Stuck in the middle: Racism & being mixed race in Aotearoa
I exist somewhere between two races, two realities, and two histories. For my whole life I have been classified on government documents as an ‘other’. Growing up in Aotearoa, there has never been a neat and tidy tick box for me to belong to. My mother is New Zealand Pākehā and my father was African American. I am mixed race, neither here nor there. Ambiguous. Inbetween.
Around my mother's family I am considered Black. Around my father’s family, I am considered to be very light skinned, almost white. I was raised by my white mother in New Zealand, spent most of my school holidays with my white grandparents, and the majority of my friends at school were white. I was probably about 6-years-old before I even realised my skin didn’t match the peach ‘skin colour’ pastel in the classroom art supply cupboard. Growing up, it never occurred to me that I would be limited in life because of my skin colour. That in itself is a privilege many Black people will never have. That is white privilege, something I have been afforded by being ‘just white enough’ to be accepted.
While I understand the nuance of racial microaggressions and the embarrassment and shame that can come from having a name that sounds ‘foregin’ and a face that is considered ‘ethnically ambiguous’, I cannot and never will fully relate to the Black experience of racism. Nobody is following me around the supermarket, afraid I will steal something. Nobody is refusing to give me a job because they are threatened by my difference. Nobody is accusing me of being a criminal based on my skin colour. If anything, people don’t know what to think of me because I am neither one, nor the other. I am 50 percent white and that means that to an extent, I live as a beneficiary of white privilege.
It’s embarrassing to admit that I didn’t even know the term ‘half-caste’ was offensive until I was 25. For years I genuinely thought it was an affectionate term my white friends could use to describe me. But here’s the thing; If I am ‘half’, does that mean that other people are whole? Does being half mean I do not have the right to claim that I fully understand the victimhood of racism? But equally, can I not fully understand what it means to be afforded the privilege of being wholly white? Where does this label of half belonging leave me? Standing in the middle of two groups of people and not quite knowing where to belong, it seems.
As a young person learning about African American slavery in school, how could I possibly begin to comprehend that I exist on both sides of such a cruel story? Inside of me lives the DNA of those who were beaten, bruised, sold like cattle and branded as less than human. But this slave DNA is now intertwined and mixed with equal
parts white slave owner. Inside me lives traces of both the victim and the perpetrator. My muddled blood is thick with both power and powerlessness.
For me, the issue of race is not simple and therefore the issue of racism is not simple either. People feel safe asking me about race because I am partly Black, but not too Black. I am different enough to tick a box, but not different enough to make people feel uncomfortable. And looking back, I deeply regret the times I have told my white friends that I have never really experienced acts of racism. When people asked me about racism I honestly assumed that they were asking if anybody had ever called me derogatory names on the street, or if I have been refused employment because of my skin colour. Subtle forms of racism are so ingrained in my everyday existence that I’ve only just recently come to realise that I have been a victim of racism my whole life.
This is a prime example of how suppression works. Minority groups come to believe that subtle microaggressions are not worth noting and are so normal that we sometimes don’t even realise that this too, is racism. Or maybe we do realise it, but because it’s not ‘that bad’, we choose to remain silent. No matter how far our society progresses and how liberal we think we are, this is why racism remains a problem that is yet to be solved. Subtle systemic racism means that people like me fall into the trap of keeping racism a secret. This leads our white friends and family to believe that racism is dead and no further action is required.
By living my life with an inadequate understanding of the complexities of racism, I have unknowingly allowed racism to flourish around me. Under my lazy and complacent watch, racism has grown in my world like a creeping ivy. My mixed heritage has afforded me the luxury of not having to deal with overt racism and therefore it has been easy for me to remain ignorant to even my own victimhood. Many Black people do not have the luxury of such ignorance. Racism for many is not subtle as it has been for me.
My plea is this. In relation to racism, please stop asking me to speak on behalf of Black people. When it comes to the Black Lives Matter movement, I still struggle to understand how much pain it is acceptable to feel. How much right do I have to hurt and grieve with Black communities and other minority groups, when my mixed race experience is so different to theirs? I wish I knew the answer. Being mixed race is a mixed experience and for many people like me, we are still trying to figure out how we fit into the issue of racism. Being equal parts oppressed and oppressor is a strange and lonely place to be.
In the end, it doesn’t matter how multi-cultural our country is or how harmonious we look on the outside. You can live your whole life surrounded by people who are
different to you, but unless somebody is willing to own and acknowledge that racism is still an issue, nothing will ever change. While my position in the middle of two races is complex and confusing, I now understand I have a responsibility to own this space and do what I can to sucker-punch racism from where I sit. I must begin to educate myself on not only my victimhood, but also my privilege and hidden bias’. After all, tolerance has never been learned by osmosis.
Having only recently stepped out of my blanket of ignorance, I now realise that racism in my immediate world is not dead, it has just gotten smarter. For people like me, racism has become so subtle that we have tricked ourselves into believing the post-racial narrative. In this story the system both works against white people to keep them ignorant to the truth, while also working in their favor to maintain their dominance. I may be stuck in the middle of two racial groups, but that doesn’t mean I get a free pass. Change will only be possible when each and every one of us commits to being aggressively anti-racist, despite living within a systemically racist society. Endeavouring to change this paradigm is going to be uncomfortable and painful for many. Some may even feel a deep sense of loss through this process. But in Aotearoa, until we are all winning, nobody is really winning at all.
Words — Almaz Rabb
Image — Luke Campbell
