(Picture: Dave Anderson for Metro.co.uk)

Plenty of people have mixed race kids these days, and it’s fair to say that many have them by design.

They’re really cute – it’s a fact. My baby niece (Spanish-Ghanaian-English) is possibly one of the most beautiful children alive.

But you know, having mixed race kids doesn’t mean that you are especially woke to racial issues.

I’ve known biracial teenagers to bleach and permanently straighten their hair, use skin whitening products and insist on being called more anglicised names because they hate being associated with their black side. And while that is largely society’s fault, there has to be some blame put on parents for allowing that feeling to grow so huge as to consume someone’s entire identity.




It’s like people who deign themselves to date outside their race.

I’ve dated plenty of white dudes who were perfectly nice and yet completely ignorant when it came race. Blokes who laughed when their mates made racist jokes at my expense. Guys who talked about our relationship as a kind of exotic erotic experiment. Men who asked me to straighten my hair because it made me look ‘hotter’.

They weren’t racist but they sure as hell weren’t alive to the issues people of colour face.

And sure, why should they be? Why should some random white man concern himself with how society interacts with their mixed-race university girlfriend?

(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

Everyone’s universe revolves around them…until someone more important comes along.

Like the love of your life or a kid.

If you think you’ve found The One, you should care about how they feel. And if you have chosen to have a mixed-race child, it’s your duty to be alive to the realities of that identity.

Having a biracial child does not mean you cannot be racist. Nor does it mean that you’ve done your bit for race relations. It just means you had sex with a person of colour, without contraception, and decided to keep the product. Go you!

I’ve been incredibly lucky because my dad is mixed too – and he was incredibly involved in my racial development and made a concerted effort to make sure our experiences were different to his.

He was raised as the only ‘black’ boy in a British boarding school in the 50s – away from his parents, one of whom was distinctly foreign and one of whom was white. Neither could relate and at the time, neither was really in a position to.

(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

When we were children, my dad encouraged us to wear Kente shirts, have our hair cornrowed, visit Ghana, eat fufu (the one thing I’ll never forgive him for), while my mum took us up to Yorkshire every holiday and made a cracking Shepherd’s pie.

But if you don’t have that privilege of having a mixed partner already, you have to take responsibility for your child’s identity.

Being mixed race can be hard – even when you’re the second generation. You feel like an outsider, like your hair is wrong, your skin is wrong, your shape is wrong.



Affinity Magazine recently published an open letter to the white parents of biracial children which hit the nail on the head.

‘Having mixed babies doesn’t justify the things you might do or say,’ wrote Jazkia Phillips.

‘Let’s take Kim Kardashian for example, who has two biracial children and a black husband yet she appropriates black culture and defended known racist Jeffree Star. Yes, I’m writing to white parents like you.’

The point is that the parents of biracial kids do not and cannot have the same experiences as their offspring – even if they themselves are mixed. You’re different colours and colour does impact on experience, whether you want to admit it or not.

And that’s something parents really need to address. It’s no use poo-pooing racism because you’ve never experienced it yourself. You might not have been party to it but racism does still exist in society today on varying levels.

To really arm your child against a world which is prejudiced against people of colour and people who don’t fit into any proper category, you need to be prepared to be a kind of racial warrior.

You need to call people out for making jokes. You need to actively volunteer to take your child to have their hair done or learn how to do it yourself.

However, you can’t always assume that your mixed race kid wants to talk about race or have things related to race (that goes for your mixed race mates and partners too).


Most of all, we all need to understand that we all come to accept our identities in different ways.

There are some things that you won’t be able to relate to and that’s ok. But you can at least empathise and be there for them.

In a world of Kim Kardiashians, be a Chrissy Teigen.

MORE: Meet the guy who’s set up a website to find his Ideal Woman

MORE: If you’re on the pill there’s no reason to have your ‘period’

Advertisement Advertisement