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The challenges of being mixed race

How many times have you heard Barack Obama described as the first black US president?
Dr Hilary Emery warns that it is very easy to label people with mixed race in ways that do not reflect their particular heritage or identity and explains the serious c

How many times have you heard Barack Obama described as the first black US president? For the record, he is in fact the first mixed race president. I make this point to illustrate how easy it is to label people from mixed race in ways that do not reflect their particular heritage, identity or “mixedness”. Worse still, they can face discrimination and social exclusion and this can make life difficult for them, particularly in secondary school.

This was brought to light by the recent publication Mixed Experiences – Growing Up Mixed Race: Mental health and wellbeing, which reviews the available research on the challenges faced by mixed race children and young people, and presents first-hand accounts of people from mixed race backgrounds of their experiences growing up both in the UK and elsewhere.

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