Hello! Welcome to this-is-monoracism, a blog dedicated to recording racism specifically affecting biracial and multiracial people.

I’m your mod, @pyxilate - on this blog call me Arcadia, since I only use Pyx on that blog because it’s my username but shortened. I use she/it (I am still experimenting with it/its so do w that what you will), and I’m half black, half white (although I am part Native American too I don’t want to complicate things). I made this blog because of my experiences with monoracism, and wanted an outlet for people to be able to share theirs too and to be made aware of what it is.

You may also send in your experiences with regular racism, or even misogynoir or androracism or anything else, I’m not picky! But… what’s the difference between plain racism against a biracial/multiractial person and monoracism?

Racism: being derogatory towards them for an aspect of their race

Monoracism: being derogatory towards them because they are biracial/multiracial

Some examples:

telling someone (this is a real experience I had), that they’re ’too white’ to be black, or look too much like one race to be the other

telling someone that one aspect of their race doesn’t count because they weren’t raised like that race

treating a biracial/multiracial person like they’re not allowed to be a part of communities for those specific races because they’re also other races (such as telling someone who’s black and Asian they can’t be in a black community because they’re also Asian)

—

If you are someone out here who HAS said one of those things before, just know that that’s monoracism, and you should do better.

The thing is, white people hair and green eyes have never saved him from police harassment or being followed in stores or my dad having to flag down a taxi because no driver will stop for him. He has very much lived life in the US as a Black man. White women act creepy towards him and coo about how pretty their mixed babies will be. It would never have occurred to me before to think of him as not Black. Certainly when he was growing up in the South he was 'Black enough' to be treated as such by racist white people.

And yet... I hesitate to say 'racism' when it's a Black woman acting hateful to a Black-passing man. Is that the right word? If not, what is it? Can someone be racist against their own race? I don't want to pretend like this doesn't happen, but what's the word for it?

Monoracism is one term, although there's no official term. Check out @this-is-monoracism.

also, we aren't stealing from Blasians; it's a fucking portmanteau. Nobody owns the concept of portmanteaus.