{"id":36055,"date":"2014-03-16T22:00:18","date_gmt":"2014-03-16T22:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=36055"},"modified":"2014-03-16T22:00:18","modified_gmt":"2014-03-16T22:00:18","slug":"on-mixedness-and-blackness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=36055","title":{"rendered":"On mixedness and blackness"},"content":{"rendered":"

On mixedness and blackness<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

What Nadia Likes<\/a>
\n2014-03-14<\/p>\n

Nadia Riepenhausen<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

What are you? A question that is fairly straightforward for many, but not so much for me. Before you roll your eyes, expecting to hear another lengthy diatribe about another \u2018tragic mullato<\/a>\u2019 identity crisis, hear me out.<\/p>\n

A couple of Sundays ago, I found myself in a \u2018battle of the races\u2019 on twitter, a \u2018twar\u2019 for the lack of a better term. It started out as a pleasant debate regarding racial categories in South Africa, and the difference between a cultural and racial identity. It ended with me being called a racist who hates black people by choosing to identify as \u2018mixed race\u2019. I have been called many things, but a racist is definitely a first for me. I\u2019m not going to justify my non-racist claim, by stating something lame like \u201csome of my best friends are black\u201d, because as I am mixed race, I am also black, but some people just don\u2019t seem to get or accept that it\u2019s possible to be both of these things at the same time<\/p>\n

In the aforementioned twitter debate, I was explaining to my fellow tweeters that I prefer to identify as mixed race, rather than \u2018coloured<\/a>\u2019. For those not in the know, \u2018coloured\u2019 is how mixed race people are referred to in South Africa, and in Zimbabwe where I grew up. For me \u2018coloured\u2019 is more of a cultural identity, rather than a race. Although both of my parents were born coloured, I have never been comfortable with the label. This is mainly due to the way that I have been socialised and the environment that I grew up in. I grew up with my German stepfather and spent parts of my childhood in Germany. I went to predominantly white schools, and was one of a handful of so-called \u2018coloureds\u2019 in my school. I found myself with either white or black friends, and when it came to debating issues of race or politics, I adopted a black identity. During the time I was in school, I didn\u2019t have the means to question my identity too much, but always found it difficult to answer questions pertaining to what I was. I didn\u2019t live in the areas that coloured people lived in, I didn\u2019t speak the way they spoke, nor did I go to the same places they did. I may give the impression that I was afflicted with a superiority complex, and that I thought I was better in some way, but this was definitely not the case. I would have loved to have blended in, but I simply did not. The few times that I attempted to, I was told that I \u2018didn\u2019t belong\u2019 and was even beaten up by a girl once for being where I don\u2019t belong. Many years on, I have no desire to blend in with any group and have embraced my \u2018otherness\u2019…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On mixedness and blackness What Nadia Likes 2014-03-14 Nadia Riepenhausen What are you? A question that is fairly straightforward for many, but not so much for me. Before you roll your eyes, expecting to hear another lengthy diatribe about another \u2018tragic mullato\u2019 identity crisis, hear me out. A couple of Sundays ago, I found myself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,125,8],"tags":[16472,17088],"class_list":["post-36055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","tag-nadia-riepenhausen","tag-what-nadia-likes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}