Book Review - Mixed/Other: Explorations Of Multiraciality In Modern Britain By Natalie Morris

People have a tendency to want to categorise things. We do it with the world around us with scientists using smart sounding Latin terms for different kinds of animals like canis familiaris for dogs or felis catus for cats. We do it with plants with terms like solanum lycopersicum for tomato, or malus domestica for apple. We even do it with the past itself with history being divided up into different ages which have their own terms like the Victorian era or the Tudor period. It makes sense as an impulse to use language to categorise something as it helps us define it, and to define something helps us understand it. This kind of categorisation is nigh on impossible for humans though because categories are usually too rigid to effectively encapsulate our complexities. This is the case for all demographics and groups of people but none more so than Mixed-race people. The term Mixed-race itself defies attempts at categorisation being a far cry from much more clear-cut terms like Black or white. Mixed/Other: Explorations of Multiraciality in Modern Britain by Natalie Morris is an examination of what it’s like to live as a Mixed-race person today.  It uses anecdotes from Morris’ own life, alongside stories from other Mixed-race people to analyse how race is perceived in Britain.

  Perceived is an important word here, because how race is perceived by people, and the effect that perception has is a big part of this book. The consensus among historians, anthropologists, and scientists is that race is a social construct, not biological, and this book shows that to be the case. Morris devotes a significant portion of the book to how treatment of Mixed-race people, and the severity of the racism they experience can change depending on their physical proximity to whiteness. She contrasts the experiences of Mixed-race people with darker skin, to her own experiences as a Mixed-race woman with comparatively lighter skin, to the experiences of Mixed-race people who pass for white.  Several times throughout the book she admits to benefitting from a degree of what she terms mixed privilege because of her physical appearance. There is a clear sliding scale of how difficult your life will be based on colourism. It is chiefly aesthetic and not based on anything inherently biological. Morris puts it better than I could so to quote her directly: “The fact that people of different racial groups have the ability to be unquestioningly accepted as white, based on nothing more than their external appearance, surely shows the superficiality and instability of racial categories.” One person she speaks to, a man named George, has a white British mother, and an Indian father born in Britain. Physically George passes for white but his brother, who has more visibly South Asian features doesn’t. His description of the differences in how he is treated by people compared to his brother and father is as uncomfortable as it is unsurprising. Reading the difference in people’s experiences who are in the same family, let alone the same broad racial demographic shows that our perceptions of race, and racism itself is often only surface level and exposes the lie that race is scientific and not social.

  The social construct of race, and its malleability can also be seen with how Morris writes about the objectification, and fetishization of Mixed-race people. Over the last few years societal trends regarding physical appearance have noticeably moved more broadly in favour of more Mixed-race features. Morris writes extensively about the effect this shift has had on her personally, and the emotional whiplash she experienced as she went from feeling ugly as a teen, to now as an adult suddenly finding that she is considered beautiful, and desirable. Her curls for example went from something she desperately tried to straighten in order to better conform, to something which other people envied. This fetishization has ranged from an increase in male attention, to an increase in compliments, to the slightly disturbing fascination people seem to have with the appearance of any children she may have in the future. Nothing about her appearance has drastically changed but the response from people, and society as a whole, has been night and day. This change in perceptions of beauty is not an entirely welcome one however, as she notes, a big part of this sea change in desirability doesn’t just come from her mixed features, but like with mixed privilege, from her proximity to whiteness. She’s not just Mixed, she is, for lack of a better term, the “right kind of mixed”, dark enough to be the “exotic” other, but light enough to not scare white people. Morris points out that this fetishization, and objectification of a specific kind of Mixed person is at its core racist. While it could seem like a positive development which embraces diversity in truth it is still centring white people, and holding Eurocentric beauty standards as normal, and as the gold standard all should aspire to. The silent message is, the closer you are to whiteness the more acceptable, and the more attractive you are. This objectification reinforces a social hierarchy in which whiteness, and white people are at the top and strengthens white supremacy in doing so.

  This fetishization and objectification of a very specific kind of Mixed-race person (typically with one Black parent, and one white parent) also has the effect of the erasure of Mixed-race people with no white heritage. This fixation society and the media seem to have regarding a very narrow definition of what being Mixed-race is, often excludes those who are mixed with two non-white ethnicities; forgetting that they exist too. Morris illustrates this erasure using the example of the government census form, more specifically its options for Mixed people. She points out the fact that under ethnicity there are three categories that Mixed people can tick: white and Black Caribbean, white and Black African, and white and Asian. The only option for people whose Mixed heritage doesn’t involve whiteness is other mixed. All the different possible combinations that Mixed-race people could be, are all put in one box which is explicitly labelled ‘Other’. Quoting Morris, “If you don’t fit those first three boxes of ‘white-plus-something’, then you’re effectively discounted.” As a reader I was struck by, and appreciated this focus on Mixed-race people with no white parent as it made me reflect on past reviews and I realised it wasn’t a subject I’ve encountered much in my reading thus far. It shows just how wide of an umbrella the term mixed-race really is, and all the different kinds of people with all their different lives and experiences it encapsulates. It also shows the importance of challenging this erasure, and making sure Mixed-race people who have no white heritage have a voice too as their experiences, and the racism they deal with daily are real too and should be recognised as such.

With this book Morris has handed a microphone to some of the voices of the fastest growing, and possibly least understood racial demographic in the UK. She gave them room to talk uninterrupted and with an honesty not usually seen in society and the media; breaking preconceived notions of what a Mixed-race person is like. She expertly threads together her own experiences and stories of the people she spoke to with a deftness and skill that speaks to her talent as a writer, and interviewer. There is far more to this book and the stories within, than I can do justice to here. From questions around identity when you don’t fully fit in one of two worlds, to dealing with the dissonance that can come from having privilege, and still experiencing racism. I can only end this review by saying this is a book which contains multitudes, which challenges white supremacy, and which should be read by as many people, with as many different heritages and cultural backgrounds, as possible.

You can buy this book here: https://tinyurl.com/uvpcnj3n