Biracial Britain

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Polish-Nigerian Dr Remi Adekoya teaches Politics at the University of York. Remi is focussed on trying to better understand identity in its emotional, psychological and political manifestations. He is particularly interested in the links between identity, history, psychology and politics in white-majority Western societies and in black Africa. Remi has written for Guardian, Spectator, The Times, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, Washington Post, Politico, Evening Standard, UnHerd and Standpoint among others. He has commented on issues of identity and politics for BBC TV, Sky News, South Africa Broadcasting Corporation, BBC Radio, Times Radio and Radio France International among others. Remi lived in Nigeria and Poland before moving to Britain. 'Barack Obama had a special talent for making different kinds of people feel comfortable around him because of his biracial life experience, says Adekoya. By the same token, Adekoya himself seems poised to become one of the most important and subtle new voices in Britain's never-ending conversation about race' David Goodhart,UnherdMixed-race is the fastest-growing minority group in Britain. By the end of the century roughly one in three of the population will be mixed-race, with this figure rising to 75 per cent by 2150. Mixed-race is, quite literally, the future.
Paradoxically, however, this unprecedented interracial mixing is happening in a world that is becoming more and more racially polarized. Race continues to be discussed in a binary fashion: black or white, we and they, us and them. Mixed-race is not treated as a unique identity, but rather as an offshoot of other more familiar identities – remnants of the twentieth century 'one-drop' rule ('if you're not white, you're black') alarmingly prevail. Therefore, where does a mixed-race person fit? Stuck in the middle of these conflicts are 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 <i>felt</i>. He has spoken to mixed-race Britons of all ages and racial configurations to present a thoughtful and nuanced picture of what it truly means to be mixed-race in Britain today.
A valuable new addition to discussions on race, Biracial Britain is a search for identity, a story about life that makes sense to us. An identity is a story. These are our stories.

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