Edited by Azizi Powell
This post showcases the YouTube video "6 Things Not To Say To a Mixed Person".
This post also includes twenty selected comments from that video's viewer discussion thread.
The Addendum to this post includes an excerpt from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/13/1377533/-Six-things-not-to-say-to-a-mixed-race-person-And-some-personal-notes "Six things not to say to a mixed-race person. And some personal notes" by Meteor Blade.
Additional comments can be read in that diary.
While that video focuses on people who are mixed race, other commenters indicated that they also encountered the same problematic questions and comments about their racial identity/nationality. Those commenters included people who were transracially adopted, and/or People of Color who live in majority White communities or nations, and/or people who don't fit the stereotypical physical appearances that society has for a particular race/nationality, and/or (closely related to the last point), people who others consider to be of ambiguous race or ethnicity.
The content of this post is presented for sociological and cultural reasons.
Thanks to Marina Watanabe for publishing this video and thanks also to Meteor Blade whose dailykos diary on this video is excerpted in this post's Addendum. And thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and who added serious comments about this subject that aren't included in this post.
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SHOWCASE VIDEO 6 Things Not To Say To a Mixed Person
marinashutupPublished on Mar 27, 2015
Check out Everyday Feminism! http://everydayfeminism.com
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SELECTED COMMENTS FROM THAT VIDEO'S DISCUSSION THREAD
These comments are presented in chronological order based on their posting date. All are from weeks or days after this video was published on YouTube. I've assigned numbers to these comments for referencing purposes only. They may not be in consecutive order.
I selected comments that are representative of those made in that discussion, although most of the comments that I selected are from people who are of some Black descent.
1. Ainsley Jey 2 weeks ago
"I relate to this video so much. I'm not mixed race, but what I like to call "ambiguously brown". One the first point- people have guessed: Mexican, Italian, Indian, Filipino, Arab, Native American, etc. And it's never friends who guess- it's total strangers who I have 30 second conversations with. And then they get mad when I imply they're being rude."
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2. hahizzle
"+Friendly Malkavian not trying to speak for anyone here, but I get asked questions about my race and ethnicity a lot too (I'm mixed race), and I find it intrusive, annoying and unnecessary, ESPECIALLY when they're strangers and ESPECIALLY when they think they know "what" I am. Just because it doesn't seem personal and disrepectful to those who ask me these questions, it doesn't mean it's fine for me too."
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3. andreastory800 2 weeks ago
"In another of one of you're videos, I mentioned that many races people didn't think Black people couldn't be beautiful unless they were mixed. " What are you? " was something people would ASK me all the time, and I always tell them that I am black, yet they have the nerve to ask " But really what are you? cause you don't look or sound black " and It pisses me off to the end. I'm so GLAD you talked about this, another great video Marina."
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4. Hana Tyrell 2 weeks ago
"I absolutely love this video. I'm mixed race but I don't know my dad's ethnicity (just that he's Asian) and I grew up with my mom who is white, so people often tell me that I'm "technically white" or that I'm "not Asian enough to identify as mixed" or they flat-out don't believe me when I say I'm mixed. It's really hurtful because I feel like it erases a huge part of my identity, a part that I struggled a lot with before I accepted it. When I was younger I used to lie and tell people I was white and I used to only make friends with white people. I tried to make my skin look paler, dyed my hair lighter, I wanted eye surgery etc. to look more white because growing up in a predominantly white country made me think that's what was beautiful. Being on the internet around people of color and other mixed race people has helped me a lot with accepting myself. I wish I'd seen this video when I was 12!"
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5. kurayamidesu 2 weeks ago
"Thank you SO MUCH for this. I'm black, white, and Native American, and I have Hebrew ancestry, and people ALWAYS try to guess what I am. I've been told I like I'm Mexican or East Asian. And when I tell them what I am, they say "Oh, I thought you were __", sounding slightly disappointed, like I was supposed to tell them what they wanted to hear?
And I've always felt torn between my identity, because I'm also Jewish (both by heritage and by actual beliefs). When I tell people that, they act like being a mixed-race Jew is something weird (which it totally isn't)."
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6. kimkimkaboom 2 weeks ago
"Another great video, Marina! While I'm not a mixed person, I'm an Asian American adoptee with white adopted parents so I definitely can relate. I've been told/asked every single thing you mentioned in this video. I wish I had the patience and eloquence you do to explain why those comments are hurtful. But I think after watching this, I might be able to open a healthy dialogue when someone says one of these again because, unfortunately, it's not going to stop anytime soon."
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7. The Four Queens 2 weeks ago
"Awesome video full of valid points. It seems ridiculous that people would demand that someone of mixed race 'pick a side'. People really need to do as you suggested and look within themselves to find out why they are so irked by anyone who doesn't fit conveniently into an obvious and predefined 'box'..."
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8. Mackenzie McClane 2 weeks ago
"This was a really good video... I live in an area that is basically the opposite of diverse and henceforth I have no experience talking to someone about their racial heritage. It's nice to know ahead of time the types of statements that could be considered offensive."
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9. xHaniffax 2 weeks ago
"I've encountered most of these and I'm not mixed but I suppose I people view me as being ethnically ambiguous in the sense that I don't look like where I'm from. Very annoying indeed."
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10. Hannah Jensen 2 weeks ago
"This is a fantastic video. I like the fact that you addressed the issue that some mixed race people like myself have where we have trouble identifying with one side or both sides of our ethnicity. As someone who is half- white, half Puerto - Rican, I always felt out of place in both cultures. I ended up identifying more with the white side of my family because I felt like I wasn't "Puerto Rican enough". For example, I don't speak Spanish, and nearly everyone on that side speaks it and asks me why I wasn't taught. But, a loud, fat brown girl with opinions doesn't exactly fit quiet Scandinavian households, either. It feels so frustrating sometimes trying fit in because you feel like you straddle this fence between two yards, wondering if one is greener on the other side, but you find out both are just as yellowed and dying as the other."
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11. noimaginationstation 1 week ago
"I really love this. I'm not mixed race but I am slightly light skinned black person. I was also born and raised in England and the amount of times I get the surprised gasp and accompanying sentence "I didn't expect you to sound so intelligent" (I should mention I am the only black female on an astrophysics degree in a top uni), is infuriating. I've never been to Jamaica where my family is from and when people essentially ask me "why do you sound so white/ where are you really from" is so [profanity deleted] stressful because they don't mean it in a bad way."
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12. MarthaDahhling 1 week ago
"Really enjoyed this video, I'm not biracial but I think a lot of monoracial (new term I learnt from this video) who were raised outside of their "countries" (for example I'm from Cameroon, west Africa but I've lived in England all my life) can identify with this video. The Where are you from question really gets me because I identify as equally British as Cameroonian."
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13. KaraLou 1 week ago
"Racial ambiguity is something too many people are uncomfortable with and it's kind of crazy. I cannot even count the number of times I've been asked what I was, and then when told asked "really" or "but you don't look half black." Thanks for shining light on this subject, definitely subscribed!!"
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14. mstly4lg 1 week ago
"I really liked that you brought that 5th issue up as my self am half Jamaican and half Greek and there is this one girl at my school who'd always says stuff to me basically like "you're white" (because my mum has light skin) and she'd always suggest that I can't relate to the same issues a person of color faces. this always offended me as in her saying that she denies the cultures of both my backgrounds, separated me from the people that i related to and also placed me into a group that I have never related or identified with. I don't know why but my day was always ruined by this. She's stopped now after I talked to her about how she was making me feel but I just want anyone who sees this to know never to label a person or assign them to any sort or group without asking and talking to them first."
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15. Corbinite 1 week ago
"I personally am fascinated by human genetic variation and all the different backgrounds people can have, so I at least like to think it doesn't come from a place of categorizing people (although I don't doubt that the part of me conditioned by western society to do just that would contribute its share to that fascination). So I typically won't ask people what their ancestry is unless I know them and have gotten a feel for their boundaries. Although I do worry I come off as putting them under a microscope or seeing them as an academic curiosity. I wouldn't doubt that feels not unlike the exotic label, just less sexualized."
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16. PennyLayne4Life 4 days ago
"I think it's important to listen when a person of color states that certain phrases or questions are offensive. As a mixed woman of color I relate to every thing she is saying and I do find offense when these questions are asked. Now, the people that have said these things to me may have meant nothing by it but honestly being called "exotic" or getting asked "where are you (really) from" is offensive to me. It makes me feel as if I am an "other"- like I am not normal. There is nothing wrong with asking someone what their ethnicity is. I will gladly and with pride tell someone I am Puerto Rican and Black. But I do not appreciate being asked these questions by complete strangers or being asked in a way that creates assumptions, puts down another race of people, or simply puts me in a box (which is what those phrases from the video do-whether intended or not). You may have asked some of these questions and meant nothing racist or prejudice by it (but then you might not have ever said these phrases at all, I don't know you), but I would hope that you take this video into consideration and perhaps think about how a person of color might perceive these terms before you actually say them. "If you don't mind me asking, what is your ethnicity?" is totally different and much less offensive then "So where are you really from?" or "But you're not REALLY_____? Right?""
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17. Bethanne Smith-Craig 4 days ago
"You kind of acknowledged it in no.5, but I get all the time "How can you be (insert race here)? You look white." It's annoying to have people constantly tell you what you are, because you don't "look" like the stereotypical representation of your race (which was perpetuated by white media)."
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18. bexojo 4 days ago
"+pikakiko Reposting something I commented earlier but Well a couple of these things are downright rude like "But you're not REALLY that" or "Where are you REALLY from?". Nobody has an obligation to answer stranger's personal questions, but if a person decides to answer, it's beyond rude to say that the answer to the personal question is wrong or to demand a different answer.
And exotic is generally used in a weird way. I don't assume you'd like it if people came up to you all the time to say "You look different," sometimes with an implied sexual undertone.
Mixed raced people aren't saying that this stuff bothers them because they're overreacting or one weird person said it once. I have had two separate people demand to know my race and say "you look exotic" or "But where are you REALLY from" this week alone at work. It gets really tiring, especially when you include in all the backhanded racist compliments I get as a mixed person.
"You're black? But you have good hair."
"But you're not like other black people."
"When I said that, I wasn't referring to you - just to, like, ghetto black people.""
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19. bexojo 3 days ago
"I've heard 2 of these this week from separate strangers, as a mixed race woman. It can get pretty annoying, and the whole "mixed race people are most attractive" thing has become an obnoxious trope/gag on certain tv shows. No - my racial identity is not a gag for tv audiences and I can't "just take the compliment" because it's rude and reduces people to stereotypes. I would feel this way regardless of my heritage."
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20. bexojo 3 days ago
"+Mitch Crane Well a couple of these things are downright rude like "But you're not REALLY that" or "Where are you REALLY from?". Nobody has an obligation to answer stranger's personal questions, but if a person decides to answer, it's beyond rude to say that the answer to the personal question is wrong or to demand a different answer.Second of all, it's not offensive to assume that when people ask you a ton of personal questions about your race, they're doing so in order to make assumptions about you, particularly if they say that you can't really be that race because XYZ. It's one thing to say "Do you mind my asking where you're from?" or "I'm from XYZ - are you from there too?". It's different to say "Where are you from." and when the person says "California" to say "No, where are you really from. Like your parents?". "No, you're really half black? Do you mean your mom is half black?" Like, what difference does it make to the random person I come across at work that I'm half black. It shouldn't make any difference
And exotic is generally used in a weird way. I don't assume you'd like it if people came up to you all the time to say "You look different," sometimes with an implied sexual undertone.
Mixed raced people aren't saying that this stuff bothers them because they're overreacting or one weird person said it once. I have had two separate people demand to know my race and say "you look exotic" or "But where are you REALLY from" this week alone. It gets really tiring, especially when you include in all the backhanded racist compliments I get as a mixed person.
"You're black? But you have good hair."
"But you're not like other black people."
"When I said that, I wasn't referring to you - just to, like, ghetto black people."
It's too much, and I hope that you'll be able to prepare your daughters to deal with this kind of regular intrusion, which can often be rude, annoying or downright ugly."
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ADDENDUM - Daily Kos diary http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/13/1377533/-Six-things-not-to-say-to-a-mixed-race-person-And-some-personal-notes "Six things not to say to a mixed-race person. And some personal notes" by Meteor Blade.
..."the "you don't look Indian" remark, [is] something that happens a lot to those of us with lighter skin. When the members of my Seminole family used to come together for reunions, the skin colors of the 25 or so people who showed up—all of us closely related by blood—went from very light to as dark as Michelle Obama, a product of the tribe's long history of intermarrying not only with other tribes but also with whites and blacks.
Appearance is often a poor judge of someone's racial background. Take the Dawes Rolls, for instance. These were established by the government in the late 1800s to determine who among the "Five Civilized Tribes" were Indian and, therefore, entitled to an allotment of land. (These allotments were a means of breaking up the tribes and grabbing "surplus" tribal land. Nearly three-fourths of the land in Indian hands prior to 1887 had been expropriated via this means by 1935.)
The determination of whether somebody was an Indian or not for the Dawes Rolls was accomplished in many instances by a white bureaucrat sitting at a table and looking at the person for half a minute. Thus were families split up. Sometimes brothers and sisters with the same father and mother were categorized differently, one an Indian, another not. It was just one more pernicious practice of a pernicious law.
Historically, there have been two different rules for Indians and African Americans. For the latter, it's the "one-drop rule" actually codified into law at one time in Louisiana. Any African American blood at all and you were black. For Indians, something almost opposite has been the case. If you weren't a full blood, then you were not viewed as a "real Indian." Half breed was a common perjorative term even for people quite a bit younger than I. During my 16 years in the American Indian Movement, I probably had to explain a couple of hundred times why my phenotype doesn't match what most people—both Indian and non-Indian—think my genotype should show...
As [Marina] Watanabe points out in her video, mixed-race Americans—even when they are the same mix—are affected quite differently by how that mixed racedness is seen by people we come into contact with. Although there are stereotypes specific to our groups, we're unique. The various cultures of our ancestors plus our everyday life determines that uniqueness. We're blended, but even among people of the same blending, how prejudice against mixed-race people plays out is not one-dimensional.
Watanabe's video offers people who want to confront their prejudices with an upbeat lesson on how to get started."
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