Inter-racial Relationships
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Inter-racial Relationships
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Art/Culture
Words By: Luc Hinson
Artwork : Lois Majek
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Our family has been blessed to recently experience the joy of life. My nephew was recently brought into this world, it’s an experience that’s hard to articulate and even harder to write down on a page. I’ve been surrounded by children before, but this is the first baby in my immediate family, the first baby to whom I’ve felt a close and intimate connection. My Eldest sister, Laura, the new mother deserves a lot of praise. As the eldest of us she paved the way. She endured the harshest punishments, the strictest parenting and paved the way for us 3 siblings. As the youngest I enjoyed the lightest punishment, and the most liberal parenting. But, if the way Laura treated me as her youngest brother is anything to go by this little bundle of joy – Theo – is going to have a joy filled, blissful childhood.
This brings me to the issue of this article, my nephew was born to my sister, a woman of mixed Mauritian-Irish-English heritage, and my Brother-in-Law a man of Welsh and English heritage. Inter-racial relationships and inter-racial parenthood are truly blessings, they allow for exchanges of cultural knowledge, increased diversity, deeper cultural understanding and scientifically speaking, healthier babies that are more immune to congenital diseases.
My Parents, for me are some of my biggest role models. My Mum came to England from Mauritius as a young woman with a poor grasp of English and one other relative living here. She endured countless instances of ‘harmless racism’ – her driving instructor used to ask her to show him the palms of her hand because he didn’t believe that they were white. She used to get paraded around, revellers ogling her exotic appearance, like an animal in a zoo. But yet here I am, my parents endured, they sustained racism from their friends and even family members, they stared racism and discrimination down in the face and let their love prevail. I would be nothing without them, and it’s to them that I owe my diversity, my identity and my very reason for writing this.
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It’s funny because acceptance, especially self-acceptance Is extremely hard to come by, as a boy who grew up in rural Buckinghamshire, (to paraphrase drake) I didn’t really know if I was black enough or white enough, growing up I was never really comfortable with who I am, or who I was. It’s quite degrading when those who you called your closest friends at school were those who used racial slurs like “coon” and “nigger” in such a throwaway fashion. You can dismiss It away, and I did, because these people were supposed to be my friends but you don’t forget. You chalk it down to part of growing up, because for me that was part of growing up. My parents have always been the shining example in my life of acceptance, and its something that I now channel into my everyday life, I’m now comfortable with my identity and who I am. I don’t view those people, who I thought of as friends, as friends anymore, but I don’t hold grudges, bitterness and contempt would make me no better than them.
And it’s through this joy of an inter-racial relationship that I’ve progressed in this journey of self-acceptance. The last year of my life has been filled with joy, attributable mainly to one person. This one person, from a different ethnic background to my own, has listened to me vent, listened to my frustrations and has understood. I guess, that’s what it all boils down to at the end of the day its about wanting to feel understood in a journey to understand oneself. I feel more connected to my heritage, my identity and myself than ever before. I owe this directly to this one person, it's not what they have overtly gone out of their way to do, but its in providing an ear, a patient and kind ear, I've been allowed to express and articulate my feelings. And in doing so I have come to understand them myself.
I guess this inter-racial relationship has helped me to trust those who are closest to me once more. I no longer feel that I have to put on a different mask, or act in a different way. I’m now comfortbale in myself. This article is maybe the most personal articulation of these feelings I’ve ever had with anyone other than the aforementioned listener. But that is what has been this person’s greatest gift to me, through their listening and comprehension they have allowed me to accept and come to terms with myself. Aware that I'm rambling, I'll move on, being curious with the increasing number of inter-racial relationships I see on a daily basis and their perceived status of being ‘in vogue’ with the marriage of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, I decided to discuss our relationships with some other inter-racial couples I know and get them to share their thoughts on inter-racial relationships.
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"Not being able to be upfront with my family at first was a struggle and there are still a couple of members of my family that don’t know the extent of our relationship"
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LH: Does this inter racial relationship differ to previous relationships? And if so, how?
Couple 1: A new sense of culture has been added to life. Whether it's small things like food, I come from a potato house and he’s from a rice house, we eat differently and I think it creates a different sense of home from one another. However insignificant a margot may sound, it all comes with a side dip of learning about him and where he comes from.
LH: How would you describe the experience of an interracial relationship?
Couple 2: From my experience its pretty chill. The biggest aspect in my eyes is how the relationship is viewed by each of the immediate families. I have been very lucky that there were no issues on the surface when it came to both our families but you of course never know what they are thinking under the surface. I’d probably say interracial relationships might mean that you are always on edge in some way subconsciously because of the thick skin required and the increased scrutiny.
LH: What has the relationship made you more aware of?
Couple 3: I think being stared at. I’m used to being the only non white person in the pub or whatever and getting those looks, but I definitely think we get looked at a lot more when we walk in somewhere together, than we would if we were both the same race. I notice the double takes a lot more when I’m with him. I think it was at the start of the relationship which I first noticed people looking at us when we were just walking down the street. Whether this was because we were an inter-racial couple I am unsure, but it was something I was conscious of. Whether this is my own unconscious bias or not I’m not sure, however it seems to me that it is typically Asian men who prolong the looks in the street
LH: Have you ever faced any negatives from an inter-racial relationship?
Couple 1: Realising that I thought I needed to fill in my family of his skin colour pre meeting him
Couple 3: Not being able to be upfront with my family at first was a struggle and there are still a couple of members of my family that don’t know the extent of our relationship
Couple 2: I’ve had family members shake their head at me when they find out who I am seeing. I’ve been told I’m ‘going to dilute the bloodline’. One even told me white girls are only with you for sex
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"I come from a potato house and he’s from a rice house, we eat differently and I think it creates a different sense of home from one another"
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LH: What are the positives of inter-racial relationships?
Couple 1: More heterozygous children... he means, peng babies
Couple 2: From my experience, I would say being able to show someone about your culture so they can learn about it and become more aware about issues that they would not have come across previous to the relationship
Couple 3: Its nice to share elements of your culture with someone who doesn’t necessarily know much about it and I think it makes what we have that little bit more special. Her family cook incredible Asian cuisine so the fact I can experience this is obviously great. She’s been able to share her own experiences of growing up in a completely different environment than I have, despite being from the same country as me. Seeing as I grew up in a white middle-class bubble, it’s been good for that bubble to be popped
The overarching feeling, I got from these discussions is that inter-racial relationships are obviously, no better or worse than same race relationships, each relationship is different, each of us are different. The beauty of inter-racial relationships is the ability to share, to be able to share and expose each other to different cultures, to show each other a little bit of yourself. In relationships, as in life, the more we share the closer we become. In this sense, inter-racial relationships are nothing short of a blessing, and another way we can educate, enlighten and love each other.
Peace.
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CONTEMPORARY CONVERSATIONS
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