Mud in the Water

Holly G
Sep 5
18 min read

Reflections and Research on the Mixed Race Experience

Contents

Introduction
Transatlantic Perspectives
- How the history of race impacts the lived mixed-race experience in the US v.s. the UK
Eyes of the Beholders
- Race as a social construct and liminality of the mixed-race experience
Mary
- Research on mixed-race experience and mental health
References
Mud in the Water (full poem)

“In any society built on institutionalized racism, race-mixing doesn’t merely challenge the system as unjust, it reveals the system as unsustainable and incoherent. Race-mixing proves that races can mix—and in a lot of cases, want to mix. Because a mixed person embodies that rebuke to the logic of the system, race-mixing becomes a crime worse than treason.”

– Trevor Noah, Born a Crime (2016, p. 21)

This place

Dissipates

In my mind.

This face

Misplaced

Features joined together over distances that shouldn’t be possible,

Time working over the surface of the skin like water on stone

Persistently changing, becoming unrecognizable over generations.

Introduction

If you are mixed race like me, you will have also suffered the number of indignities we can be subjected to. I have been ignored, insulted, harassed, followed, petted and stroked like an animal, grabbed, intimidated, fetishized, and expected to be flattered when compared to any number of other ethnically ambiguous people who do not resemble me at all. (I don’t care how well-intentioned it is when I’m told I look like Halle Berry, it is just a fact that we do not look similar in the slightest.) The most frustrating part is that all of these acts of dehumanization have been launched at me from white and black people alike.

I will address now before continuing, the privileges of being mixed race in order to make it very clear that I, and many others in the community, are aware of our position. The treatment of biracial and mixed peoples throughout history has primarily been a function of white supremacist systems in order to create further distinctions within persecuted classes. This sows discontent and distrust within the oppressed group to hinder possibilities of organizing and uniting against the oppressing class. From the roles mixed people have had placed upon them, to the stereotypes and narratives that have been built over time, the mixed identity has been a tool to designate the edges of Whiteness and to further alienate black individuals.

During slavery in the United States, it was common that mixed-race people were working in the houses of slaveowners, while their darker-skinned counterparts suffered in the fields. Even today, the privilege of having lighter skin is pervasive throughout the beauty industry, in professional spaces, and on the street or in public. But I have always thought that the privilege associated with proximity to whiteness is far overshadowed by the subliminal – as well as the very direct – danger that comes with being closer to the oppressor.

We are less feared; however, we are no less othered.

There is mud in the water.

It mixes and melds.

People and particles clash and conjoin

Together

Submit to an unknown and undeniable force

Tethered

They become an increasingly homogenous solution

Constantly resisting the illusion

That the water was pure to begin with

Transatlantic Perspectives

Many in the UK will state, somewhat correctly, that race is not the defining characteristic of a stranger one has just met. Rather, it is socio-economic class that many British people will base their initial judgements on first, before the color of someone’s skin.

That is why British people are skilled in the art of dissecting your accent in a split second. Within a few sentences, they are already trying to figure out where you grew up, what your background was like, which school you went to, what your parents’ occupations are, and all of these factors contribute to how much or how little time and respect they will decide to give you. The way you speak is more of a definitive component in the groups that you are allowed entry to than the way you look.

This is very different to the US, where they are much less concerned with the particulars of the accents of others. While speech is distinctive, an American cannot determine which state another citizen is from with the speed or accuracy of a British person guessing another’s hometown. Appearance, on the other hand, is a much more direct (but equally as flawed) method of categorization. The way someone dresses, moves, does their hair, and presents themselves is what indicates the specifics of the household and the culture they were raised within. In the US, race is, and has always been, the cost of entry into certain groups and spaces.

What is interesting to me is that different ethnic groups within the UK emphasize a pride that I would say rivals and may even surpass the Americans. While each racial group in America may have pride rooted in culture, geography, and a shared history of oppression, there is a specificity of identity in the UK that simply cannot exist in America.

This was a shock to me when I returned to the UK after over a decade in America. I discovered that people connect and bond with others based on their family’s origin. People will often describe themselves as Nigerian, Jamaican, or Egyptian before they describe themselves as British, even if they – and maybe their parents – were originally born in the UK. I had to get used to the fact that one of the first questions people of color would ask is “Where are you from?” I had to learn that when they ask that, they are not asking about where I am from – “I was born originally in London, but I grew up in California.” – but rather where I am from – “My mother’s side is Swedish and my father’s side is Caribbean.” I realized the pride with which people declared their heritage, and the sparkle of recognition when they encountered people from a shared culture.

When meeting up for a pint with a new friend, I asked, “What’s your mix?” and her face lit up.

“I love that you asked that.” She said, “When a white person asks me, I get suspicious, like, why are you asking like that? What are you trying to find out? But when a biracial person asks me, I know they understand where I’m coming from. They get me.”

In an embarrassing cross-cultural moment, I replicated this behavior during a visit to New York. It was a friend’s birthday party, and I was meeting a group of new people. It was a warm, muggy night in Brooklyn, and I was surrounded by a diverse group of strangers. In London, I had found that the quickest way to get to know new people is to ask where they’re from. Who are your parents? What is your mix? However, this time, instead of that moment of recognition, I received confused stares. It was the type of hesitant silence that comes after saying something rude in a foreign language. They couldn’t tell what I was saying, but they could tell it didn’t really sit right with them.

When I tried to clarify, desperately trying not to sound like I was defending myself after saying something politically incorrect, they glanced at each other to exchange their confusion.

“I mean, people say I look Spanish?”

~ ~ ~

When I tell people in the UK this story, they get confused.

“What’s that attitude for? Are they ashamed? Where is the pride for where they’re from?”

I have heard many people in the UK admonish black Americans for how they self-identify. The term African-American is sometimes mocked. How could they identify with the label of their oppressors so proudly? While I can understand, I can’t wholeheartedly agree. It only takes a few moments of explaining to get them to understand the context a little better. There is more than enough blood running through the veins of the British Empire to fill an ocean, but the history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade does not dampen the soil here like it does in America. It was an intentionally executed violent dispossession of place and belonging that built America’s wealth on the labor and lives of black bodies. They were kidnapped and stolen from their land, tribes were purposefully separated so they couldn’t communicate in their native languages, and their religious and spiritual practices were demonized. Any hint of humanity, culture, or sense of place was completely, utterly, and violently eradicated.

How could black Americans know where they are from when every shred of evidence has been systematically erased? How on earth could black Americans identify with anything other than what they have created for themselves out of the remaining fragments of their history?

Dirty faces, dirty skin, dirty blood

People on both sides looking down on us like mud

On the shoes with which they step on our necks

The disrespect

To bring us to life in one moment and then in the next

Pretend we don’t exist.

The reminder of the aberrant nature of separation is too challenging

Too dangerous

To keep us alive.

Eyes of the Beholders

What compelled me to make this post in the first place was not, in fact, the wide range of offenses at the hands of white people. That is a constant and ever-present phenomenon that I can not escape. However, it was the shame I have experienced from the judgmental gaze of those who are supposed to be aligned with me that compelled me to reflect on some of the more complex and uncomfortable truths and contradictions of the mixed race experience. I am expecting to receive derision from the oppressors, but it is a whole other wound entirely to receive that same attitude from those who share that history of oppression and are impacted by the same white supremacist systems that disempower us all.

I resent the example I’m about to offer. I dislike highlighting social media discourse as examples of what people in the world actually think because it has been proven time and time again that comment sections are not a free marketplace of ideas, but a heavily influenced space designed to instigate conflict and harvest attention for profit. Discussions about race, in particular, on social media are destined to go poorly. Combine a character limit together with a barely legible profile picture, and it gives every person free rein to say whatever horrible thoughts come into their heads. However, the post I’m about to describe and the comment section below it are the instigators that began this post in the first place.

The video I saw on my feed showed an intergenerational black family, with the grandparents at the center surrounded by their six sons, their partners, and all the grandchildren. The grandparents were black. All their children were black. Every single son had married a white woman. Every single one of their children was biracial.

The top comment heralded the onslaught of hatred: “This is gonna be interesting.”

And it was correct. Almost every single comment underneath it contained waves of vitriolic hatred and judgment.

They must hate themselves and their parents.

I wonder how their mother feels knowing all of her sons betrayed her.

Can’t believe they ruined black blood for this

I would never let my son bring a white girl home.

They could have had a beautiful black family.

After everything we sacrificed for our freedom our brothers continue to oppress themselves.

It was enough to make me physically sick to my stomach. I deleted Instagram and didn't return for over a year.

If these are the opinions that are so casually launched in online discourse – from other black people, mind you – it is no surprise that mixed race people feel ostracized and excluded from both groups. At the end of the day, it all goes back to the crimes of the white man. These opinions wouldn’t be so rife within the black community if they hadn’t been demonized by their oppressors to such an extent that anyone with white skin has become synonymous with those who inflicted the intergenerational trauma upon our ancestors and then trickled down to us. At the same time, I would have hoped that we as a community would have gotten past the phase of outright rejecting any association with white people. I would expect this from alt-right white supremacist trolls on Twitter. I was extremely disappointed to find it alive and well in the comment section of a completely innocent family portrait from those who are supposedly my brothers and sisters in the resistance against oppression.

It highlighted the isolation I, and many other biracial people, have felt throughout our entire lives and throughout history. It opens up difficult questions for us. Wanting to be ‘more white’ often comes with feelings of erasure and guilt. Wanting to be ‘more black’ often comes with imposter syndrome and more guilt.

We are too white to be black but too black to be white. So, where are we supposed to go?

Often, it depends on where people around us think we should go.

One of the ways I know race is a social construct and not a biological one is because my race changes based on how others interpret it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And so is racial identity, I suppose. I’ve gotten a million and one answers when people try to guess my ethnicity. And it all has to do with the person and their personal relationship and history around race.

In Trevor Noah’s autobiography, Born a Crime, he explains his experience as a colored person in South Africa being raised by his black mother and family. In this specific chapter, he goes into more detail about what it was like being the one light-skinned person in his family:

“My grandmother treated me like I was white. My grandfather did, too, only he was even more extreme. He called me ‘Mastah.’ In the car, he insisted on driving me as if he were my chauffeur. ‘Mastah must always sit in the backseat.’ I never challenged him on it. What was I going to say? ‘I believe your perception of race is flawed, Grandfather.’ No. I was five. I sat in the back. [...] I didn’t know any of it had anything to do with ‘race.’ I didn’t know what race was. My mother never referred to my dad as white or to me as mixed. So when the other kids in Soweto called me ‘white,’ even though I was light brown, I just thought they had their colors mixed up, like they hadn’t learned them properly.”

I deeply related to the experience he described in his book. As I learned more about my racial identity as a child, I updated the ways I would self-identify to others. But I was only ever doing the best I could with the vocabulary I had.

I have a distinct memory of taking the ERB tests as a kid, a standardized test in the US to evaluate school performance. The first section was just basic information, your name, age, and ethnicity for national statistics. Every year from 1st to 5th grade, I put a new answer for my race. One year I put white, another I put black. Another, I circled both. I think finally by the end I put the answer as mixed, but I still wasn’t convinced. The only way to define yourself as mixed or black was to identify as African-American. I knew I wasn’t white, but I knew I also wasn’t African, nor American.

This can become quite challenging for a child, particularly at an age where a primary goal is trying to learn how to interact with and become a part of social groups. Children can experience more distress when there’s a perception that identifying yourself with one group or the other will instigate more rejection.

It’s a common experience to be excluded based on race, especially for mixed and biracial children who face rejection from multiple groups. When I mentioned that appearances are the ticket into social groups in America, it applies to all ages in all corners of the country. It can be just a subtle distrust or a slight distancing, but it can also be a staunch rejection out of disgust. The attitudes in those Instagram comments are rare to come by in real life, but are very real and present in the nation’s collective imagination.

The sometimes not-so-subtle discomfort with the idea of active integration combined with the need to self-identify with a specific racial group exposes the tensions and contradictions of the entire concept of race. The idea of racial purity, whether from a white-supremacist perspective or a rejection-of-whiteness perspective, is so antithetical to human nature that it is impossible to maintain. That is why regardless of how extreme the punishments can get for interracial couples, mixed-race children have always and will continue to exist.

The product of forbidden love

Judgement from above

Won’t stop humans from what they are wont to do

Won’t stop them from stealing glances

Won’t stop them from sneaking in darkness

Won’t stop them from speaking their hearts and

Spilling their guts and

Even risking their lives for –

Mary

Recently, I was exchanging experiences of mixed race identity with a close friend. Despite having grown up in different countries (me in the US, them in the UK), we had nearly identical experiences of isolation and loneliness. Facing rejection from both the white and black communities more than likely contributed to the difficult social experiences we had suffered as children.

“They should really do a study on mixed race kids and mental health,” they said. “It’s not random that so many biracial kids feel like this.”

I thought to myself that there must be studies out there that show evidence as to why this is so common. And many weeks later, after a quick look at some of the research, the science doesn’t really tell us what we don’t already know from our lived experience, but it’s fascinating nonetheless.

One of the most common studies referenced in the research conducted on the mental health of mixed and biracial kids is called Racial Identity and Self-Esteem: Problems Peculiar to Biracial Children by Lyles et al. This is a qualitative study done in 1985 that follows the psychiatric treatment of one mixed-race girl, “Mary”:

“Mary (a pseudonym) was 11 years old at the time her grandmother asked for a psychiatric evaluation. Two years prior to this referral, she had developed disciplinary problems at home and school after definitively learning of her biracial status. Her perceptive grandmother postulated that Mary's growing racial awareness had precipitated the increasing behavioral disturbances. Grandmother found Mary to be a ‘mixed-up kid who needs someone to help her sort out her feelings about being biracial.’”

I would highly recommend reading this study. It’s more of a story than a psychology experiment. It’s simply a background on Mary and her family, as well as descriptions of the therapy sessions between the subject and the researcher. It is a story that's heartbreaking, yet also displays immense resilience and maturity within the mixed-race mind. Mary clearly grapples with the difficulty of how she values black and white characteristics, making harsh judgments – as children often do – on beauty, purpose, and morality. She is deeply cognisant of the rejection she faces from her white family members and peers based on her race, yet she strives to connect with them regardless. At one point, she shares a poem with the therapist:

"I can be no one but me and must always be me, because you are important to yourself."

The conclusions of the study were listed as follows:

“The child should be given accurate age-appropriate explanations of his or her parental roots, with an emphasis on the positive.”

Because of the controversial nature of interracial relationships, it’s common for mixed-race children to begin feeling ostracized from others at a very young age by the opinions they perceive about – and sometimes even from – their parents. From when she was young, Mary was given a story about her parents that was very common about interracial relationships: that her black father was an alcoholic and had forced and coerced her white mother into intercourse. This version of events wasn’t actually true, but it was told to Mary by the white members of her family who were ashamed of having a person of color in the family.

Even to this day in 2025, interracial relationships are seen with incredible criticism. The Instagram video I referenced before is only the beginning. Black women are criticized for ‘fraternizing with the enemy’ by even just dating white men. Black men are seen as betraying women in their own community to prey on and take advantage of white women, while simultaneously, white women are seen as seducing and manipulating them to punish white men for ‘not being masculine enough’. The nauseating narratives around interracial relationships are so overpowering in the collective imagination – even to me as someone who is mixed race – that it can be hard to remember that these stories are born from love before they were twisted into fetishism, objectification, and violence.

“Transmission of information regarding race should begin when the child is becoming racially aware and concerns are raised… Biological or adoptive parents should be aware of their racial prejudices.”

In the study, it was described that when Mary began to realize the differences between herself and her cousins and classmates, she began to ask questions of her grandmother. These questions were shut down, and if Mary continued to push, she would be dissuaded by threats. Despite the fact that Mary could already clearly tell she was different from others, her family would try to suppress that curiosity, her survival instinct, as if lying to her about her race would make her ignorant of the ways the world around her ostracized her.

In addition to that, the first signs of hatred for her race she encountered were likely from her own family. The shame she experienced from her white family members was internalized from an early age. It caused her to distrust older black men like her therapist and idolize white authority figures and role models like athletes.

“Finally, the family should avoid interpreting developmental struggles of the child, overtly or latently, in a negative racial term (e.g., the child's "bad side").”

Racial biases can severely impact the interpretation of behavior. The white members of Mary's family would associate her oppositional behavior with negative stereotypes of her race and assert that the negative qualities in her personality were due to her

father. This would obviously cause severe self-esteem issues in a child and instigate negative self-conception based on race. It caused conflict and distress within Mary.

Black children are significantly more likely to be labeled as disruptive and oppositional, and thus diagnosed with a more unforgiving behavioral disorder than white children, who are more likely to be labeled with learning difficulties, which garner more sympathy and support from teachers and school systems. A study conducted by Feisthamel and Schwartz investigated the diagnoses of black and white patients. The results indicated “a relation between client race and how often mental health counselors diagnose particular mental disorders. African Americans were more frequently diagnosed with childhood disorders and Euro-Americans with adjustment disorders,” adjustment disorders in this case meaning they are classified within a “residual category” and thus “comprising the most mild mental disorders”. However, the data showed that “counselors perceive attention deficit, oppositional, and conduct-related problems as significantly more common among clients of color.” Feisthamel and Schwartz conclude that “Racial bias is endemic to the field; mental health counselors should take heed of their own stereotypes and countertransference reactions.”

If we return to Mary, it is no wonder that her behavior was interpreted as disruptive by teachers and family alike, seeing as she was so conflicted with her identity and the authority figures in life were unsympathetic to that struggle.

Lyle et al.’s study was one of the first to investigate the unique relationship biracial people have to race. It is a prime example of the way mixed people can have more difficulties with building strong foundations for self-concept and self-esteem as they get older. It’s a good case study, and it can help to give context for the results of the studies that come after it. For example, Garcia et al.’s study (The relationship between mixed race/ethnicity, developmental assets, and Mental Health Among Youth, 2018) shows that mixed-race children are more likely to face discrimination, teasing, bullying, exclusion, and ostracization due to their racial identity than single-race children. Udry et al.’s study (Health and Behavior Risks of adolescents with mixed-race identity, 2003) shows that mixed-race children are far less likely to have access to protective factors, which include accepting community spaces, affirming activities and practices, and strong, competent role models. A review of these studies (The double-edged nature of whiteness for multiracial people with white ancestry in the US and UK, 2025) shows that all of these factors contribute to a higher chance of developing depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders.

Now, these studies slightly overcomplicate a very simple truth in the lives of mixed-race and biracial people. It is already difficult to live under the oppressive gaze of white supremacy. They paint us as lazy, manipulative, aggressive, promiscuous, and stupid, regardless of the shade of our skin. It doesn’t matter if we have one or two black parents, if we are not white, we face the same stigmas that negatively impact the lives of all other black people. The stereotypes, biases, and judgments that come from the white gaze are already hard enough to deal with without the extra vitriol from those who have shared our history of oppression. The infighting that occurs in the black community only serves to weaken our movements and foster distrust between us, and that only serves to benefit our oppressors.

– A human right

To touch and trust

And blend and bleed

And hold and heal

And mix and meld

Until there is no difference between you or I

But the lies in our heads that poison our minds

And convince us there is a reason it shouldn’t be you and I.

References

Noah, T. (2022). Born a crime: Stories from a South African childhood: Trevor Noah. Insight Publications.
Lyles, M. R., Yancey, A., Grace, C., & Carter, J. H. (1985). Racial identity and self-esteem: Problems peculiar to biracial children. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 24(2), 150–153. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0002-7138(09)60440-4
Feisthamel, K. P., & Schwartz, R. C. (2009). Differences in mental health counselors’ diagnoses based on client race: An investigation of adjustment, childhood, and substance-related disorders. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 31(1), 47–59. https://doi.org/10.17744/mehc.31.1.u82021637276wv1k
Garcia, G. M., Hedwig, T., Hanson, B. L., Rivera, M., & Smith, C. A. (2018). The relationship between mixed race/ethnicity, developmental assets, and Mental Health Among Youth. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 6(1), 77–85. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-018-0501-2
Udry, J. R., Li, R. M., & Hendrickson-Smith, J. (2003). Health and Behavior Risks of adolescents with mixed-race identity. American Journal of Public Health, 93(11), 1865–1870. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.93.11.1865
Song, M. (2025). The double-edged nature of whiteness for multiracial people with white ancestry in the US and UK. Genealogy, 9(2), 46. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy9020046

Mud in the Water (full poem)