While I would never describe myself as a monarchist, I have a certain affection for the Royal Family. Like a dotty old aunt, or a mad, senile granddad, there is always a royal on hand to give those of us born post-blitz a hearty, if bewildered chuckle. Princess Michael of Kent did the honours in July of 2005, following up an incident where she told a group of African American diners in New York to “go back to the colonies” with an impassioned plea of innocence. She could not be racist, she countered, as she has lived amongst the “adorable, special people” of Africa, even going so far as to dye her hair black and attempt to go “undercover” as “a half-caste”. Gawd bless you ma’am.
While her tone would be no less patronising were she to replace the term ‘half-caste’ with ‘mixed race’, she would probably come across as less blithely ignorant. Though it has a politically correct twang, it’s a tag I am comfortable with, proud of even, if in a deeply apolitical, rather holier-than-thou kind of way. After years of feeling uncomfortable in my skin, I am delighted to say to myself – and whomsoever should care to listen – that I am mixed race, and not to give a damn what anyone else thinks.
However, sitting at a PC as a 31-year-old man, proudly attesting to my happiness with being mixed race is rather different to the experience of the rather timid 13-year-old me, cringing away from a spittle-flecked playground accusation of being ‘an “alf-caste”. At an age when fitting in was everything, being the only mixed race kid at a school split roughly down the middle between asian and white children, was sometimes hellish.
Although it is doubtful that it would have been of any comfort at the time, I was unaware that I was part of what is now the fastest-growing ethnic group in the UK. In 2001, for the first time, the
national census form included a box in the ‘Racial Group’ section marked ‘mixed’. Nearly seven hundred thousand people ticked this box, and we now represent 11% of the country’s ethnic minority population. And with figures from 1997 showing that half of all British-born black men currently in a relationship are with a white partner (as well as a third of black women), it seems that like it or not we are here to stay.
Rest assured, some people do like it. And some people most certainly do not. More than any other ethnic group, mixed race people in the UK are in a strange position where, even once we have left the schoolyard we find ourselves the conduits for the hopes and the prejudices of others. On one hand, mixed race people are often the victims of hatred and ignorance from both black and white communities alike. At the same time, we habitually find ourselves sanctified, idealised and, inevitably perhaps, commodifed by those who would see us as foot soldiers for some utopian, coffee-coloured future. When all most of us want to do is be who we are, we find ourselves the living, breathing representation of a new multicultural age: Generation M, some have called it, the value of which lies firmly in the eye of the beholder.
It would be easy, and comforting, to think that the taboo of interracial love has been broken, and there is no doubt that the attitude of mainstream society has softened appreciably. Mixed race couples are a common sight on our streets, and celebrities who marry someone of a different racial background can now expect only a single-figure number of dog turds through the post in the wake of their big day.
snip.....>>>>>> find the rest of the article at this link
http://www.colorfultimes.com/2010/03/society/race-society/ethnicity-identity/halfcaste-biracial-mixedrace-black/?ec3_listing=posts
