If you’re a person of colour then why are you white?

The power struggles of being identity-neutral among mixed race individuals

Any discussion on identity politics tends to surround feelings of purpose, dominant genes, a sense of belonging, journeys of self-discovery, but rarely touches on the struggles of being out of touch with oneself. So what exactly is identity politics? It’s the stifling of unity and the segregation of identity through binaries that politicise the way we see ourselves (strong & weak, powerful & powerless, accepted & marginalised). Speaking from a place of mixed ethnicity, I too struggle to tackle this concept of identity politics, as I come to terms with how I might never be as immersed or ingrained in my Filipino-Asian culture the same way I’m invested in the Australian-Caucasian way of living.

So I can move to the Philippines, maybe even become a permanent resident and raise a family there, but my different physical appearance and whiter skin will always make me feel like an outsider in my mother’s birthplace. Our previous understanding of ‘fitting in’ and calling a place home was always linked to skin colour. But as today’s cultural narrative shifts to qualities beyond race, author and Black Lives Matter activist, Black Girl Dangerous raises the most important question of the decade:

“What does it actually mean to align your identity with a marginalised culture when you haven’t had a marginalised experience?”

Given the complexity of every human experience, this is where things start to get a little complicated. In her piece, Despising an Identity They Taught Me To Claim, Alison Bailey says that getting rid of privilege is too toxic to dispose of, misguided and politically useless. Doing so would strip the spotlight from under historically disenfranchised groups and turn these stories into individual instances of white privilege ‘hardship’ (a common theme in today’s world).

Us mixed-race ethnicities colliding with western cultures are sitting with a foot in each camp thinking to ourselves — are we people of colour (POC) or people with white passing privilege? Considering oneself as both would feel oxymoronic and oversimplified, but denying both cultures would be naïve and ignorant of the challenges that come with a biracial identity. Mixed Dreamer’s take on this whole ‘playing the white-card’ is a good one, believing that a romanticised identity is also why power dynamics are at play. Adrian Piper supports this idea of white-privilege awareness in her gripping thesis, Passing for White, Passing for Black where she discusses how historically ‘whites’ lost a degree of privilege when they married outside race. But does this actually resonate with our society today?

Drawing from my own experiences, everyone was quick to acknowledge my dad’s white and accept my mum’s the ‘other’ descent — and that was usually that. However, no one would ever guess that there is no age gap between them, or that they met in Japan and not on the internet, or that my dad wasn’t an expat that brought home all the money, or that my mum is actually fluent in English — not to mention 3 other languages. I’m actually enraged that the stereotypical (white = superior and POC = inferior) conversations surrounding a biracial identity still buy into several oppressive power-made predispositions.

“The starting point to freedom is to begin questioning the cultural narrative you’ve been sold.” — Briant McGill

However, it doesn’t just stop at our parents’ stories. With Mixed Dreamer believing in the freedom and fluidity of self-identifying, but BGD wanting us to construct our identity with cultural sensitivity in mind, it’s no wonder so many white-presenting people of colour are tentatively grappling an identity complex. BGD’s cracker of an essay on what it means to claim your DNA, internalise your gene pool or even plagiarise/impersonate your culture is yet no match for photographer, Zun Lee’s anarchic take on identity. He’s dismantling oppression with deeper conversations on why we claim the identities we do. So why do we?

The Multiracial Identity Complex at a glance

• Hybrid identities are the fastest growing ethnic group in the world
• Blacktown, Sydney, home to the highest number of mixed-race marriages, is made up of people from over 140 different countries
• According to Pew social trends, nearly half (46%) of all multiracial Americans are younger than 18
• Further widening the multiracial identity gap, only 39% of US mixed race adults considered themselves multiracial, leaving 61% identifying with their ‘superior’ race
• 1 in 5 mixed adults said they felt like the bridge between different racial/cultural groups
• Widening the gap even more, only 26% of adults say racial background is an essential part of their identity. 50% said gender, and 39% said religion.

Final Thoughts

Although we’ve come a long way since the xenophobic Pauline Hansons of the world embraced a white, ethnocentric Australia, our increasingly globalised world still has a lot to answer for. Before we find ourselves confronting Zun Lee’s construct of a boundless identity, we must first ask ourselves how much is too much? Where does identity start and where does it stop? If you’re one-tenth Indian, white-passing, yet wear a bindi, is this cultural appropriation? Or if you’re most part Caucasian, but crack a joke about your long line of Chinese heritage, does this count as internal racism? I mean, while we are more interconnected than we realise, these are the pressing questions of our intricately entangled world. And while we’ve still got a long way to go until we fully grasp the sensitivities of the cultural spectrum, hopefully by then identity ownership will no longer be bound to the power structures of cultural divides.

Originally published at The Isthmus.