Mixed Race Studies

Lopsided Afro

Mixed Humans ~ Reflections on occupying a space of inbetweenness. Persistently grappling with identity.
2015-05-04

Brian Kamanzi
Cape Town, South Africa

Self Determination.

I never realised how practical those words would become for my life until I started to explore the world beyond the safety of my University. Work spaces where the politics of what is considered respectable are carried out with almost total compliance without anyone mentioning a word, without anyone signing a single suggestion to law.

It was and is suffocating.

I must admit though, this moment revived memories of my childhood.
Being a child of the “colonies” our British style schools and accompanying rules really struggled to accommodate students who just didn’t quite fit the profile.

My hair was just a disaster unless kept short.
In fact, my Dad’s distate for men with anything like long hair rang in stark synchornisation with a reality and imagination that reinforced in my mind that the very hair that came out of my head was essentially…..

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Beautiful Aliens.

Mixed Humans ~ Reflections on occupying a space of inbetweenness. Persistently grappling with identity.
2015-01-26

Natalie Armitage

“What beautiful daughters you have!”

It happens a lot. It is a compliment, of course it is. I have green eyes, that are pretty big, and light brown skin. My sister, has the richest auburn hair, which in the light gleamed like fire. She has white skin, with pink rosy cheeks. Mum was very dark, before Vitiligo, with jet black indian hair. I remember looking at her skin against my sisters chubby white rosy flesh…she could have been adopted. I remember climbing on my Dads lap and seeing my arms with his. Well I knew he was my Dad for certain, but having my arm next to his and see the contrast of its colour, used to make me wonder, how we could be so close but never know what it feels like to look like the other. We had different sets of skins.

I am light- which contrary to what some awful skin products tell you- is not necessarily beautiful. Society seems to associate one with the other, not me. I was always envious of the Nigerian girl in my class with braids. To me, she was beautiful. She was bright, funny, could dance, sing and shook her beads at the end of her hair that made a wonderful noise and made her so much prettier. Her laugh was infectious too. I used to dream of being black like her. Femininity, seems to ooze from natural afro-carribbean girls.

My Dad, raised me on jazz. We had pictures of black people all over the house as icons. All I really thought at that age is that black people were the most creative beings of the earth. I am still not convinced that is a wrong perception. Dad would say things like “can you imagine, going through all this pain and suffering by society- just for the colour of your skin?”. Stevie Wonder helped him to illustrate to me this point, through lots and lots of music…

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Curly Hair

Mixed Humans ~ Reflections on occupying a space of inbetweenness. Persistently grappling with identity.
2015-01-26

Brian Kamanzi
Cape Town, South Africa

My Curly hair.

This hair I have on my head has always been something I’ve had to be conscious about.

Growing up my soft curls where a marker of my “difference”.

Mum had poker straight black hair. That turned the colours of salt and pepper. As we both grow older.

Dad had his hair very short. His was very curly, but it wasn’t like mine.

My curls. When I dared to let them show. Reminded me of the beautiful blend of my parents union.

But,…

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Confusion.

Mixed Humans ~ Reflections on occupying a space of inbetweenness. Persistently grappling with identity.
2015-01-18

Natalie Armitage
London

Authenticity. Authentic. What is that? I always wondered, what it meant when people referred to the lentils mum made us as “really authentic, not like that stuff you get in the curry houses thats not real, its not actually indian compared to this”. I assume it was because she was the only indian person that they actually knew, the first time that they actually saw lentils being made in this way.

Authenticity. The first thing that comes to mind was a house, a large old manor that was converted into a place called “Trading Boundaries” and there were two large model elephants outside. We used to go there to look at the furniture that had been imported from Bali on the way back from school. It was lavish.

The objects and ornaments in there mixed with the smell of incense felt like something, out of a book I read called A Little Princess. A story, of little rich girl that feels lost and abandoned in London, after being sent to boarding school from India where her father is a Captain. Upon her father’s death in war, and a confusion about financial ownership she is rendered worthless by the English headmistress and made to be a servant at the school, where previously she was a princess. Anyway, the part that I remember is that she becomes friends with a black girl called Becky, who is also a servant though treated a lot worse than the princess, but they bond over their misery and become friends and the princess entertains her with magical stories of Gods in India. There is also a pet monkey involved somewhere that they play with and love as much as they do each other.

What a story to read as a little girl. Being half indian, half english, the princess of my fathers eye, blissfully unaware of what colonialism actually was. Confusion, is a word that doesn’t quite cover it. Authentic?…

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Caught In-between

Mixed Humans ~ Reflections on occupying a space of inbetweenness. Persistently grappling with identity.
2015-01-13

Brian Kamanzi
Cape Town, South Africa

Caught In-between.

So for the longest time. I had grown up thinking of myself as an “almost” Indian. A half-Indian. Half caste. Whatever the hell sort of awful approximation of an authentic identity I desired. Loathed. Loved. And pursued.

I had dealt with a lot of people who felt at complete ease telling me what it “is” that I am.

My Dad is black you see. And many attempts I’ve made to connect with my mother’s heritage sending me packing. As if somehow invoking the dominance of the influence of “the father” is going to resolve the annoyance of having to decide which “box” I’m allowed to be in. It was always a tricky thing to even communicate to my own mother, who was not a cultural woman herself and could not understand what I was looking for. She could not understand why their rejection of me mattered to me – and I couldn’t understand why it was I was being denied my authenticity…

Read the entire article here.