Biracial Britain: A Different Way of Looking at RacePosted in Books, Media Archive, Monographs, Politics/Public Policy, United Kingdom on 2021-09-20 15:04Z by Steven |
Biracial Britain: A Different Way of Looking at Race
Constable
2021-01-28
352 pages
Hardcover ISBN: 9781472133458
Ebook ISBN: 9781472133434
Paperback ISBN: 9781472133441
Remi Adekoya, Associate Lecturer of Politics
University of York
Mixed-race is the fastest-growing minority group in Britain. By the end of the century roughly one in three of the population will be mixed-race, with this figure rising to 75 per cent by 2150. Mixed-race is, quite literally, the future.
Paradoxically, however, this unprecedented interracial mixing is happening in a world that is becoming more and more racially polarized. Race continues to be discussed in a binary fashion: black or white, we and they, us and them. Mixed-race is not treated as a unique identity, but rather as an offshoot of other more familiar identities – remnants of the twentieth century ‘one-drop’ rule (‘if you’re not white, you’re black’) alarmingly prevail. Therefore, where does a mixed-race person fit? Stuck in the middle of these conflicts are individuals trying to survive and thrive. It is high time we developed a new understanding of mixed-race identity better suited to our century.
Remi Adekoya (the son of a Nigerian father and a Polish mother, now living in Britain) has come to the conclusion that while academic theories can tell us a lot about how identities are socially constructed, they are woeful at explaining how identities are felt. He has spoken to mixed-race Britons of all ages and racial configurations to present a thoughtful and nuanced picture of what it truly means to be mixed-race in Britain today.
A valuable new addition to discussions on race, Biracial Britain is a search for identity, a story about life that makes sense to us. An identity is a story. These are our stories.