals, rashida jones, halsey, etc.
@@alexandervelez9507 no. I mean I don't hear people say they're a biracial white person. They might exist but I've never heard it said as much as I've heard or even read "biracial Black person" being used.
@user-rl7mt4gh3o European and Mexican aren't races tho. Someone who's half those identifiers aren't examples of biracial. Multicultural or multiethnic may be a better identifier in those cases.
@user-rl7mt4gh3o2023 and people still don't know the difference between race and nationality
As a South African who's grown up in Canada, I got told all the time that I'm not allowed to be "coloured" here. But I am, always have been.
Have to call myself light-skinned or biracial to make other people comfortable and it feels like an incredible betrayal to my family.
By Definition it is light skin , because coloured is black . As a coloured, I know people hate anything associated with blackness. The term comes from Oppressors to divide us.
So called coloureds only love the term because it comes with light skin privileges and social privileges. Coloureds don't know what African group they come from but if you Ask them what they mix with , they will list a detail description of their European background while they live in Africa.
Both in the U.S. and SA, it's based upon white purity standards
Please keep saying “coloured.” Don’t try to appease other people by betraying yourself.
@@Xxmilkshake202xX i hate the term colored. “People of color”, “colored” etc are just dumb
No one gets to tell you that. Especially if they don’t qualify by blood. Its always some non blasian trying to tell me about my identity. And idc what person is offended by this. I dont and will never respect a monoracial persons opinions about how we identify. They are not qualified to have an opinion. I always promote mixed people saying they are mixed. Doesnt matter how you look because at the end of the day it is very racist to replace and erase blk people with mixed ones. ITs insidious and wyte people wanted this. Blk ppl in western society wont learn until they all look like halsey. But at this point im convinced western blk people would love that. They get so triggered by my username. Its all very telling and it makes me wanna slap them up because 1: you do NOT have to be mixed to be beautiful. 2: it’s offensive to me because im part blk and obviously any talking bad about blkness is going to offend me 3: it truly breaks my heart that blk people dont love themselves and view us as better. 4: it leads to delusion and dishonesty which further puts a strain between mixed ppl and NON mixed blk ppl 5: its erasure 6: it centers wyte people and upholes wyte supremacy
“Well dawyte man gone think-“ as if i could EVER give af aboit them. The issue is blk ppl in western society are still shackled in their mind. And until they are honest and stop being delusional they will NEVER be able to properly heal. Which makes me very sad because blk is beautiful and you do NOT have to be mixed to be beautiful. High Admixtured blk people need to honestly just come to terms with being mixed. Heck, they are even treated differently by blk ppl…which proves to me people are being wilfully delusional
I'm so glad you mentioned Tyla. The facts you shared are true. Coloured is a race in South Africa 🇿🇦. But, according to the BEE Act (Black Economic Empowerment), the term black people is a generic term used to describe Africans, Coloureds, and Indians. This act was introduced to address the inequalities suffered by non white South Africans during apartheid. Those racial groups don't identify themselves as black but rather, they distinctive racial groups.
They still deal with the same problems that BLACK FOLKS deal with 💯
South African history in a nutshell.
I simply don’t understand how the word biracial can be confusing to people I mean… it’s literally in the Word… BIRACIAL .. simply means not only ONE RACE… its completely different to how someone choose to identify.. it seems like America and Canada are the only country in the world who doesn’t understand this..🤦🏼♂️🤷🏼♂️
This has gotten me to really think about how I’ve been feeling as a white/japanese biracial person. My experience is definitely different than Khadijas and you’ve really gotten me to think on it!
All of my life I’m considered white to strangers, and without a doubt I’m sure my life was easier for it. But I’ve always felt off on it. My mother is amazing and I will argue that she spent all of her energy raising me, and I always felt hurt when people would never grasp that we’re related. As a kid I was either told I was adopted or if I was having a tantrum, mind you I was like 2-4, they even accused my mom of kidnapping me.
To keep it all brief, it’s an isolating feeling being biracial and never fully accepted. On the other hand I’d prefer that loneliness over having half of me ignored. So now I emphasize that I’m biracial whenever the topic comes up, paperwork, exc. while that makes me feel better than before, I still feel… unsatisfied?? I can’t find the right word, idk if there are any tips out there or maybe if I need some therapy
oh wow, the whole "my mom used to be accused of kidnapping me" is SO real. We used to travel a lot and it causes big issues. Funny thing is, we have the same features.
As a fellow hapa/hafu, I understand, though my mom is white and my dad is Japanese. I used to hate being mixed deeply. When we lived in Japan, we were not treated well. In the US, it was better, but we were still outsiders no matter my parents made to fit into a predominantly white society. Socially, I am treated like I am white. I acknowledge that I am "white passing" to most people and benefit from the privileges of that to a point (I am also Jewish, which has been an "interesting experience.") However, because my parents instilled a good sense of morality in both my sister and me, I tried to use my privilege to try to help marginalized people when I began learning more about white supremacy's hold in America by way of activism or financially helping orgs doing amazing work.
If anything, I am now fine with being an outsider, but it took a long time to get there. I feel like my life is incredibly rich because of it and made me less attached to maintaining my status in a group and more receptive to making space for the experiences of others. I hope one day you find some similar peace with your mixed (and rich) identity.
I'm also half white, half Asian (Taiwanese) and had a similar experience growing up in the US. Even just between me and my sister, the way people treated us was vastly different because my sister looks more white, and I look more Asian. yt people in my hometown bullied me and treated me so badly growing up, while she was accepted with no question. When I would go out to lunch with my dad, people would be rude to us and give us dirty looks because they thought I was his much younger wife 🤢
As an adult, I was able to travel to Asia and spend some time there, and to compare the difference between how I was treated there vs how I was treated at home is crazy. Over there, no one believed me when I told them I was American, and I was even slapped one time by a man who thought I was lying about not being able to speak the local language. I constantly had to explain why I looked Asian but didn't speak the language, and even though I was able to blend in whenever I wasn't speaking, I knew that anytime I had to say something, it would have to come with an explanation.
It hurts and is exhausting to never feel fully accepted anywhere. But on the other hand, I think we are privileged to get a very unique view of the world, and I think being the product of more than one culture gives us greater adaptability. At least, that's how it feels to me. I wouldn't change myself just to fit in, even if I could. The only thing I wish we had more of is community - when I speak to other hapas, I find that a lot of us have similar experiences, but no way to connect with each other. The only places I've been able to find for that have been online spaces that are colonized by self loathing incels, unfortunately
I feel for you. But one way to look at it is that "acceptance" is a trap. It's looking to bury yourself in the safety of the herd. That's a sure route to mediocrity, of worldview if nothing else. Dare to be exceptional, to not be as limited as the crowd. It's the dull and timid people who need to be assured of where you "fit" before they feel safe enough for the most basic encounter with another unique human being. Nothing of larger value comes from being like this, from people like this, only tribes and phobias and absurd conflicts.
I'm white/Indian, from the UK and usually white passing (I tan quite dark if I go on holiday to a hotter climate). Many times in my life I've been accused of lying about my heritage.
I was raised by my white mother, but my Indian family and culture was still a huge part of my life, so it always really upset me to have that part of my identity ignored. I was never seen as Asian enough by the other Asian kids at school.
Now both of my Indian grandparents have passed away and the rest of my family live so far away from me, I feel so detached from Indian culture. It makes me feel so isolated and lonely, and honestly like I've lost myself.
I'm biracial and so tired of people debating my existence like they have any say over it. Just trying to live my life as best as I can and have relationships with people but I have never been "black enough" or "white enough" to fit in literally anywhere in the lower 48 of USA. Ugh.
Agreed. I’m also mixed (white & black British) & I’ve never felt any internalised conflict. The call’s always been coming from outside the house. People are so desperate to project all the problems of society onto individuals who have absolutely no say on how we were born, it’s exhausting.
@@katlbird Good for you. But I think this video is specially about the gatekeeping of blackness and trying to stop people who share your background from identifying with blackness only when it's convenient.
@@freedomm I think there's potentially been a little bit of a misunderstanding. What I meant by "the call is coming from outside the house" is that the conflict that's imposed on a mixed race experience is, in my personal experience, external. Intrinsically, the experience is akin to being bilingual - second-nature if you're raised with both and not if you're not. Unfortunately, due to circumstance and where we are currently as a society, there is enough conflict around even the concept of mixed relationships/ the products of those relationships that it's rarely an "organic" consideration. The identity in itself is politicised. For example, being white/black mixed is interesting because you are almost always considered to be black by everyone but black people, but then black people get upset (rightly or wrongly so, it's not my place to make a value judgment) if you point out that's not the entirely of your heritage. It feels dismissive, I understand that, but so is expecting someone to reject the biological facts of their parentage just for the comfort of current social norms.
I actually think about this enough that I wrote an article (in a science fiction context) about racial hybrids and their reflection of the fraught approach to "race mixing" we still have globally for Blood Knife. I'm not trying to be dismissive of truly anyone's experience ever (and I'm genuinely sorry if that's what I achieved). But I also refuse to have my identity only be seen as political/ a subject of constant external judgment and debate. I also deserve to be just some guy. That's what we all deserve.
This is an essay, I apologise again!
You don't have to try to fit in on either side. You are mixed. Not full black or white.
Have you heard the song "I Am The Color" by Stan Walker? If not, you should give it a listen. He's a Beyonce fan, opened for her Australian tour and everything! I could go all day of the subject but the song does a better job.
If you’re mixed black/white (as I am) your acceptance (by white or black communities) isn’t necessarily dependant on your skin tone. You are rated and judged by other factors which are similarly out of your control - which environment you live in, how black and white communities feel about their own self-image. Regardless, however we bi-racial people choose to self-identify, you’re right, we can’t really win. We can’t win because we undermine what makes black and white people feel safe - a definite community that is exclusively theirs. I think I would just like it if the black community was a bit more careful when rating us -mixed folk- you can't tell what we’ve experienced by how we look. I am fair skinned but grew up as the only person of colour in any room I went into - there was no welcome in those rooms for me. Some of us take the piss, but some of us have been treated as black, with all of that abuse and suspicion. And we haven’t had a break from it by having a black community to commiserate with. Just be careful - it’s never accurate to judge people by how they look.
🙌🙌🙌
not to mention the amount of racism that many bi racial people experience at the hands of their own family. that really messes with our identity and how we see ourselves.
YES! I have a similar experience of growing up fair-skinned and being one of the only people of color in most spaces I entered. I moved around a lot when I was little too, so it was hard enough keeping constant friendships or accessing cultures that weren’t available through my immediate family members - who are also mixed for the most part. It’s frustrating because the conversation feels like an excuse to just tell mixed people how to live our lives and feel bad about never being a part of communities that, at least in my experience, I never really had the chance to be a part of to begin with.
WELL SAID!!!!!!!
@@largeproblem Us Africans [Blacks] accept our mixed raced Black brothers/sisters 100% as long as you're psychologically Black. The moment you "Love is love" "Black people don't deserve reparations" "I would never attend a HBCU" is when we begin to disown you.
my mom is light skinned and i think gen z would call her "white passing" which bothers me bc it just isnt true. she has black features with.. light skin... she lived the black experience and was called the n word multiple times growing up. i just think people take a word and run with it, without knowing that it even means.
@@niakw9929 I’m literally half native and half white have white skin green eyes, But have my mothers Native bone structure. I am white passing I do not deny this. My father exposed me to French culture and my mother exposed me to native culture. I identify as both because that how I grew up. It’s my culture. Whenever I talk about my ethnicity most people agree that I do indeed look white however they do see the native in me once I mention it. I’ve only had fellow natives (mainly rez natives) and black Americans say to my face. “Your are not ethnic you are white.” Meanwhile their light skinned and got white in them aswell 💀
My mom is the same way , my grandpa is too (her dad) and even me, we are all white passing , hell my mom has straight hair and freckles , but you can tell she is black , same with my grandpa , he is white passing but has 4c hair, my mom said that we are part native American and that's why we look like that and I have seen photos of our ancestors and she has the same hair texture as one of our ancestors, straight and wavy
For real. So many people throw that term around like nothing!! Especially with so many yt people starting to black/asianfish more frequently
As a mixed person, i'm tired of this conversation. I think mixed people collectively we should stop trying to prove who we are. Like i know who i am, if you think i'm not black or mixed or something thats your problem not mine. It will not change my day or yours.Conversation around mixed identity especially with blackness requires nuance and caution. even myself i don't have all of the knowledge on that. Unfortunately nuance and caution are two things that we don't find that often on the internet.
that's where i'm at on it as well, but i still like hearing what the People are Saying lol. but yeah at this point i'm so comfortable in my racial identity no one is gonna make me feel some type of way about it. and on the other hand, i have never felt the need to argue with another mixed person about 'how' they identify. that ain't none of my business
i'm still waiting to find a mixed (black+white) person who just claims white though, idk it sounds Funny to me and i wanna see the reactions.... 💀💀⚰
@@mightymeatymech If a mixed person just claim whiteness, people will scream that they reject their blackness pr that they hate themselves so you cant never win in this conversation.
Felt! We have bigger fish to fry in our communities, other people are way too preoccupied /obsessed with how we identify when we ourselves have that low on our priority list. We are more than our % of melanin
You’re not black and you’re not in black culture if you’re mixed. Black children come from black men and black women and we are raised in the same household. Biracials are confused and need therapy. Black people have no real connection to biracials.
🙌🙌🙌
Coloured South African living abroad here! 🤚🏽 It’s sooo frustrating that Tyla’s ethnicity is even a debate because that’s what being Coloured is = it’s an ethnicity in South Africa that’s also treated as a whole other race/racial group in South Africa. Simple as that. I would maybe even argue that internationally, her ethnicity is Coloured and maybe her race would be black seeing as Coloured isn’t recognised as a race outside of South Africa. Race is complicated and then even more complicated when you’re a South African Coloured and live abroad where everyone else tries to define what you are 🙃People just need to understand that It’s generations of mixed people that got with other mixed people because of the apartheid where black people could only be with black people, these mixed people could only be with these other mixed people called Coloureds and white people only with white people. Coloured people are also descendants of the indigenous people of South Africa (Khoi-San). To say that because Tyla is now an international star she needs to change her ethnicity is insane, simply not possible and cultural erasure. Coloureds from South Africa generally speak Afrikaans but even then, it’s a version of Afrikaans that’s different from white South Africans and exclusive to Coloureds. we have traditional foods and traditions that’s exclusive to being Coloured…I really don’t know how else to explain that it’s an ethnicity with deep rooted culture that no matter where we are in the world… We share that culture 🥴 I’m sorry but Americans just have to sit down and educate themselves on this one because this is wild 🫠 As a coloured, it’s SO cool to have this representation on such a global scale when we are such a small population in the world that is only found in South Africa. Imagine seeing your race/ethnicity for the first time on this scale. Like thanks to Tyla, Coloured people around the world gradually won’t have to have this conversation every other day 😅
You are who your father is its in the bible.
In a global context, mulatto would probably be the best term to describe the race of ethnic coloured people. It has context in Brazil, Latin America, US and elsewhere.
No one cares, this is not South Africa!
@@reneehocker3237
No one cares, the U.S. is not South Africa and the word is not accepted here. This is not the home of Tyla or African Culture!
@@wiz823
We don't use mulatto here. It's clear many of you are backwards therefore your countries still lag 100 years behind. That's your issue don't bring that ish to Black America. It's going to be rejected right along with you!
The public discourse about mixed/biracial identity is so eaten up by conversations about individuals that pass as yt in contemporary post-Kardashian America that it’s exhausting to engage. There is an irony to the root of the problem being colorism, and only paying attention to and elevating the experiences of the lightest biracial/mixed people.
Black folks in the USA are quick to call mixed folks white and if you don’t want to acknowledge that, and want to blame some white Armenian chick, the problem will continue. I’ve heard too many black women hate on mixed women, never heard it the other way.
Thanks! I’ve learned so much from you that it’s only fair to compensate you financially 😂
I still remember the incident at work when my black patient was upset with a Hispanic patient because she kept using the “n” word. When I try to explain why she can’t use it she says, “ I’m more black than her I live in the hood!”….. and I was just flabbergasted…and was not mentally ready to give her a lecture but I knew there was so much wrong with that statement!
Lots of Dominican, Puerto Rican even Mexican folks in the places I've lived i.e. NYC and Dallas use the "n" word and it's kinda weird cause sometimes it bothers me and other times it doesn't but I'm Nigerian so I got a different perspective. But yeah I wonder what the current internet discourse is around Spanish folks using the n word. I feel like it would bother me most if I saw some fucking Wall St Puerto Rican dude using the N word vs some guy I'm playing soccer with in Plano TX.
@@PeterEhik it’s a weird discourse, people still haven’t come to accept Hispanic not being a race and there’s a lot of erasure of Afro Latinos and Afro Hispanics in regards to how people see the communities
Hi sonic people live saying the n word their their whole chest imo they only do it cause they feel better than black people and are desensitized from rap
@@NicoleReignit’s usually 10/10 not Afro Latinos that are saying the n word like water it’s the white/native Latinos 10/10. It’s disturbing because those types usually hate black people and it’s not their word to reclaim. You don’t hear black people calling themselves Latino slurs cuz it’s ridiculous, racist, and not our lane
Well, I would’ve got up the energy to get that b@#h straight. I’m from Chicago generation X we did not have no problems with Hispanics trying to use that word because they knew they couldn’t! I don’t even let FBA/ADOS call me that word. I’m one of those Black people that will give you a history lesson I don’t play.
Coloured people are a distinct group of their own, even on government documents (African/Black, White, Chinese, Indian, Coloured, Other is how it usually goes). You as an individual can even talk about being such-and-such amount of X and Coloured. They have a carnival/heritage festival due to most Coloured families and individuals being forced to live in certain areas of the Cape provinces, and thus developing a distinct culture over time. They have their own dialect, Kaapse Afrikaans (Cape Afrikaans) and a recognisable accent distinct from White Afrikaners. Because in SA we don't in race, we think in tribes (tribalism)
Like we even distinguish between English whites and Dutch/Afrikaans whites
As a mixed person myself (black mom, white dad) "damned if you do, damned if you don't" is exactly how it feels trying to be my authentic self or interact with white/black people on a daily basis. I'm also lighter skinned so I feel guilty about the social privilege a have in some instances based on something I cannot control. It used to bother me a lot but I've learned to except how I look, my completion and my hair texture and just go about my day now and if people want to be rude to me for whatever reason, that says more about them than it does about me.
Well it depends. If you get advantages over another simply because you look 'less black' then another, how can you even stomach that person after that?
@@miamitten1123its that part for me. They dont get that this is usually why we lean to the black or minority side. Cuz the other side too often expects us to excuse their racism. Its not self hate. Its actually the opposite. I dont have an issue with white people. I have an issue with RACIST people. Not the same thing.
You can't pick between the 2. Your both
@@alizehustle9385: Usually, the world will especially if they're phenotypically Blk.
Here's the biracial tears ladies and gentleman
I think its also important to note here that the backing beat and general sound of "Water" by Tyla is from very common, specifically South African genre of hiphop that emerged during apartheid as a part of protest music, like its catchy as hell and thats one of the reasons why it was so effective in generating international awareness for what was happening in the 80s and 90s
As a mixed person (black, white, and native) I have often felt left out of my own culture and told that I act white or that I sound white. I've had people tell me I am "trying to be a black girl" when i wear my natural hair in protective styles because i am fair skinned. No matter how i present myself there are always people who act as though im trying to be someone that I'm not.
🌼💛
🥺
So do you give your other cultures this same energy or just the black part
I'm the same mix! Though our experiences are probably different. Well, I'm also fair skin. It's super frustrating to say the least😅
@@Ksgr867 they don't. You know its just us.
As a sometimes white-passing multiracial person (mixed with black, native, and white), it is a struggle and yt people who try to be racially ambiguous for clout have made being multiracial all the more harder... I understand the trust issues because the folks who try to bank off of racial ambiguity for clout and shit have just made being mixed a whole lot more of a situation for certain communities. It comes to the point where I identify less with my black culture even though I grew up and adopted black culture through my family because I am used to now being seen as not in the community. It's okay though I've come to understand my balance between respecting my culture and ancestors and also realizing that race is a social construct and I happen to be privileged at the moment more and more as ambiguity starts to mean white. It just hurts to feel erased from the community since I was not seen as white-passing until recently... What happened? I think it is the racial re-evaluation you are talking about.
I feel the same. My issue is that as a (very obviously) mixed person born and raised in the US, this leaves me with no community at all. I might be light but I can’t and don’t wish to be white. There is no community/communal history of mixed people in this country so what happens to us.
Same, I am canadian mixed race and I get excluded from my own ancestry and community- I don’t even bother to try anymore. It does hurt to not have any cultural traditions or community to connect with - I was *really really* torn up about it in high school when my school was super diverse, but I’ve had to accept it overtime. Honestly, part of me wishes I could marry into a family with really strong cultural routes to experience that community and feeling and learn from them in a way my own family hasn’t been able to. It sucks that there isnt a place for us, but I think that mixed people just get it and we can build a community of caring people who accept each other no matter who we are and what our backgrounds are
Oh no... a "tragic mulatto". 😂😂
youtube people?
@@en7252You're only proving their point right like gtfo
The one drop rule needs to be let go by the black community...
it aint the flex they think it is! and its mainly propped up by BM that have babies with WW
@@submissiveproviderstboth9485 say that!
It’s not even black people, it’s just north Americans. If you are black, you are black. If you’re mixed, you are mixed. That’s how people are classified in African countries and most parts of the world.
@@submissiveproviderstboth9485 that part
LMAOOOOOO 🤦🏽♂️
I did watch all the way through! And thank you. You spoke to a lot of things that I've gone through in my life. I am an older (66) gay, mixed cis man. My grandmother was Black, and my father was light-skinned but identifiable as Black. I appear to be white. So, being young way back when I usually identified, and still do, as mixed. However, I've always been careful to be clear that I understand that I don't walk through the world having to experience what Black folks experience. I feel that all the way back to my teens I have shown up for the issues in all of the various ways. In recent years there has been a trend for some to identify as "white-passing" and I don't identify as such, as I am not doing anything purposefully to "pass" as many before me have (my father tried, it just didn't really work). Thank you for naming the frustration of damned if you do, damned if you don't. I've experienced elements of it all of my life. I really appreciated watching this!
@@tatsf stop with the word “cis”. your just a man.
Haven't watched the video yet, but I truly hope that now this **latest** (there have been *many*!) "Coloured is a racial category in South Africa!" social media spat between black Americans & South Africans has gotten more exposure & attention bc it features a public figure (Tyla), we can all just go back to staying in our own lanes. Americans can learn something new and South Africans can enjoy a drop in our blood pressure and never have to painstakingly justify and water down and explain our history with colonisation & apartheid to non-Southys anymore.
Pls. I'm begging.
I was just thinking that for the South African singer its different because here "coloured" is a race with its own culture. Why are we erasing the context and arguing as if Tyla is American. South Africans have their own identity, let her keep hers.
I co-sign all of this.
yessss i mean i can see how americans would get confused that tyla is black. she looks like a regular black american, but respect her ethnicity and culture. we need to stop grouping all black ppl together. i dont care if they're darker than you, worry about our black american ethnicity!!
@@iglesiamiredf6428but does she... She doesnt look like coco jones, flo milii, justin skye
@@leavemeal0ne378 but she does look like halle bailey, chloe bailey, mariah the scientist etc. black americans are not monolithic and produce an array of phenotypes
The one drop rule is archaic
Awful that white people ever invented it.
"The world dosnt like to accept the contradictory and ever changing nature of human beings"
- Khadijah Mbowe 2023
“Beeeinggssahh” you mean?
I’m Black and Korean raised by my single Black father and I don’t know my mother or any of the Korean side. He told me that I was Black and to never forget it. I live my life as a Black man-as I was raised to be. I feel the distrust of mixed people by the Black community is disheartening for young people. We mixed people get all the negatives of being Black (systemic racism) but it gets discounted by our community bc of our perceived ability to of a sudden not be Black. I’m grown enough to know who I am and don’t need validation; but the young me definitely felt left out in the cold when I was gatekept. These young mixed people need guidance and protection from us not alienation.
🙏🏽🙏🏽💛💛
So let me get it straight if you are raised mostly black and your mixed then that’s OK. Forget your other side but if your mix and yours race on your other side, then forgetting your blackness is bad.
The black community in America ,
Are confusing and out of touch
@Seoul2Sol
You are mixed, not black.
Just because your father told you a half of your history means nothing. Two ppl make a baby not one. I think alot of y’all get it confused because you are immersed in the culture. It’s no different if a white boy grew up in the black neighborhood he still white.
@@googlea2692 comments like these are exactly what we're talking abt. stop telling people how to identify. you dont know anything about their life, upbringing or experiences, so who are you to comment on it?? let people be people smh
@@nickithecreator222 girl I call a spade a spade. That’s yall problem now y’all like chaos instead of order. No we gonna construct things appropriately around here. Imagine how warped your mind has to be to have a problem with calling someone what they are
South African girlie here 👋🏻
I'm just gonna give the most basic description here because there are a lot of my fellow South Africans in the comment section giving much better and thorough explanations, but in South Africa we see coloured people as their own race, ethnic identity and culture it's not simply mixed race as in two people from different countries get together and then there's an individual born from that. Coloured people are seen as their own identity. We wouldn't called them mixed because they aren't. That being said I'm really proud of Tyla for her success as a South African woman and also sparking the conversation of how the west views race and ethnicity compared to the rest of the world.
Baie dankie, mooi opgesom en ek gaan dit gebruik vorentoe
Thank you for this comment. I couldn't have said it any better! Because I couldn't understand why African Americans on X were hellbent on not understanding that "coloured" is both a race and an ethnic group in South Africa.
@@bawinilemtsweni5071 our education system is so bad, I didn’t understand Apartheid until I researched it as an adult! Our USA centered culture really robs us of understanding the world and keeping us in a strange bubble.
@@ND-nx1nt Dit is 'n plesier, my maat.
@@bawinilemtsweni5071 It's really puts into perspective how much American just doesn't care about any other countries history besides their own and how it's been poorly implemented into their education systems.
As a mixed person, I've gotten to a place where I don't care what people's opinions on MY identity are. Even with the renewed discourse online, it's not going to change my experience and I encourage other mixed people to be rooted in their truth (whatever their truth may be). In America, people having these conversations are often confused by the differences between culture, race, and ethnicity. That's where a lot gets lost in translation.
Honestly it's really no one else business on your identity
True. Most Americans don't also know much about the world except in media.
Thank you for educating the masses, Khadija, as they don't want to do the research themselves. Love from SA💜. (edit) Oh and 'coloured' in SA isn't only characterised by the mixing of different races; it is its own identified race.
Thank you for this conversation. I am a genealogist and have been doing a lot of research of my Creole (paternal side) ancestry. What you discussed is one of the reasons why many mixed race people created their own and married within their own community. This concept is called Multigenerational Mixed. Yes, I am aware that creole is a culture and includes all shades. But it is important to mention why communities stayed to themselves.
I’m mixed and here’s the thing. My father was black and had a HUGE impact on who I am, and my exposure to black culture. I also had support from quite a few black women that taught me how to do my hair which was a struggle for my mom who didn’t have access o UA-cam back then. Growing up I was taught I should identify as black, and while I’m light-skinned, growing up I looked just like black people around me. I didn’t always like being told I should say I’m black, but now ow I’m told I have no right to identify as black. I don’t like that either. I’m mixed. I am both. I have both cultures in me and if I don’t embrace that I deny who I am. In my area it was predominantly black and racism against me would have been MUCH worse if I hadn’t had support from black people who could understand my experience. I needed that support. I needed to feel like I wasn’t alone. Belonging is a need for every single human being. But the moment someone tells me to deny a side or take a side… just no. Not doing that. My friends are people who get that. I’m not a celebrity. I’m just a person struggling to survive in this world and I don’t benefit from this crap. I spent my entire life being traumatized because people hate the very thought of my existence BECAUSE I’m mixed. I experienced hate and racism from white people (my hair, my nose, my features gave me away). If I’d had to endure that trauma alone? Jeez… even with support… Therapy is fundamental folks. It taught me a lot about myself and allowed me to heal. Only then can you move forward.
Having therapists who understand your cultural nuances and experiences is a godsend. I've taken to asking for Latinx therapists bc they just understand the context much easier. I don't have to explain the context with minorities, they just get it. My favorite counselor I've ever had was Afro Latina and she changed my life. She actually gave me the courage to say "No, I'm biracial, how do I fill that out on this form?" and eased my anxiety about choosing a side. I'm both Mexican and Caucasian, why should I choose one for your comfort? If my existence challenges your beliefs, rethink them.
I notice no mixed/biracial person ever feels entitled to white spaces and culture (which rejects them outright) and only demand involvement in black issues whether it's for identity purposes or superficial reasons like a pass to say the N-word. 🤔
You calling yourself black isn’t denying your white side😂 at all. You can be a mixed-black person
@@FirstnameLastname-hm9vlthat doesn't make any sense. You're either black or mixed. How tf can you be a mixed black person? Y'all reach to the heavens with forcing ppl to be black.
@@FirstnameLastname-hm9vl You can also be a mixed white person as well.
This is why we need more dark skin pop superstars in the scene… THEY only promote the light skinned or “ones who look black but ain’t” to us and THEY know we will support them since they are “one of us” so the cycle continues, there’s thousands of white/non dark skin pop stars yet all we have are normani, coco jones in the market rn so let’s please please support our dark skin queens extra hard
Karen White? Whitney Houston? Stephanie Mills? There are more brown beautiful singers than that I just don't feel like naming all of them, but theres plenty of darker skin black singers.
@@Cateyes767 I’m talking about right now not ones in their grave… rip whitney houston 🙂
Megan Thee Stallion? Kelly Rowland? Are they light skinned? Self-esteem is just that its what you think of yourself. You need to validate yourself and F everybody else.
@@carolperdue7534 is Kelly rowland making top hit music right now… Megan is a rapper… are yall just dumb or dumberrrrrr…? Like stop tryna clock somebody and READ you mad at the wrong person boo
Check out Hemlocke Springs! I love her SM ❤❤❤
South African adding my 2 cents about race in South Africa and how that relates to Tyla. *I haven't watched the whole video so feel free to ignore anything Khadija might have already mentioned:
Tyla is Coloured. There's no 'buts' 'ifs' and 'maybes' about it. We don't have the same rules about race in America/Canada. There is no one-drop rule, you are whatever you tick in the checkbox on your official forms under Race ie. Black, White, Asian(I know Indians are also Asian but we use it to refer to East Asians), Indian, Coloured, Other(rare but can pop up). Colonisation and Apartheid have also played a huge part in this and how our race politics work which is a whole can of worms I am not prepared for but please feel free to look it up if you're interested
I think something that gets missed in the conversation of the Coloured identity when discussed by the West is that it's not just a race, it's an actual identity and culture. So to get angry at Tyla for not calling herself biracial or black is harmful because she does not fit into either of those categories. Also, Coloureds come in many forms of mixed race not just white mixed with black, that's the least common form and usually are generations of Coloured people.
Also just for reference the 2011 Census had Colored people make up 8.9% which was the same as white people making them tied for 2nd biggest population. That's not insignificant. We are having discussions around the classification of Coloured and its roots in Apartheid, it's going to take a while to deconstruct that. We have bigger fish to fry right now like land reparations.
And Trevor Noah isn't coloured either
@@bri1085yes good point
EXACTLY asking Tyla to call herself mixed race is literally asking her to erasure her history and culture
As an East African living in America my blackness has always been up for debate, with people mostly assuming I’m mixed or Indian and then being convinced I’m not fully African :/ I never fit in anywhere and especially with black Americans. Growing up as an African immigrant who doesn’t have “African features” was tough loved this vid 💕
@@jegna4 I'm not surprised by any chance are you Somali, Ethiopian or Eritrean? Because they're the ones getting accusations of not being black people?
Are you by any chance from the horn of Africa? Like Ethiopia, Somalia or Eritrea?
Guys don't forget that in South Africa, Coloured people are their own group, not necessarily people who are mixed race(idk if theres a cultural equivalent elsewhere because they have their own histories, languages, dialects etc and are not just mixed) when having conversations about her I hope people place her in context of South Africa.
I’m a biracial Black woman (I am phenotypically Black but benefit from colorism, texturism, privilege from having white parent). I grew up with my white mom in a sundown town and it was hell. For a lot of biracial Black people, especially with white moms who don’t do their job, our only introduction to our culture and community is through the horrific violence and racism that has become synonymous with being Black in America. So when ppl on Twitter say “call yourself biracial” what an unhealed, insecure biracial person hears is “you did not go through what you went through”. I agree that fully Black women, especially darkskin Black women are being erased from media but I think the answer to that is calling white supremacy, rampant colorism and type casting, as well as mixed actors not taking roles for fully Black people; not expanding the one drop rule from including Halsey and Logic to also including Halle Berry and Barack Obama bc race is still phenotypical. It’s on person by person basis. I call myself a Black biracial woman bc I am Black but also biracial. For over a decade I refused to even think of myself as half white bc of what I went through growing up, but acknowledging both sides of you is very healing and I wish us all luck in becoming secure and proud to be us regardless of how we ended up externally :)
it is literally a fact that biracial people are biracial. Idk why the truth is so hard for them to accept. Halle berry and Barack Obama both are biracial and should be categorized as such. Please do not tell black women what they should and should not do. A part of not being erased in the media is protecting your identity and not opening your arms to people who will happily take roles from you in the future. If there was real allyship, we wouldn't be in this mess. Obviously we can dismantle white supremacy, but we can gatekeep our image and support our own image.
Oh this was beautifully put! I relate a lot to this!
This was really well put. Using the term "unhealed, insecure biracial person" made me feel seen in a really sad way.
I’m just curious to know why your mother raised you in a sundown town.
Y'all need to stop limiting blackness to your experiences . It's minimizesour identities solely to our experiences. Kind of like saying " i got wide hips and nappy hair too therefore i only ever identified as black" . Just stop
Thank you for this video. "You can still meet Black people and stand in solidarity with them without claiming the identity" 💯
I've learned to love my Blackness, whether I'm seen as Black or not and to take responsibility for the things on me, that are seen as white/proximity to whiteness and I'll continue learning for the rest of my life. The better I get in both things the less important will the actual labels become for me.
Buddy I can tell you that judging from your pfp, if you live in the US you’re definently read as mixed. Quite obviously
This video popped up on my page and now im a forever subscriber. Khadijah, thank you so much for shining light on this situation. i love your personality. you have a beautiful spirit. I am multiracial & was born, raised and currently live in Alabama. I grew up in white schools, danced at white studios, and when I hit high school i begged my mom to put me in a predominantly black school which i loved but i dealt with alot of colorism. i remember having to fight a girl cause she kept calling me white. i couldnt afford the new jordans so i usually wore converse and vans, got called white for that. crazy right? ive dealt with horrible racism and colorism first hand from both the white and black community in fact. I am creole, black, native american, and my dads grandfather is half asian. I am a complete mutt and have always felt so alienated because of it. my mom permed my hair till i was in the 7th grade, i never knew i had curly hair that was so pretty, and when my perm grew out, i went natural. i got bullied so terribly. i hated my hair so much cause it was short, so i begged my mom to get me braids and when i went back to school with them my black classmates told me i was approprating black culture cause im not black, and my white classmates and girls i danced with called me the most outrageous things… even my dance coach told me my braids were a distraction even though they werent long. i remember in middle school a girl pulled my hair and then shoved me into my locker cause she thought i had extensions. when i asked her why she had such a huge issue with me she told me that “you think youre better than us cause you have long hair and light skin” which was completely un true. sometimes in public, hispanics will speak to me in spanish cause they think im hispanic. then i tell them i only speak english and when i tell them im not they get suprised. ive even had people tell me i look blasian in nail salons (even though its such a small percentage). i never talked about my ethnicity and i hated that people saw me like the mixed girl who think shes all that, cause i for one never carried myself that way, i love everyone no matter the race or color, plus i was a quiet kid. i later tranferred to another school once again. i may be mixed, but white people see me as black, and black people see me as white. its always been hard for me to connect with either so i just started surroudning myself with people who are mixed like me who genueinly understand. its been a journey. Although ive dealt with crazy shit, i can never say ive had experiencied racism like a fully black person. Im not trying to take anything away from them. i just wish people were more understanding.
it's good you've found a community of other mixed race people who understand you
Speaking as a biracial person, being racially ambiguous doesn’t mean we get to avoid stereotypes. For me, it’s always meant having twice the stereotyping, while not being able to properly fit in or be accepted by members of either race, even within my own family
Yeah, I was told several times by black kids growing up that I was "white" or acted "white" and then white kids at school wanted to use me as a "well so and so is half black" trump card 😂 😅 I also had some people think I was stuck up because I was biracial, like I thought I was better or prettier than they were because my features were more "white"
That was how as a little kid I realized how black girls are seen by a lot of people. Girls I always thought were beautiful and gorgeous, and who had been told by others they weren't and who didn't see themselves as that because of their blackness.
I never thought myself better, but I had a lot of guilt until my early 20s because I was worried my black friends or classmates thought that I thought I was better than them, and as a result I didn't put a lot of effort into my appearance
@@Starburst514 summarized my experience, too. I had my 10 y/o cousin cut my hair from the nape when I was 4 to try and teach me “humility”, calling it “Brazil hair”, when girl, I have selective mutism and was very shy around them but always made sure to be the sweetest with my older cousins so they’d be my friends. I found them so pretty and fascinating, like any kid would.
Like what lesson in humility does that teach a kid.
So at some point I just started swallowing that judgment and feeling guilty for it, especially when I couldn’t talk and people would jump to the conclusion I was ignoring them for some sense of superiority.
Those things do scar a person overtime, that’s one of the stereotypes I hate the most in our community, racism from yt people I can expect, but it hurts a bit more when this weird colorist attitude comes from someone from the same oppressed community I was born and raised in
omg yes, the "wrong" slurs lol
@@guppy1821
as a biracial person, I will admit that I have struggled with my race for most of my childhood and teenage years. I have a white mom, and my black dad was out of the picture, so my view of race was diverse, but still very narrow minded. I feel bad to admit this, but in elementary school, I used to always see myself as slightly better than darker black people. I went to a very diverse school, but anyone who was dark was called "African booty scratcher" by fellow mixed race people. I never participated, but I thought as myself to be better because I wasn't being called that.
For middle school, I was dramatically switched to predominantly a white school (catholic private school, to be specific) and I did everything to "act white" because that was the only way I could make friends. I would straighten my hair, ignore the black side of my race. By the time I got to high school (also a private catholic school), there was a little bit more diversity, and I wanted to get to know more black people, but I was never accepted on account of having lighter skin and "acting white", nor was I really accepted by white people, because I was still black and "ratchet" and loud.
Now in my mid 20s, I acknowledge that me having a lighter skin tone gives me some sort of "acceptance" in America because I'm not "black enough". I will also acknowledge that I still am thrown racial slurs and stereotypes constantly just for being darker than the average white person. I understand that my struggles as a mixed race person doesn't compare to the struggles of being a black person, but I still have to deal with racism for being partially black.
Now, I try to learn more about blackness and black history as much as possible, and I will always step in to help and support the black community as much as I can financially, physically, and emotionally. I'm sorry for the long comment, and I'm sorry if I've made anyone feel uneasy with my comment, but I just felt the need to share what it has been like for me being a biracial person with little to no diversity in my growing age
this
It’s wild being mixed and growing up in the heart of Caucasia where you’re the “blackest” kid in town then being informed by internet strangers that you are not, in fact, black.
If only those online experts could have told some of those white ppl when I was growing up so they’d leave me alone 😂😐
Edit: for better or worse, we’re also the best spies, for we have often traveled to the heart of caucasity and know the ways of the Sunken Place
Soooo because you're black to white people we have to claim you as black lmmfaoooooooo no. You're mixed and that's okay.
I too am mixed in a white country, does that make me black? Nope, it makes me biracial, because I am both black and white. I don't let other people define who I am (even though everyone sees I'm "mulatta"), I suggest you start doing it too. Life is good when you know who you are and are not dependant on other people's perception of you
@@grethi8110 don’t worry about me, I’m grown now
Not the heart of Caucasia😂
You are black. You are white. You're everything, and it's stupid that anyone cares. Enough racializing us!
I’m mixed, but I identify as black and Mexican, from my own personal experience I do NOT like being pigeonholed as just mixed or one or the other race as I have had cultural experiences from both sides of my family and I love and appreciate them both! It’s really disheartening when people try to tell me who I am based on my appearance when I ride for both of my cultures, and speak out on our injustices in American society. We’re all in this together. Thank you for this video!
Mexican not a race it's a ethnic group
When you say Black do you mean Black American or Black from another ethnicity or country?
@@MzApril1980 … Maybe she meant to say black Mexican.
@@MzApril1980 you know damn well what she meant like technically we're mestiza but aint no one want to say all that
As you should.
I'm just tired of not having a community. Being biracial has always represented my not feeling safe out in the world.
Yall do have a group there’s a bunch of mixed people that’s your group
@@everybodywannabelikemike_ as a mixed person, I don’t feel as if I have a group. Even though there are tons of biracial people out there, a lot of us still can’t relate really to one another, culturally wise. I think it really depends on how the biracial kid grew up. Depending on what side of their family they saw most, or maybe if they were in a neighborhood with a lot more of one side of their race than the other, it would affect how that person views themselves. Growing up I’ve had mostly biracial friends, but I still don’t feel like they are my “racial community”. The thing is, society doesn’t want us to have each other as a community. They want to keep everything simple and everyone has to be one direct race. I’ve always been called black, even though I’m white and black into me. Personally I feel more white than black because I’ve only really been around my white mom’s side of the family. But it doesn’t matter what I think because I will always be treated like I am black, because of the way I look.
@@Chloeunicorn510 I so feel every word you said.
Mixed people come by the millions. Stop this poor me bs. Blame your parents tf
@@Chloeunicorn510: So you're not confused and exactly, the world will treat you like a Blk person.
im sorry, but Black Americans are one day gonna have to wrestle with why they view a VERY lightskinned woman who has always walked around with a blonde weave as their proudest representation. I get it; Bey is black in the U.S. and west, but let's be real... people wouldn't be as possessive of the Queen if she... let's just it's doubtful that a 4c tight curled woman with all of Bey's talents would garner the same extreme... devotion.
👀 ain’t nobody ready for this tea, though
@@andiman44I once brought it up on twitter and they said I was just mad coz I'm ugly and poor 😂
Honestly, we probably already had a Dark Skinned tightly coiled-haired woman with all of Beyonce's talent come and go because White and Black America didn't want to see that kind of Black representation get that level of push. This is not take away from the extreme level of talent Beyonce has but she definitely benefits from having the complexion of the most mainstream acceptable version of Blackness.
Sadly the PROXIMITY TO WHITENESS card seems to always been the go to for these artists to be elevated to Superstars Level. 🤦🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️🙄🙄🧐🧐
@@Xara_K1 I really hate stans calling people poor to defend their faves. Like the working class isn’t the reason people know their fave even exists
That Beyoncé lighting was very bright because even Kelly Rowland looked light skinned, and we all know that she is not. It was definitely the lighting.
Kelly bleaches her skin that’s why 🤣🤣
@@meiko2164 LOL delulu
@@meiko2164 Kelly doesn't bleach her skin and she's already addressed that accusation. I guess you don't know anything about lighting which is silly that you act as if you don't since your on youtube. Listen, if these light and medium brown skinned woman is an issue for you people then I suggest you start listening to artist from Africa because there are plenty of blue black and obsidian colored women for your to choose from. You people pick and choose which light skinned woman you want to complain about for example, Rihanna. You people don't seem to have an issue with that light skinned, green eyed woman. Hypocrites. n
@@meiko2164she doesn’t
I have a Black parent and the first time someone told me I wasn’t Black was on Twitter. I really feel like some mixed people will do what they can to separate themself and wonder why Black folks aren’t cool with them. I don’t have the same issues a lot of these mixed people complain about like the Black community excluding mixed people because I wasn’t taught to separate myself from my Blackness. Some mixed people with a white parent get taught that they need to do everything to be white as possible and that includes removing themselves from the Black community. It’s so unfortunate and self hating but yall gotta unlearn some things!!
Also Khadijah I love your content downnnnnnnnnn I’m always tuned in ❤️❤️💕
I actually agree with your point that if mixed people didn’t seperate themselves you could say there are no real differences. I think thats where the black mum/ white mum debate starts. HOWEVER since most mixed people do seperate themselves I think its better to have a mixed community with whatever races you are. Then you can have people who relate and are like you
@@gravy7103 yeah idk about that.. mixed people aren’t a monolith just like everyone else. I’m not mixed with white, people who are sometimes are granted different things in life like trust funds, inheritances and resources that are only easily accessible to white people. My mother is an immigrant who has lived and raised me around Black people my whole life and I never had easy access to those white spaces. It’s also not true that most mixed people separate themselves from their community, some don’t have a choice because of who their parents are. The idea is to release that part of you that taught you to hate your Blackness and the biases that come from the lens of that white parent, not to “withhold” that persons Blackness. And to be honest with you it’s plenty of Black folks who aren’t mixed who separate themselves on purpose so excluding mixed and biracial people doesn’t make any sense.
@@gravy7103 I disagree that “most” mixed people separate themselves from their Blackness, that’s a blanket statement to make about us when we are all literally different. I am also NOT white mixed, so maybe that is different, but all the biracial (non white mixed) folks I know, including me and my brother, have always identified with out Blackness. A lot of us actually don’t come out looking like Megan Markle, some times other people do not realize I am mixed with Native American/native mexican at all. Mixed folks come in so many varieties you really cant say we all disassociate from our Blackness
Mixed people have a right to choose their identity so I don't understand what is the problem if they want to separate themselves from the black community. How is telling them they should be as black as possible not more of the same thing. They should be what they are which is mixed.
black/indigenous here and this rule is so so tired - thank you always for your content love!
You nailed this Khadija! I deeply appreciate your solidarity with mixed folks, as I'm mixed indigenous and white and get a LOT of people trying to guess what I am, mistaking me for every race under the sun, yet white people still try and say I pass. It's frustrating because it just seems like they want to invalidate the mixed experience- PLUS I'm nonbinary so a lot of people love to tell me to just "choose" what I am as though anyone's identity can be boiled down to just one thing.
Your videos always cut right to the point and you say what you mean with eloquence and style! Keep doing what you're doing, I will always be seated. :)
Every time this convo comes up, it seems like we all end up going in circles and struggling to reach commonality. I understand that this is a very emotionally charged topic (for good reason) but I resent the ways we usually approach it in our communities. There’s such a wealth of research, academic literature and activist writings that can help us understand how we got here and what it means, and because we usually put it aside we end up uncritically reproducing colonial constructs such as racial essentialism.
Firstly, people often get confused when talking about identity as to whether they mean blackness as a racial descriptor, blackness as heritage or blackness as culture (in America this may refer to African American culture, Nigerian American culture etc etc). Some people will be able to claim all of them while others can claim one or two. It gets messy when we start to forget that race itself is a social construct, there's no gene for it or, number of parents, or percentage of it in your blood that can determine if you are black. Therefore, realistically race isn’t something that you can inherit. We are rather talking about heritage.
The construct was created and based solely on how people present phenotypically, and that became the basis for how each group they defined is treated. It's quite a weak construct too, because the boundaries change across time and location. Like how Italian-Americans only started being considered white in the last century or how, in South Africa, Tyla, isn't black but is entirely considered a separate race (coloured is not the same thing as biracial. They have their own culture and categorisation here just like black people do).
Of course some people want to make a distinction between mixed and black people solely to be exclusionary, but primarily that distinction has been used to highlight and understand that there are different experiences awarded to people based on whether they move through the world as a mixed person vs a black person. Mixed people still do experience anti-blackness by virtue of being associated with black people or having black-heritage, just like other non-black people may experience anti-blackness for being friends or family with black people (or being dark-skinned in their culture) - but understandably people might feel uncomfortable if those people began claiming blackness because they saw that anti-blackness as the racism someone may experience because they are categorized as a black person. The point people want to emphasize is that many mixed folks still have distinct privileges and experiences that phenotypically black people do not have the same access to. This explains a recurring understanding of blackness as something one cannot jump out of or switch for an easier racial experience when it suits them.
One of the scholars I read during my studies talked about actually defining blackness and how many people falsely attribute it to a culture when there are many varying black cultures around the world that both mirror and contrast each other. This type of definition invariably leaves out groups of people that are still very much understood to be black. The only constant was that blackness was a "shared experience of oppression" - a particular set of experiences, challenges, prejudices etc that people encounter wherever they may be in the world because of the way they look on the outside. Certain people may be privy to these experiences at one time in history (or region) but not another - it all very much heavily depends on what the prevailing white-supremacist systems, institutions and cultural ideology consider as fitting into that box. And it's those systems that encourage us to buy into race as a real thing: Something you can quantify, have a percentage of blood of or have a genes for. or something that is found in behaviour (e.g. this person doesn't act black). Its racial essentialism. When we start interacting with it as those things rather than the social construct it is, we remain stuck in a game that was manufactured hundreds of years ago.
Overall, I do understand mixed people identifying as black in the US and surrounding regions. I know it has culturally taken effect because of the history of the one-drop rule and condemning anything to closely related to blackness as part of it in order to retain the purity of the in-group and cause further separation between races, even so far as committing the erasure of mixed-people. I just would caution that when talking about these things we examine where our definitions and the parameters we use come from and challenge them. We don't need to perpetuate an understanding of race created by racists but rather, through having more informed and constructive conversations, come to define, understand and connect on our own terms.
Can you share the name of the scholar you read? I want to start educating myself more on the topic.
@@PhillimonMnisi His name is Tommie Shelby. I double checked and the journal article I read was "Foundations of Black Solidarity: Collective Identity or Common Oppression?"
His other work is really well-informed and insightful too, if you get the chance to read it.
Very insightful comment!
best comment on this video🩷
OMG THANK YOU! I recently came across a channel of lightskinned “exoticals” who partook in the same circular argument while calling all darkskins jealous and, at worst, being racist. Other sides of the arguments aren’t much better. The comments were just confusing to me. I get that lightskin people have different experiences, I get that a lot of black Americans have mixed ancestry… But one reoccurring thing that people don’t seem to get is that race is a social construct developed in the ~18th century for a very specific reason. I’ve observed over the years how the “goal posts” about race are constantly being shifted, for example among white people in the cases of Slav, Irish and Italians. Then you have the issues of continental indigenous Africans who all look different, like west Africans, Khoi-Sans, East Africans (from the darkest nubians to Ethiopians). Are these people all not black? Most have Afro hair and medium to dark skin, but their blackness comes into question. What makes a black person? This cultural gaslighting is only confusing if you don’t realize that “Race” is extremely reductive and made to serve a specific purpose. It’s not comprehensive.
I definitely believe that colorism is at the center of this. Regardless of what you’re mixed with. Some people who have two black parents can still look ambiguous or mixed people that look fully black. Your experience as a racially ambiguous person specifically in the states is typically different than of someone that is not.
I watched all the way through woman. Loved what you said and your personality is great!
Super slick Sister Act look as well ❤
I think questioning our western-centric thinking/viewpoint is so very important. Thank you for another interesting discussion!
As a coloured South African, damned if you do and damned if you don't is so true. Because crazy thing is, in South Africa there's been a bit of debating going round that coloured people should identify as black, and that South Africans should also adopt the one drop rule. Some coloured people feel it's unfair since we already have our own community in which we completely belong, and if we start identifying as black, the black community wouldn't fully accept us. Your video just confirmed that for me.
South African as well. I agree the historical context from which we come from would make it disingenuous and unfair to expect Coloured people to identify as black. However, I've always wondered (in the perfect world), would it be okay to view Coloured people as just another "tribe" within the black community? But then I think again nope. Even though that would account for their "blackness" (and still, only for some), it would erase their multiracial heritage. Wow, it's really true when they say Apartheid was designed to live far beyond its time because look at where we are years later
Please do not. Fight for your colored heritage. Americans are stupid for the ODR.
@@na_6910ummmm no lol you’re not black and I won’t allow it
This video is so validating, I'm constantly thinking about this but no one is interested in the conversation.
So I'm mixed, all of my siblings are different skin tones, as are all of my mom's siblings, I get labeled with all different kinds of races from strangers, and existing like that is terrifying because I have absolutely no idea what prejudices someone may have when we interact. I don't think this experience is worse than what dark skinned people go through, but it does give me a lot of uncertainty and fear navigating the world.
For myself, as I've come to make friends with more black folk (I grew up in a white area), every one of my black friends acknowledges me as black, because many of us both identify as mixed and black. There's no line to be drawn because genetics is random, and at that point, you're just paper bag testing people.
Nowadays, white people expect light skinned mixed people to identify with being white, because it separates us from our communities, culture and history. I started identifying with my blackness, and in turn rejecting the white supremacy that's baked into our country. My experiences are black experiences. My life has been shaped by the generational trauma set up by white supremacy. So I embrace this part of myself, while also listening to and not talking over dark skinned people's experiences.
I am so interested in what part of the country you live in. I am in the Deep South and I have the exact opposite experience. I am light skinned with light eyes (but I’m also AuDHD so personality wise I’m just weird). I have always been rejected by the Black community in the cruelest way possible. I was regularly made fun of and attacked as a kid, while also being sexually harassed and abused by the boys and girls in my neighborhood. It became a regular occurrence for them to try to grape me on my way home from school. I even had boys break into my house and attack me on the floor while the other kids cheered at the window. I never was accepted by anyone until I moved to Atlanta and found a friend group of mixed races. I lived there long enough to realize and identify with my black self without the harassment. Unfortunately I had to move back to my hometown and it all rushed back again. I’m in my 40s now and still the segregation and exclusion is strong. It’s not everyone and I can choose where I go but I’ve had some heinous behavior by black people (and white people, I don’t dismiss the trash racism in the white community or white supremacy). I recall a few years ago being screamed at by a colleague about how she hates mixed people who try to “act white”. Ma’am I’m from Minnesota. We all act this way there…lol. I’m always excluded by the Black women at work. It’s been really tough because I am about as militant as you can get and I am rejected constantly by the groups and people I identify most with. My experiences are black experiences too but people see my light skin and think I have been given everything when in reality I’ve been torn apart by everyone, dissected and judged and now I am steeped in social anxiety and only talk to people on the internet 🤣😂🤣
@@DaughterofDiogenesstory of my life sister!
Thank you for sharing ❤
@@DaughterofDiogenes whether you like or not, you still have more privilege than dark skin women like. As you can see with television, music videos, and movies, they prefer to put light-skinned, or biracial women in a movie to portray the black girl character.
@@blackellegirl your comment makes no sense to me. It’s not a matter of like it or not. I barely made it out of adulthood and only got out of poverty from marriage and this is why I understand why so many people have a problem with the word privilege. I understand that as a light skinned person I started out being approved of by some people more than darker skinned people, however the darker skinned people I was actually on level with made sure to destroy any sense of self esteem I ever had. So my privilege as the light skinned girl in the hood was very very small if any existed at all. The only people who would even half way accept me were white. I dealt with an insane number of racist and violent behaviors by whites and it was still LESS than the trauma and violence I experienced in my own community, mostly because they were supposed to be MY community, we were supposed to support one another. Dirty diaper smeared on my doors and windows, grape, assault, harassment. And I know it was because of my light skin because they literally said it all the time. Being auDHD made it so much worse because I wasn’t accepted by anyone really except for older white people who could tell how smart I was. Literally my only friends growing up were like 70 year old white people.
It was only until I was in my 20s and found people of all colors and creeds that didn’t care about race who explained to me how everything was and why everything had happened the way it had. I’ve met dark skinned folks shunned by their light skinned family just as I have met light skinned folks shunned by their dark skinned family. My privilege: I get catcalled by a larger variety of men. I used to get to listen to racist ass white people tell me how they don’t like Black people and I’m “one of the good ones” until I open my mouth and socialist revolutionary shit falls out. And I could get a job where I would have micro aggressions thrown in my face daily almost like being dared to act. But there were dark skinned people working right there with me in the same capacity so how I was privilege there I don’t know. Oh yeah and then there were all the times specifically dark skinned women tried to have me fired or reprimanded to regularly it got to the point where my boss had to sit them down and tell them to leave me alone and not speak to me anymore. I’m so privileged, I ended up quitting that job because they wouldn’t leave me alone!!! I’ve never seen any representation of myself in the media. No one told me I was pretty until I was in my 20s. And though my last best friend was a Black man and my favorite coworker I was excluded from his memorial in a very obvious way because it was organized by a group of Black women who found me “too annoying”. Though I am fully aware that it is colorism because it was the talk of the town when it happened. (Colorism absolutely flies in every single damn direction in the Black community. Any privilege I had was quickly negated by the AuDHD or lack of wealth or whatever as I have 40 years of traumatic stories I could tell you and not one ounce of it looks like privilege to anyone with a brain.
So I understand when someone has had seriously terrible outcomes in their life and some useless internet person say, yeah uh what about ur privilege durrr. Like what! Did you watch the video?! Did you read my comments?!? Shoot yourself in the foot some more why don’t you. 🤣😂
Just because the media and white people have an affinity for light skin does not translate to every light skinned person having access to privilege. I wouldn’t call being a house slave a privilege if we are all still slaves. You feel me. The privilege is negligible and only worthwhile if I can use it to help others. If I can’t then it’s no privilege at all. And there are so many biracial and light skinned folks who would be amazing allies if they could get a seat at the table without grumbles and stares.
And just to put my trauma on display, have you ever been grapes by a white man whilst a woman screams ninja bitch at you…cuz I have and I can’t imagine a Blacker experience(and by that I mean I can’t imagine an experience in which my Blackness was made so apparent as the reason for the treatment I was receiving). And you know what…I was shunned by everyone, told I was too “hot” what the fuck ever that means and treated like trash by the very people I turned to for help. So yeah I’m so privileged. 🤣😂
Hey girl! Thanks so much for this great video. I’ve been processing being both black and white, being told I am black growing up while being mistaken for so many identities and just tryna be myself. I appreciate you speaking on this a lot!
Hello! I'm a coloured woman living in South Africa. I appreciate that people are starting to learn about us coloured people more, because our history isn't taught at all. Our history is very complicated and mainly is related to colonialism and slavery. Although the name coloured was given to us during Apartheid, our history goes back centuries before that. That's why many of us hardly know our ancestry beyond a few grandparents, because it's all either undocumented or erased. Our ancestry is so diverse that it is unique to each person. No one's ancestry is the same. Also, our culture and accent is different depending on where you live within the country! And because the ancestry varies, so do our phenotypes! Some coloured people will have curly hair with dark brown skin. Some will be lightskin and have straight hair. Or brownskin, straight hair and lightskin curly hair. It's so cool.
"At least one genetic study indicates that Cape Coloureds have an ancestry consisting of the following cultural frames:[4]
Khoisan-speaking Africans: (32-43%)
Bantu-speaking Africans: (20-36%)
Ethnic groups in Europe: (21-28%)
Asian peoples: (9-11%)"
Just to show you how our ancestry may differ! (Stole it from Wikipedia lol) Hope this helped !
As a biracial person in the U.S. (for context of my personal experience), I identify as simply mixed race - because that’s literally what I am genetically. Now, with that being said, I recognize different people have different experiences growing up depending on their specific family, region, and culture. Also, you can be genetically mixed, and identify more with “black culture”, or with “white culture”, or a little of both depending on your own personal experience; but regardless, it still doesn’t take away what you genetically are. You can identify however you want, but don’t get mad at others for not identifying themselves how you think they should identify to fit your ignorant rigid constructs of their own identity. People generally identify most with the culture they grew up in - sometimes that coincides with their external appearance, but sometimes it doesn’t, and that’s okay. A good rule of thumb is if you’re curious about someone’s ethnicity, be respectful, and ask in a genuine and kind way, so that they feel comfortable sharing with you. As the saying goes, it’s not necessarily *what* you say, but *how* you say it. ✌️
Genetics literally doesn't matter. All that should matter, is how you were accultured growing up.
@@DreamersOfRealitygenetics literally matters. An Asian girl was adopted by a black family. Does that make her black ? Y'all sound pathetic
@@DreamersOfRealitymy cousin has a white mother and black father she grew up with her white family…..she acts “like a ghetto black American” despite being German….her black family isn’t even American they are Caribbean. At this point all that matters is what she is genetically because she does whatever she wants despite never stepping foot in the US…she’s been cultured by her media interpretation not real life!
Genetics is different from culture.You can be mixed race and identify culturally as black just like a japanese person born and raised in Puerto Rico is racially asian but culturally puerto rican. Ive seen it first hand.
I agree that nobody should be told how to identify , but we should be critical of the categories we were presented to identify with. "Mixed" race is in itself an idea coming from white supremacy. It identifies a person according to their number of white/non white anscestors. In French we have similar words to call "mixed" people: "Chabbin" "metisse" "mulatre" and even words that designate people according to their percentage of Black/white blood. All these terms come from slavery. They stem from the same system that supported slavery, anti Black racism and white supremacy. By identifying with genetical terms coming from the slavery system... aren't we saying that genetics and blood proportions do count ? It shouldn't count in an antiracist society... culture, love, community, family... to me, those are clearer basis for our identity
Im a mixed american, in my experience this topic has always been exhausting to talk about. My particular gripe with the conversation is it so often gets overshadowed by monoracial groups and my existence gets reduced to whether im more black or more white, if im more one thing or another, in order to ultimately be used as a scale to determine how I should be treated. If the conversation starts with mixed folks telling others about ourselves, its often met with immediate scrutiny and whether we're performing the stereotypes of our races to the satisfaction of non mixed folks. If not, how far are we willing to go to defend who we are, what we do, where we come from, and whether the totality of our existence is justified enough to claim the identity we've been born into. ESPECIALLY by white people under in this country that has upheld white supremacy since they stole the land. WHOLE intersections of complexity and nuance when talking about the multiracial experience, an experience that will intrinsically exist in multiple intersections just off the back of being multiple races, get dismissed to picking one thing or another (and mixed folks acting like stereotypes for the validation that comes with group acceptance imo)
I totally relate to your experiences with feeling culturally, like I didn’t have an exact “niche.” At school, there were international students from China, and I didn’t quite fit in with them fully because my mandarin was so rubbish. And I felt like I took up space in a way that was different from them-like you said, I wasn’t white either, so that kind of left me in this weird “no man’s land” of “where do I belong?” Love your videos ❤
Wow this video was so validating. As a sometimes white passing or even Latina passing or “white enough” passing biracial woman, I made a video on this exact topic and it was the root of a lot of anxiety for me. I took it down for a few months and then decided to put it back up because it’s my truth. No one wants to hear about the biracial experience because of the perceived privilege that we have. Can say more but I need to keep it short. But I loved this video and you’ve gained a new subscriber. Biracial people deserve a voice of their own that isn’t dictated by either side and based in American slavery. Our unique experiences are valid and they matter.
Perfectly said ❤
You should put it back up or make follow ups. You have rite in this world to have story heard. Who knows how many more people like you are out there needed to hear and some one who feel the same. Some problems are not meant to solved, We have to go through it. We all just visitors having an experience. Put it backup please.
If thats you in the pic then youre white.
Latina passing? Latina is not a race. I’m a black latina but white latinas, asians latina, jewish latina and etc exist.
I think one of the issues is (clearly) that biracial/lightskinned individuals get much better treatment than people who appear to be monoracial black. As you said, we can't escape the stereotypes. Most of the time their lightness is pedestalized and their experiences are much different despite some shared experiences.
There's literally nothing that can be done about that. We've had centuries of people preferring lighter skin. It will take generations to weed it out because it's not a fully conscious pov.
It's preferred because of the stigma associated with blackness/darkness. Colorism, classism, etc. intersect in ways that deeply impact the 'othered' groups.
This depends on where you grew up!!! As I said in another comment: I am 40yrs old, light skinned, curly hair but both parents were Black, all grandparents were Black. Some folks are very light in the family of one of my grandparents because well, that line had a lot more of my ancestors r@ped into existence on southern plantations by white men. That's the reality.
I grew up in an area with mostly white people: non urban, lots of racism. So ANYONE who wasn't white was stigmatized equally. Everyone who wasn't white was the N word and we all were treated like garbage - followed in stores, told we were stupid, given shit by the cops. I was not even seen as an object of romantic interest in high school, didn't have a date to prom until a Black friend from another school agreed to go with me!
However, I was dunked head first into light skinned privilege when I went to college where, for the first time I was told that I wasn't Black... by Black people! I knew who I was and White people still seemed able to tell that I should be followed around stores in my Billie Holiday hoodies and Black is Beautiful shirts. But for Black folks it was suddenly not clear. And then I had dudes all excited about me in different intensities than my darker friends! I hated that BS as much as the way white folks mistreated me. My mom is dark skinned and she is who I have always identified with since how she was treated is how I was treated growing up.
So look, I won't deny or pretend that colorism and light skinned privilege are real factors in determining much of people's lived experience. (I've even done the research and know the stats related to things like incarceration times and skin tone. I'm still livid) I wont even pretend that some people dont use their being lighter as a wedge to push away from Blackness and pretend issues dont exist. BUT I WILL insist that people stop trying to kick all light skinned people out of Blackness like it's even possible or desired by the people they are doing this to! We are capable of and more adept at nuance with perceiving who people are than white folks, and we should show it in how we treat each other.
You're blaming POC for the actions and attitudes of colonizers. How many times do you have to be called a slur by a white person to be considered "black enough" then? How many "shared experiences" does it take to be considered "black enough"? Never mind that black people are not a monolith and people can have different life experiences to each other despite being of the same skin color.
As a white woman I really enjoy listening to these video essays you make about race because it helps me more understand different perspectives. Thank you for making quality content!
Do you think white people play any role in the issues that biracial people and black people have?
Mixed people are mixed, end of story.
@@Pricklyrose-l2o yes we are thank you.
Me being biracial and scared to play the video💀im so tired of my identity being debated
Me too welcome to the club 😭
Blame your yt ancestors 😫 black people tired of ts too
Yup
Yup. I'm in the same boat.
I feel you man 😭
Good to hear educated opinions especially on the coloured "issue". Much love from Namibia❤ ( we also have coloured ppl here)
Appreciate this video, Khadija! I'm mixed race, with parents from Jamaica and South Africa respectively, and you articulated how I've always felt about my own relationship with my blackness and whiteness. Solidarity is the key word, here.
I feel like a lot of people misunderstand the term Biracial, because a lot of people perceive someone who is biracial as that being their race, when in reality Biracial is just a term to describe someone who’s half one race, and half another. People also seem to forget that Black and White isn’t the official label for all biracial people, it’s just more commonly seen or labeled.
As someone who’s mixed, I would usually said I’m a mixed black girl, as nobody has ever really recognized my white side, or heritage, when I tell people I am half white/black, they always seem so confused, or lost as to how that’s possible. (1)
And people usually just perceive me as an Afro Latina and assume I am Dominican and black, which is always frustrating, but funny to me. However Back to what I was saying, I consider mixed people especially as one apart of the black community, I feel like we count, we’re just unique in our own way, and yes we may have differences but some of us can also share similarities.
When people bring up the One Drop Rule for mixed people, it lowkey stressed me, because I cannot handle how people pull the one drop rule against Biracial people especially when you have a fully black parent. I think it’s different when you found a small percentage of black in your DNA vs actually having a black parent.
Once again speaking from my POV, My black parent is from Jamaica, so my pov is also different from having an immigrant parent, from the Caribbean, different culture vs growing up half AA. Both beautiful cultures! (2)
Thankfully Growing up, I didn’t experience the typical mixed child “Struggle”. My hair was always done, I was always well taken care of, my white parent wasn’t nor is deemed racist, a fetish, so the way I was raised was appreciative and involved in both of my cultures and both sides. Definitely more attached and confined with my JA side more than Italian, just because that’s mostly what consists of my household. 😂
Biologically: they may not be black.
Politically: they’ll lump you all together.
Biologically race doesn’t exist so…
It really doesn't matter Hispanics which we know is not a race are politically lumped as Latino but if you speak to most of them with their guard down majority of them even if they're mixed are white identifying and will mark white on the census form
That’s America for you
As someone who is mixed of two mixed Brazilian parents who immigrated to the US, this video helped me a lot. I think mixed people need to have more conversations about how to show up for Black people as we navigate our privilege because while our experiences are different, white supremacy is a thing and we should be working to disrupt that. Thanks Khadijah (as always) for using your big brain to give terms that give voice to peoples' experience, racial mutability being one of them for me. I think coming from a family whose mindset was to ignore racism against us to try and move forward in this world, being able to educate myself on how to actually identify and call out racism is really helping me get through all of the mess. But yeah, I honestly still feel confused on how to identify especially as I come from a country where race is viewed differently than the US. I say I'm mixed in the US but it's still confusing because at the end of the day people will have their own assumptions about how you are culturally based on race, and race and culture are two different things.
shout out to all my mixed ppl that identify as black but then were told we couldn't so now we're "biracial"
But you are biracial. You were never just black. It was wrong for anyone to make you claim black when you’re not full black.
This is a big conversation in my household in a positive way yet sometimes painful. Thanks for sharing ❤
My mother is black and Dominican and my father is white and German. I am basically a carbon copy of my mother but I have very light skin like my father.
And I think you put that into words so well. I am not only biracial but also bisexual and I feel like there are some similarities. Bisexuals face bierasure and sometimes it feels like you are not accepted in the straight community and also not in the LGBTQIA+ community. And when it comes to race I also sometimes feel like no one wants “to claim us”.
But I think you really succeeded in illustrated where it comes from. Of course it’s a horrible feeling to sometimes feel like you don’t belong. But I also kind of get the frustration. Saying you are black or queer also implies shared experiences and struggles. And my experience will never be the same as my mothers because colorisim exists. It saddens me but at the same time I see where that feeling of wanting to “gatekeep” comes from.
I’ve struggled with my identity a lot and I’ve reached the point where I just consider myself as POC.
I am light skinned and often mistaken for being biracial. I’m in my 30s and for people like me to have claimed anything other than being black would have been clowned endlessly. “She’s not mixed, she’s *just* light skinned” was common back then. As if that’s supposed to be a a downgrade.
I’m also of the era from when “trying to be white” was the accusation for anything from getting good grades to speaking a certain way.
I am black, and I love my black people - but to try and force a lot of us to unclaimed blackness at this point is too late. We don’t have anybody else!
❤ relatable
But you’re not biracial, so you should be identifying as black. Just cause your light skinned doesn’t make you not black. If you have two black parents that descended from enslaved people in America, you’re black.
This is my daughter! Two black parents n she’s been accused of being biracial and she’s not. My child hates it to the core it makes no sense. And she’s only half your age 15
How I relate to this comment so much. I’ve been stripped of my black identity my whole life because I’m light skin, don’t have the “right” features, & act/talk white. I always wished I was darker during my childhood because of this and was never happy with myself. The funny thing is ALL these comments would come from other black people. I love our community but sometimes they’re your biggest haters.
YOU ARE MIXED BLACK PEOPLE ARE NOT LIGHTSKIN!
The Tyla situation was really frustrating to me. It often feels like music fans will switch up on the black women artists they love at the drop of a hat, and the fact that South Africans consider “coloured” to be its own racial category made no difference. I absolutely get why black people are mistrustful of this stuff - they have reason to, as you discussed - but it sometimes feels like every black up and comer gets torn down before she can really establish footing for herself.
(Excellent video by the way)
We don’t “consider “ it to be its own group, it is
@PxstelMorgxn because there’s actual evidence and genetics that makes up their race , it’s not because of “fun” that they are their own race
Sadly, it will probably limit, or even damage, her career.
@@freedommlol she's lightskin, she'll be fine.