Interview with Mixed Messages: “We have access to places and perspectives not many others have”

The author recounts a life of identity exploration and how language has shifted over time

Hi, welcome back to Mixed Messages! This week I’m speaking to author, facilitator and activist Esuantsiwa Jane Goldsmith, who is of Ghanaian and white heritage. I first came across Esua at a HaluHalo Curated Conversation, where we spoke about Esua’s memoir The Space Between Black and White. Esua didn’t meet her father until she flew to Ghana in her 30s, after which she became the Queen Mother of her village. I was struck by Esua’s energy and drive for positive change, so I was excited to sit down with her one-on-one. 

How do you describe your identity?

I always used to refer to myself as Black, so it was a shock to me when I first went to Africa and people were calling me white. I wasn’t Black, I wasn’t white; being neither one thing nor the other is a real bugbear. 

When you put people in different contexts, peoples reactions are different. But when I walked into a room full of mixed-race people for the first time, it was a moment equivalent to meeting my father because I suddenly thought ‘I’m home, this is my tribe, these are my people, I don’t need to explain who I am.’

It’s been the most extraordinary liberation for me in the last few years to see our own [mixed-race] movement, which has been deeply resisted by both sides. It’s validating. Now I call myself mixed-race, and this year I’ve gone a step further and called myself Black mixed-race. To be Black is a political statement, but it’s also a statement of qualification because not all mixed-race people have the same experience, so it helps to situate and specify me.

Were you comfortable in your identity growing up?

When I was younger, I was the only brown kid on the block. I was shocked when I saw another Black child on Clapham Common as a young girl because I grew up not seeing Black people around me, even living down the road from Brixton in Battersea. It was a very white community, and I felt like I’d been brought in from outer space. 

People did call me names, and even in my family there was a mixed reaction about me. Some of my family were very racist, but my grandfather would say “in 50 years time, the whole world will be your colour”. I got a lot of mixed messages about my existence as a child.

Did you ever want to be white?

Yes. I had this feeling that it was a misfortune to be the colour I am, but at the same time I felt this sense of justice that the names I was being called weren’t right. In my late teens I got in touch with the Black Power movement and read more about the civil rights movement, which made me feel connected to Black and brown people on the other side of the world. In a world without the internet, I only saw people who looked like me in tiny snapshots on the news. 

To finally meet my father solved a lot of problems and questions I had, as well as being the most overwhelming emotional experience. I felt instantly close to him. 

How do you think the conversation around mixedness needs to change?

The polarity of politics at the moment is pretty scary. There’s no nuance. It almost brings people down to the level of subhuman – it’s very fundamental and ideological. 

As mixed people, you’re almost screaming that you want people to recognise and embrace you. When people say that they ‘don’t see colour’, they deny everything that people have been through. We should be proud of being biracial. We've got access to places, spaces and perspectives that not many other people have, which should be celebrated, rather than apologising for ourselves or being forced to choose one side over the other. 

Do you think we focus too much on the language around mixedness?

I’ve spent more time in meetings agonising about language more than anything else. So many words have been reclaimed, like [the N word] which I hear when my son blasts hip-hop. But when I was younger, if anybody had called me that, it would have been terrible. He sees it as an empowering word, but that’s not the case for me.

My generation did not want to be called coloured, so to be called ‘of colour’ might mystify people. You can see why white people my age who haven’t been educated can slip up and say coloured, and are perplexed when they are vilified for not putting an ‘of’ in front of it. Language can really trip you up.

Words can deeply wound you, they are part of a racially traumatising experience. But at the same time, language needs to be a way to bring people with us rather than just saying “you don’t know anything.” 

Can you tell me about your book, The Space Between Black and White?

It’s literally and metaphorically exploring the space between black and white. It’s the space we inhabit in all our different mixes. The book is set over several decades, but it’s interesting that younger mixed people, like you, can relate to it too – some things haven’t changed. 

I feel like people your age [Editor’s note: I’m 28] are teaching me about being mixed-race, because I didn’t have a generation of people that I could talk to. I wasn’t able to come out as mixed-race. All my life, I’ve had to compromise about my identity, I think it’s only very recently that I’ve been able to be out and proud as mixed-race, so it’s a new situation for me to be in. 

Success as a human being is juggling your multifaceted identities at any one time. I can be a queen and a socialist. What I really want to get across in this book is that your ability to handle all of that and keep all those different personas in your head at any one time is what makes you into a whole person. 

What has the reaction to your book been like?

I’ve cried! People have written such beautiful things to me saying that they’d buried a lot of their emotions about being mixed but my book opened them up. The feedback has been very validating for me.  

I also wrote the book because I want to change the world. I feel immensely optimistic. We go through dark times, especially at the moment, but people are beginning to talk about race and society in a way that they haven't done before. There’s been a flowering of community and connection, so I don’t think we should give up. I hope COVID will allow us to reimagine all the systems and structures that govern the way we look at race and gender.

Are there any mixed-race people you have admired over time?

I love author Afua Hirsch (Brit(ish)), and Katy Massey (Tangled Roots, Are We Home Yet?) really understands the complexity of identity. Angela Davis would describe herself as Black because of the one-drop rule, but she’s always been my heroine. There are so many great writers coming up now like Johnny Pitts (Afropean), and I think Obama did a lot for being mixed-race. His connection with his Kenyan father really spoke to me. 

Someone I rediscovered recently is politician and political activist John Archer, who my grandfather introduced me to. He had a Barbadian father and Irish mother, and was elected the Mayor of Battersea in 1913. I wrote an article recently about John’s views about his racial ambiguity. There are people many of us haven't even heard of, so Black people being in positions of power isn’t new. I’m sure there’s more to come. It’s our job to amplify their voices. I shouldn’t forget Susan Dale, founder of HaluHalo, either!

Can you sum up your mixed experience in one word?

Exhilarating. It’s positive, but on the edge of over-excitement. It can be tough.