Biracial Britain: A Different Way of Looking at Race

Mixed-race Britons are the country’s fastest-growing minority group. By the end of the century, roughly one in three of the population will be mixed-race, with this figure rising to 75% by 2150. Mixed-race is, quite literally, the future.

Paradoxically, however, this unprecedented interracial mixing is happening in a world that is becoming increasingly racially polarised. Race continues to be discussed in a binary fashion: black or white, we and they, us and them. Mixed-race is still not treated as a unique identity, but rather as an offshoot of other more familiar monoracial identities. Racist ideas developed centuries ago such as the one-drop rule – ‘one drop of black blood means you’re black’ – alarmingly prevail. Stuck in the middle of these conflicts and outdated understandings of race are mixed-race individuals trying to survive and thrive. It is high time we developed a new understanding of mixed-race identity better suited to our century.

Remi Adekoya (the son of a Nigerian father and a Polish mother, now living in Britain) has come to the conclusion that while academic theories can tell us a lot about how identities are socially constructed, they are woeful at explaining how identities are felt. Stories do that better. He has spoken to mixed-race Britons of all ages and backgrounds to present a thoughtful, nuanced, and refreshingly honest picture of what it truly means to be mixed-race in Britain today. A valuable new addition to discussions on race, Biracial Britain is about a search for identity in the twenty-first century. An identity is a story about our life that makes sense to us. These are the stories of mixed-race Britain. 

Zoom joining link