Just discovered this thread and am checking in, hello everyone!
Been pondering 'blackness' recently so this thread seems like a sensible place to post my thoughts, seems I stumbled over here at the right time.
Though there are a lot of details I'll keep it brief, as I would like somebody to read this, haha.
Ok: my family history is very brief. It all begins with my grandfather. He was born in Jamaica and, as an unwanted baby, he was promptly given away after birth and never knew or ever met any of his family. He simply had none. So for me, my history begins solely with him, he's the root of the tree.
He had it rough and moved to England where he had it rougher. Amidst severe racism, physical violence, false imprisonment and more he met my grandmother, who was a white woman. They together went through more hardships than thankfully I can imagine, they would be spit on in the street, she was disowned by her family, etc. They stayed together though and went on to have my mum, who is half-caste.
My mum grew up and met my dad, who is Jamaican (both his parents were from Jamaica who similarly moved to England) and they together had my sister, me and my brother.
The three of us are black, of course, though lighter skinned than our dad and grandparents, owing to the whiteness of my mums mother.
So this brings us to today, where my sister is married and has a child of her own. Her husband is white and their child's skin is fairly light. Though frizzy, he doesn't have afro hair and could possibly be mistaken for somebody tanned rather than outright black.
My longterm girlfriend is white and my little brothers latest girlfriend also happens to be white!
Its probably worth pointing out again that we're in England, where multiracial dating is barely an issue. I have a huge amount of white friends who go out with black girls and vice-versa. When adding Indian and Asian girls into the mix, it's all fairly mixed up here. But even so, me, my brother and sister are all with white people at the same time.
I've been thinking a lot about this recently. If me and my brother went on to have children with out current partners, our children alongside my sisters may perhaps be able to pass as white. If they hypothetically all went on to have children with white partners, their children would effectively be white.
This has suddenly made me feel extremely guilty!
Should it?
I think of all the oppression and suffering my grandfather went through when coming to this country as a black man and I feel in a way it would be a betrayal to him and his experiences should this 'white' possibility come to pass within the next few generations of my family.
This isn't a race issue per se, I've been with and still do lust after black girls as do practically everybody else I know. Having a white girlfriend wasn't necessarily a choice, it just so happened that the person I fell in love with wasn't black.
It's more to do with the possible repercussions and this guilt I have began to carry around with me. When thinking of my girlfriend a few days ago I even began questioning myself, like 'am I doing the right thing?'
This may sound ludicrous to many and I think the majority of people would probably say to me "well, who cares? There's still gonna be black people" and admittedly it is a bit of a non-issue as it may not even happen but yeah, I do feel slightly strange and in a way bad.
Thoughts? Opinions? Am I needlessly worrying about stupid shit? I can't really talk to anybody about this without sounding like some confused racist. I did with my Mum and she laughed haha so I'm throwing it out here. How would you feel?
