The Claim Mixed-Race People Are "More Attractive" Is Rooted in Racism

As a mixed-race person, I've heard a lot of comments about the way I look. I've been called a monkey for the dark hair on my paler arms, but asked why I'm so white by aunties speaking Punjabi, thinking I can't understand them. A white lady told me I was "too beautiful" to have a white dad while another called me a "maggot" and told me to "go back to my country". I'm never quite sure how people are going to perceive me, but a new study might have answered the question for me.

Researchers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong recently reported that mixed-race people are seen as more attractive, trustworthy, intelligent and successful. On the surface, it sounds like a compliment — instead of feeling like an outsider and rejected by both of my cultures, I'm being told that being mixed makes me pretty and smart.

So, digging deeper, are the conclusions of this study as innocent as they seem? Researchers asked people from the US and China to rate a series of faces that ranged from 100 percent East Asian to 100 percent white, asking them to rate the faces in terms of attractiveness, trustworthiness, healthiness, intelligence and success. The results showed that across the board, mixed people were rated highly for all of the criteria.

As for why, the researchers claim: "Biracial facial cues indicate that two parents from different biological groups could interbreed successfully, probably co-operated in raising offspring together ... Thus, biracial features might carry rich information about ... capacity for parental and group cooperation." Basically, because we were born from two different cultures who they assume had to get on to have us, it means us mixed people are more likely to be co-operative.

It's a pretty weird conclusion that ignores how these perceptions of mixed people could be rooted in racism and colourism. It's arguable that participants rated mixed faces more highly because of their proximity to whiteness, while still maintaining Asian features that can be seen as 'exotic' in the Western world. In East Asia, pale skin is prized as attractive, signifying beauty and success. It's all about class — historically, darker skin has been associated with being outside working in the fields, a sign of rural poverty, rather than someone who lives and works mostly indoors, out of the sun.

It's a similar story for South Asians, where the skin-lightening industry is projected to be worth nearly £25 billion in 2024. For people of mixed-Black heritage, lighter skin being seen more favourably also has links to slavery, where those with mixed-white heritage or paler skin were allowed to work closer to the homes of slave-owners instead of out in the fields.

In short, there are a whole lot of assumptions about mixed people and not enough awareness about where they come from.

Nicole Ocran, co-host of podcast Mixed Up and co-author of The Half Of It: Exploring The Mixed-Race Experience, is mixed Filipino and Ghanaian, and has heard several times that being mixed 'explains' her beauty in some way. "I used to dismiss it as being something that adults say, but these things hold weight," she says. "When I explained where my parents are from, I'd be told, 'Oh, that's why you're beautiful'. The implication was always that I am beautiful in spite of my Blackness, not because of it.

"Beauty is subjective and ultimately the fetishisation of mixed-race people is rooted in sexual racism. None of these things are a compliment, and while people want to feel beautiful, being told the only reason you are is because of people's fascination with your mix or feeling like they can get away with certain things because you are mixed, isn't a compliment."

Nicole raises another important point, that people often assume she's mixed with white, otherwise she feels too complicated for people to understand. Society often wants to put mixed people in a box, but we need to create more room to embrace people who don't fit the expected mould.

It's a similar situation for Priyanka Yoshikawa, whose mixed Japanese and Indian background made her 2016 Miss World Japan win a controversial talking point. She was the second hāfu (mixed) woman to take the title after Ariana Miyamoto, who is Japanese and African American, was crowned Miss Universe Japan in 2015. "We know that whiteness has been an advantage," she said. "Ariana and I received backlash after our wins."

Priyanka faced bullying when she returned to Japan as a young girl after living in America and India, and says that while being mixed-white is seen as beautiful, it doesn't always equal belonging: "Being able to speak English, some people can think you're better than being fully Japanese, but when it comes to representing a country, it might not be a positive."

So the next time you think of complimenting someone because they're mixed, stop and ask why you feel that way. Chances are, it's not as simple as you think it is.

Isabella Silvers is a multi-award-winning freelance journalist and has written for titles including PS, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, the Evening Standard, Esquire and more. She also writes Mixed Messages, a weekly newsletter on mixed identity. She was named on PPA's and Media Week's "30 Under 30" lists, won a WeAreTheCity Rising Star Award, and was shortlisted at the Investing in Ethnicity Awards and the European Diversity Awards.