{"id":41670,"date":"2015-07-06T21:00:49","date_gmt":"2015-07-06T21:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=41670"},"modified":"2015-07-06T21:00:49","modified_gmt":"2015-07-06T21:00:49","slug":"is-it-cause-im-not-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=41670","title":{"rendered":"Is it \u2019cause I\u2019m not black?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is it \u2019cause I\u2019m not black?<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

moniquerants: Education Lover. Discoverer of Healthy Eating. Headphone Raver. Opinionated Ranter.<\/a>
\n2015-07-06<\/p>\n

Monique Bell<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Years of mistaken identity and assumed whiteness have understandably left me with a miniature chip on my shoulder, and what better way to deal with that chip than writing to the world about it? In case you were not aware I am mixed race. Yes, half and half, not a quarter, not a distant relative, not \u2018a bit of a tan\u2019, not \u2018maybe Mediterranean\u2019, not white, not black, but actually mixed race. My mother was born in the United Kingdom<\/a> and is English, my father was born in the United Kingdom too but my grandmother on my dad\u2019s side traveled over to the UK with my great-grandmother- who we called Mama \u2013 from Trinidad<\/a> to the UK, and prior to that Mama had migrated from Grenada<\/a> to Trinidad. So I am half Caribbean and half English.<\/p>\n

Ethnic identity shapes part of one\u2019s human identity as well as the influence of one\u2019s primary and secondary socialisation. Human identity is also shaped by how you are perceived by others; if everyone told me I was a tomato, I\u2019d likely start believing I was indeed a giant walking talking tomato, a bit like the story of The Emperor\u2019s New Clothes<\/a> by Hans Christian Anderson<\/a>. My experience as a child was quite different to that of my peers. I grew up in an affluent predominantly White town in the Home Counties<\/a> but I grew up in a far from nuclear family. Even though I regularly spent time with my dad, we were one of a few single-parent families in the town and my mum had to receive state support too. My older sister and I are different colours; in case you weren\u2019t aware mixed race people come in a range of beautiful colours! And yes, some of us look white, some of us look black, caramel, toffee, vanilla and everything in between. This blew the shit off the heads of people in my town and even now one of the first assumptions is that we\u2019re half sisters. Ironically, I am actually a closer skin colour to my half brother and sister who are my dads other children…<\/p>\n

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

Is it \u2019cause I\u2019m not black? moniquerants: Education Lover. Discoverer of Healthy Eating. Headphone Raver. Opinionated Ranter. 2015-07-06 Monique Bell Years of mistaken identity and assumed whiteness have understandably left me with a miniature chip on my shoulder, and what better way to deal with that chip than writing to the world about it? In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,395,8,10],"tags":[20381,20380,20379],"class_list":["post-41670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-media-archive","category-uk","tag-monique-bell","tag-moniquerants","tag-moniquerants-education-lover-discoverer-of-healthy-eating-headphone-raver-opinionated-ranter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41670","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=41670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}