Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents some online excerpts about "Mixed" and other categories in the United Kingdom.
The content of this post is presented for historical and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
****
ONLINE EXCERPTS
(These excerpts are given in no particular order and are numbered for referencing purposes only.)
EXCERPT #1
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_(United_Kingdom_ethnicity_category)
"Mixed is an ethnic group category that was first introduced
by the United Kingdom's Office for National Statistics for the 2001 Census.
Colloquially it refers to British citizens or residents whose parents are of
two or more different races or ethnic backgrounds. The Mixed or Multiple ethnic
group in England and Wales numbered 1.7 million in the 2021 census, 2.9% of the
population.[4]
A number of academics have pointed out that the ethnicity
classification employed in the census and other official statistics in the UK
since 1991 involve confusion between the concepts of ethnicity and race.[5][6]
Aspinall notes that sustained academic attention has been focused on "how
the censuses measure ethnicity, especially the use of dimensions that many
claim have little to do with ethnicity, such as skin colour, race, and
nationality".[7]
2001 was the first census which asked about mixed race identity. In that census, 677,177 classified themselves as of mixed ethnicity, making up 1.2 percent of the UK population.[8] The 2011 Census gave the figure as 2.2% for England and Wales.[9]”…
EXCERPT #2
From
GOV.UK
List of ethnic groups
In England and Wales, there is an agreed list of ethnic groups you can use when asking for someone’s ethnicity. The groups are usually those used in the Census, which happens every 10 years.
If you’re in a government service team, there’s a design pattern for asking users for equality information, including their ethnic group.
1. 2021 Census
The main changes to the 2021 Census of England and Wales,
compared with the previous Census, were:
-the ‘Roma’ group was added under the ‘White’ ethnic group
-a write-in response was added for the ‘Black African’ ethnic
group
The ethnic groups were:
Asian or Asian British
Indian
Pakistani
Bangladeshi
Chinese
Any other Asian background
Black, Black British, Caribbean or African
Caribbean
African
Any other Black, Black British, or Caribbean background
Mixed or multiple ethnic groups
White and Black Caribbean
White and Black African
White and Asian
Any other Mixed or multiple ethnic background
White
English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British
Irish
Gypsy or Irish Traveller
Roma
Any other White background
Other ethnic group
Arab
Any other ethnic group
In Wales, ‘Welsh’ is the first option in the White category.
2. How the groups were chosen
The Office for National Statistics runs the Census of
England and Wales every 10 years. They decide which ethnic groups to include in
consultation with:
-people completing the Census, and the interest groups that
represent them
-the organisations that run the Censuses in Northern Ireland
and Scotland
It is recognised that these ethnic groups do not represent
how all people identify. People are encouraged to write in their ethnicity
using their own words if they don’t identify with any groups in the list.
There has been an ethnicity question in the Census since 1991. It has been updated at every new Census since then. There are separate questions in the Census about national identity, religion and language.
[...]
3. Exceptions
The Government Statistical Service (GSS) has a harmonised
standard for ethnicity classification.
The ethnic groups used in the harmonised standard and the latest Census are usually the same. The harmonised standard is being reviewed and currently uses the ethnic groups from the 2011 Census.
4. Scotland and Northern Ireland
The Censuses in Scotland and Northern Ireland use different
ethnicity classifications.
Northern Ireland
The ethnicity question in the 2021 Census in Northern
Ireland asked people to choose from the following ethnic groups:
Black African
Black Other
Chinese
Filipino
Indian
Irish Traveller
Mixed ethnic group
Roma
White
Any other ethnic group
Scotland
Scotland’s next Census is in 2022. The ethnic groups will
be:
Asian, Scottish Asian or British Asian
Pakistani, Scottish Pakistani or British Pakistani
Indian, Scottish Indian or British Indian
Bangladeshi, Scottish Bangladeshi or British Bangladeshi
Chinese, Scottish Chinese or British Chinese
Other
African, Scottish African or British African
Respondents write in their ethnic group
Caribbean or Black
Respondents write in their ethnic group
Mixed or multiple ethnic group
Respondents write in their ethnic group
White
Scottish
Other British
Irish
Polish
Gypsy or Traveller
Roma
Showman or Showwoman
Other
Other ethnic group
Arab, Scottish Arab or British Arab
[...]"
-snip-
The bold font was used in this original online page.
EXCERPT #3
Census reveals new chapter in story of mixed-race Britain
Posted by Matthew Plowright, December 7, 2022
[…]
Please note: this post quotes historical individuals who
used racist language and terminology.
His feet pound the stoney streets. Mist looms over Cardiff. Children of all backgrounds laugh and play nearby. The warm “smell of curry and rice”, as one local described it, greets them. It’s the 1920s, and Police Chief Constable James Wilson is on the verge of entering the history books.
Wilson was “concerned by Tiger Bay’s reputation for immorality and mixed-race marriages”, so wrote to his local police committee. “Half-caste children had a vicious hereditary taint of their parents,” he said, as reported by the BBC documentary ‘Mixed Britannia’.
“The time may come,” he continued, “when public opinion will awaken to the fact that our race has become leavened with the coloured strain. Someone must have the courage to strike a warning note.”
In 1929, Wilson called for a new form of social control. He was an advocate for the sort of laws used in South Africa, which would ban sexual contact between races. The issue erupted in the press, with some journalists supporting Wilson’s move. It was a menacing attack on the mixed community in Tiger Bay.
In the early twentieth century, mixed-race communities had emerged in seaports around Britain, like in Cardiff’s Tiger Bay. Seamen of all races and backgrounds, many British citizens themselves, had come from across the empire to live and work in these ports. The British empire was multicultural – and so it helped make Britain itself multicultural in turn. As the Sri Lankan writer Ambalavaner Sivanandan put it: “We are here because you were there”.
When the seamen arrived and worked, some of them fell in love. Thousands of mixed-race children were born from South Shields to Glasgow, Liverpool to London. But no community was as proudly mixed as Cardiff’s Tiger Bay, or Butetown, as it was also known. It’s a place where the whole community of different races would come out to celebrate Eid together. Quite a beautiful image, you might think… unless you were called ‘James Wilson’ – who wanted to go to battle.
But then Wilson’s direction of travel suddenly, violently veered off. World War Two erupted, and he was drafted into a different kind of battle than he had anticipated.
Fast forward a few years, and Wilson was back in Cardiff. He had survived. Been knighted, even. And when he returned home, the mixed Tiger Bay community was still there. Was the battle about to resume?
But something curious happened next. After witnessing the atrocities committed by the Nazis, Wilson had a change of heart. As he looked around Tiger Bay, Wilson approved. He no longer wanted mixed relationships stopped or Tiger Bay’s community disbanded. Now Wilson saw it as something to aspire to, a shining example of tolerance. His campaign to bring in British miscegenation laws was over.
Years later, another surprise came. A member of the Wilson
family married a mixed-race person, making him a part of the very kind of
family he once sought to destroy.
***
It’s important to discuss communities like Tiger
Bay, and the historical threat they faced. Britain rarely has a narrative in the
public domain about mixed-race history. With the latest census releasing, could
now be the time to start one?
The census is an endlessly fascinating freeze-frame of Britain at this moment.
[...]
Ethnicity statistics for England and Wales from the 2021 Census are now available. They show dramatic shifts in the population. The headline; 1.7 million in the two nations identify as mixed-race. That’s a tripling since 2001. When Scotland and Northern Ireland’s data comes out soon, this number will rise further.
[...]
Let’s dig a little deeper into the numbers. ‘White and Black Caribbean’ people remained the largest ‘Mixed’ population group – 513,042 people identified as such, up 20% from the 2011 Census. But other Mixed groups saw faster growth. The number of people identifying as ‘White and Asian’ rose 43% to 488,225; ‘White and Black African’ rose 50% to 249,596. ‘Other Mixed or Multiple Ethnic Groups’ showed the fastest growth: up 61% to 467,113. This underlines that England and Wales’ mixed population is becoming increasingly diverse.
While Cardiff and other port cities were home to Britain’s first mixed communities, London is now the centre of our mixed population. In the Migration Museum’s home borough of Lewisham, 24,253, or 8.2% of the population, identified as Mixed. This is the largest proportion in any area in England and Wales. Indeed, the top 10 areas with the largest proportion of mixed-race populations are all in London.
[…]
But dozens of areas far from London and traditional port
city mixed communities now show sizable mixed populations, too: Nottingham
(5.9%), Wolverhampton (5.4% ), Cambridge (5.2%) and Reading (5.1%), to name a
few.
[…]
The pace at which the people who live in Britain are
changing is extraordinary. It matters – especially if you root this moment back
in our history.
Mixed-race history matters, yet is rarely told. It’s a story
about one of the fastest-growing groups of people in the UK, yet we rarely hear
from them together. It’s time to change that."
-snip-
The words that are written in bold font or in italics that are found in this excerpt were written
that way in the article.
Here's the link for the hyperlinked words [census statistics are] "now available" - https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/ethnicity/bulletins/ethnicgroupenglandandwales/census2021
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
No comments:
Post a Comment