So one thing I didn’t expect to crop up during yesterday’s discussion on twitter was the topic of race. Let’s face it, it’s not a topic I discuss often in French (in great part because it’s not topic that gets discussed much in France) and I’ve always considered myself kind of external to that particular discussion (in bad an less bad ways).. But yesterday, the person I was DMing asked me if I was métisse.
Métisse is the French word for “mixed race”, and technically I guess I am (since, you know, my great grandad was a black man who married a white woman), but it’s not a word I’ve ever really applied to myself. Part of that, simply put,is because while métisse means ‘mixed race’ it’s more often than not used to designate the child of a black person and their white co-parent…and like I said, I don’t have a black parent. Ergo, not métisse.
But the thing is, while I’ve always conceptualized myself as “not black” which by default meant I was “white” (and I still do in many ways–the “white people” posts of Tumblr get me fairly often) I’ve also always noticed (and been proud) that my skin wasn’t what I’d call “white” skin, contrary to what my sister has (for reference see here: I’m on the left, my sister is on the right and the difference is pretty easy to see). Speaking strictly in terms of skin shade, I’m at that level of brown where people look at you, sigh and say “you’re lucky you’re always tanned” (and I enjoy that, ngl)
And I guess, being asked if I was métisse took me by surprise because that’s…not something that comes up all that often? I don’t think my mom and her sisters particularly think of themselves as mixed race, and neither do I, but at the same time the three of them and I share experiences that most “really white” people don’t have–like the part where people ask if my curls are natural (yes) or where hairdressers, both white and black, don’t really know how to deal with our hair, or where I once heard a woman tell her neighbor she “wanted to touch my hair” while we queued to exit a train.
(I’ve been told that some kid called me a racial slur for middle-eastern peeps once but I was a baby and don’t have any emory of it so I don’t count it as part of my experience so much as part of my dad’s)
Plus, it’s not like white people ever noticed I “have origins” (that’s how it comes up, usually: “t’as pas des origines?”) it’s only ever been people of color who asked me which to me meant I couldn’t be métisse bc people din’t “see it”
It’s funny because those were things I lowkey noticed as I grew up (the hair touching urgh) but I never really associated them to a racial/skin-color identity until I spent a couple of years on tumblr (I stg this website was so formative for me it’s ridiculous) and even now it’s…weird.
Mostly because while I know that the term métisse can, technically, be applied to me (and my pasty white sister) and the afrofeminist side of tumblr made me discover the concept of white-passing POCs (which, again, I can probably fit in there technically speaking) the experiences of mixed race people still feel very…idk, external to me? (I almost said alien, which wouldn’t have been the best word choice here)
I never felt like I was being a victim of racism. Weird obsession with my hair, yeah, but racism was always something that didn’t (and couldn’t) happen to me.
So being asked if I was métisse was a weird experience for me because saying “no” would ave felt like lying but at the same time saying “yes” feels like I’m appropriating a situation and a history that I don’t feel are mine and it’s just
weird.
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