Information And My Comments About The Words "Black-ish" And "Mixed-Ish"

Edited by Azizi Powell

Latest revision- November 16, 2019

This pancocojams post presents information and my comments about the newly coined words "black-ish" and "mixed-ish".

The Addendum to this post provides my comments about the terms "mixed racial", "biracial" and other racial terms.

The content of this post is presented for etymological and socio-cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/11/american-television-show-black-ish-s.htmlfor the closely related pancocojams post "American Television Show "Black-ish" 's Episode About Black People Nodding At Other Black People Who Are Strangers"

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE TELEVISION SERIES "BLACK-ISH", "GROWN-ISH", AND "MIXED-ISH"
The American television series Black-ish first aired in 2014. That series and its two spin-offs Grown-ish and Mixed-ish were conceptualized and are produced by Kenya Barris, an African American male.

Here's information about the Black-ish television series
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-ish
"Black-ish is an American sitcom television series created by Kenya Barris. It premiered on September 24, 2014, and has run for six seasons on ABC.[1][2].

[...]

Black-ish follows an upper middle class African-American family led by Andre 'Dre' Johnson (Anthony Anderson) and Rainbow Johnson (Tracee Ellis Ross). The show revolves around the family's lives, as they juggle several personal and sociopolitical issues."...the father "wishes to ensure a balance of black culture is intertwined with his family's ultra-suburban upbringing"."...

The other television series that are spin-offs of Black-ish are Grown-ish, which premiered in January 3, 2018 and will begin its third season in 2020, and the prequel sitcom Mixed-ish, which premiered on September 24, 2019.

Grown-ish "follows the Johnsons' eldest daughter Zoey (Yara Shahidi) as she goes to college, begins her journey to adulthood but quickly discovers that not everything goes her way once she leaves the nest". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grown-ish

Mixed-ish is "Loosely based on the early life of Dr. Rania Barris (co-creator Kenya Barris' wife)[7], the series chronicles the early years of Rainbow Johnson as she recounts her experience growing up in a mixed-race* family in the 1980s. The family faces dilemmas over whether to assimilate or stay true to themselves when Rainbow's parents move from a hippie commune to the suburbs in 1985.[8]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-ish
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Here's an excerpt from another article about Black-ish and its prequel Mixedo-ish being loosely based on the real life of Kenya Barris' (now divorced) wife and their family of six children.
https://people.com/tv/blackish-creator-writer-kenya-barris-life-story-interview/
"The seed of the show came from my own family,” says Barris. “I looked around and saw that my kids were not like little black kids that I remember growing up.” Like Andre, Barris, is married to a biracial wife named Rainbow (nicknamed Bow) and is raising his kids in an affluent neighborhood much different from the one where he was raised in South Los Angeles.

“The world is changing, and that’s being reflected by the Johnsons,” he explains."...
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Read my comments in the Addendum below about the terms "mixed racial, "biracial" and other racial terms.

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COMMENTS ABOUT THE WORDS "BLACK-ISH", "MIXED-ISH", AND "GROWN-ISH"
The words "black-ish", "mixed-ish", "and "grown-ish" were probably coined for the ABC television sitcoms with those titles.

The suffix "ish" means "having some but not all characteristics of ___"; "being somewhat or partially ___". Therefore, "black-ish" means "being somewhat black" or being "partially black", "grown-ish" means "being somewhat grown [up]" and "mixed-ish" means being "somewhat mixed" or "being partially mixed". In the context of this usage, the word "mixed" means a person was is "mixed racial" (i.e. a person who has a birth parent who is one race and a birth parent who is another race).

Each of these words are probably adjectives. However, like the word "Black" and "mixed", "black-ish" and "mixed-ish" could also be considered nouns as they could be used as racial referents.

The use of "black-ish" and "mixed-ish" can be highly problematic for socio-cultural reasons, not just because they promote determinations of who is and who isn't members of the Black race, but also because they promote determinations of how people who are Black (or who are partially Black) should look, act, think, and understand things. What does acting, or thinking Black really mean? For instance, Black people-and specifically Black Americans- range in skin color from white to redbone to brown to very dark brown so you can't always accurately judge whether a person is Black by the way that they look.

Also, does the word "mixed-ish" mean that a person of mixed racial ancestry isn't really mixed or that person who is referred to as "mixed-ish" doesn't think or act like other people who are mixed? Or more specifically-since many Black Americans use the word "mixed" to refer to people who are "Black/non-Black"- does "mixed-ish" mean that that person doesn't look like all other non-mixed Black people (whatever that means since so many Black Americans are mixed) or doesn't act, think, or understand things the same way that other Black people do. In that sense, "mixed-ish" and "black-ish" would have the same meaning.

I have serious concerns about the words "black-ish" and "mixed-ish" in part because of the realities of colorism among Black people which sometimes might be expressed in the "my melanin is poppin"** "movement". One aspect of the melanin movement is the position that darker skinned Black people are more "fully Black" and (therefore) are better than lighter skinned Black people.

I don't believe that the words "black-ish" and "mixed-ish" were used in the United States or elsewhere prior to the television series with those names [Black-ish -2014 and Mixed-ish -2019]. And fortunately, I also don't believe that the words black-ish and mixed-ish are used now in the United States or elsewhere except as the titles of those television series.

Since the Mixed-ish series only began airing on television in September 2019, it's too early to determine whether the title of that series will influence the use of the word "mixed-ish". However, I think that it's unlikely that Americans, or anyone else, will begin using the word "mixed-ish", in part because the the word's definition (being or acting kinda like a mixed person) makes no real sense, and in part because presence of two suffixes ("ed" and "ish") make that word grammatically incorrect and difficult to say.

I'm much less concerned about the word "grown-ish" because of its implied meaning (someone acting [like they are] "grown" [when they are just a child, a pre-teen, or a teen) since that word has no racial connotations. I'm not sure if the word "grown-ish" is used in the United States or elsewhere. In contrast to the word "grown-ish", I'm very familiar with -and have myself used- the word "baby-ish" (as an adjective which means "acting like a baby").

*"Colorism" - bias among Black people toward Black people of certain skin colors, for instance, bias against dark skinned Black people, or bias against light skinned Black people

**Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/05/what-does-term-melanated-mean-when-did.html for a pancocojams post about melanin. Also, click the tag "melanin" for additional pancocojams posts about that topic.

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COMMENTS ABOUT ADDING "ISH" TO ENGLISH WORDS FROM https://english.stackexchange.com
Here's some information about adding "ish" to English words from https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/3663/when-is-it-appropriate-if-at-all-to-use-the-suffix-ish
"I think you could make the argument that the -ish suffix should not be used in formal English to create ad-hoc words on the spot, like "largish". There is nothing grammatically wrong — you will, of course be understood — but it has a definite informal connotation. However, there are a number of established words, e.g. impish, boorish, devilish, sheepish, etc., where -ish is accepted in all contexts, including formal ones." -answered Oct 4 '10; Kosmonaut

**
"All of your usage examples show it affixed to nouns, not adjectives. For adjectives (and sometimes adverbs), "ish" shows an approximation, but for nouns, marks a quality: "impish" does not mean "approximately an imp" but rather "like an imp". There are two very different uses at work here, and arguably only the adjective suffix is the informal one. – Jon Purdy Oct 4 '10 at 23:17

**
"Adding the "ish" suffix to a word X is a colloquial way to say that something is "somewhat" X, "approximately" X, "rather" X, etc.

She was a largish woman. ⇒ She was a rather large woman.

She will be here by fiveish. ⇒ She will be here by any time close to five o'clock.

The boy is fiveish. ⇒ The boy is five years old or about that age.

The interior has niceish plastics covering the dash and the doors ⇒ The interior has rather nice plastics covering the dash and the doors.

The exam went well, ish. ⇒ The exam went fairly well."...

edited Oct 5 '10
answered Oct 4 '10

[...]

"To me, examples 1-3 sound pretty standard, while 4 and 5 are very colloquial. "The exam went well, ish" is definitely a "trendy" speech pattern. – Guy Starbuck Oct 5 '10"
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That page doesn't include any examples of the word "black-ish", "mixed-ish" or "grown-ish".

The suffix "ish" in these words has an entirely different meaning than the (probably) African American Vernacular English originated word "ish" which is an abbreviation of the word "sh&t".

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ADDENDUM- COMMENTS ABOUT THE TERMS "MIXED RACIAL", "MIXED", "BIRACIAL", "INTERRACIAL" AND "TRANSRACIAL ADOPTION"
*I believe that the word "interracial" better fits the meaning of the sentence that is given in the Wikipedia page about the television series Mixed-ish that is quoted above [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-ish]. In the context of that Wikipedia page which specifically refers to Dr. Rania Barris, the [now divorced] wife of Kenya Barris, the creator of the television series Black-ish and its two spin-offs. Dr. Rania Barris has a Black birth parent and a birth parent who is non-Black.

"Interracial couples" refers to couples who are of two different races. "Interracial families" refers to families that are composed of people with different races- for instance, parents (or one parent) who is White and children who are Black, and children who are White, or Asian. In my experience, Black families that include children whose biological parents are Black/non-Black are usually not considered "interracial, because usually those mixed racial children are considered Black.

The word "mixed" is the term that is most often (informally) used among African Americans, including as a self-identifier. However, since at least the 1980s, the word "biracial" has been (informally, and sometimes also formally) used in the United States as a referent for people who are of (first generation) mixed racial ancestry, and particularly for people who are of (first generation) Black/White ancestry.

I particularly dislike/d and continue to dislike the term "biracial" as it was used [in my experience as a child welfare administrator in the late 1980s to 2000] in some [but not my] foster care and adoption agencies to categorize children who were of Black/non-Black ancestry different from children who had two Black birth parents. The underlying premise for that categorization was that "biracial" children [meaning children with one Black birth parent and one White (or non-Black) birth parent] weren't really Black, and therefore could more easily be placed in foster homes or adoptive homes with a White couple or a White single person. This rationale for placing children with some Black ancestry in transracial families may still be used in the United States.
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"Transracial adoption" = placing children for adoption in families who are different races (and ethnicities, in child welfare practices in the United States "ethnicity" means "Latino/a") than the children are. Note that technically, given the definition for "interracial families" that I gave above, transracial adoptive families are interracial families.

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