Here’s a thread on some trash behaviour I was sent last night.

Coming fresh off of an exam so get ready for an analytical breakdown of mixed race racism and the fetishisation and simultaneous othering of mixed people.

Usernames of young twitter offenders are not censored.

It has been a very long time since the term ‘half caste’ was acceptable.

The word comes from the term ‘caste’ meaning pure, implying that for one to be of two different races we are impure and thus we are reduced to impurities in society—mistakes.

More than anything it implies that we are less than pure, therefore less than those who grace white ‘civilised’ society.

A quintessential example of othering, except in this context the the ‘half-caste’ other must also deal with of fetishisation.

Y’all are so lucky, because this happens to be where I specialised my a level English Literature analytical coursework into.

Now, it’s that dash of whiteness to that colonial other, that ‘uncivilised beast’, that makes those different traits (the skin, the nose, the build, the culture) more palatable.

Less other and more white, therefore desirable due to uniqueness and being white-ish.

So, we then see this phenomena where mixed race people are placed on a pedestal of aesthetics, that ‘right’ combination of traits is seen as exotic but not too exotic.

A compromise between civilised ‘whiteness’ and ‘uncivilised’ blackness.

God knows how many times I’ve been told I’d look better with blue or green eyes or a more euro-centric nose.

Mixed raced babies are therefore sought after, mixed race men and women a commodity in society with high demand.

Causing dark skin people of our culture to despise our ‘light skin privilege’. Acting as though we asked for this attention, this unfair sexualisation of our ‘race’.

As a baby, people would take pictures of me in the streets. The streets of London, for crying out loud.

They’d take picture and be fascinated with my blue eyes, light skin, small large nostrilled nose, and my small kinky curls.

Now we move onto the term ‘crossbreed’. A term that is no better than ‘half caste’ as instead of an allusion to being ‘half pure’ we are dehumanised as if the act of having a mixed race child is like cross-breeding a dog for the combination of right traits.

A mutt.

Breed in some white traits, breed in some black traits and suddenly you have a prized breed that is sought after. A breed to be mated with to provide desirable children.

Except when you call me a ‘cross-breed’ I lose all rights.

As a mixed woman, I then gain value in a white society because I’m a vessel for aesthetically pleasing mutt children.

Nothing more, nothing less.

The second I am seen, I am fetishised.

Women want my aesthically pleasing children, men want my ‘not too exotic’ body.

This is the reality of being mixed race in a white Western country.

And honestly, how dare you reduce my worth to my appearance whilst also rejecting the black culture that is responsible for my hair, my skin, my nose, my body shape.

You have no right to look upon a mixed race person’s body and call them ‘cross-breed’ or ‘half-caste’ whilst also stating that they’re hot.

You have no right to other me and give yourself the right to then comment on my body after rejecting the heritage it comes from.

He should be disappointed in himself for what he said and the people who enabled his behaviour should also be disappointed.

This is the 21st Century, and my existence should not be reduced to horny racism or the enablement of horny racism.

I am more than my mixed race.