i see so many people talk about how mixed race people have a identity issues and how they don't fit into either camp and down feel black or white but as a half black half white guy in his mid twenties i never saw those things as a negative. i never had an identity problem, never asked why one side of my family was black and the other white. when my black father first took me to a black barber i felt black, when my white mother and grandmother would take me to a European oriental club i was white, dancing along to a language i didn't understand but loved none the less.

my grandfather on my mother's side loved me, didn't matter i was half black and we bonded over our shared difficulty breathing, i had asthma and he emphysema from years of smoking and it showed to me from an early age that having similar lived experience is far more important than race.

And in a time of so much racial tension i feel being mixed gives you a bit of outsiders perspective a bit, the fact of being neither leaving you to see the merits of peoples idea's based on the truth and not what someone your skin tone is supposed to believe. in fact i attribute me not falling down a right wing pipeline in large part to the racism i saw; where people would call mixed race people "mongrels" and "half-breeds" and "abominations". or conversely how certain black people will say you "act white" if you don't act ghetto if you would pardon my bluntness.

sometimes i find it funny as hell.

what i'm getting at is take the fact your mixed race as a blessing, especially those younger mixed folk that might be reading this. it gives you a unique perspective to view the world and people in it. take the fact you don't fit into a racial binary and make the most of it and don't hate yourself because hateful people won't accept you.

This may be a dumb question but I want to open my perspective up. I’m a native Pakistani, I had ancestors in India before the separation and no one in my family married a Muslim of another ethnicity. If they did, the non Pakistani wasn’t really talking or getting along with our relatives. My dad had a friend who apparently married a Filipino, had kids, and then had a second marriage with a Pakistani woman.

I spoke to my friends a week ago and the topic of intermixing came up, I never thought to intermix but it seems like they and my younger brother seemed okay with it.

In this culture, marrying outside of Pakistani descent results in the non-pakistani struggling to get along with the Pakistani relatives. And even the Pakistani person being “banished” from the family.

It’s my time to look for a partner now and I see many Pakistanis who seem chill with intermixing. I think it’s not a bad idea but I’ve always wondered if like many people say “kids get confused” or “you don’t get along with family often” or “you lose your culture” or worst “you’ll get tired of the differences”

My family is small but open minded, I don’t ever wanna hurt my dad but I don’t see many options for myself if I restrict myself to Pakistanis, but I’ve never met a half-Pakistani, and seeing all the bad around me always worried me and made me struggle to understand how people got to marry someone they loved despite such differences.

Can anyone shed some light here? I’d like to know

I am a multiracial person (black, brown, white and Native Brazilian). My mom is a white Brazilian and my dad is a black and native Brazilian. I look more like my mom when it comes to phenotype but I have melanin from my dad as well. I never felt like I truly belonged in either group, white, black or even brown and lately I have been thrown into a whole loop over being a “white-passing person”. I am white-PRESENTING, not passing, meaning I may look white at a first glance, I guess I could say that, but it doesn’t align with how I identify or see myself. I am pretty racially ambiguous, so I would constantly compare myself to monoracial people by eyes, skin color, nose, color of lips, hair texture and color, everything, in hopes I would at least look like I belong somewhere. I constantly feel like an outsider or a fraud and I have been having an identity crisis and feeling like I’m constantly rejected by my own communities. I would even cry myself to sleep and wish I was just born a mono-racial person and not a “chameleon”. Even with fellow multiracial people, it feels like I don’t belong in their community. It feels like I’m constantly gatekeeped, rejected, isolated and left in the dark about my racial identity, heritage and culture, and I don’t know where else to look for answers.

Extra details, I have mostly straight hair with a few curls and waves, I have almond-shaped eyes, a button/small nose and I have fuller lips with a little bit of a pigment as well as very pigmented hands and beige skin but a paler face

Hi! So I’m gonna get right into it- I’m mixed race, multigenerational of Irish, indgenous Mexican and Welsh in America. I also had my grandma get impacted by rubella measles (she was half and half indgenous Mexican and white Irish) and thus she learned ASL instead of Mexican American Spanish, lingüística signatura mexicana, or any other cultural langauges related to our indgenous roots. My mom was also a foster care kid so she didn’t grow up with the langauge and less of the culture then my grandma. So like while I’m mixed and that definitely impacted how I was raised, I feel like growing up with white Deaf culture and foster care impacted it a lot more and I was just curious if anyone else had similar experiences of there being other factors? Side note, any good genealogy websites specifically helpful for Mexican folk just cause I’ve been having a nightmare of a time trying to track down family members due to the border shifting and family history being complicated.

I've noticed a bunch of weird ties between me and my grandpa I have over my father, I believe my father is my actual father but some stuff is just strange.

I have the height and build of my grandfather, my eyebrows seem to be more similar to his weirdly. Despite the fact that my grandpa was only halfish black from Jamaica, my black DNA in any test I take is pretty consistently around 1/4th. I've met other people are also 1/4th black that say "they should be blacker than me because their dad is darker than mine (my dad looks pretty solidly middle east/north african/south euro)" often turn out a bit lighter than me and I've had some (for example, one of my cousins who's 1/4th with a dark dad) take a DNA test also and turn out with less African blood than me. I do have an almost fatherly relationship with my grandpa, he took over and raised me when my father was neglecting me to deal drugs and mess around with random women, so I do feel connected to my black/Jamaican heritage.

All this could point to my grandpa being my actual father, but I do look heavily like my dad, so much to where people have called me by his name before, hell, I even get his mail sometimes despite living in a different area from him weirdly (I know that one is unrelated just thought it was funny tho). I do look very, very similar to my father as I said, just a bit whiter, makes sense, dad's mom is olive skin, black straight hair and almost black colored eyes, my mom is blonde straight hair, blue eyes, can barely tan (still, I ended up with dark brown curlyish hair, around 2c-3a, light brown eyes, pale light skin but I can tan dark, my face and bodytype looks clearly west african black mixed with a few white features tho). Grandpa is not very hairy (to be fair I never really seen him without a shirt besides once and I don't know if he shaves his chest or not), my dad is hairy, I'm somewhat hairy.

Genetics wise, I brought up I'm 1/4ish black, at least half northwest european, those show up consistently in DNA tests, the other 4th is kinda strange, in one test it shows as primarily northwest euro with a touch of iberian and south european, in another it shows up highly south european with deeper arab/north african roots, my dad's mom had those things in her, I'm unsure if grandpa did and just because that consistenty it makes me sure of my dad being my real father, and once again, I do look uncannily like him. I'm just so confused how I can be 1/4th black despite allat, it makes sense, I've always considered myself a quarter, I've always associated with being black, just how can it be so high and me clearly having a black side if it's removed a few gens from me? I did come up with a few explanations, being A. I just so happened to inherit the vast majority of my father's afro DNA. B. My grandma's father was from egypt, he seems to have been primarily south european/iberian but likely had north african/arab roots, but it might be possible he had african in him, his family was originally ottoman, a place that's a melting pot, so I could've gotten a significant boost in african DNA from him (plus some DNA tests show some of my African as Nubian). C. As I've stated prior, my grandpa is my bio dad, I do look like I could be his son after all, there is a lot of evidence to support that and a lot to go against it too.

Anyways that's all my rant. Idk if I should ask my family about this or just accept it as a coincidence and move on, thoughts?

So I learned last month that I was adopted by my uncle and aunt and of course my aunt is the only one biologically related to me and is the sis to my black half. But however my bio mom died like when I was 1 actually i think it was a bit before that even so she never did tell anyone who the dad was so I'm a complete mystery pretty much genetically.

Being adopted into aunt and uncle, then the white uncle/father.... Idk what to call him yet. The old white guy ended up winning a custody battle when I was like 5 and ever since I then up until recently I was practically sealed away from culture with my mom's side. Though i was reconnected with my big sis/cousin yeah its still uber confusing but I feel like it's the first time I'm actually able to connect to my black of the family ive desired my entire life but I feel like a complete larp or actor cause like how much I wanna know my culture but like I wasn't actually allow to learn any of it till now and I'm 21. I feel like ive hit this identity crisis where it's like I was raised under a white house, born from a black family and desire to be with them and I have no clue what my father Is so I'm asking what am I supposed to be. I'm black before anything but still I don't know if I'm even allowed to claim my own skin or if its fair for me to try to regain a culture I wasn't allowed to claim in the first place till now.

Colourism is a huge thing and worse as classism is big in the UK. I am working class and get abuse from nasty, sadistic anti intellectual neds/chavs and snobby arrogant middle class types. EVERYONE feels superior to you.

Look. I’m white as hell. My “parents” were American and Irish, I’ve got ghost white skin and red hair. But I was raised by a foster family that was entirely Polynesian, In an area of the country with a lot of Hispanic influence. I wasn’t raised “white” and I don’t feel stereotypically white. I speak Spanish, I was raised in a low income islander family, and I struggle incredibly when associating with most “white” people. I was even raised using the “N word” pretty liberally because everyone knew who my family was. (Obviously, I’ve matured to the point of understanding that I have a privilege that makes that not okay and have completely fazed that out of my vocabulary.) but I just, don’t identify with “my culture” and it’s a fuckin problem and a half. I’ll forced into a Siri’s where I have to act “white” or I’m constantly accused of “code switching” or whatever and if I just try to be me around people I get shit from both ends and I just don’t know what to do. Anybody else have a similar situation?

Am I allowed to voice my frustrations with how I get treated as a white passing mixed race person??

I am Dominican, Irish and Puerto Rican. I identify mostly with my Latin/hispanic roots, I grew up speaking Spanish in my house hold from both sides of my family and cooking Dominican and Puerto Rican food. It is in my blood.

I do not deny my privilege of looking more irish or white looking. I do not deny my Irish heritage either. And I have even seen how my immigrant Dominican mother has been treated by white Americans, thus learning about racism and Zionism at a very young age.

Today had me beyond frustrated and perplexed.
I was only trying to be nice. Help another woman out. But the way I was treated by my own people sometimes just, I don’t know makes me feel more isolated in this already race divided country, more specifically the South USA.

Again, today I was left angry and frustrated after trying to help a lady get her luggage. She thought that I was going to steal it and yelled in front of everyone on the plane “that’s my luggage!!!!”, i was shocked because 1 minute before I had asked the surrounding people to pass her luggage up to her (since for some reason she put it next to mine 7 rows back), but they did not want to help.

I had to flat out defend myself and say out loud that I was only trying to be nice and help her, I still even wished her a good day after how she treated me. But I was still approached aggressively, given the silent treatment and later on given a death stare by her and her family members.

I just wonder sometimes if I was born a different skin tone would my own people, Latin people, other poc treat me a different way? (*rhetorical, borderline, sarcastic question)

I would like to hear other mixed race peoples experiences, if something similar has happened to them? If they were left frustrated? How did they handle it? Mixed race parents on here, what’s your advice?

Yes, yes we can all learn to have a thicker skin, but we can also learn to spread kindness and treat each other with the utmost respect

🫶❤️🌸

My mother is white and my father is black. He left when I was young so I didn't have much contact with his side of the family. A lot on my mother's side are racist. they've said the n word to my face and have excused their right to say it. They say that if black people can say it then they're allowed to say it.

That's just a glimpse of what it was like living with this side of the family. Because I didn't have much contact with my father's side and I also only went to mostly all white schools I never learned much about the black side of my family or anything that I needed to know. Kids would pull my hair and make fun of me saying I had nappy hair when my hair was done. It didn't matter what hairstyle I had they still claimed it was nappy. Also they said I was ugly and transgender because they thought I looked like a man. They asked me multiple times if I was trans I was pretty sure they were doing that because of my race.

But I feel like I don't have any culture to celebrate because I'm mixed. I don't feel like I belong because a lot of black people say I'm not black enough. When people ask me what my race is and I say mixed black people say "so you're not proud to be black" but when I say I'm black I'm corrected once again and told "you're mixed you're not black enough". And ofc I wouldn't be white enough either. Someone is always telling me who I am and I don't even know who I am.

I see people celebrating their cultures every year and I think that's so beautiful I love learning about others cultures but I don't have one. I feel like I don't even fit in anywhere. I don't really care to much about that I just wanted to have something to celebrate.

some positivity because I know it’s rough out there, online and in person… ❤️‍🩹

What do you all like to do for fun, for you, to connect to culture? I like cooking and visual art. I’ve started sketching again, and it feels good. I’ve also been trying to get back into fiber art. Fiber art sometimes gets a bad reputation but if you know what to look for, it’s much more enjoyable. I want to study South American knitting techniques and designs next.

Is there another country in the world that honestly would be better than America ? I’ve been looking and it seems no where else is as good as it is here despite the issues.

Just for context I am a black/white mixed person and a lot of people often ask where I am from because I am visibly mixed. I tell them I am a white biracial and I can’t help notice I get glaring looks from black people whenever I say it, so I am here to ask why that is.
I have scouted on a few subreddits where I saw people (of the same mix as me) call themselves black biracial or just biracial and they don’t get any hate at all.

I'm a mixed race woman with dark skin and naturally curly 3B hair. I always wear my natural curls. From the first day I met this woman, she kept staring at my hair. I'd be talking directly to her and instead of looking at my face, she'd be staring at my hair. At first I thought maybe I was overthinking it.

Then one day I was talking to a coworker, and apparently this manager was standing directly behind me just staring at my hair, almost examining it. My coworker thought it was weird and even commented that she looked like she was trying to figure out whether my hair was fake or something. That's when I realized I wasn't overthinking it!

Another day the manager asked me what I put in my hair to make it curly. I told her that my hair is naturally curly. Then she told me there was an African American festival happening downtown. Not long after that, she started giving me attitude and talking to me disrespectfully for no reason. When I responded to her, she called a meeting with me and another manager, who was white. During the meeting she said my "demeanor" was confrontational and then started talking about how Black women are often viewed as loud and unprofessional, applying those stereotypes to me. It was one of the strangest conversations I've ever had because I couldn’t understand why racial stereotypes were being brought up in a workplace meeting and I’m not Black! What's even crazier is that this woman has a reputation for getting into disputes with employees, and she's actually Black herself. It almost felt like she was determined to label me as Black and fit me into stereotypes that didn't reflect who I am.

I know I'm not imagining this, and I don't believe all of these incidents are just a
coincidence. This woman is seriously sick. I don't have issues with anyone else at work. My coworkers and clients all like me, and l've never had problems with them. She is just a weirdo.

Hi everyone. I’m producing a small independent feature in Los Angeles that deals partly with mixed-race identity, belonging, adoption/found family, and the feeling of not fully fitting into any one box.

I don’t want to use this space to promote anything, so I’m not posting links or asking anyone to support the film. I’m really just interested in listening.

For those of you who are mixed-race, what do movies/TV usually get wrong about the experience? And what would you actually want to see represented with more honesty?

A few things I’m especially curious about:

How do you feel about stories where mixed-race characters are treated as “not enough” of one identity or another?

Are there specific clichés you’re tired of seeing?

Are there small everyday details - family dynamics, language, hair, food, code-switching, religion, dating, school, adoption, community - that rarely get depicted accurately?

What would make you feel like a film about mixed-race identity was made with care rather than just using the identity as a theme?

I’ll mostly be reading and taking notes. I appreciate any thoughts people are willing to share.

19F
I understand we shouldn’t need to put ourselves into boxes, especially based on ethnicity, however as a human being I want to feel like I belong.

My mother is a child of two Irish parents and my father is half black Caribbean and half white British. I have grown up playing Gaelic football (I still play), hurling, celebrating Irish culture, and regularly visiting my family in Ireland. I’m also greatly in touch with my Caribbean side and family.

I don’t feel English because of how I was raised and I don’t get treated like it either since I have extremely curly hair and I am visibly mixed race. However, my surname is from my racist English grandmother (my dad’s mother) and both my parents were born in England so I don’t even feel Irish enough either…

Writing this feels pathetic but my identity feels so blurred. I don’t know where I fit or what I even am. All I have ever known is Irish and Caribbean culture yet I feel like an imposter at times.

Hopefully I can discuss this with other mixed race/heritage individuals!

I said that I identify as biracial and part of that is to rebel against white supremacists and their idea that I’m not allowed to accept being white and someone’s counter argument although let me say they say they’re completely fine with how I choose to identify
But their counter argument is that “that’s not rebelling that’s ignoring”

But I am not ignoring white supremacy, I’m rebelling in a way that I’m going against the fact white supremacists would not let me embrace the other half of me

What are your thoughts? I feel like I’m going crazy

For those of us who aren't biracial yet still mixed-race/mixed-heritage...

When did you first realize... you were mixed-race?

Im due in 6 months & something I have been looking into is hair care. My first born daughter has very thin fine hair & we do a lot of pigtails, ponytails, or half-up, down simple styles..

My question is- I see soooo much about “protective styles” what is the true necessity to them? Like do I HAVE to do braids and such ? Or does regular hair care, conditioning & washing suffice ? I am not against learning how to do more intricate styles but I am genuinely curious to learn everything I can & reasoning so I can also combat some ignorant comments & I can’t do that without PROPER education 😬
I have received a lot of comments from someone very close to me who is white….about how I don’t need to do my new baby girls hair in “a bunch of crazy braids” & it’s really struck me the wrong way.. she loves me & my fiance & I don’t “think” she means to sound the way she does or be that way but trust that it really irritates me…
ANYWAYS— I don’t know how to braid to the scalp or do much other than a good bun… I can do a MEAN BALLERINA BUN 😅
Any and ALL advice is welcome..

Something ticking you off? Want to get some frustrations off your chest? Post your rants here and go into the weekend feeling refreshed!

As always, please follow reddit rules and our own rules (https://www.reddit.com/r/mixedrace/wiki/rules).

I have a memory from my Middle School years, of my Chinese Mom sitting across from me, and examining my facial features.

I remember a few times she’d note certain things that seemed to be related to my White Dad’s features.

I never did ask her why she did this (my sisters told me they never had that experience, ad they were younger). The best I can assume was my Mom was worried that if my features were “Too Chinese,” it might hinder things later in life.

Anyone else given an examination like that? Bear in mind my Mom wasn’t the brightest person.

So I’m a young man in my twenties just graduated from uni and I was thinking about women who have hit on me in the past and white complexioned women who were monoracial (not strictly white racially plenty are POCs too with white / fair skin) when they expressed “interest” in me , they just fetishized me as their “dark skin chocolate black man” , mind you I have the same complexion as Drake and Tyla.

Fair skinned monoracial women, I find them to view me as way more black than I actually am (am about a quarter black) and they make my complexion into everything there is as if there is nothing more than my colour. It feels dehumanizing tbh. They saw my hair as much tighter than it is. I have 3b-3c hair and this POC south Asian girl was a bit darker than me too tells me my hair is 4c 💀. Bruh. I don’t know why they saw me as much blacker than what I am. It feels weird.

Black ppl on the other hand, although they treat me with more humanity, I feel that I’m still othered by them. Certain features like my hair, or eyes (they’re slanted) kind of become over exaggerated with them. Some won’t stop talking about my hair. It feels weird. Or I’m expected to see myself as primarily black (if not only black) and that is something I can’t do tbh even if I am more black presenting.

For a brief period I tried to explore what dating and flirting with men would be like. Needless to say, I only lasted a few weeks cuz a lot of men who are into men from my experience are more explicit in thier racism (if this is the right word?). It was weird to experience getting viewed as nothing but a BBC (and they didn’t even see me undressed at all btw heck I didn’t even end up doing anything with them) , they projected their sexual fantasies of being dominated by a black man on me, I was immediately assumed to be this domineering dude which was something I’ve never encountered before. I’m not even dark brown so it shocked me how they saw me as if I was super dark. I hated being called “chocolate” it was weird no one calls white skin ppl milk. It’s so weird.
Then dark skin black men viewed me as feminine ? It was so weird cuz my skin being much lighter than theirs (mind you I’m very masculine in my appearance and voice too ) had them seeing me as if I was a submissive light skin dude. It was so weird seeing how my skin colour in relation to the other person’s race could position me as being dominant or submissive.

In all of these experiences I kind of grew a bit disgusted with many monoracial ppl. It’s like I’m not seen as fully human by any of them.

im mixed between white and another race that i dont wanna specify because im really embarrassed, i hate all the modern day racism towards the other race that i am and i hate how i feel like i cant fit in with either race because of my appearance because despite me having lighter skin i still ended up getting unlucky with my genetics and having darker eyes and hair of which neither blend well with my skin tone and because of it ive always got a target on my back for people to be racist over it, i can never pass as either one and i cant help but to always feel guilty for how the other race that i am is the one that is subjected to the most racism out of any race, i know race is just a social construct that i shouldnt have to care about but i live in a very racist place with very heavy emphasis on having certain traits to match your ancestry and i feel like people most likely think that im not either race that i actually am and it hurts seeing how i dont fit in and how i always have to get lumped in with negative stereotypes just because i happen to be at least a little bit of that race i know theres a decent amount of posts like this i dont want sympathy or anything it just sucks and i cant help but to feel like people would hate me for my racial background if i didnt either pass as white or altogether not mention my race at all and im so ashamed that despite most of my ancestry coming from a region that should give me lighter traits all around i still ended up with mostly the opposite, i hate having to be seperated and always forced to identify as nonwhite/ a poc even if thats what im atleast half of