Mixed Race Studies

Focus on world’s first black football star

The Voice
2016-10-16

Poppy Brady

Dr Tony Talburt decided that a book on Guyanese-born footballer Watson was seriously overdue, so he set about researching the background of this exceptional pioneer of the beautiful game

HE WAS the world’s first black football superstar, but the name Andrew Watson is not on every football fan’s lips – and that is why a book has been written about him to give him the spotlight he deserves.

Writer and education adviser Dr Tony Talburt decided that a book on Guyanese-born footballer Watson was seriously overdue, so he set about researching the background of this exceptional pioneer of the beautiful game.

As Dr Talburt so eruditely puts it in his book Andrew Watson – the World’s First Black Superstar, had Watson been born more than 100 years later in the 1980s, he would most certainly have been considered a sporting celebrity.

“What Watson achieved in the 1880s was probably the equivalent of contemporary legends such as Lionel Messi of Barcelona or Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid, captaining both club and country” said Dr Talburt.

“In more ways than one, Andrew Watson was truly a remarkable footballer and sporting hero.”…

Read the entire article here.

Mixed race author on the struggle of having to ‘pick a side’

The Voice
2016-06-05

Davina Hamilton, Entertainment Editor

LIFETIME OF LOVE: Gus and sister Chi-chi with their parents Michael and Margaret

Author Gus Nwanokwu on growing up with a Nigerian father and Irish mother in 1960s Britain

THE PRESSURE to ‘pick a side’, the struggle to find acceptance, and the sense of alienation are issues that have been addressed by many academics when examining the mixed race experience.

But rarely has the subject of mixed race identity been chronicled through literature, by authors who have lived the experience. Gus Nwanokwu seeks to fill this void with his new book, Black Shamrocks – a powerful memoir, in which he charts his experiences as a mixed race child in post-colonial England.

Growing up in London in the 1960s and 70s, Nwanokwu would often see the ‘No blacks, no dogs, no Irish’ signs hanging in the windows of rented accommodation. The experience was all the more poignant for the youngster, as he was born to an Irish mother and Nigerian father.

“My parents met at the Hammersmith Palais in 1955,” Nwanokwu explains. “Mum was collecting her coat as she was about to leave when my dad walked in. He was instantly smitten and persuaded her not to leave, but to accompany him to the dance floor. They stayed together forever after that point.”…

Read the entire article here.

Marvin Rees Becomes UK’s First Elected Black Mayor

The Voice
2016-05-14

Marc Wadsworth

‘I’m the descendant of Jamaican slaves. Now I’m mayor of Bristol,’ Rees tells The Voice

BRISTOL’S NEW mayor has not only changed the face of the city after winning a huge victory but is also promising a new and inclusive way of doing politics.

Marvin Rees, 44, told The Voice in an exclusive interview: “I’m really honoured and feel the weight of the challenge I’m taking on. It’s also very exciting. I’m pleased so many good people are coming forward, wanting to work collectively, which I think this job requires. It’s not messianic leadership. It’s about fostering collective leadership around shared priorities such as poverty eradication, building homes for people and tackling inequality.”

Rees, who grew up poor in the St Paul’s area of the city, has pledged to appoint an all-party cabinet that reflects how people voted and the city’s diversity.

In 2012 Rees unsuccessfully ran for mayor when the post was first created. He amassed a whopping 31,259 votes, losing to independent George Ferguson, a wealthy architect, by less than seven per cent.

This time Rees notched up just under 70,000 votes, almost 30,000 more than Ferguson…

Read the entire article here.

‘Our schools are failing mixed raced children’

The Voice
London, England, United Kingdom
2016-04-02

Dinah Moreley

Stereotypical expectations that this group have ‘confused identities’ often mean they experience racism from teachers and fellow pupils

A REPORT by People in Harmony, (PIH) the national charity for mixed race people and families has highlighted the experience of mixed race children in the education system. Stereotypical expectations that this group have ‘confused identities’ often mean they experience racism from teachers and fellow pupils. Here, PIH’s Dinah Morley tells how the report and the seminars it was based on were put together.

IT IS over a decade since People in Harmony (PIH) published Mixed Race and Education: creating an ethos of respect and understanding, a conference report on mixed race children and young people in the education system.

PIH has now revisited the subject of mixed race young people in education in a new report called Mixed Race and Education: 2015 in order to consider ways in which a better dialogue with schools could be achieved to help improve outcomes and to add some substance to a patchy body of research…

…AWARENESS

The debate in April 2015 facilitated by Martin and Asher Hoyles, educators and authors of books on race and culture, was constructed to address four specific topics that had arisen from the earlier seminar.

Racism and discrimination in school was also discussed by the young people and parents. They identified:

• The curriculum content does not acknowledge the mixed race presence.
• A failure to stimulate an awareness of mixed race students and families.
• Schools lack resources needed about mixed race achievers and role models
• Appearance often incorrectly determines how mixed race students are related to.
• Teacher stereotyping leads to incorrect assumptions about students’ backgrounds and needs.
• The default position applied to mixed race people is usually black.
• Others are deciding the terminology used in schools for mixed race people.

It is important for teachers and others to understand the experiences of mixed race people and the fact that lazy racist stereotypes are not helpful in helping children from these backgrounds to settle and to achieve…

Read the entire article here.

Why isn’t multiculturalism accepted in society nowadays?

The Voice
London, England
2013-01-25

Kamran Assadi

Kamran Assadi on why diverse cultural identities in Britain should be embraced not questioned

I BELIEVE society and the environment you live in can alter your opinions and the way you view life.

Stereotypes can alter our thinking towards different religions, sexualities and ethnicities amongst other things. I think it is fair to say we’ve all been there and I can only talk about this from my personal experience.

I am a young British mixed-race father of Montserratian and Iranian heritage. My parents were of mixed religions (Christian and Muslim) and they taught me about both without any prejudice being passed onto me.

I’m Iranian so people associate me with terrorism. I’m also Caribbean so I get all the Black stereotypes as well. I was a victim of racial profiling whilst travelling to New York. They looked at my full Iranian name and my facial hair, and then took me for questioning in several rooms searching me for signs of terrorism.

Although I’m a mixed-race father, some people categorise me as black – putting me under the negative thumbprint of being a deadbeat absent dad which isn’t necessarily true. Why subject me to such extreme measures? Why should I be judged by a country’s politics I don’t believe and am not a part of? What does race have to do with being a good dad? My stereotypes are thrust into me like a sharp pronged fork.

Even I’ve succumbed to society’s notions of preconceived prejudices. As I looked Black and never wanted to complicate things with people who didn’t understand my culture, I just called myself Black. I even changed the pronunciation of my Iranian name to a more British phonetic so people could say it properly. I wrote a poem ‘The Black Boy’ that harked over these issues and overcoming them by being myself and being a positive influence. However as I didn’t know my Iranian family, all I could truly talk about was my Caribbean identity…

Read the entire article here.

‘We have a race problem in England’

The Voice
London, England
2013-03-06

Hazelann Williams

Arinze Kene says he does not do politics. But for anyone who has seen one of Kene’s plays, it may sound like an unusual statement because the prolific playwright has written many plays about the state of society, ranging from life on a housing estate to African perceptions on Christianity. Yet, Kene says his plays are not political, they are humanistic.

“I’m not a political person, my plays always cover issues that people may say are political, but I’m tackling issues from the human perspective, from where it affects people personally. I can’t shun politics because I live on planet Earth but when I can I try to avoid it, because I don’t understand it. It gets me worked up and gets me stressed out and stress is the enemy,” confessed the 25-year-old.

In his latest play, God’s Property, Kene takes the audience back in time to the restless streets of Deptford, south London in the early 1980s, as estranged mixed race brothers Chima (Kinsley Ben-Adir) and Onochie (Ash Hunter) are unexpectedly reunited.

Not only covering the spiraling youth unemployment, inner city riots and economic downturn of the Eighties, the writer also is exploring the very divisive issue of race and where mixed race people stand in society. And although the Little Baby Jesus author tried to stay away from the political aspect of race he had to admit that, like 30 years ago, the UK still has a racial problem…

…“I know that some mixed raced people feel black, some feel mixed race and I thought I would explore that. It is still relevant, I don’t think discussing race is overdone, if you looked at the amount of time Great Expectations has been done and re-done, I don’t get bored of a good story and I don’t think this issue has been explored anywhere near enough as most. I think I am tapping into something that has not been explored enough,” said Kene…

Read the entire article here.

Not as simple as black or white

The Voice
2011-11-21

Elizabeth Pears

How mixed-race Brits are tackling issues surrounding dual heritage

LAST MONTH, the UK’s fastest growing ethnic minority, as part of the BBC’s Mixed Britannia series, reignited the debate of what it means to be ‘mixed-race’.

Demographers have predicted that Britain’s mixed-race population will reach 1.3 million by 2020 – almost double the number recorded in 2001. Of this figure, 45 percent are mixed white and black.

But despite increasing acceptance of inter-racial relationships and more visible mixed-race people such as Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, actress Thandie Newton and Olympian Kelly Holmes, the concept of being mixed-race remains quite literally a grey area – a type of no man’s land where nothing is as simple as black or white.

Some critics find the need for mixed-race people to identify as such divisive, and argue that biologically there can be no such thing. Others argue that by merit of having a collective experience, mixed-race people should be free to align themselves in this way, and subsequently, get their voice heard when it comes to policy and decision-making.

Self-defining

Then there are those who are comfortable self-defining as black in the political sense as a means of navigating British society.

Bradley Lincoln, founder of social enterprise Mix-D, whose aim is to provide a year-round national platform for mixed-race debate, said: “When we talk about being mixed-race there is a danger of either over-celebrating or sounding like a victim.

“Mixed-race people are not foot soldiers for a new racism. It is not a homogenous group. It is not a separate ethnic grouping – but it is time to move the conversation forward, particularly within the education and the social care system where many mixed children are considered just black.”…

Read the entire article here.