Being a person of multiracial identity in Britain can be lonely and tiring work. I don’t know much about critical race theory or the academic study of postcolonialism but I know about the feels.
I know about the ulcerous hole slowly re-opening in your gut each and every time someone asks you where you’re really from, or when a form requires your ‘permanent’ address. I know you will never be able to explain the way you smile at interracial couples on the tube because in them you see your parents glowing in youth. I see you smiling at sisters who do not want or need to include you because you can’t be instantly recognised as one of them. I appreciate the way you tried to decolonialise your wardrobe and ended up with nothing to wear because there is no accessory for lost. I resent comments about how beautiful my children will be in the same way that you do. I’ve been there when you’re pretending you don’t know how that reel of thread ended up in your makeup bag. I know how you feel about Fenty Beauty. I share your shame when your accent changes in rooms where you’re the odd one out, which can sometimes feel like every room. I also turn my phone over when family members text me.
It’s a struggle to make sense of how we are so privileged yet still feel marginalised in ways that neither side cares to hear. The expectation is that we can mediate the conflicting worlds within ourselves and are able to pick and choose one side over another — not only is this tiring, it’s essentially impossible. There is a baseline level of exhaustion that comes with having to constantly justify your search for community. I know I can’t be the first multiracial person to be called out for listening to ‘too many Black podcasts’, following ‘too many Asian blogs’, eating ‘too much Middle Eastern food’ when their identity doesn’t fit neatly into any one group. I worry that I am not entitled to these shared experiences but connecting to the lack of belonging these immigrant stories speak to is what helps to anchor my own existence. All I have to share are my experiences of a life lived worrying that there is nobody else like me, but with no voice for the group without a group, what are we if not together in our differences?
