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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 172 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 172, February 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Black, White or Mixed Race
Baebara Tizard and Ann Phoenix
Routledge £11.99
‘For centuries people of mixed black and white parentage, rather than being seen as the fortunate recipients of two diverse inheritances, have been stigmatised. This is because of deeply ingrained beliefs that human beings are “by blood” divided into a small number of races, of which the white race is superior.’
Indeed the very existence of mixed race relationships and children has proved so potent a threat to racist ideology that vast amounts of scientific energy have been invested in a vain attempt to prove that mixed race children suffer from genetic disorders.
Since the advent of the Nazis in 1930s Germany, open talk of people’s biology being adversely affected by the ‘mixing of races’ has been limited to those on the extreme right. Yet it took until the early 1950s before UNESCO could issue a statement which suggested that mixed race relationships should not be prohibited on the basis of any existing scientific knowledge.
The debate about race in the last few decades has primarily hinged on a notion of culture. People no longer argue that children of mixed race suffer from biological disorders, rather, it is suggested that they suffer from psychological identity problems. They don’t know whether they are black or white.
This book is a frontal attack on the notion that there are biological consequences for mixed race children and, perhaps more importantly, the idea that mixed race children are unable to develop a comfortable self image.
Its authors make their points in two ways.
Firstly, through a history of mixed race people in Britain. The point of this exercise is to show the reader that for centuries mixed race people have battled not with their genes, nor the colour of their skin, but with the racist society which has surrounded them.
Secondly, through a survey of young people of mixed race which is, represented by a mass of excerpts from the interviews, to show that the majority of those sampled are, by their late teens, happy with the racial mixture they have inherited.
In many ways the great strength of this book is that it allows people to put forward their own experience in a well structured fashion. So many different aspects of these young people’s feelings about their lives are represented that if the book comprised these alone it would still be extremely valuable.
The most serious weaknesses of the book seem to stem from its political outlook. As well as an attack on those who have stood out against the mixing of races it also advances the idea of a specific mixed-race racial and cultural identity, suggesting that the use of the term ‘black’ to describe people of mixed race is often misleading. It does this without adequately assessing the value of a term that can unite all people who suffer racism because of the colour of their skin.
The use of the term ‘black’ was developed as a political response to racism by a movement which aimed to smash it. Despite its obvious limitations it should be regarded as a gain won by the anti-racist movement.
Another problem is that the authors neither outline nor develop a serious strategy for fighting racism, but are concerned with addressing various issues of social policy where race is a factor, like adoption. I find myself wondering how the authors, who have spent over 150 pages telling us that racism is the biggest problem in young mixed race people’s lives, can leave the book without the means to challenge that racism.
If questions of race, racism and their relationship to people of mixed race interest you then you should not leave this book on the shelf. I don’t necessarily think that it will have the answers you are looking for, but it will probably help you think the issues through for yourself.
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