{"id":54956,"date":"2017-09-17T02:58:19","date_gmt":"2017-09-17T02:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=54956"},"modified":"2017-09-17T03:28:30","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T03:28:30","slug":"shedding-my-whiteness-is-a-work-in-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=54956","title":{"rendered":"Shedding my whiteness is a work in progress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/2017\/sep\/16\/shedding-my-whiteness-is-a-work-in-progress\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>Shedding my whiteness is a work in progress<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Guardian<\/a><br \/>\n2017-09-16<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GeorginaLawton\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Georgina Lawton<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"550\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/2017\/sep\/16\/shedding-my-whiteness-is-a-work-in-progress\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/53c527a9504fe388f2ad884308f47a1ee1fee132\/0_224_6720_4032\/master\/6720.jpg?w=620&amp;q=20&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=7396ac52683af37e024a1ea8e80dc632\" width=\"550\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<small><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GeorginaLawton\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Georgina Lawton<\/a> \u2026 \u2018In my family, whiteness has been assumed as default.\u2019 <em>Photograph: Alicia Canter for the Guardian<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><em>A white identity was constructed for me 25 years ago and unravelling it feels like a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sisyphus#Punishment_in_the_Underworld\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sisyphean task<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>My black side and my Irish side compete for recognition within me, like two separate flames of a\u00a0fire, dancing around each other, fighting to shine the brightest. Take the other night in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/London\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">London<\/a>; I was out for a drink with a friend from school when we heard the melody of Irish accents from a\u00a0group of guys close by, and chimed in\u00a0to chat. Later, a British-African guy overheard part of the exchange and bemusedly declared that \u201cthe Irish men love black women!\u201d Looking decidedly sheepish, the Irish lads asserted that I\u00a0was Irish, to which the black guy replied, \u201cNo \u2013 she\u2019s black.\u201d I pretended not to hear and went to the toilet, leaving the projected shadows of who\u00a0I\u00a0am and who others think I am, dancing on the walls behind me.<\/p>\n<p>Outside my immediate family, my blackness has been obvious and non-negotiable, but among some of my Irish family, it is up for debate or ignored entirely. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/2017\/mar\/18\/my-mum-always-told-me-i-was-white-like-her-now-i-know-the-truth\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A white identity was constructed for me 25 years ago<\/a> and now unravelling this construct \u2013 and asking some of my Irish family to unravel it with me \u2013 feels like a Sisyphean task. Shedding my own psychology of whiteness is a work in progress, but when I am back in Ireland it\u2019s easy to revert to default because that\u2019s all we know&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/2017\/sep\/16\/shedding-my-whiteness-is-a-work-in-progress\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A white identity was constructed for me 25 years ago and unravelling it feels like a Sisyphean task<\/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":[26540,2103],"class_list":["post-54956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-uk","tag-georgina-lawton","tag-the-guardian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54956","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=54956"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54961,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54956\/revisions\/54961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}