{"id":44507,"date":"2015-12-07T21:04:23","date_gmt":"2015-12-07T21:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=44507"},"modified":"2015-12-07T21:04:23","modified_gmt":"2015-12-07T21:04:23","slug":"lets-talk-internalised-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=44507","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s Talk Internalised Racism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s Talk Internalised Racism<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Zusterschap: A blog for women who want to challenge social norms.<\/a>
\nNovember 2015<\/p>\n

Nicola Codner<\/strong><\/a>
\nLeeds, Yorkshire, United Kingdom<\/em><\/p>\n

All women have to check themselves for internalized misogyny<\/a> because we live in a patriarchal society. Similarly, all people of colour have to check themselves for internalised racism<\/a> due to living in a structurally racist society. While looking at internalised misogyny can be difficult, as a woman of colour I\u2019ve noticed I find it much harder to talk about internalised racism \u2013 something about it feels more painful and taboo.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m scared of being judged about it by white people and people of colour and I feel ashamed of it in a way I don\u2019t about internalised misogyny. I think this may be to do with the level of dehumanisation the black race has faced through slavery and colonisation so maybe there is something protective there about wanting to avoid the hurt that can come with digging up the topic. It\u2019s quite possible after all that my Jamaican ancestors were slaves as Jamaica was a country which was colonised by the British. Also, I feel more vulnerable as a person of colour discussing internalised racism because I\u2019m in a minority and minorities have to be strong in many ways to survive; it\u2019s not easy to show how we\u2019ve been wounded when we can feel precarious in society anyway. I think for many, part of the issue is not having the vocabulary to discuss the problem. In fact, I only learned the phrase \u2018internalised racism\u2019 a few years ago…<\/p>\n

…As I got older I did start to accept my identity more \u2013 or at least I thought I did. I experienced more subtle racial oppression in upper school which centred mainly round my hair and sometimes my mixed race identity specifically. Some of this bullying came from not just white students but black students too. The stereotype that mixed race kids are cute and special in some way possibly buffered me from some suffering but I did not fit the stereotype of being mixed race and attractive. I had big frizzy hair, braces, glasses and my features were seen as more typically \u2018black.\u2019 Eventually, as a young woman, I ditched my glasses and braces and I managed to fit the stereotype of being mixed race and attractive more comfortably. However, what many people don\u2019t realise is that if you embrace that stereotype to prop up your self-esteem in the face of racism it can have a nasty fallout for you. I know this because after years of hating my appearance and thinking I was ugly it seemed quite appealing to buy into the idea that being mixed race was somehow intrinsically beautiful…<\/p>\n

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

Let\u2019s Talk Internalised Racism Zusterschap: A blog for women who want to challenge social norms. November 2015 Nicola Codner Leeds, Yorkshire, United Kingdom All women have to check themselves for internalized misogyny because we live in a patriarchal society. Similarly, all people of colour have to check themselves for internalised racism due to living in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,395,125,8,10],"tags":[21853,22204,22203],"class_list":["post-44507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-uk","tag-nicola-codner","tag-zusterschap","tag-zusterschap-a-blog-for-women-who-want-to-challenge-social-norms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44507","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=44507"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44508,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44507\/revisions\/44508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}