GUEST POST: Navigating mixedness in therapy
As a counsellor in Bristol, England, Yvon Guest specialises in seeing clients from Black mixed race backgrounds. Most of the mixed people she sees have grown up in predominantly white areas – an experience common to many of those who get in touch with The Mixed Museum looking for support and information. In response to the kinds of questions we frequently receive, we invited Yvon to provide insights into her work and conversations with her clients, including how the history of slavery and colonialism echoes in their experiences.
Dr Guest's clinical practice
I am a counsellor of Jamaican, Irish and English heritage based in Bristol, England. I work with clients who typically have one white British parent and one of African or African Caribbean descent. People often say to me ‘Why do mixed race people need counselling, surely they have the best of both worlds?’ or ‘Doesn’t their light skinned privilege outweigh any negatives?’ The reality of the lived experience of these clients is far more complex.
The mixed clients I see are resilient and resourceful. They have had to be: the vast majority were raised in predominantly white spaces in different parts of the UK. As one of a handful of non-white children in their school or one of perhaps a few dozen in their town, they endured a lot of racism. As Cara (not her real name, all the stories here are anonymised) told me, ‘Growing up in our small village in Devon, I got called the N word. Now when I am around Black people, if the conversation is about racism, I get told I don’t understand because I am not Black!’.
In my work as a researcher and as a practitioner I always use a life history approach. Clients usually include their parents and grandparents, but we never go back any further. But I feel that to really understand mixed race people we need to travel back four hundred years, to remind us of all that has happened between white people and those from the African diaspora.
Looking back to look forward
Colonisation and slavery have taken place for thousands of years. Currently, the conversation tends to focus on the transatlantic slave trade, a unique chapter in the history of slavery because of its industrial scale. Alongside the period of European, predominantly white, colonisation of much of the globe, the transatlantic slave trade created inequalities that persist. And the reality is, there has been so much violence. Millions have been murdered, brutalised, enslaved, displaced, and disinherited since those first encounters.
My personal historical narrative around slavery and colonisation is complicated. It does not fit into a binary narrative of white slaver/coloniser and Black enslaved/colonised, as the English also enslaved and colonised the Irish. Whether our heritage is Black or white, slaver or enslaved – or as my own is, far more complex – we are still trying to make sense of this. There are a number of ways our ancestral connections manifest within the current discourse.
When people of African ancestry are reminded of their ancestral connection, the realisation occurs: ‘They did that to us.’
For white people, when reminded of their ancestral connection, their realisation is: ‘We did that to them.’
But, for the mixed race people I see, their realisation goes like this: ‘We did that to us.’
This is because they identify, via their ancestry, with both the perpetrator of these heinous acts and the victims. For many, this is what can make the mixed race experience complicated. Having to hold both positions, simultaneously, can feel an almost impossible task for some. The burden of ancestral, colonial shame sits heavily on the one shoulder; whilst the intergenerational wounds from slavery and racism sit on the other (Guest, 2022).
The evolution of Black and white
Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish biologist and physician, was the first to group people into categories by skin colour and continent. In early editions of his work Systema Naturae, first published in 1735, he categorised the ‘varieties’ of humans according to the four known continents at the time – European white, American reddish, Asian tawny and African black, in that order. Later editions of the same work (Linnaeus, 1758) expanded on these categories by adding temperaments and attributes, and are widely considered to form the basis for scientific racism. The supposed superiority of whiteness was used to dehumanise people with darker skin colours, and justify the harsh treatment of enslaved people of African descent.
Historically, terms that originated in slavery and colonialism, such as mulatto or ‘half-caste’ have been used to describe mixed race people. Though mixed race is a commonly used term in Britain, some prefer terms that put less emphasis on race, such as ‘mixed parentage’ or ‘dual heritage’. However, from my perspective, the difficulty around using terms like dual heritage is that people, for example, with a Scottish parent and a Danish parent, are also dual heritage, and this is very different to having a Black parent and a white parent. One client, Nathaniel, sees it like this: ‘Race doesn’t exist, but racism does and that is my lived experience.’ Whether we use the concept of race, culture, or heritage, it always comes down to white being seen as superior (Olyedemi, 2013).
The roots of colourism
Discrimination based on the shade of a person’s skin, or colourism, has roots in the transatlantic slave trade. Despite legislation and practices designed to prevent racial mixing on slave plantations and throughout the colonies, this did occur – most frequently under coercion. The resulting children born were classified by the degree of removal from their Black parental ancestor (‘half-caste’, ‘quadroon’, ‘octoroon’). In the Caribbean, though many of the children remained enslaved, sold and abused, others were recognised by their white fathers, freed, and brought into the family unit. Some were even sent to their fathers’ home countries to be educated, while others inherited their fathers’ plantations and became wealthy in their own right. Some ‘passed’ as white in wider society – whether intentionally, or as their family origins became obscured over generations. For these children and their descendants, their mixed origins opened up privileges that were much harder to obtain for those of Black African heritage alone, or those with darker skin.
In the late 19th century, the new pseudo-scientific theory of Eugenics emerged, claiming that a superior – which, for them, meant white – race could be created through controlled, selective breeding. Eugenicists saw racial hatred as a natural mechanism of biology ensuring racial segregation for whites (Popenoe & Johnson, 1918). However, darker-skinned ‘races’ were believed to gain from miscegenation, or racial mixing, because of the supposed superiority of the white race (Provine, 1973).
When the Windrush generation was invited to emigrate from the Caribbean to rebuild post war Britain after World War Two, many brought with them the skin tone hierarchies with which they had lived for generations in the former colonies (Gabriel, 2007). One client, Macey, recalled, ‘My Jamaican family maintained their light skin and all its privileges for generations. My grandfather gave all his dark skinned children to their mothers’ families. When he came to Scotland, he was deeply shocked and never really got over being treated the same as darker skinned people.’
In a binary world, physical appearance is everything. This is going to make it even more complex for those mixed people who want to fully embrace both sides of their ancestry. It presents difficulties both for those who are mixed race and darker skinned, so it is not obvious that they have a white parent, and for those who are white presenting, because their skin is so light their African ancestry is not apparent. Darrell is white presenting; he grew up with his white mother in a small northern town. He spent years as a young adult learning about his Ghanaian culture, of which he is very proud. But when he is around Black people, and some white people, they question the authenticity of his identification with this Ghanaian heritage.
Whiteness has long been seen as the global standard for beauty, which has also encouraged colourism (Phoenix & Craddock 2022). Lynn described how, ‘My brother has the lightest skin tone and gets the most attention, but our Barbadian relatives always say, “What a shame he has such big lips”.’ There is a small body of research looking at colourism in the UK, including in mixed families, which shows how it can present due to gender, ethnicity and class, among other factors. Colourism can happen between members of different racial groups and members of the same racial group; therefore, it divides communities (Craddock et al.2022; Campion, 2019; Gabriel, 2007). Colourism cannot be understood in simple terms, there are multiple layers.
The Faustian pact
Most of the mixed race clients who seek my help have been raised in white communities with little or no access to their African or African Caribbean identity, culture or heritage. They are biologically mixed race but might be seen as ‘culturally white’. For some, this can create a ‘Faustian pact’ – a metaphor from European mythology in which an individual enters a bargain or pact in which they give up something important, knowingly or unknowingly. Only afterwards do they realise that what they relinquished was far more valuable than what they got in return.
However, even where they fulfil their side of the pact by appearing to relinquish their Black identities, many of the mixed people I see never feel fully accepted. What makes it even more confusing for mixed race clients is experiencing acceptance and rejection in both communities. This is because of what they represent to each observer, in terms of how they present biologically and culturally. White people have always rejected outright the possibility of mixed race people identifying as white, unless they have no physical traces of African ancestry and they give up everything – their family, their community – to pass undetected as white.
Now, as in previous decades and centuries, mixed race children can be rejected by the white community for being half Black. Less openly discussed is that they can also be rejected by the Black community for being half white. Dr Karis Campion addresses this issue in her work on ‘horizontal hostility’, which looks at the way rejection by Black people impacts the self-perceptions and expressed ethnic identities of Black mixed race people (Campion, 2018).
Cultural colourism
I define cultural colourism as colourism based on how one presents culturally. This means there is a significant difference between light skinned people of two Black parents and those who are mixed race. As I have explained, the majority of my clients have been raised in white spaces, often by their white mothers. Unlike light skinned people raised in Black communities, they have no lived experience of their Black culture because they had no access to their Black parent, relatives or the wider Black community. When they try to reconnect, they are rejected because, to some, they sound and behave ‘like white people’: they are culturally white.
I do see mixed race clients who were raised in Black communities. They are deeply embedded in their Black cultures, proud to claim a Black identity, but can still be subjected to micro and macro aggressions. A Black mother once stopped me in the street – she knew I was a counsellor and had heard me talking at an event. She told me how much she regretted having had mixed race boys. The whole family had been bullied relentlessly by other Black people. For my mixed race clients, it can seem that membership of the Black or the white club is only ever a visitor’s pass in the eyes of some.
Coming to terms with ‘no man’s land’
In a racially divided world, in which history is increasingly being weaponised, mixed race people often feel they are caught in the crossfire. There is constant pressure to choose a side. One way to reject the Faustian pact entails exiling oneself to no man’s land. As Loreen said, ‘I thought, “You know what, I am not doing this anymore”. I am sick of being stuck in the middle of trench warfare.’ No man’s land is not a geographical location. It is more a state of mind, of being. However, no man’s land lacks many aspects that others take for granted. It doesn’t have a language, faith, literature, artefacts, or culture – although this is changing. Yet, what no man’s land does have is other mixed race individuals who also reject the Faustian pact. And people of all intersections, who reject binary thinking about one race or one group being intrinsically bad, or another intrinsically good.
I wanted to write this blog because the clients I see have a present day, lived experience that is deeply impacted by the history of interracial relationships, whilst often having little or no understanding of that history. This makes The Mixed Museum a vital resource for my clients, other mixed people and all those who visit. My hope is that this blog will also become a resource.
Many of the clients I see grew up not knowing about colourism. This cultural knowledge wasn’t available in the predominantly white settings they were raised in. Some didn’t know until they started mixing with Black people, came across it online or when we started working together.
I reassure them they are not alone in navigating their complex experiences. I invite them to tell me their life story because everyone’s story deserves to be heard. There is often a lot of grief to work through around the loss of identity and sense of belonging. Some carry feelings they haven’t been able to make sense of, which manifest as shame from humiliating experiences of rejection, or guilt about preferential treatment. I validate their feelings.
For my clients, being denied one or both sides of their identities has taken a psychological toll. Recovery takes time. As their confidence grows, they begin to challenge social interactions in which any aspect of their identity is denied. Perhaps most significantly, whilst they will always have a deep connection to the sins and the sorrows of their ancestors, it doesn’t have to feel like such a heavy burden.
The names of all clients quoted in this article have been changed.
Visit Yvon Guest’s website for more information about her practice.
References
Campion, K. (2019). You think you’re Black: Exploring Black mixed-race experiences of Black rejection. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 4(1), 196-213.
Craddock, N., Phoenix, A., White, P., Gentili, C., Diedrichs, P.C., & Barlow, F. (2022). Understanding colourism in the UK: Development and assessment of the everyday colourism scale.
Gabriel, D. (2007). Layers of Blackness: Colourism in the African Diaspora. Bournemouth. ac.uk eprints. Available at: https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/21409/
Guest, Y. (2019). Between black and white. Therapy Today,29(3) 26-29.
Guest, Y. (2022). Negotiating the Faustian pact: A psycho-social approach to working with mixed-race people. in Charura, D., & Lago, C.(eds) Black Identities + White Therapies: Race, Respect + Diversity (152-160) PCCS Books.
Guest, Y. 2022. Colourism on The Couch. http://www.sweetpatootee.co.uk/sweet-patootee-arts/
Linnaeus, C., (1758). Systema naturae (Vol. 1, No. part 1, p. 532). Holmiae (Laurentii Salvii): Stockholm.
Olyedemi, M. (2013). Towards a Psychology of Mixed Race Identity Development in the United Kingdom. PhD. Thesis. Brunel University.
Phoenix, A., & Craddock, N. (2022). Black Men’s Experiences of Colourism in the UK. Sociology, 56(5), 1015–1031.
Popenoe, P., & Johnson, R. H. (1918). Applied Eugenics. New York: Macmillan.
Provine, W. B. (1973). Genetics and the biology of race crossing. Science, 182,790-796.