The “biracial” aesthetic. It’s not okay. As a biracial person myself, it makes my skin crawl. At school, people have often said to me, “oh! Biracial babies are always so beautiful!” and have jokingly talked to eachother about marrying a black guy (all the girls were white) so they’d have biracial children. It’s disgusting. It really is. Now, I see all these advertisements with biracial couples in them, almost exclusively for some brands and products. Did you know that only 19% of new straight marriages are interracial? (It’s around 30% for LGBTQ+ marriages, but I’m only looking at the straight end of this since that’s what is depicted and fawned over the most in media and my daily life.) The first image is a graph that should show this, roughly, though the numbers will be different since it’s an old study. (from the Pew Research Center.) Now, look at the next image. It’s non-black people who support their family member marrying a black person. It was over half 36 years ago, but luckily, the number has dived. (Image also from the Pew Research Center.) The overall approval from a more recent study (by Human Progress) shows that the number is almost nonexistent. Don’t get me wrong, I’m relieved that relationship’s like my parents’ and grandparents’ are more accepted now, but it still makes me wonder, are they being accepted for good reasons, or for the “aesthetic” of it all? While on my search for data, I came upon a disgusting recommended search: “What is the prettiest mixed-race?” Let me tell you, we are not an aesthetic! We are not some object to be paraded around for our “exotic” skin tone and features! The AI overview in the response just proves how the media has been pushing this, by saying that the media says that certain mixed-races are glamorous. Let me tell you, it’s far from it. I am called Indian, Egyptian, Greek, Hawaiian, and Native American. I want you to guess “what” I am. First of all, I am a person. Not something for weird trend-followers to envy for my heritage or someone purely defined by who her parents are. However, my race is both black and white. Still, people deny it when I tell them. Worse, they start gushing over me for being a biracial kid. This is not okay. No group of people are an “aesthetic.” Neither is the space between those people. Please recognize and respect that.
