Should I Delete That? - The Mixed Race Experience with Nicole Ocran and Emma Slade Edmondson

Episode Date: July 28, 2024

This week on the podcast, Em and Alex are joined by the hosts of the Mixed Up podcast, Emma Slade Edmondson and Nicole Ocran! Nicole and Emma met back in 2018 and when they started chatting, they realised they had something in common that they hadn't spoken about in depth with even their family before: being mixed-race. After jokingly suggesting that their discussion should be a podcast, they launched the critically acclaimed Mixed Up podcast and have now written a book called The Half of It. In this episode, they discuss the ways in which being mixed-race is misunderstood, why many mixed-race people feel as though they can't comment on race issues, and why no one really discussed identity when they were younger. They also chat about privilege, the complex history of mixed-race people and the stereotypes that are pushed upon them.Follow Emma on Instagram @emsladedmondson, Nicole @nicoleocran and the Mixed Up podcast @mixedup.podcastListen to Mixed Up and order Emma and Nicole's book The Half of It here: https://msha.ke/mixedupFollow us on Instagram @shouldideletethatEmail us at [e-mail] by Daisy GrantMusic by Alex Andrew Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kids actually start to choose their playmates based on race like pretty early and they start to develop prejudice really, really early. And one of the things that can prevent that is basically talking about race. Hello and welcome back to Should I Delete That? I'm Em Clarkson. I'm Alex Light. How are you? And good.

I have to come. caveat something. I'm sitting in a chair and I know I've got a little heavier recently, the baby on board and all that, but it is so loud every time I, okay, it didn't just do it then, but every other time I've moved, it creaks so loudly. So if you can hear it, but it's just that. Wait, it's like, how does it on boat? Like, it just creaks so much. So, sorry. Love that. How are you? You can probably hear a little pause around me. Betty on the kitchen floor. She won't, she won't sit still. Also, this should be my bad. She brought poo, her own poo into the house this morning.

With her hands? Yeah, with her little hands. In a bag? How? She went outside, pooed and like dogs are so good like that, aren't they? They just poo and then they walk around it. Obviously they don't want to step in it. But for some reason, she's just put her little paws in it, walked into the house, sat on the couch and I was like, oh God, something feels off. I can smell something off. And I was like, that is the, Unmistakable smell of Betty's poo. And it was. And I just, yeah.

I just looked at all. Like, I just don't know where to start because, like, I'm going to have to follow your trail and, like, track your steps. Oh, it's just awful. Clean your paws. Yeah. Gets little little cracks.

It's like you bad? Because that's pretty bad. That's pretty rank. It actually wasn't, but it should be. I'm going to save my other bad for next week, actually. Okay, good. I have a bad bad. Oh.

Oh, no. Yeah. My car got stolen. Oh no, this is a bad bad bad. Bad bad. What the fuck? That's so bad. Alex wouldn't let me talk about it at the time because he was like, you know, what if you talk about it?

And then like the thieves, I was like, what, follow me on Instagram, like unlikely. But he was paranoid. Anyway, so it's been a few days now and the car was stolen. I'm so angry. I'm so angry. So bad. And, like, so many things have been going, like, so many things have been going right, got a great life, super lucky. But so many things have been going wrong recently.

And it literally, like, everything is so stressful. And my baby brain is quite severe. I think I said a couple of weeks ago that I left the car keys and my phone on the roof of the car. Like, so baby brain is real. Is that how your car goes on? Well, Alex walks into the house last Wednesday. He was like, where's the car? And I was like, literally outside the house.

and he was like, it's not. And I was like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, where's the car? And I was like, right outside the house. And he was like, no, it's not. And then we both thought the other one was going like, ha, ha. And then neither of us were going, ha. And then it was like, you know what? I can't even deal with this right now.

And it was the Thursday because we don't have charkas. I had all. I was like, I actually, I'll come and check in a minute. Just give me like five to ten minutes to just process what's happening. And I went outside, car's gone. I'm like, okay. And then obviously I have to panic. I'm like, if I left the keys in it, this is not a stolen car.

Like, I have just given that to someone. So I had that, like, a horrible moment of like, it's a gifted car. Exactly. It's a freebie. No, thankfully, for me, the car keys were in my handbag. So it was a stolen car. And just such a relief because I was literally like, everyone's going to kill me.

The police will literally not even take my calls. They'll be like, nope, not this bit. Anyway, I rang the police. Didn't really know what to do. I rang my 9-9. They were like, please don't bother me with this. Call 101.

I was like, okay, sorry. Called one-on-one. I was on hold for 20 minutes. I was like, okay, this is a long time, but that's fine. And then got hold of them, and I was like, hire my car, I've been stolen.

And they were like, okay, filed, what's another plate, filed it. And they were like, oh, we know where it is. I was like, oh, that's better than I thought. Like, that's a good thing. And they're like, yeah, yeah, we can see it. because we have a tracker in our car

because we had to get that for insurance purposes. And the tracker obviously goes straight to the police. So they were like, you can, yeah, you can go and get it. And I was like, uh, could you go and get it? They were like, no, no, you can go. I was like, okay, cool. Yeah, I guess we'll just go and get it then. And yeah, like the track, yeah, because we got this tracker in it

because it like halved the insurance. It was mad to have a tracker in it. And they're actually really good. And they call you when the car's being, if the car ever is being stolen, they call you. And I was like, God, so weird that they didn't call. And Alex was like, oh no, they did. They called it 20 to 11 last night. I was like, why didn't you answer?

But how do they know that it's not you driving it? Because the key's not in it. So, but the reason Alex didn't answer is because when we've gone to the Isle of Man, and this does happen a lot. When you go on a ferry, the car is moving without the engine being on. So I think we, and we just got back from the Isle of Man. So I think we were just a bit like, the tracker company had been ringing us loads. And we were like, no, it's fine. It's fine.

It is us. It is us. It's fine. So I think we've just got to, we got to a point where we were just like, oh that. Anyway, it's gone. Poor tracker people. They were like, hello, guys, guys. You're like, fuck off.

This time. We're on the fucking ferry, fuck off. We know, it's fine. It's us. Yeah, this one it wasn't us. So yeah, we went to go and get it, and which is actually nuts, and it turns out what they often do with stolen cars

is they'll steal your car, they'll leave it a mile away from your house. I don't know if I should be saying this. This was police secrets, but anyway, they leave it a mile away from your house, and then they watch it for like two or three days. And if nobody comes to get it in that time, then they know that it's not got a private tracker in it,

and they'll just take it away. But if obviously it's privately tracked, someone's going to come and get it. It was literally a mile away. That's so weird. That is so, I mean, very useful. Did you walk, though? I know.

You just walked to get your car. No, like, it's got an Uber and the Uber driver loved it. He was like, all over it. He was like, yeah, yeah. Because Alex was like, as he was going, he was like, oh, my Lord, what if there's like a gang in it? Like, what if there's a body in it? What if there's like, drugs in it? Like, this is great.

Like, this could be dangerous. Yes. And the Uber driver was like, don't worry, we'll do a lap first. So they're like staked out of the car. They're like drove past it. I know, loved it. I know. And then we got it back.

and it's been trashed which is so annoying but we're going to face it. No, that is a bad bad getting your car stolen. I thought you were joking when you, I didn't think you were joking about I was just like, is it really stolen?

No, no, no, no, no, no. How have I forgotten? How have I forgotten? My favourite part of this whole story. So the car gets stolen. Oh my God. The car gets stolen. We were in the middle of some work,

Pilava or whatever. So I texted Alex. I was like, can't talk right now. The car's been stolen. She replies, oh God, the whole thing? Question mark. Fuck. I replied being like, the whole car?

Yes. Yes, as opposed to. I honestly don't know what I meant. I was just like... Well, then you sent them over and being like, I don't know what I meant by that. I was saying, no one knows what you meant by that. I don't know.

It's just like, no, not the whole thing. Oh, gosh. as it transpires, mostly what they stole was, like they ripped out Alice car seat, which is so annoying. So annoying. And they stole her little iPad, which is more for me because I keep it in the car because it's the only time she watches it is when we're in the car. And it's like, it's strapped to the head rest, you know, in the back seat.

So, yeah, that was gone, which is, that's the second time. Obviously, long-time listeners of the podcast will know my car got broken into a few months ago. and all of Ollo stuff was stolen from it then too there's just there are thieves obsessed for stealing things from my baby weird I know it's so like I mean baby stuff is bloody expensive maybe they're just like they also stole my UBC cable I'd steal that yeah they're expensive I always need an extra one of those I would steal that but my favorite thing is just when I had been driving it the day it was

stole them, I went to go and put my hair clip in as I stopped at traffic lights and I got my hair clip out of the cup holder and I went to go put it in my hair and as I like did the clip bit like pushed it down cheese just went everywhere and I was like oh my god and one of Arlo's dairy lead dunkers had like melted and gone like there was like cheese everywhere and I thought this is disgusting so I thought well at least when they stole the cars like at least you know they got covered in cheese. I got it, I had a little win. I thought you were going to say that they've been eating cheese in there,

just like stealing, eating cheese, stealing, eating cheese, you know, they kind of go hand in hand. I had a lot of car snacks because we've just got done our road trip back, so they probably did. Love it. It's so annoying. So it's at the garage now, being fixed. That is a bad bad. Very sorry about that.

You're okay. Anything good? No, I think we should talk about you for a minute. I'll give you my awkward. So I needed to message. It was actually to do with the podcast and the studio, teething issues with the studio, as expected, as was going to happen. But I had to message someone about the lighting. And it's the girl, it's the girl who, she's a lovely girl called Amy.

She produced Jules's podcast that we went on. And we were talking to her about the studio and she was like, oh, she's like, always messaging me if you need any help. Like, so lovely. So it's like, right, we're having a problem with lighting and I'm just going to message her. So I found her on Instagram. I like I pressed like message message and went into the chat with her and I was like I'll send her a voice note because it's much you know it's just easier so I started the voice note and I was like you know did a whole long spiel of like hope you well like oh my god loved Jules's podcast she did such a great job like we love being on thank you for having us blah blah blah moving on to da da da and every time it cuts off on Instagram at one minute right you can only do one minute voice notes so it cut off and I was like okay I'll do the next one, let go, and it didn't, it just disappeared. The voice note disappeared. And I was like, for fuck's sake, I'm going to have to do that again.

I did it again, did the whole spiel all over again, did the whole thing all over again, sent it, and again, it doesn't fucking send. So I was like, I'm getting frustrated now. So I was like, right, I'm going to do a test one. I'm going to do one more as a test. I'm just going to do like 20 seconds. So I was like, hi, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, send. And it sent. I sent it, but it didn't show up on the thing. So I was like, That hasn't fucking said either. I'm furious. Anyway, I was like, I'm going to do this later.

I'm going to go back to this later because he was crying or something. I can't remember. I'm going back to this later. I go back to my DMs, my primary DMs later. And the first one in there is Amy and I go in and there's all my voice notes. They'd sent. Instagram just hadn't been showing me that they'd sent. And had she listened to them?

She'd seen them, yeah. Oh no. Had she replied? Is that why the reply was so long? No response, no response, which is fair, honestly, which is fair. We were all chasing you being like, any word on the light, any word on the lights. She must have heard like, anything from him you about the light. There were four voice notes, four voice notes from me.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh my God, how embarrassing. She must have thought you lost your mind. I know. What an idiot. What an idiot. That is so embarrassing. I know, you're welcome.

Horrible. Oh, I love that. That is horrible. Yeah, thanks. No worries. Let me see if I've done anything horrible. I actually am not sure if I have. It seems unlikely. Oh, sorry. Oh, I've got one. Awkward. I love being able to talk about being pregnant because it brings with it so many awkwards. So at my birthday, my surprise birthday party, which was so fun. It was hot. It was really, really, really, really hot. And obviously, I'm not well with the sickness and stuff. But I was so excited. I had so much adrenaline. I was doing pretty well. And I and everyone kept being like, are you a good. okay you okay and I was like yeah no I'm good I'm good I'm like I'm a bit manic but I'm good and like I think it's the adrenaline and I know when the adrenaline goes like I'm done for but like I'm good I'm so excited and it's good and everything was fine and everything was fine and then as is natural of an evening there's a lull and I think like when the initial like blah la la la la kind of wore off and everybody sat down to eat and stuff and like finish I was excited I was giddy anyway and then after dinner I just had this wave of like everything hit me and it was so hot and I

felt so ill and everything smelled of alcohol and I just was like oh my god I'm not okay. So I ran to the loo in the restaurant and I ran in and I like threw myself down to be sick and I lent on the like there's a little sideboard like next to the loo where all the loo rolls were in a little basket and all the napkins like the little hand down. whole things were in a little basket and I lent on it to like be sick like to ground myself and as I did the fucking thing collapsed and Lurals just went everywhere and they all filled the looble so like all the lorls fell out the basket and like into the lubeau so there were like six lorls in the loo bowl and then these napkins like all over the floor and I was like still

sick it was all I was like digging my way through the loo rolls so that I could just be sick and then I just had to like really like tragically pick up all of it and restack it and make it all look nice and try and get everything cleaned and fix back up and I literally thought I was like anyone heard that saw that then I thought I was the drunkest

messiest little birthday girl just absolute state of myself and then I'd come back out and pretend that nothing had happened which is always so embarrassing oh that's bleak yeah that was a nice way that's really bleak destroy that bathroom trash the toilet it was just so sad like watching all the lorls fall in the louisels like no no no no no no goods you got good oh my good is that I have brown hair it looks so good doesn't it the brown hair really suits you so many people in my comment section on that

first day was so rude I think it's really nice it's really really really really nice. It's really, really nice. It really suits you. It suits your colouring so much. I know. It's what we were saying before about how we probably should leave ourselves to be as nature intended because that's probably what suits is best. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you say that. I don't know. I'm not going to try it. But I'm not going to try it. But it's my eyebrows and my LVL, which are very unnatural. So, oh, do you know what? I really haven't had my, I haven't had my eyebrows done in about two years. Wow. I know. I know good. I wouldn't know that. I just, And I, I don't know, I just, I want, like, I feel like I want some beauty treatments.

Do you know what I mean? I feel like it's, I'm seven months in now. And I didn't get anyone else pregnant either. And I'm like, I just, I feel a bit like, you know, when you feel a bit like, ugh, like I want to sort my wardrobe out, like, I want to just, like, get my hair. Yeah. It's just not hairing. My eyebrows aren't eyebrowing.

Like, I don't put fake tan anymore. I don't know. I just don't feel like. myself on having them I'd feel like for a while oh god this didn't I didn't mean to make this so bleak well they call it the master scene I think I've never said it out loud I've only seen it written down that thing about flamingos losing their pink which actually has been debunked a lot so now I've seen it on the internet does it yeah apparently all flamingos lose their pick basically if you haven't heard it it's this idea that in motherhood

like mother flamingos stop being pink for a while after they've had their children because like, I don't know, why? Because they're, you know, busy. They're being drained. Whatever. Yeah, exactly. And then they go pink again when they come back to themselves. So there's a lot of like, moms obviously take that as a lovely metaphor, as they should.

Yeah, I like that. Apparently, that happens to all flamingos. So I don't think. But I don't know. What do I? I don't know. But maybe that's what you're having. Maybe you're a mastis.

Maybe you're a flamingo. I'm sure that happens. Maybe I'm a flamingo. I need to get, okay, so I need to. I need to be re-drained of colour. Yeah, I think you just need to go and stand above a puddle and stand on one leg and take a long, hearty drink from the ground

and then I think you need to stretch your wings and just go flat, flat, flat, flat, flat. And then everything will start feeling better. Imagine if Amy saw that after my voice note debacle, she'd be like, I need to ring her. We need to call someone about this. something going on. I don't know well enough of this, but like, there's something going on.

This is sad to, this is sad to see. Good. My good. My good. I have been approached about a brand campaign to end all brand campaigns. Yes, you have. I have. Drop the brand, Al. Do you think I can talk about it? I can, right? 100%. Okay. 100% anosol who actually the product that saved me both both products because they've got well as far as I know they've only got two which is the inside one and the outside one the sponsorries and the cream wonderful magic saved me yeah I never used the gel I don't use the

cream but sounds like you're in the market for some gifting sounds like you've got friends in the right places for something something like that they have approached me and oh my god like could there'd be a better fit but also if you don't include the podcast as a collaboration here like if this is just an like slight deal and it's not like it's not like an us thing i'll be sad i feel like i brought my past to you for no reason well listen the reason that i'm bringing it up i'm bringing it up on air as as as you were is because i think it should be a podcast it's okay if i say it alive you can't really you can't really so we won't a podcast episode spot sponsored by Anasol.

A hundred percent. Okay. Two things. One, I'm all over that shit. If we can't monetize our bumholes, what's the point in having them? Exactly. Two, if we do that, we risk reputational consequences. I don't know what they are.

I just want to float the idea that it's quite the, it's quite the, it's quite the, it's quite the, admission however we've done it now I mean I don't want to push a bubble but like

there are like probably almost like 100,000 people who will have heard your story actually possibly more I think that's that ship has sailed you know yeah yeah and we took your piles on tour

we took my piles on tour stopped at every major city on the way down and told them more about it so let's go Anasol we're here we're here we're ready okay excellent see you've said yes now there are so many puns to be made and look because I want to do it because

it saved me Anasol saved me I couldn't think of a better fit but I don't want to do it by myself I don't want to be in this shit together literally I don't want to be in the shit I want to be in it together so I'm dragging you into this it would be a pleasure it would be a pleasure to get into the suppository industry. Excellent. A sentence I never thought we'd be saying on this podcast, but here we go.

How exciting. Okay. We all saw, everybody knew it was coming. Oh my God, so good. This is iconic. Okay. Well, without further ado, we've got an interview for you. We're going to go and work on brand negotiations.

We're going to go and establish some compelling deals. And we're going to leave you with an incredible. incredible conversation that we had with the hosts of the mixed up podcast to celebrate the launch of their new book. Yes, so we had Nicole Ockran and Emma Slade Edmondson come into the studio to discuss their new book, the half of it exploring the mixed race experience, a super interesting and viable conversation and we really hope you enjoy it. Hello and welcome to the podcast, Emma and Nicole. Thank you so much for coming today. Emma all the way from Paris. Yes. What a chill commute.

I mean, it is quite chill. No, no, no, I don't believe you. That's so badass. I come from the other side of London and I'm like, whoa, what a stress. I think it's easier. No way. To be honest, because it's just like a straight train. It's quite like a relaxed train.

It's so cool. Thanks for coming in today. Thank you for having us. So Emma and Nicole are the creators of the Mixed Up podcast. And you have a book out. Yeah. It's just come out, which is, which looks absolutely. gorgeous and it's, thank you. It's quite cool because it's quite, it's similar to our branding

with the pink and green. It's giving brand alignment. Yeah. Very much so. So it's called the half of it exploring the mixed race experience and you explore race and identity through the lens of the mixed race experience, creating a space for discussion and illuminating the true nuances of the mixed race identity and what this really means. Yes. In a nutshell. Can you tell us how this came about how your friendship how this how this all came about and came to be well i guess i'll start with how we met because that's also how we started the podcast um this was maybe like 20 i feel like the year changes every time we say this story every time we tell this story i think it's 2018 yeah it was 2018 um but i know but she was a she was um a panelist on another podcast um

to discuss sustainability uh and i happen this was a live podcast recording and i happened to be in the audience because we had some mutual friends who were putting it on and yeah so we met like very briefly that evening and then a few weeks went by Emma messaged me on Instagram because she wanted me to work with her on a project that she was doing yeah so she messaged me we met up in Brixton for a wine and then we just ended up not really talking about that at all and we ended up talking about just like how we grew up and like are like and just and being mixed really um and so through that we kind of jokingly were like this should be a podcast so um Emma message to be like okay cool like I bought a mic let's do it so we did like a really yeah we did like a really

funny like tester episode in Emma's flat um we only had one mic so you're like both over this mic we're just crouched over and I'm like playing a tune on my phone that I was like this is vibe so like I just want to set the tone and then yeah we we end up recording this pilot and it was pretty it was pretty good actually yeah I feel like it works but yeah and so then yeah after that we got really busy with other stuff and then you know cut to lockdown and we were just kind of like well we're at home now we should probably just start recording so yeah when we first started the podcast in 2020 properly we were only recording from home so so yeah and it just kind of grew from there and we're now like five seasons in and then yeah we've released a book which is super

exciting casual yeah we just wrote a book he wasn't he wasn't casual anyone who's never casual Nicole am I right in thinking that you grew up in America yes yeah so I grew up from Virginia that's where I was born and then yeah I moved to London in 2020 2010. And Emma, did you go up in London? Yeah, so London initially and then I moved to like Hertfordshire. Okay. Kind of at nine.

But you found that like despite the fact you'd grown up other sides of the world that your experience of growing up was really similar, which is. Yeah, I think we pulled out on those commonalities pretty early on. Like one of the one of the early ideas for the, um, ideas for the, um, Our chapter, all my friends are white, was because we found it really funny that we kind of grew up in predominantly white environments. And I think with that came a very similar set of experiences and just like ideas of self and things like that.

So it was a funny and fun kinship that like the chapter is meant to be in jest. But there are some just funny. in some somewhat traumatizing childhood stories in that chapter. Yeah, but I think the other thing was that we found that, yeah, there's lots of commonalities in our experience generally as mixed people, but also like there's a universality to it, but then there's also like such a diverse spectrum of experiences, which is kind of what we ended up exploring on the podcast and in the book.

But growing up in majority white environments is something I think that like a lot of people experience and then yeah those commonalities that Nicole was mentioning I think like both funny and so much traumatic come up again and again so yeah when you when you met and you said like you didn't even talk about the project you were just like you just hit it all straight away and you were talking about your this like shared experience were you like the first people that you'd met you'd each met are I saying that right first person that you'd each met who had shared this experience because you had you'd grown up with predominantly white people so you hadn't really had a chance to speak to someone about, you know, being.

Yeah. Well, for me, it's funny because my cousin is also mixed and we're both only children, but she's mixed Filipino and white. And so, funnily enough, like, this was a conversation that even she and I had never had before together, and we are super close. Like, I would describe her to be like my sister. And I think for me, I think that's probably because growing up in the States in particular as well, like no, I don't think anyone really pointed out to me

or made any distinction between me being mixed versus me being black. And so that was, like I could, visually I could see our difference. And so I think maybe, you know, as a child as a young person, And I thought subconsciously this wasn't maybe something that we needed to talk about or needed like to discuss or anything like that.

And then, yeah, and then over the years, like, you know, growing up, I didn't ever really talk about being mixed particularly with anyone, like not even my own parents. And so, yeah, it wasn't like the conversation that Emma and I had was so specific, was so specific about being mixed. that it really wasn't something that I'd ever had with anyone else. Like that wasn't so much like in passing. It was like it was such an in-depth chat that I was just like, wow, like no one's ever like

asked me these questions before. No one's ever like been curious about me in this way before. So yeah, that was what it was like for me. And I think like, I mean, look, British people don't talk about anything, do we? Like you just like, just don't talk about it. And I think that that's even more so when it comes to race. I think obviously in the US, I think you have had for a long time and much freer discussion of the issues of race.

And I think, yeah, to be honest with you, until George Floyd was murdered, I just don't really feel like people talked about it much at all here. but as a child we just didn't talk about being mixed it just wasn't a thing and I think also we discussed this in the book I think there's a little bit of a censorship that mixed people have around talking about being mixed over talking about like clearer more prominent issues of race so it's more that like when the issue of race comes up you feel like you have you have to have other conversations first I guess yeah it feels

like sometimes it feels like I guess for lack of a better word like there is like a hierarchy of what needs to be brought up for first before you can start kind of drilling down into more specific things um and so yeah like I said I mean for me obviously the things I knew about myself and my and my racial identity were so we're so prominently like black first yeah because that's just you know that's my experience that's how people see me that's how um I wouldn't necessarily, that's how it was raised per se, but like, you kind of pick up on all those things when you're, when you're, you have absorbed those things when you're a young person. So, and I grew up like predominantly around the Filipino side of my family.

Like, both my mom and dad were there, but like my mom's sisters lived really close by. And so it was like every week, every Sunday, we would all get together, like, go to church, like, have food. and like spent we spent so much time together and so again like I knew I didn't have any question about being Filipino like I knew that but I also simultaneously knew that that wasn't something that people were going to right away know about me having only just met me didn't know my didn't know my family when I went to school like that kind of thing so I think also definitely when I was growing up And to an extent still now, there's this idea here anyway that being mixed looks like being a mix of black and white, which is another thing that I think, you know,

was never really discussed, but that's what people assume. So there didn't seem to be that room for that conversation. And I think that's also why it was so interesting for us when we met because, like, obviously, although we had so many, like, similarities, also we were from different continents, were like you know we grew up in completely different situations in some ways and um and of course like our mixes are completely different so it's yeah it's really interesting i think every time we have someone on our podcast that we learn from them um and i think it's like a really incredible way to find out about other cultures and um even for us five seasons in you know like we're always

still learning within the context of like your own families it's so wouldn't be like a conversation i can see how it's like it doesn't need to be a conversation because it's just the way it's who you all are and it's like how you all exist yeah but i can also see why a child would benefit from having the conversation and learning with their parents but i suppose that's a quite difficult thing to navigate as as you're older now i imagine it's kind of easier to see why it's quite difficult for your parents to kind of like have the conversation with a child yeah i think having spoken to my parents about this growing up with them as to like minorities in the united

states in a really very um not that multicultural area of suburban virginia it's this is a conversation we'd never had with each other until now until you know me doing the podcast um until you know the book coming out and things like that. And so they very openly said to me as as an adult, like we just never, we were just too focused on, you know, on raising you. And like our priority was just making sure, you know, you get to school and you're fed and, you know, those kinds of things. And that's not to say like I couldn't have, I didn't, I never felt like I couldn't go to them with questions or that we didn't have, you know, deep conversations about other things. But yeah, I think for some reason they both thought I think my dad specifically like he said to me he never

thought that me being black or black enough or enough of one thing or another would ever be a question because that's not his experience he just assumed you know being his child that that wasn't something that anyone would ever try to kind of put on me in any way and so yeah but you you know, think looking back and looking back with my adult self, I could see so many times that I would have benefited from us having a more open conversation about race or open conversation about identity, you know, feeling equipped to, in my sense of self, to kind of push back against people um when people would try to question me or tell me about who I am um because yeah I was on I was on a bit of like a shakier ground when I was a child um and so yeah like we've had these

conversations now and like we've had so many conversations about my hair and like all these things um and like you know how I felt about the way that I looked and you know those are all childhood things as well. But yeah, I think having these conversations with them now as an adult in hindsight, like they're kind of seeing where we all could have benefited

from having those conversations. Can I ask about those specific experiences? Like with as an adult, looking back at hindsight, because when you're a child, you go through your life and you don't know what's not right and what's right.

And I guess I imagine the more you were saying before I'm about the amount of conversations you have and how every guest you speak to gives you more of an education. I imagine this is still a part of yourself and your life that you're learning about. And I guess have there been situations that you look back on or that you now, maybe you lived as a child, didn't really think anything of and now think, like, oh, that was pivotal or that was, do you have any of those, like?

Oh, gosh, so many. And I feel like there's two things that I want to talk about here. Well, I suppose we can illuminate this by one of the, those experiences, but one of the experiences I wrote about in the book is when one of my male friends basically says to me, oh, it's really cool that you're not crazy because most mixed race girls are crazy. And it's really interesting because at the time, obviously, I was offended, but I also couldn't really put my finger on, like, exactly why I was offended. and articulate like why that was so upsetting for me and I just brushed it off and I didn't actually

say anything in the moment and now that we've done so much research I know that that idea of mixed race girls specifically being crazy comes from this really horrible trope um which is the trope of the tragic mulatto it was born in the antebellum south of america in the post slavery period and basically it was these caricatures of mixed-race women that were created in literature by white women. And they were sort of put forward as though they were kind of to ease racial tensions. Actually, they painted mixed-race women as always crazy because they were in conflict with themselves

because the black and the white couldn't go together and that there was like just fundamentally no way of those two parts of you meshing and therefore that made you slightly insane because you were just like constantly battling with that merging of selves. There was this idea of promiscuity which came from that confusion, this idea of a tragic end

that because of all of that conflict, you could never actually have a good life and that your life would, basically in the stories you always ended up dead or... You committed suicide. Yeah. So you were like murdered or you committed suicide or whatever it was.

But basically these ideas of mixed women being crazy like stem back to those stereotypes. And they've like carried on throughout today and like even today you'll see on the internet people talking about like Cleo Sol for example or Georgia Smith or, you know, whomever it might be and basically saying like that they're crazy biracials.

So this is like a trope that continues to this day. And I definitely didn't, I couldn't understand where it was coming from, but I knew it was prevalent. But now that I know where it's coming from, it's kind of empowering, to be honest, because, you know, just like all these other racist things that we now understand that probably weren't widely recognized previously, we can point to that and be like,

do you know what, it's kind of not cool, because do you know where this comes from? Yeah, I bet you want to go back and tell him, right? Do you know what? I actually, give me five minutes. Let me do you look up a copy of my book. Yeah. I mean, I do think about people that will read my book and recognize themselves.

And that's kind of like, I don't know why, but it's awkward for me. I'm kind of like, right. I know I get that. Yeah, like I find it really awkward the thought of someone reading and be like, oh, shit, that's me. I know. Even if it's like a learning or a teaching moment, like, I don't know. find it really really all good yeah i'd be putting words in your mouth but is it on the assumption that perhaps what they're saying is deeply problematic and insulting but perhaps they don't realize the

gravitas and the like pain in what they're saying at the time i suppose if it's like a teachable moment if you reference stuff like that um like i can imagine like retrospectively it's a powerful thing to call out but it's it's something that you you have to get empowered to do because yeah you have to find this strength to pull that out because it's like yeah it's a complicated like it's not complicated because it's a it's a it's a it's a wrong thing but if you only learn retrospectively that what they've done is I can imagine that's empowering and kind of frustrating you know it was wrong obviously and I knew it was it was not right and it was harmful but I didn't have any yeah I didn't have any tools to push back on it because we didn't have

these conversations we didn't have any of this knowledge and also there's this other storyline or rhetoric which is all about you know mixed race privilege and you know being light-skinned and therefore like having access to various things and so often it's kind of there's no context that you know it's both and it's not one and or the other it's both and and and I think that was something that was really important that was missing but also you know there was another experience for me which kind of highlights those things that I didn't necessarily talk to my parents about where I was on this three-way call

I write about it in the book. It's more funny. Is it funny or is it sad? It's funny. We ask that all the time. Is it funny or is it sad? Well, I think it's funny in that again, it's like the idea of like the, like the person overhearing the conversation.

Like that is the funny thing. Like you overhearing something. that you're not meant to hear. Oh no. But then what you hear is the sad thing. Yeah. So, yeah. But yeah, basically I'm on this three-way call when I'm a teenager.

And you remember, like, you had those, like, woodless landlines and you probably was on them like having these three-way calls. Basically, the whole idea was that my two friends were going to ask this boy out for me. Right. Me and my friends used to just do this all the time. That's what makes this really upsetting. I'm like, oh, my God. I'm not crying.

My eyes are just watering. it's fine um i'm very much over this situation um but yeah basically that this was the whole idea that they were going to ask him out for me and i was going to be on the line and so i was going to be privy to the conversation i don't know why we thought this would be a good idea it's never a good idea like this is a terrible idea this is horrible never do this um and basically to cut a long story short the boy said that he wouldn't date me because i'm black and my family is white so I just remember that being like a really pivotal moment for me of like oh shit like that's a reason why someone wouldn't want to be around yeah and it was like this realization but also

because none of my family would ever experience that I didn't actually feel like I could tell anyone or yeah I wouldn't I don't know if I'd even articulate it like I didn't feel like I could tell anyone but I just felt like it was something that I would just push down because it wasn't something that was relatable for anybody else. What were they going to say? So, yeah. How old were you? I think I was like, I was in secondary school,

but it was probably like the second year of secondary school or something. Oh, that's, that's all. That is so brutal. Yeah, the first of second year of secondary school. But so I bring this particular thing up because I think, you know, something we talk about in the book is the talk, which a lot of parents, of children of colour have with their kids

to talk to them about what they may experience when it comes to racism. In America, that talk might be more serious because obviously, you know, there's more serious implications. But it is something that a lot of parents of colour are familiar with having with their children. And in the book, we're just talking about how important it is

to have that with your children, if you have white children, it's just as important to have that parallel conversation really early because kids actually start to choose their playmates based on race, like pretty early. Do they? Yeah, and they start to develop prejudice really, really early. And one of the things that can prevent that is basically talking about race and making kids aware. Because I think that's quite a British, it's what you said earlier, British people don't talk about anything.

And I think, like, that is definitely something I can hear in the, and we know now it's such a problem. thing but I know that so many parents are like well we don't need to you don't need to talk about they're just your friends they're you don't need to like yeah we don't need to talk about the difference and yeah I we don't see yeah yeah yeah and maybe not in as many words as that but I'm sure I've had I would have I would have had conversations like that with my parents that would have been just like they're your friends they're your friends and kind of brush you that it's it's not a conversation actually that's that's the critical bit there wasn't the conversation yeah um i imagine i imagine you have ideas now on how it would how is best to have it

but what would you say if anyone's listening to this and maybe they have mixed race and they don't know how to have this conversation is their advice that you'd give to them i think my advice is to read the book and it's just because it's just because within the book we pull on a lot like we pull on experts um opinions and information and you know that what what I was just saying there comes from a woman, an author who wrote a book called Raising Multiracial Children called Fasana Naini, and she was basically talking about how essentially as young as two years, kids are literally choosing playmates based on race, and then by the age of three, they're, like, discriminating against...

Yeah, they're, like, understanding how to exclude people. Wow. Yeah. And, again, like, they're children. so we hear but um but yeah it was that was one of the really really interesting bits of research that we found when we were writing with that they're learning it from somewhere right yeah and the main upshot is if you're not having those conversations about race like start by having the conversations about race and not brushing over them not avoiding them like actually digging in

um to have those conversations and I think you know it's really important to remember like we wrote this book not just for mixed people but for everybody because there's so much that can be done by others to make sure that you know not just mixed kids but kids of color like have a better time of it um yeah because like i'm thinking now about you know your parents talking to you or not talking to you about the mixed race experience and i guess for a lot of parents of mixed race children they just they don't have that experience of being mixed race yeah so it's kind of it's kind of new territory yeah yeah and i mean i know um like when emma is sharing her she shares her stories about um like the three-way call and stuff and mine were like someone i knew in high

school i was in an algebra class and i was terrible at math um and i think we have in common And, like, I was really struggling with it, like, essentially failing the class. And my dad, like, had to get me a tutor, like, over lunch. So, like, my lunch breaks would then be spent with this tutor. That's a sad one. Which is so sad. Like, how the tragic is that? Like, it's actually the most of it.

That was my weekends, not my lunch break. That was my holidays. It was just so tragic. And so the one of the one of the, one of the, of the guys my algebra class was like oh like do you want to do such and such like over lunch and I was like oh no I can't because I've got to go to this tutoring session and he was like oh god he was like that's really bad he's like you should be really good at math because you're Asian but the black side is letting you down that was such a it was so niche what he'd said to me that I was

just like how do you whoa yeah I was like where do I even go with the both parts of this um but again it was like this idea that like I didn't know that people were going to think I was stupid. Like I didn't know that people could make that assumption by looking at me again, assuming, oh, because I'm black, I'm not smart enough to understand algebra. And like I know he thought it was funny. But I was just like, I don't even know where to take that kind of thing to like, you know, a parent or like anyone else. It was just kind of like also knowing like, well, my dad also think like he's,

not smart like it's it's kind of like a weird thing for a child to take on yeah um and so so yeah I mean again like you know saying that you know it's important for it like we explicitly say in the book it's important for for parents across the board like have those conversations with their kids because you know mine you know they are not white but they also didn't have that conversation with me And so I, there are definitely like these challenging times when I felt like, oh, I wish I knew what I could have said or like, I wish I could have, or I wish I could have like taken that and like absorbed it and been like that stuff like, you know, kind of brushed it off. But there are those kind of those kinds of moments like stick with me that I'm just like, oh my God, that was actually quite dark. I think it's about asking questions. And, you know, we also have in that, we're only in one chapter at the moment.

for that but basically in that chapter we do have um there's a woman called um elaine pinderhues who she wrote a contextual framework for the things that might affect you know a mixed person's identity um and i think you know things like geography for example and like where they grow up and like access to their like cultural backgrounds and so on and i think so it's really useful to use that as a parent you know of a mixed-race child to think about like things that might be helpful to try and add in. And then we also have this really incredible Bill of Rights that was written a long time ago actually by a woman called Maria P. Root. I think that's really incredible because it's not for parents, it's for kids, but obviously

parents can help the kids with it. But it's about, you know, giving yourself license to be like, this is who I am. I think one of the main things that kids have mixed race struggle with is there's like this real compulsion for people to try and tell them who they are and obviously when you're a kid you're just figuring it out yourself and it's like we were talking about before really good to have be empowered to kind of push back against people telling you who you are especially if those things are harmful or rooted in you know racial

tropes particularly i suppose that you don't anticipate because you grow up in your family where you're safe and you're loved and you look like each other and you share experiences and then of course you go and you meet other kids who obviously have very different ones and who have absorbed their parents racism for lack of a better for lack of anything because that's what it is i guess and they but they then put it on to you and it must be very jarring to have never it it's like you're opening, you're having your eyes open to a whole different to something you couldn't have considered because it just didn't. Yeah. And it's so frightening that kids can deliver it in such a brutal way. Yeah. But also in such innocence because they don't necessarily know. Yeah.

But that's, that's the really horrible part is that it's so insidious that that, that kids you don't, I mean, that that can happen. Yeah. How much your kids absorb. And I imagine when you're in it you're kind of explaining away the behavior of like oh they didn't mean it or they're trying to be funny or like they don't really know because you've got the girls consequences boys are mean to girls yeah and i mean i mean that's again that's like a whole other layers like yeah our experience of yeah being like young girls being women um is that we kind of just like take we're just like taking on people's stuff um but yeah for sure there's that as well Just touching back to something that you mentioned earlier,

which was about comments about being white passing or about the mixed race privilege. It would be amazing to hear kind of about that. Obviously, you've written about it in the book, but about both of your experiences of that kind of the other side of things, like that kind of side of the conversation, which I imagine you're having more and more now as you're... For sure.

Yeah. I'll say, you know, the conversation about privilege specifically is a relatively new one, I think, for us as adults. I think this is probably a conversation that children who are our age, when we, like, children of our generation. Yeah, like we weren't having any of those kinds of conversations at all. And so again, this idea of you, like we were saying, like mixed race privilege and even things like pretty privileged, these kinds of concepts weren't things that, I'm not saying they didn't exist, but they were things that weren't really being spoken about. But what we found really interesting again, like Emma said, was so much of, so much of this is, of course, both and. And so obviously we can recognize and we can talk about the privileges of being mixed in a wider context. But we've also found that a lot of the rhetoric online specifically is like pretty dismissive about the history of mixed people globally and kind of lacking an understanding of like where this quote unquote privilege comes from, but also where.

how things have changed over time and like and the idea that because you're mixed you don't you're exempt from racism in any way which of course is untrue um and you know we see it with you know so many public figures we see it with people like megan markel who we speak about in the book we see it with um Naomi Osaka um we see it you know now with you know Barack Obama Kamala Harris And so that was something, again, in all of the research that we were doing around some of the tropes that Emma was talking about, like the tragic mulatto, like, again, like a lot of history around mixed race people through not only the transatlantic slave trade, but through, you know, other colonization across the world. globe it felt speaking about mixed race privilege without speaking about those things felt like felt wrong it's basically just completely ignoring a huge um part of the experience that still lives on today essentially I think for me one of the most important threads of this book is the political

and global history of mixed people and how you can literally trace these moments of as one example of kids and babies being either kidnapped or like from their families or being mothers being persuaded to give up their children for adoption or put them into care and most of this centres around this idea of miscegenation and wanting to stop race mixing. And basically political campaigns to stop that would be around villainizing mixed-race children and babies and characterizing them as monstrous and degenerate.

I can't say this word. Degenerate. Degenerate. Thank you. And, yeah, basically trying to discourage people from entering into racial unions so that by basically saying that your offspring will be like, monstrous and also the church and state played quite a huge role in various places in making

this kind of connection between sin and then like the sin you can see and the sin you can see is the baby that's brown which means that you as a white woman have had a relationship not just out of wedlock potentially but then another sin on top of that with a black man or with a man that's not white, which was obviously seen until fairly recent history in quite a lot of places as completely undesirable at the very, at the least, at the end of the scale. So yeah, I think for me, that's like one of the most important parts of the book is actually quite a serious book it's not all shits and giggles

although there are some funny moments but yeah this kind of global history and that is so often missed when it comes to the mixed experience and then how that affected families like for example there's this moment in time in Britain where after the war Chinese sailors who were brought here were all just rounded up and sent

to China despite the fact they'd made their lives here they'd made families their families weren't told their families thought they'd abandoned them and obviously they had um yeah they had these mixed families and people have struggled till very recently to get evidence and to find out what happened to their family members um and again this is all to do with the idea that you know they didn't want racial mixing they didn't want um immigration And all of these things that they did were to deter those things. I want to ask, you talked before Emma, about how we, British people don't speak about, you know, anything.

And the murder of George Floyd obviously opened up this, like, overnight, opened up this, like, global conversation about race. But do you guys feel like that conversation was lacking in the mixed race experience? or do you think the conversation encompass that as well? Well, I know that we had so many messages from people. We had so many people reach out because we did an episode not long after that had happened. We had this feeling or this thought

that a lot of mixed people would feel really disempowered by what was happening. I think we'd had a lot of people say that they were unsure of what to say, if they could say anything, if they should say anything. If they were allowed to get involved in the conversation. A lot of people had spoken up and then also been told that they weren't allowed to speak because they were deemed not to be black enough or not to be close enough to the black experience to...

I noticed that. Or they were caveating everything they were saying with like, but I know I've got mixed-rose privilege. Of course. And I think that comes back to what we were talking about earlier, right, about the hierarchy of this conversation, about the race conversation about what can be said or what should be being said first and what should be you know what should be being brought what should be brought up um like you said there is a lot of caveating there's a lot of um again signposting your privilege to be able to say what it is that you need to say um and we in the in the second part of our episode

which was called The Rise of the Mixed Race Dialogue, we kind of invited people to send us voice notes to kind of just say how they're feeling, just be really open about it. And that was where we got a lot of those messages that were people feeling conflicted or feeling, again, like they shouldn't say anything or they should, you know, defer to someone else

or like you were saying, like delete what they had said previously. Or we had. I remember so clearly Charlie's, message. Yeah. And so Charlie will present to some people as, as white. And she was basically saying, like, I don't want to be a white ally, because I'm not a white ally. I'm Jamaican. Yeah. Mixed British. And I have, you know, a different experience to someone who's white. And it seems like the only place for me is right this white ally camp and that's really upsetting for me and really dismissive and reductive and so there was a lot of pain in that you know that I could

really have compassion for and understand um but yeah you say that on the blurb of the book about how on the back of the book about how polarized everything's become and how it's becoming and it really does feel like that. I mean, particularly, well, that must be interesting for you watching or like heartbreaking, but watching America. But I mean, I felt like that even watching our election, it does feel like such amazing strides were made in 2020 to have this amazing conversation. And again, it's like being torn back now and everything is being so weaponized and so villainized and spoken about in such an ugly and polarizing way. And I guess like, what? while you're still having the conversations,

do you feel, like, bleak question, but hopeful, I guess, that this is going to keep being a really positive conversation, or do you feel that it is one that is getting harder within this polarised society? It's a really good question. Sorry. I'm like, hmm.

I definitely take hope from, that the thing that I take hope from is our community and the feedback we get. And so I know that the work that we're doing and the conversations that we're having are resonating, are reaching people, are making people feel seen, making them feel more confident to express their identity and to be who they are, really.

And I think also recognizing some of those experiences that we were talking about, those historical experiences, you know, whether that be the discussing things that happened in Irish mother and baby institutions, you know, and how damaging those moments in history, which went on for a very long time, were for people. And those people feeling seen and then understanding where they sit in the context globally that we've just talked about, that it wasn't just them and that there was a political agenda and that they have a right to feel like

as aggrieved as they do and as unseen and as unheard as they do because the conversation just basically hasn't been there for them at all even when it comes to race even when we had like this mass movement moment where everyone was talking about Black Lives Matter they didn't feature in that.

conversation and I think for me the hope comes from the fact that we know that it's important that these conversations are being had um I mean you are right like it that's I've definitely had moments of feeling like this is so bleak because we were at this moment where it felt like in 2020 there was a real focus there was also not just a conversation focus but a financial focus yeah um it felt like there were more budgets you know that were being put towards um marginalized groups and particularly towards black people um and their advancement and now we're in a completely different place and yeah sometimes it does feel bleak it does feel like you know it's all kind of just disappeared and wasn't really real like like like

did anyone actually? Yeah, I think it's, it's a feeling now of, of having to, to fight back from where we kind of started. And obviously when, when we got this book, um, signed off, it was right on that precipice of like everyone was getting, like people really interested in talking about race. They wanted these, these books, they wanted to, you know, buy books. They wanted to learn like this whole like educational piece. and now it's kind of like, yeah, it feels like we're kind of back at the beginning again,

which is a little bit frustrating. But, yeah, like you said, like there are a lot of moments of people feeling seen and people feeling like, you know, this is something that they've been looking for or been hoping for. So that's really positive. And I imagine that your podcast and your book will mean so much to so many people who have finally found a safe space with people who understand their experience. experience after for loads of people I imagine like a lifetime of just not having that so I think

that's really cool and we encourage everyone listening today to go buy your book we're going to put the link in the show notes so much and thank you so much for coming on yeah thanks for having us so nice maybe we can do the next episode from Paris yeah exactly let's do it Yes. He wants in hand. Should I delete that is part of the ACAS creator network.