24/10/19 Cultural Identity

I’ve come to realise more and more that I’m really wary of people’s reactions when it first comes into conversation that my Step-Mum is black. Whilst I recognise that having one black parent and one white parent is not the most common notion, especially in the North-East of England, I find myself getting annoyed if people do draw attention to it (as they have in the past) as if it’s something I ought to have clarified earlier in the conversation. When people express surprise, I find myself retaliating with ‘Why does it even matter? I’m sorry it didn’t occur to me as something I should have made you aware of before you met her”. This has been my family since I was two years old. It is only the fact that most of my friends have grown up in all white families that the distinction is presented to me. 

When I start to really think about it what it means to be part of an interracial family, that is to say our cultural identity,  the differences between myself and my friends really begin to mount up. Things like most of my friends live near my secondary school, in a predominantly white, middle class village which, while being number 5 in the list of nicest neighbourhoods to live in the North-East of England, couldn’t exactly boast diversity. Whereas my family lives in the West End of Newcastle, where myself, my brother and my dad are amongst the minority of white people on my street. I don’t feel a particular way about this fact in relation to myself, but in terms of my Step-Mum, I hope she feels comfortable in her own street as we all deserve to do. I did not realise until a few years ago, that we live in the neighbourhood that we do not only because the location is much closer to the city and house prices are more affordable but rather, because my Step-Mum was also much less likely to experience racism on her own estate. When I was younger, we lived in a small village near my first school and my Step-Mum experienced racism because really, it is a coveted hub of bigotry that doesn’t become apparent until a black person lives in the village. 

The cultural identity of my family has definitely had an effect on my view of people from different walks of life, especially in such an international university as King’s, where so many people come from so many different backgrounds. It is a fairly middle class problem but also not one that presumably many all white families will be aware of, that over the years, planning a family holiday has become increasingly more difficult in my household, or at least I’ve become increasingly more aware of the limits imposed upon my family due to the current global situation and existent racial prejudice. My dad and I recently went to Poland, and I bring it up because, even I, as a white person, was very aware of the lack of black people. My dad takes students every year on a school trip to Washington DC and he is very pointedly aware that there is a distinction between the white people who are seen in the day walking to work in a suit and the black people who are mainly seen at night, carrying their belongings in a trolley behind them and trying to find somewhere to sleep. It is a common sentence in my house when presenting holidays, to judge how many black people we saw as an indication of whether my Step-Mum would realistically like to visit it. The thing is, and I myself feel I can only talk about this to a certain extent, is that it’s very different to witness someone you love being verbally racially abused, and another thing completely to be the person at whom that verbal racism is directed. Therefore if my Step-Mum says she doesn’t feel comfortable going to a certain country, it is not a matter of reassuring her that actually it would probably be fine. That location is immediately crossed off the list and a familial re-think is initiated. I feel the need to stress that this is no way a complaint that my family can’t visit every country in the world, but rather a comment on the issues that prevent my Step-Mum’s (and my dad’s as part of aninterracial couple) freedom to travel wherever, completely worry free. In terms of relationships, I am very aware that my partner and myself are very privileged not to have to think about the same issues that my parents do, or that my brother and his black partner do when planning trips away together. 

So to conclude, when thinking about my own cultural identity, I of course think about my roots and the people who raised me. How can we have any sort of identity without family? While in many ways it is completely insignificant, having grown up with a black Step-Mum has made me far more aware of issues I would otherwise never have thought about because they wouldn't have necessarily applied to my situation. As it is, i feel that being part of an interracial family has become part of my cultural identity and I’m really proud of that. 

I believe family is a major part of cultural identity and i think this becomes particularly apparent when i look at my interracial family in comparison to my white friends’ families. Growing up with a black step-mum has definitely made me more aware of the limitations imposed on a family that doesn’t necessarily exist in the top tier of privilege. For example, most of my friends live in the village where I went to school which is predominantly white whereas in the neighbourhood I live in I am in the minority of white people on my street. I only came to realise in the last few years or so that this is not only because it's closer to where my parents work but also because my step-mum is less likely to experience racism there. When I was younger, we lived in a small village near my first school and my Step-Mum experienced racism because really, it is a coveted hub of bigotry that doesn’t become apparent until a black person lives in the village. Even things like planning holidays has made me far more aware of potential racism because there’s a whole list of places my step-mum just doesn’t feel comfortable travelling to and of course she’s perfectly within her right to feel like that. The thing is, and I myself feel I can only talk about this to a certain extent, is that it’s very different to witness someone you love being verbally racially abused, and another thing completely to be the person at whom that verbal racism is directed. While in many ways it is completely insignificant, having grown up with a black Step-Mum has simultaneously made me more aware of my own individual white privilege as well as being far more aware of issues I would otherwise never have thought about because they wouldn't have necessarily applied to my situation. As it is, i feel that being part of an interracial family has become part of my cultural identity and I’m really proud of that.