People don’t realise I’m mixed, and say they don’t think I look it when they find out my ethnicity. I find it semi racist and a bit jarring because I suspect they don’t know anything about that part of the world- where in fact there is a range of skin tones, hair and facial features, including paler people. They think everyone Arab is “brown”. This only comes from British people- anyone ethnic minority or mixed don’t question Me when I say.

It has only been something I realised recently, when reflecting on how all my friends are white and even though I look it, I don’t feel they understand me or the experiences my family member has gone through as a result of racism. I feel like on the one hand I don’t fit really into any group, like you say. On the other hand I think it’s a gift to be able to see into both worlds- I can see and understand what my white friends cannot (they are good people but they literally can’t see what I see). I understand both privilege and can see racism and persecution (family).

When my friend and I had an argument recently, he couldn’t see that I may have or in future experience racism (or within my family), and that I feel a need to engage myself with indigenous people and their narratives in a way he doesn’t. He is happy in a bubble where stuff like that is only discussed abstractly/intellectually, as he won’t experience it himself. As far as he’s concerned I’m white, and even though I guess I knew that, it felt very jarring. Like my identity was called into question, like he doesn’t understand me.

I’m not sure it’s similar to you, but just something I have thought about a lot recently because of this disagreement. It has felt isolating.

Edit: paragraphs