Hosted by Anna Maynard, senior event coordinator at AE3 Media, who is also of English and Filipino heritage, the conversation covered how they are perceived and where their appearances might provide them with privilege or challenges.
Being perceived
Edwards said having paler skin as a person of mixed heritage was something that had been “burrowing away at the back of her mind”.
She said she became aware of the way she was seen when she first started working, and came across someone who complained about immigrants coming to the UK to have “anchor babies”. She challenged this person as they did not realise they described her own upbringing, as her dad was from Jamaica and her mum was from Germany.
“It was really eye-opening for me, how I could get caught up in conversations because people don’t realise the background that I’ve come from,” Edwards said.
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Edwards’ dad was adopted at the age of seven, meaning he did not have access to his culture, while Edwards herself was adopted at the age of four by her dad’s best friends and was raised in a white environment.
Although social services took her to areas in Nottingham to help her engage with black culture, Edwards said it was not something she experienced day in and day out.
She said her upbringing was unique and interesting, adding: “Being in multiple different worlds at the same time, I think it helped open my world view a little bit.”
Hylton said she grew up with both the white and black side of her family, and she and a cousin who had a similar complexion were affectionately referred to as “the pale-faced twins”.
“Being a pale complexion was something that was spoken about in a jesty but loving way,” Hylton added.
That was her earliest acknowledgement of having a lighter skin tone, but she felt accepted as she had a cousin in the same position.
Growing up in Birmingham, Hylton said while she grew up knowing her black culture, she was “never really accepted by the black girls” at school and was ostracised along with other people from mixed heritage.
She said she felt targeted as a mixed person because of the “aesthetics” she came with and the “dilution of culture” in that she had influences of black and white culture, but was “neither strong in neither area”.
‘White passing’
When asked if attitudes toward them had changed over time, Edwards said as an adult, the treatment she had was different to when she was a child. She said location might also play a part, as she grew up in a small mining town and she was “heavily bullied” during school as the only person who appeared mixed and for having a “black nose”.
However, as an adult, she said people were surprised at her heritage “because I just look like a regular white person”.
She said it did not come up as frequently at work as she was lucky to be in spaces where people held similar views to her regarding diversity and inclusion (D&I).
Hylton said because mixed-race babies were considered cute and “coveted”, people generally reacted positively toward her. Growing up, however, when she straightened her hair, she found she would “get into arguments with people where you’d mention your heritage and they challenge you on it and they disbelieve you”.
Hylton said: “You’re having to argue the toss with people, and justify your heritage, your culture, your complexion. At times – I hate the fact I did this… I’ve actually shown people a photograph of my father and gone: ‘Look, this is my dad’.
“It’s quite draining and disappointing and annoying, but conversely, Rachel makes a good point about location.”
Hylton added: “Where people have grown up, what they’ve been exposed to, definitely obviously forms their mindset about these things and what they’re aware of. An example of that is an ex-partner of mine. Whilst I did straighten my hair, he grew up in Luton Dunstable and straight away was like: ‘Well of course you’re mixed heritage, I can tell. Even though your hair is straight, I can tell by the texture and your features’.
“Whereas I’ve been in relationships with other men who are white and have grown up in areas [that] are not very ethnically diverse, and they’ve been absolutely shocked.”
She said it was rude to doubt someone’s heritage based on their skin tone, adding that it was draining to make someone justify themselves.
Being welcomed and excluded
When asked if her appearance potentially gave her an advantage over people with darker skin tones, Hylton said while she had not had any confirmed experience of this, she often wondered if her lighter skin tone had got her hired at certain jobs because someone like her “ticks a box, but we don’t look like other ethnic minorities do”.
As she progressed up the ladder over her career, she said: “There is that thing in the back of your mind where you’re like: ‘Is this because I’m good enough?’”
Hylton said this probably spoke to feelings of imposter syndrome as a woman, as someone from an ethnic minority group or because of her socioeconomic background.
“This light skinned privilege of being a tick box but not looking like a tick box has always been at the back of my mind,” she added.
She said she still backed herself and her credentials, but the way companies collected data to show how they contributed to D&I made her wonder.
Maynard said that, on the other hand, people of mixed heritage and paler skin could find themselves excluded from events and initiatives targeted at ethnic minority groups.
Edwards said this was something she sometimes expected because she was not raised knowing her Jamaican culture so felt a slight “disconnect”, and therefore did not “feel in a position where I expect to be invited to these things”.
Edwards said it was “always lovely” to be included, but she understood why she might be left out because she might not look like she belonged and was not as connected to the culture.
When she does attend, Edwards said it was nice to connect to a side of herself she was not previously able to and hear other people’s similar life experience.
Listen to the podcast [36:27] hosted by Anna Maynard, senior event coordinator at AE3 Media, featuring guests Rachel Edwards, senior policy adviser at AMI, and Chloe Hylton, operational surveying director at Horde.
