Why do Mixed People shy away from their ‘White Side’ Part II

The Obama syndrome

As you will probably know, the American President Barak Obama was born to a Muslim, then Christian, then Atheist African man, and a Christian, then Secular European woman. 

His mother raised him along with his stepfather, an Indonesian Muslim man, and he shares blood with a half Indonesian Buddhist sister.

He was born in Hawaii, and for a while lived in Indonesia and later became known as the first African American president.

Obama is not only the first African American president… he is the first president to truly represent most of America and this is not just because of his DNA.

Although he has roots in Europe, Africa and America, his upbringing means he has roots in Asia too.

This is why I refer to people who are very mixed in their cultural understandings of life as having the ‘Obama Syndrome’.

It is no doubt a social advantage, you understand deeply people from completely different backgrounds natively. You simply get it. Sometimes you stop people from arguing due to subtle misunderstandings which are so easy for you to spot, other times you watch them, to see if eventually they will figure it out themselves (or purely for your entertainment.)

As a person who comes from many places (as deemed by the world I live in) I was confused for the better half of my childhood and young adulthood. 

I was born in Saudi...according to some that makes me Saudi, my parents are Sudanese, according to others that makes me Sudanese, I went back to Sudan at the age of 4 and stayed here until I was 7, then moved to England and stayed there until I was an adult - so many people identify me as British. 

Your nationality is much like your name, it's given to you by the world (other people) but unlike my name, everyone was divided about who and what I was, and as a result, I deeply struggled with displacement.

We live in a highly political world, and the irony is that most people who say ‘I don’t care about/understand politics’ or ‘I don’t see colour’ are actually unaware that they are living a luxury which really means, politics and race are on my side, so I don't need to think about them.

If identity was something people just had, like their eye colour it wouldn't be a problem, but it is not. People often quiz you to find out your 'allegiance' - are you them? or are you us? 

I remember very well sitting with some English friends who were bickering about the Polish coming in ‘to our country’ and taking ‘our jobs’. We grew up together and I guess they saw me as English too, but I felt a strange irony.

For the most part, I felt that I was Sudanese. I looked Sudanese, my parents spoke to me in Arabic I enjoyed thoroughly our annual summer holidays in Sudan. Walking down the street in Sudan no one would ever know that I wasn’t born and raised in Sudan. I loved Sudan, my parents told me amazing stories about how they grew up here and how much they missed it.

When I moved from our small town in South-East England to London to attend university, I realized something different. People here were very different, they were busy all the time, they didn’t really care who you were or what you were doing, they got very angry when someone trying to commit suicide caused their train to be delayed; they didn’t thank bus drivers at the end of their journeys, and bus drivers didn’t stop for them unless they waved… it took me a while to get used to this. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but this was the first time my behaviour branded me British, from the South-East.

After that I moved to Sudan in 2012… and things started to change, I realized that speaking the language was not the same as speaking the culture. I had no clue about the customs and values
, I didn't understand social cues as well as I thought I did and I realized that the idea I had in my head of what Sudan was like was just that – an idea in my head. What was most shocking perhaps was my utter refusal to abandon my British values, values I didn't even know I had.

I began to understand people, what they mean, how they act, but I refused to change – its not that I couldn't, I wouldn't. I refused to adopt any customs bad or good because I felt like a fraud. I knew it wasn’t really me.

As you can imagine, life became very confusing, you look like one thing but feel like another. It’s almost like being adopted – you know they are not your biological parents, but really, they are. I decided to look into my roots and try to understand the concept of countries, races and ethnicities from within – there had to be something that could extinguish this exhausting anguish.

Soon after I began researching African and Islamic history, I came across things that challenged strong concepts we have, and are raised with. Perhaps the most prominent discovery was when I realized no race was a ‘pure race’ as at some point we’ve all mixed, even those claiming to be indigenous. When we look back in history, it is clear that human beings are wonderers, in search of food and shelter. Food and shelter comes in the form of land, whoever finds that land, stays there – until another group militarily superior overthrows and enslaves or massacres them. This basically means that ‘looking a certain way’ doesn't make anyone more or less belonging to a land, it just shows how powerful you are in your ability to stay there.

Take America for example, White Americans are the majority – the land belonged to a complete civilization before them, but due to being militarily superior, they massacred them and now the land belongs to them. Take Sudan, in ancient Nubian times, the Assyrians came (they discovered iron) and massacred the Nubians and claimed themselves the kings of Nubia and Egypt. And now, the people who live here no doubt have a mixed heritage of Assyrian, Nubian, Egyptian and later on Arab blood. Just as civilizations wondered, nowadays, immigration means that my parents were able to move to a new land, as the land they grew up in could no longer serve them.

And so, in the same way that an adopted child has roots that connect them to their biological parents (particularly if the parent wished, but couldn't take care of them) I have roots here in Sudan. But the fact still remains, it was Britain that took care of me, it was Britain that watched me grow.

As a person of mixed cultural origin, I will tell you this – our understanding of others is profoundly deeper than those who are not mixed. I know Sudan very well, because looking Sudanese, allows me to see other sides of this place. I know Britain even better, not because I’m British, but because I grew up there. Britain is the country with the values I believe in, but that doesn't mean I don't understand well and respect Sudanese values.

In the same way, President Obama is an American and understands American values and believes in them. However he understands many other values too - This is why he is loved by many, because he knows how to speak to all of us.

Why do Mixed People shy away from their ‘White Side’ Part I

Little Notice - Apologies for the lateness, I will change the posting time to Sunday from now on as Thursday, Friday and Saturday are the weekend here so the internet is very very slow!

Dear Blogger

When we discussed the experiences of being mixed-race (coming from two ethnicities, looking like neither but being genetically both), I promised you that we would discuss people from mixed cultures someday. That day has come, but it has become apparent to me that in order to fully explain it, I will need to split this blog into 2 parts. 

It’s very obvious when someone is a mixture, or at least not ‘fully’ black.

Although the majority of the black race residing outside of West Africa has some sort of mix in them, they refer to themselves as black.  This is the reason you may find that many ‘black’ siblings have very different skin tones, one could be caramel (inherited from a white great grandparent) while another may be dark chocolate (inherited from a black great grandparent) even when the parents are both very dark or light.

Mixing occurred a long time ago and in many ways, mostly at the beginning through rape but also there was marriage. However one race is always perceived as superior to another, this is usually the one that is more advanced in their military and economical power and in this day and age, this is the race that looks lighter.

Previously when the Arabs had their golden era, they were the epitome of beauty and power, white skin and light eyes were seen only in slaves (bought and traded by Arabs mainly from what today is known as London, Paris, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy) and prior to that of course black skin was a sign of beauty during the Nubian kingdoms. (Cleopatra today would be asked to relax her hair, contour her nose and bleach her skin, but back then she was known as a beauty queen) 

When you look closely at beauty, you will realize that beauty is simply a reflection of which ‘race’ is more dominant economically and militarily at that time. Simply put, it’s an equation of power. In today’s climate Europeans and their descendants in America, Australia, South Africa etc fill the categories of being the most powerful and therefore beauty norms as well as mannerisms and general etiquette today are set by them.

This breeds a new norm of unconscious bias in society which often affects Whites in a positive way, and the darker you get, the more negatively you are perceived. When a mixed child looks more like his/her black side in a society dominated by whites – they are treated (discriminated against) as a black person. They feel a sense of community when mixing with black relatives and they experience an understanding compassion through their shared experiences of discrimination – something even the least racist white parent cannot share with them.

Interestingly, when that same mixed person resides in an area where most of the people are black, he/she is treated better because of the above assumptions associated with being white. Beauty is set by white norms, so having ‘kinky/curly’ hair which is blond/brownish, brown skin but light(er) eyes, is seen as a sign of ‘whiteness’ therefore beauty.

So not only is the bias played out by whites; it’s also reinforced by blacks – to the blacks you are better, to the whites you are worse. When President Barak Obama was asked why he refers to himself as black, even though he is half white – he said, ‘I don't think I was the one who made that choice’

Taking an example of a mixed person who looked more white - the mother of Malcom X who went on to privately tutor white children (and was significantly more educated than other blacks no doubt due to her skin tone) after the murder of her husband - she would immediately be rejected from work as soon as people ‘found out’ that she was black. 

Mariah Carey also often spoke of the difficulties she encountered as a child when people found out she was black too… and so you can see the trend.

You feel more comfortable labeling yourself with the side that will not discriminate against you negatively – how can you call yourself white when being white is not about your blood but your colour? If a white person from Russia decided to move to America today, that person’s children would be considered more white American than those half white with roots over 400 years old in the country. It makes little sense to me to say ‘half’ because the child is not dividing – a mother/father gives the same amount of DNA to a black child as they do a white, but the one who ‘looks’ racially more like him/her is called ‘whole?’

As a person of mixed roots myself, I am very accepting of both my middle eastern and African roots – but I can tell you for definite, it was not always the case. 

Mixed children are fully aware that they are both races, however they are discriminated against in the same way that fully black individuals are, they receive no special treatment and it’s not that they reject their white side, it’s more the case that society is colour based, the problem is not the child, the problem is society. Although it should be noted that light skinned mixed children do experience difficulties with the black community too, however it is on a much smaller scale and mostly for different motives. 

As for ‘mixed culture’ well, that's an even more complicated issue, I like to call it the ‘Obama Syndrome’

TBC 

Sandra Bland - The Dangers of Normalizing the 'White Narrative'

Everyone’s been bombarded by the case of Sandra Bland.  

With everyone I mean people with any ties to the western (English speaking) world. Which quite interestingly, seems to constitute, ‘everyone’

Just like World War I and World War II, which involved only 32 and 61 of the worlds 196 countries. They are still called ‘World Wars’.

Why? Because the narrator is White, and that is what constitutes the world in their context.

And just like those events have white narrators, so does multicultural America, and multicultural Europe.

I decided to read nothing other than the mainstream headlines and summaries I was seeing on my twitter feed, Facebook homepage and the news sites I had access to. I read only summaries, tributes and shallow news and this was my overall opinion.

This police officer should have known better, but the woman was clearly out of line, rude, offensive and aggressive and he needed to control her. The woman was clearly not killed in jail, she committed suicide because she was mentally unstable and the black community is upset and thinks she was killed because they distrust all police.

Then I read what actually happened. And then after that I watched the video of what happened.

This is a shortened version of the video.

The video is very different from the mainstream version – which always seems to ‘keep under control’ the actions of whites (Dylann Roof) and ‘blow out of proportion’ the actions of non-whites (example above).

When we take the actual rights of Sandra, she has the right to smoke her cigarette, she has the right to not answer polite questions like ‘how is your day’ she has the right to have an attitude – she doesn't have the right to curse, spit or hit an officer and she doesn't have the right to not listen to instructions on being removed from her vehicle.

It is very clear from the original video that Sandra was irritated because 1) she was stopped, and 2) the officer made her wait a long time for her ticket. He was trying to make small talk with her but she had an attitude and instead lit up a cigarette.

When she refused to put the cigarette out he began to abuse his power. He demanded that she leave her car and when she refused (due to thinking he did not have the right to remove her unless she was under arrest) he forced her out of the car shouting ‘I’m gonna light you up!’ while pointing a gun at her (without correcting the misconception she had about it not being his legal right to ask her out of the car)

He twisted her wrist until she was reduced to crying, he banged her head to the ground and had his knee on her back and ignored her crying and screaming about having epilepsy.

Finally when she gave up, his colleagues and him reportedly were happy that ‘all that was on tape’

The level of delusion was incredible for my eyes to witness. He genuinely thought he was in the right here...

It’s very easy to see that if she had been nice to him, this would have been over. He was upset because she had an attitude. An attitude because she didn’t like being stopped and made to wait a long time for a ticket.

An attitude that got to him so much, that he decided she would be punished for it.

What kind of a system employs such emotional officers?  How can a civil servant, a person in a position of authority ever obey the law if they are emotionally insecure? If they are so driven by how citizens respond to them that they will literally use that when deciding the verdict of how they will be punished?

I do not think Sandra was killed by any officer’s hands. She was killed by their actions, collectively. She took her own life because she saw no hope for black people, we will never be treated like people from other races. As a black woman in America, she has witnessed injustice so many times that she lost hope. Saying she killed herself without police involvement is like saying Amanda Todd killed herself and it had nothing to do with the bullies.

The danger’s of portraying black problems from the eyes and mouths of whites who have never even experienced being stopped and searched ‘randomly’, being eyed-up suspiciously or even asked the black community itself trivializes black issues. They say what they ‘expect’ which simply feeds stereotypes and informs nothing. They are also rarely caught out on racial bias reporting because their bosses are almost always white. Whites are good at defending other whites because they understand white problems. They know that Dylann was clearly a racist white supremacist but he will never be called a thug, a terrorist or anything other than a ‘lone wolf’ – a term that frees other whites of the social or moral responsibility of being ‘suspect-able’ or ‘blamed’ because of the actions of those like them in their communities. 

The real issue faced by America and Europe is that they are not giving voices to those from ethnic or religious minority backgrounds. Imagine a court case where the Prosecuting attorney is speaking for both the plaintiff and the defendant. Not only is there no defense attorney present (the defendant has no defense) but the defendant is spoken for by the attorney (the person trying to prove the side of the plaintiff)

We are not spoken for in the mainstream media except by people who do not understand our narrative, and furthermore, make people ‘like us’ explain ourselves. It is ridiculous enough that all Muslims have to ‘explain themselves’ because mainstream media puts them in the same category as extremist anti-western politically charged attackers who happen to be Muslim and use ‘being Muslim’ as a way to get others on board with their ideologies – yet when Dylann Roof kills blacks in the name of white supremacy and maintaining the white population other whites don’t have to explain themselves. 

The importance of allowing people to speak for themselves without having to defend themselves from mainstream ideologies is a fundamental right that doesn't exist in the so called progressive western societies we live in today.

Instead blacks must always defend themselves and Muslims must always explain themselves.

We need more ethnic representation in the media, and we need it now.

It could have been you.

The other day I read something that made me think quite a bit.

‘What if you woke up today with only the things you thanked God for yesterday?’

Initially, I misread the question. I read it as ‘What if you woke up today without the things you thanked God for yesterday?’

And it made me think. How would I feel if I had nothing? If everything I knew was stripped away from me.

My understanding of what it means to have nothing has changed very drastically since coming to Sudan.  What you see is very different from what you hear…

What if I was one of those Syrians? What if I suddenly went from having a home, a loving family and being part of a community to becoming a displaced refugee forced out of my own country with nothing but the clothes on my back with no prospect of ever returning or succeeding… what if I were one of those girls you find outside the mosques whose families are so desperate for them to be taken care of that they allow any man coming to the mosque to marry them.

I remember very specifically before the worst part of this war conducting a meeting with a Syrian businessman where he stated that Sudan was a very ugly plant-less country…  He was of course comparing it to Syria… and just like that, 2.5 years later Syria is nothing like it used to be and 200,000 people fewer…He was very wealthy, influential and powerful … and yet he had absolutely no power to do anything to stop this.

I thought about the crisis in Darfur… the way it all began because of greed that lead to hunger… what if I were one of those women who had the unthinkable done to them. What if I had seen so many monstrosities that I no longer hoped for life, I instead worried about how it would be robbed of me.

It is impossible to answer these questions because they are too deep and profound for someone who has not experienced them. But I know I would want help. I would hope that people would remember me, help me escape, protect me and I them. It wouldn't matter what they believed in, looked like or even were like in the past. In order for me to survive, I will need to become part of a group, as being alone doesn’t get you anywhere in the real world.

The privileged often seek subtle differences in order to segregate people – yet the poor look for just one characteristic to unite.

My entire life I’ve been fed a complete lie about hard work and perseverance. In reality there are people born into this world to suffer, and others to enjoy. Yet those who suffer complain much less and give much more than those who have all the means in the world to enjoy themselves. And what separates the two?

Luck.

There is nothing you can do to prevent forces from growing stronger than you, you cannot prevent the fall of your civilization when it is no longer your turn to be the most civilized, and there is nothing any of us can do or achieve as individuals when the society breaks down. We are taught to work hard and that our paths will be paved – but how can hard work grow you back crops when desertification occurs? How do you create cows when they are all dead? How is it fair for one people to claim land so fertile and expect others to survive on dead and dry land with little resources? Why is it that we divide ourselves so that war is the only option to enjoy resources - why don't we share?

Whether I wake up with only the things or none of the things I thanked God for tomorrow – I hope I remember that at any point, the tables could turn and just as my luck has been sweet, it can also turn sour.

What I find most intriguing however is the ability of those with nothing, to give; and the resistance of those with much to even lend.