Here's why it is racist to comment on my ‘culture’ just because you think I look Asian

A few years ago, I had a bizarre encounter in a black cab late one night. My cabbie started telling me about the sex dungeon he ran with his wife. It was a perfectly pleasant chat: nothing overtly inappropriate, and I was marvelling about what a progressive little vignette this was (not to mention the print quality of the sex dungeon leaflet he handed me) when he asked the fateful question:

“What would someone of your culture make of what I’ve just told you?”

Now, if you look like me – that is, brown-skinned, black-haired, and with a voluptuous nose – you’ve probably found yourself in this sort of conversation. The sort that starts out as a perfectly civil discussion (about sex-positive small businesses, for example) but then the rug’s pulled out from under you, and it becomes apparent that you’re actually an ethnic pawn in one person’s weird, point-scoring game of demographic-bashing.

Tiredly, I explained to the cabbie that I don’t really have a culture, being from East Sussex, and that my ethnicity is mixed.

“Most of my family is French, Spanish and Italian,” I told him. “But I’m one-quarter mixed Indian-and-Nepalese, too.”

There was a silence as the cabbie absorbed this information.

“And what would your Asian relatives make of my sex dungeon?” he asked, at which point I exited the cab.

To be brown in a white-majority country is to experience all sorts of racism from the covert to the violent, so this particular encounter didn’t stick in my teeth. But it was a depressing reminder that people have a habit of erasing the non-Asian parts of me to suit them. And I’m tired of having my identity dictated to me based on what white people think I look like.

It happens all the time. Once, a nurse – quite without provocation – wheeled in a translator to explain a medical procedure to me in Hindi (I don’t speak Hindi). I’ve been asked: “But legally you’re Asian, right?” and I have friends and family members who, even to this day, refer to me as “Nepalese” when introducing me to their friends.

I think the problem is twofold: the concept of mixed-race Asians isn’t widespread in British society. And, secondly, despite the fact that Asia is an enormous continent, there’s a habit of lumping all Asians (and any non-white people, really) together. When I was chatting to a co-worker whose family was from Sri Lanka, someone commented: “You must have so much in common!” Quite apart from the fact that I’m only part Asian, Sri Lanka and Nepal are 1,480 miles apart, which is roughly the distance between the UK and its famous cultural ally, Poland.

Even among liberal-minded people, there seem to be very set ideas of what an Asian person is, and what a mixed-race person is. To be honest, I’m not even comfortable describing myself as “mixed-race”. Being two-parts Asian (and that contains two very separate countries) to three-parts European (again, in distinct bits), I’ve only ever thought of myself as “mixed”. The “race” part is generally only ever brought up by white people.

I love that society is becoming more multiculturally aware, and I understand that, sometimes, making assumptions is part of that process. But I really can’t wait until everyone starts understanding racial nuance. Because there are lots of people in the UK who don’t fit into those stereotypes. I alone know a Liberian-Finnish-Japanese woman from Gloucestershire, and a Malaysian-Maori-Geordie with a thick Glaswegian accent.

Until attitudes improve, if it’s simpler, you can call me Eurasian. Or even just “Robyn”, which is my name. And if you’re reading, slightly racist cabbie, my “culture” wouldn’t bat an eyelid at your sex dungeon. I mean, I’m from Brighton.